At least I didn't get there by slaying people

People's heads on pikes - That's the stuff of art.

What a hottie.

But that is very French.

I love that sculpture.

Lol...and Ihad no idea it was of a disabled person until quite a while after I first saw a photograph of it.

I just thought it was a piece without arms or legs, as often is done.

Of course, now I know the arms and legs are there I can see them readily.

I saw Noddy's thread on this first, so I'll add here what I wrote there, and see if I still agree with myself.

so -

Well, first of all I think it's beautiful, and so is she in real life.

I think this is a tempest in a teapot, as the sculpture is there as part of a rotating exhibition.

I'm a little odd in my opinions on public space art - I think the public is the user-client even if a work is commissioned and ok'd by the public's government representation, so when Richard Serra's Tilted Arc in Foley Square annoyed the hell out of people who walked around it getting to work every day, I think it was the client reacting. I was all for it being there, but am not so sure one owns public space as an eternal artist canvas. Even Marcus Aurelius on his horse was moved from the capitoline hill, albeit to save him from smog.

Calder's sculpture (I think it was Calder) in Chicago set up a stinkeroo back when it was installed, and I think it survived that. Not sure if it's still there all these years later, probably is. As I envision it in my mind, it "fit" its space. However, it may have set up for a long time to come the much despised "turd in the plaza" syndrome. This particular piece isn't part of that, in my opinion.

So, I think it's good that the sculpture is there, pleasant that it is temporary and hope it goes somewhere else interesting next, stays eventually in some good space, and good that it is a beautiful work.

I take Christo's point about process, in that the whole hazzerai around an installation is also part of the art, though I doubt he said that in those words.

I didn't see dys' thread, will go check it out..

She featured in a few programmes about her life as a disabled mum and artist and she is a larger than life, thoroughly admirable character, who refuses to be held down by her disability. She's amazing.

So - a lot of the public know a lot about her, it's not an anonymous person but a real flesh and blood character with a great and spiky personality that is caught in the sculpture.

I think it's great.

My gut reaction to this piecc was disgust...I wasn't judging it at that point in seeing...but I didn't find it beautiful, for sure...It hurt to look at it. That was
without thought.
Now thinking...sure...it is done well! ...sure...she is a brave strong woman...
and if the public wants it there, fine and good!!! But, if I walked through that square daily, I wouldn't look at the damned piece. It hurts. I cannot give that sculptress the assurance she needs to feel accepted in life...my stomach objects.
Does this gut reaction of mine mean that we have a masterpiece here?
Re: the Sierra piece...I believe we are discussing the piece in the NY downtown square that was removed eventually, due to the pressure of the workers in the office buildings surrounding the square.
I am acquainted with that square, with that piece, (if we talk about the same one), about the controversy that surrounded that piece. The square was used by dozens of office workers who brownbagged their lunch as the site for getting together lunchtime, eating together, chatting. After the solemn oversized piece was situated in that square, a huge shadow was cast on just about every part of it. Gone were the brownbagging lunch eaters, their relaxation, their conversation. The piece actually changed the nature of the square.
For that reason, I believe the piece should have been removed. It replaced light with darkness, a huge imposition.

Yes, that was the square, Foley Square as I remember. Workers all the way up to judges hated it, as described in some long article in Harper's at the time. Serra is a well appreciated sculptor and I've liked most of his work in shows I've seen. A poster on a2k from Texas put up a thread about one of Serra's pieces in front of a museum somewhere in that state, and described the pleasure he felt from the look and the sound of the piece.

I've read over the years a variety of comments that people who don't like public art pieces, usually specifically referred to pieces, are philistines. I have a foot in both camps, re distribution of a homogenious selection of 'turds in plazas' in an effort to please the 'least common denominator' is pandering; and as I said, in the other direction, the chance of using a public space as a personal canvas - say, a very long arc in a busy plaza - doesn't seem - to me - to be appropriate as a permanent unquestionable right. The issue is more complicated than philistinism.

I should add that I come to the question with a bias. I have long training in plaza design, long interest in spatial designing in general, the way spaces work, how they happen, the felicity of some planned and unplanned elements, the aesthetic deadliness of some planned or unplanned elements. I've spent a lot of time studying italian piazzas and their histories. I think of a living breathing community space as a kind of beautiful thing in itself, the life of it. Whether the space is a circumscribed one like a plaza or a pass through area like a busy traffic circle with pedestrian crossings.. I'm very interested in how they function and look. So, of course I am interested in art but my key thing is the life of the space. Most of the time, art helps that..

