Fried...

OK. I am well and truly fried by yet another egregious misuse of public art!
Here's the basic story as reported by Willamette Week in Oregon.
There is a massive hammered statue called "Portlandia" that has graced that city for the last 29 years. It was bought and paid for as a work of public art and really captures a certain interpretation of the city.
Enter- insanity.
At the time of the purchase, "the Metropolitan Arts Commission, now known as the Regional Arts & Culture Council, when it voted to allow artists to retain the copyrights to their publicly purchased artwork.
The artist, one Raymond Kasky, latched on to this advantage with a vengeance. He has consistently denied anyone who might make some dough from their pictures or photos of the piece the right to reproduce their work. Forget about postcards. Forget about seeing the icon in movies. (As a matter of fact, he even sued Paramount Pictures for showing the statue in the background of Madonna's Body of Evidence.)
Forget about sharing public art with the public.
In spite of this, public entities keep commissioning him to do their pieces. Taxpayers keep paying for him to decorate public spaces.
WTF???
The closest to this I had run across before was Kapur's ban on photos of his Cloud Gate in Chicago, ("In 2005, the sculpture attracted some controversy when a professional photographer without a paid permit was denied access to the piece.As is the case for all works of art currently covered by United States copyright law, the artist holds the copyright for the sculpture. This allows the public to freely photograph Cloud Gate, but permission from Kapoor or the City of Chicago (which has licensed the art) is required for any commercial reproductions of the photographs. The city first set a policy of collecting permit fees for photographs. These permits were initially set at $350 per day for professional still photographers, $1,200 per day for professional videographers and $50 per hour for wedding photographers. The policy has been changed so permits are only required for large-scale film, video and photography requiring ten-man crews and equipment. )
or Christo's ban on using images of this home depot orange flags in Central Park.
But for a city to pay top dollar of the public's cash for a sculpture, install it on public property, then to give the artist the right to nix its use by anyone other than himself who might may cash from it really is nuts.
I'd attach a picture of the piece here, but, of course, would not like to be sued for visual trespass. Here's a link to someone else's shot of it.
http://images.amcnetworks.com/ifc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/portlandia-statue.jpg
I welcome all comments,

Overwhelmed!

So I am overwhelmed with the number of sculpture stories that are crowding the news these days. Today alone yielded two blockbusters for me...
The new Edgar Allen Poet statue is going up in Boston in a month!
http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2014/09/05/edgar-allan-poe-statue-date-october-5-boylston-charles-street-south/
This is the first full statue to go up in the Garden since Nancy Shoen's Make Way for Ducklings went in in 1987. True, there is the 9/11 memorial on the Arlington Street side, but lovely as it is, it's  not an actual statue.
One of the things that fascinates me about the Poe-to-be is its location. It's slated to sit on the corner of the Boyston/Charles Street entrance where, they say, the writer was born. But that's not the first time a writer was slated to sit there.
In the early days of the 20th century, the Burns Society of Boston hired Henry Hudson Kitson, a well-known Boston sculptor, to create a statue of Robert Burns.  They had the blessings of the Arts Commssion initially.
So Kitson made a lovely piece of the poet and his dog for them. But after months of problems with the artist and political maneuvering (Kitson was out of favor with the guys in the commission) the piece ended up in the Fenway in 1920. (It's now in Winthrop Square).
And that, children, is why there was an empty spot to fill in gallery row of the Boston Public Garden.
Here's what the new piece, called Poe Returning to Boston will look like.
 picture from http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2014/01/24/edgar-allan-poe-statue-developments-in-boston/

And  if that weren't enough- watch soon for sensational info on a newly discovered  treasure trove of ancient statues in Greece...

Robin Williams

As you can see, I've been really negligent about keeping this blog up to date, but some stories are so compelling that I have to share them.
Most people I know are devastated by the loss of Robin Williams.
Bostonians began dealing with their grief almost immediately by going to the bench in the Boston Public Garden where the famous "Goodwill Hunting" scene with him and Matt Damon was filmed. Flowers, graffiti (of the good kind), and tokens made it an impromptu shrine within hours, and the process continues.
Now there's a petition to install a statue of the actor on that very bench. It's collected over 15,000 signatures so far (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/robin-williams-statue-on-the-good-will-hunting).
Putting sculpture up in a public place in Boston is under the purview of the Arts Commission, and I'd love to see them consider this one. To date, none of the pieces in the garden have been the result of a public request. The closest I know of is the Duckling piece, but that was the result of a small group of influential citizens who came up with the idea at a party one night, according to sources.
I'd love to see a new piece go in to the Garden, but with very careful thought and criteria. I think it will touch citizens for decades (unlike some of the figures on sculpture row on the Boylston Street side of the Garden). This bears watching...

Photo From Carl Stevens @ http://elitedaily.com/entertainment/celebrity/robin-williams-bench-statue/711276/

Bette Davis Nude

There are times when I scare myself.
I was researching something or another the other day when I ran across a 1982 story in the NY Times about Bette Davis. She mentioned in it that she had posed nude for a statue when she was 18 and she knew it was in Boston somewhere.
She couldn't remember what it was called, nor the name of the sculptor, but it was a fountain piece.
I did the math.
Davis was born in 1908, which means the piece had to have been done in 1926-ish.
My instant response was "It must be the piece they took out of the Public Garden when the Beacon Hills mothers voiced a complaint to the city fathers."
That piece was done by one of my favorite early 20th century sculptors, Anna Coleman Ladd.
So I cracked open my archives and started hunting the photocopies until I came across the news article I was looking for.
"Nude Bronze Out of Garden- Five Figures in "Wind and Spray" too Revealing for Children to See, so Ban Order Comes." The headline blared out the news, and the picture of a dancing girl could have been Bette.

(Picture from libimages.wolfsonian.org)

Today, I continued my search.
I ran across a 1983 article from the Wilmington Star-Bulletin which said that the editor of Playboy, which had published her initial interview, sent the star a picture of that very fountain.
Davis fingered it as the one she was talking about! I was thrilled at my detective powers.
But wait!
Something, I thought sadly, didn't match up.
I knew that the piece had originally been shown at the San Francisco Panama-Pacific International Exposition at the Palace of Fine Arts.
The year? 1915.
Either Bette's memory was faulty, or she was the most mature looking seven year old I'd ever seen.
Alas for me for not hitting it and alas for Bette for not remembering it. So, somewhere out there in the world of bronze, a nude Bette Davis cavorts in Boston.

Stripped Down in the Snow

So you take a life-sized statue of a nearly nude man and stand it upright in the snow next to a main road.
He's a fairly pudgy guy wearing only briefs, and his arms are stretched out before him. He definitely resembles a cross between a Hanes ad and a frat prank.
And he's standing in the snow on the Wellesley College Campus near Boston.

(Photo from gannett.cdn.com)

A prank? Non-news???
Apparently not. According to the local press, the students and some of the public are hashing out his meaning and appropriateness.
500 people signed a petition to have him removed. According to the petition initiators, the statue is “a source of apprehension, fear, and triggering thoughts regarding sexual assault for some members of our campus community.”
At least one student felt that it would be more appropriate to erect a statue of a former president or cultural icon instead.
None of the critiques seem to focus on the skill of the artist, nor the quality of the piece.
According to the NY Times, the President of the college said that  “The community is debating everything from compassion to censorship, to freedom of expression and the significance of safe spaces,”.
The sculptor himself said that the piece, called "The Sleepwalker", is meant to arouse compassion for the outcast figure who is, apparently in some distress. It is also meant to draw attention to his show at the Davis Art Gallery on campus.
The piece is slated to stay in place until July, when, presumably, he will fit in with the community.
It is, once again, a case of concept v literalness.

Coincidence???

Of all my far flung family, nephew John lives farthest away- in Kaohsiung, Taiwan to be precise.
And it's from this tropical city that the most bizarre public sculpture story comes today.
On Thursday, Sept. 19, a 59 foot high traveling rubber ducky made by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman's arrived and was anchored in Glory Pier in that port. It was greeted by dancing girls in yellow balloon costumes and colorful merrymakers of all ages.
The inflatable yellow duck is traveling around the world gathering fans and kudos wherever it goes. Here, the adorable bird towered over the crowds who came to welcome it yesterday.

(Photo from mercurynews.com)

 

Here's where the story gets spectacular.

As of today, a super typhoon named Usagi is headed straight for the duck's tub. The ducky crew knew about the imminent typhoon ahead of time, of course, and plan to deflate and cover it while the storm blows through. All will be, presumably, safe. But as perverse as it might seem, I'd actually love to see that sucker take off and ride the waves all the way to Hong Kong, where an earlier version of the same statue deflated earlier this year.