This is so interesting. I seem to really like contrasts and juxtapositions in art, and this is chock-full. The classical treatment of an incredibly non-classical person. A place that tends to feature dead white men featuring a (currently) alive, and in that rendering ultra-female (breasts, pregnant belly) female. The beautiful with the horrible. How the horrible is actually beautiful in its way. Shame and pride. All kinds of good stuff mixed up together.

And technically very adept, too. Though I think the exact same rendering of a beauty-pageant-type would leave me cold.

I agree, Sozobe.

The "classical" bit got me wondering how many liberties were taken with her face -- it looks like she is in fact quite beautiful:

I personally didn't feel any angst re the sculpture, I do think it beautiful, but I can see other people feeling that. Which brings up that much art is a challenge. Serra's Tilted Arc was a challenge to multitudes, some of that challenge for physical reasons such as shadow and having to go around it (though I've read others say that was no big deal, the going around.)

What if the model wasn't such a strong poster-disabled person? Still possibly an interesting choice.

Well, art (the Sierra piece) did NOTHING for this plaza, but rather disturbed whatever pleasure it offered the people who milled through it. And they DID rebel...I don't know if the matter has anything to do with "art". It seems to me that "art" must serve humanity, while it expresses humanity...that it must not impose itself upon humanity, which is in a way propoganda, eh watt?
Re: philistinism...The phrase does NOT apply here. I must confess that it was a lawyer that took the helm in the struggle to get rid of the piece, and that that lawyer is a very good friend of mine. He is no enemy of art; his wife is a fine fine potter, he himself works in the area of design with one of its leading exponents, and he is a collector of art.
Let's face it...successful art has its own expression, its own statement. One must put Sierra's work in this class. The expression or statement of Sierra's plaza piece was clearly not suitable for the function of this plaza.
I do not know if Sierra's plaza piece was site specific. Does anyone? The answer might say something about the ability of the artist in relationship to his environment.

I think it was, I read about it at length at the time and heard him speak sometime later, and that was all awhile ago. I agree with you, GS, re Serra's (ahem, not Sierra) piece on Foley Square. I think the users are the ultimate client, not the group from a govemment advisory group that gives the go-ahead - even though this can bring up cries of mob rule, or so-called piazza rule... burning of vanities, a common practice around 1500.

My first sentence in the last post was re the topic sculpture, not Serra's.

The Tilted Arc itself - the steel - probably fit my concept of beauty, it's hard to remember, except that it failed, to me, on Fit re it's space. Clearly Tony Serra disagrees with me and others.

I also admit to qualms that cause me to argue with myself about this, to some extent, in that time can wound heels, I mean heal wounds, and some works become less inflammatory, even treasured. I think the Vietnam Memorial
set many of those paying attention aghast at first, though not me, I am crazy about it - but in time it has become very well appreciated. So time is an element of concern - I don't think that I think that a work that causes outrage should just be rushed out of a place, even though I am claiming that the 'users' are the end client. Process...

I am interested re your friend the lawyer of that situation...

To argue with myself back and forth some more, here's a view that makes our comments on the plaza look overblown - a photo from www.pbs.org that shows the arc as innocuous. (Didn't see many photos of it at the time I read the article in the eighties.)



another, not so innocuous but within scale re the buildings.. from www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/martin/art_law/tilted_arc.jpg -



If you look Tilted Arc up under google images, among the photos will be this last one, and with it a scholarly article that I haven't finished reading yet, but it is surely opposed to the removal of the sculpture. (Who knows, I may modify my opinion)




a tangent from the topic sculpture, beg pardon.

At an exhibition of print-makers in Pasadena last week I saw a work by Richard Serra, very much like the Titled Arc (maybe it was a study for it), titled "Trajectory #4, 2004, One-color etching, 67'x48'.

Richard Serra, and why did I call him Tony?

Thinking...

when I heard and saw him speak, all dressed in black and commanding the stage, I thought, Thor!
How I got Tony out of that, I don't know.
I think there is or was an attorney named Tony Serra, and
I'm mixing that all up.

Did that inspire you to play with printmaking, JL?