Mysteries of Ballman

Look at this sculpture from Johannesburg, SA.
Now look again. It's made purely of soccer balls and cable.
It is called, appropriately enough- Ballman. (OK. Go there.)
I ran across it when I was researching "sculpture in advertising", a fascinating topic in itself.
The original 36 foot high piece was created by Nike's design team along with British Ratcliffe Fowler Design to celebrate the 2010 FIFA World Cup. According to the  fabricator, it contained 5.500 Brazilian Soccer Balls arranged to look like Real Madrid hero Cristiano Ronaldo.
At the end of the Cup, though, the balls were supposedly distributed to various  football programs throughout the nation.
But word on the web is that it still hangs (only containing 3,000, and not 5,500 soccer balls) in the Carlton Shopping Center in Johannesburg.
What I want to know is- is it still there? How many balls are in it now?
Anyone want to clear that up?

Caravan

Just learned about an interesting twist on the "cow parade" style public art installations that periodically pop up around the world. It comes from Cairo.

The parade installations have been around since 1998 when Zurich produced a number of blank fiberglass cow sculptures and gave them to artists to decorate. The beautiful bovines were distributed throughout the city in the  "Land im Sicht" exhibit, then auctioned off for charity.
Chicago followed suit the next year with its "Cow Parade" and since then cities world wide have followed the concept with subjects from penguins in Liverpool to Cod in Boston, MA.
But back to Cairo- this latest parade is called "Caravan" and comprises 25 life size donkeys. The project was sponsored by the Swiss Embassy as an interfaith art exhibit as both Muslim and Christian artists were asked to  participate. After being shown around the city, the entire group was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral in London where they'll be auctioned off by Sotheby's after they're shown to raise funds for charities that benefit the poor in Egypt.
According to organizers, "The donkey symbolises peace in both Christianity and Islam, and is found in both the Bible and in the Qur’an".
The chancellor of St. Paul's elaborated- “There are over 40 million donkeys on this earth and 96% of them live alongside the poorest people of the world. They are known and loved for their hard work, resilience, loyalty and stubbornness. They have been used for the best and worst of human intentions: from carrying the war wounded to medical help at Gallipoli, to bearing explosives to kill in today’s war zones. Jesus chose a donkey to symbolise the divine humility. Similarly in the Islamic tradition, the Prophet was carried by Ya`fūr. This exhibition, by both Muslim and Christian artists from Egypt, calls us to remember the peoples of that country today and what can be achieved together rather than apart. It also, at a time when both Muslims and Christians suffer persecution for their faith in many places, reminds us that just as the donkeys journey together in the Cathedral towards the Holy, so humans only become spiritually alive when they travel together in peace and with compassion."
For more info go to- Art Daily

The Return of the Stone Pilgrim

I've been following public sculpture stories for over a decade now and have reported on them in previous blogs ("Tales of a Stone Pilgrim" at blogs.salon.com/0003346, now sadly defunct, and "More Stone Pilgrim" at morestonepilgrim.blogspot.com) in spurts.
It's now time to bring the world up to date on tales of our man-made companions around the world, how they affect us, and how we affect them. Because, after all, public sculpture is all about relationships, and relationships evolve.
Some of the posts will be updates on previous stories.
Some will be completely new. I welcome comments and suggestions as I go on.
Some will be ruminations on the "stories behind the stories" and others will be snapshots of what's happening in the world around us.
There will even be times when a post may just be a link or a picture with my brief comment or question attached.
I welcome guest posts from other bloggers who are as involved/fascinated with the work of public sculpture as I am.

And now to today's news.

View from the Torch cam from earthcam.com's website

I just learned from PRweb.com that the 5 cameras from Earthcam's Statue of Liberty cams are online and functioning again for the first time since Hurricane Sandy. The cameras, which are called the Torch cam, the Crown Cam, the Harbor Cam, and the Lady Liberty cam allow anyone to experience unique views of the harbor and Liberty Island 24/7.
The torch itself has been closed to the public for almost 100 years- ever since  German agents sabotaged a munitions depot, setting off an explosion that killed around 50 people. Ensuing shrapnel damaged the statue's torch and skirt in 1916 in the event, known as the Black Tom explosions. Accessing the cams online is the only way to enjoy that view now.
You can visit the cams at  http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/statueofliberty/?cam=liberty_crown.
This isn't just a one off for earthcam, who runs the cameras. They've been around for almost 20 years and host sites in the Washington Monument, Petra in Jordan, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and the Eiffel Tower, according to their press release.