Jan 18, 2023·edited Jan 18, 2023Liked by Franklin Einspruch
And by the way, even apart from the penis issue (I think it looks more like giant bloated armed sausages making out), this thing reminds me of the kind of glorified (and pricey) schlock sculptures one finds at ghastly commercial galleries catering to the well-heeled "artistic" tchotchke crowd, which provoke a kind of bemused contempt. Well, at least it's not gold-plated (though a scaled-down "gold" version is available: https://bit.ly/3GQCHDk ).
OK, foreign language reference: Morcilla is a Spanish word for a kind of sausage. In Spain, "polla morcillona" is slang for a partially erect or hardening penis. Do the math.
Of course you're not making this up. One can't make this stuff up. But Thomas is right in saying he was not the only person involved and that he didn't just spring this thing on the public all of a sudden without prior warning and without anyone else being aware of what he was up to. He may genuinely find this sculpture completely appropriate, acceptable and even admirable, but given that it is meant to honor specific historical figures and that it is a public work, it should certainly have had to go through--and pass--considerable vetting by multiple parties, and the chief responsibility is theirs.
The vetting process was about as accountable as the reign of Djoser. The real problem, I believe, was that no one had the courage to critique the design once it was in motion.
One suspects that picking the "right" or most "correct" sculptor was the key consideration, and that the actual result in terms of the physical object was not really at issue.
Even from a non-aesthetic standpoint, we're talking about a couple embracing, which could be any couple embracing for any reason, since people cannot be expected to recognize the specific individuals from just their hands. How does that portray or reflect the historical significance of these figures? Wasn't that the point of this monument? Or is this a resurgence (the horror!) of Surrealism?
Rhetorical questions: Would this commission ever have gone to, say, an Asian or Indian or (gasp!) white sculptor, no matter how talented and well-suited for the work he or she may have been? Would that even have been considered to begin with? Would anybody dare to object (openly) about the commission for a public sculpture honoring a white historical figure going to a person of color?
I think that an MLK commission in current times should go to a black sculptor. The part that strikes me as cynical is its award to one of the darlings of the regime art world.
Well, even apart from race, the commission for such a high-profile work certainly was not going to be awarded based primarily (let alone purely) on the sculptor's talent and suitability for the particular job. It had to be the right brand.
" There are no plans to modify it or change it?" Heheh... Modify a public artwork that likely weighs several tons, is made of bronze and I'm sure had plenty of time for public comment along time ago...
Aside from which there is a, ahem, LONG and storied history of public statues that teenage boys have realized that at "just the right angle" seems to suggest something "else." The one of Roger Williams in Providence is a prime example. Whatever. Love it or hate, who cares what the "social media" reaction is? Parisians hated the Eiffel Tower with a passion for years until they loved it.
Personally, I'd rather someone aim for something different and fail then just push out another obvious 30' high mannequin.
This is the converse of the Roger Williams statue. It looks more or less as intended from one angle if you squint at it just so, and from every other looks like a Lovecraftian excrescence.
If you followed the charrette you would know that public review, such as it was suffered, was carefully corralled into the handful of outcomes ordained by the organizers. The obvious 30-foot mannequin was never on offer. You'll recall that progressive postliberalism answers the question "Are our natives any good?" in the negative.
Do I recall? "You'll recall that progressive postliberalism answers the question "Are our natives any good?" in the negative."
My friend, what I "recall" is that you posited the question, and then provided your answer. Personally I never agreed that it's even the least bit relevant because the arc of any people's history will be mixed at best, terrible at worst, and quite often both at once. For the US, it's only our obsessive cult of our "Founders" that even makes such a question "seem" relevant. It's not. The only thing relevant as to what is any good are the ideas put forth in our founding documents, which as you know were purposely written in such a way to provide a great deal of leeway to modify in the future.
If you honestly think that the artist of this piece thought it was to be a "secretly punishing" visual to the city of Boston then I invite you examine your logic. By far the most likely scenario here is that what looked good as a model looks weird on a monumental scale.
Is it stupid to not do some 3D images of a model and drop it into scaled photos so that you have an idea of what it's really going to feel like? Yes, but ALL the time this step is skipped for any number of public works. I'm pretty sure the entire Boston City Hall ended up the way it did for this very reason. Which sort of brings us to that reality: maybe cities are just really terrible at choosing ALL large public artworks?
It wasn't secret punishment, it was tacit humiliation. The New Blue Bloods can't help who they are.
That step you're suggesting was skipped was in fact the very manner in which the project was proposed. You certainly are making a lot of excuses for this sculpture. Why?
I believe that you missed my point about the question of the natives being good. American progressive postliberals deem the natives wicked and the founding illegitimate purely to establish a progressive postliberal autocracy. It's not trying to determine the truth about anything.
I don't think the sculpture is particularly good, just not for the reasons you are suggesting, which seem overthought. To be sure I am guilty of the same on many an occasion, which is why I'm usually not very good with Trivial Pursuit. I tend to imagine complex and fascinating (to me) answers when it's most often answers I discarded as to simple. Perhaps I'm dead wrong, but the assumption I'm going with is that it seemed like a nice idea in the concept stage and turned out to be pretty clunky once it was scaled up. Again, like so much modern architecture is too.
At the end of day, Art picked by committee is rarely very good in any form, aside from a few notable exceptions.
In my opinion, even a small scale version should have set off alarms, at least enough to prompt taking action to get a better idea of how the full-size version would look (which is absolutely doable with available technology).
In other words, the matter was mishandled, and there is no excuse for that other than obtuseness or ineptitude--or not being primarily concerned with the quality or appropriateness of the end result as a physical memorial.
No doubt Lemon, apart from his color, was not the best person to interview Thomas about this situation, but I suspect even someone more thoughtful would have drawn a similar response.
Lemon is underwater on this, Thomas looks like a deer that just jumped out in front of a truck, and I'm curious if this conversation went on or if someone working the controls saw that everybody was dying at the 75 second mark and yelled Cut.
I expect it was the latter, or that certainly seems plausible. However, it may also be that things got a little too uncomfortable and CNN didn't want to look at all "incorrect." No doubt the "appropriate" response is to accept and praise Thomas's concept regardless of how he executed it physically.
And by the way, even apart from the penis issue (I think it looks more like giant bloated armed sausages making out), this thing reminds me of the kind of glorified (and pricey) schlock sculptures one finds at ghastly commercial galleries catering to the well-heeled "artistic" tchotchke crowd, which provoke a kind of bemused contempt. Well, at least it's not gold-plated (though a scaled-down "gold" version is available: https://bit.ly/3GQCHDk ).
OK, foreign language reference: Morcilla is a Spanish word for a kind of sausage. In Spain, "polla morcillona" is slang for a partially erect or hardening penis. Do the math.
Of course you're not making this up. One can't make this stuff up. But Thomas is right in saying he was not the only person involved and that he didn't just spring this thing on the public all of a sudden without prior warning and without anyone else being aware of what he was up to. He may genuinely find this sculpture completely appropriate, acceptable and even admirable, but given that it is meant to honor specific historical figures and that it is a public work, it should certainly have had to go through--and pass--considerable vetting by multiple parties, and the chief responsibility is theirs.
The vetting process was about as accountable as the reign of Djoser. The real problem, I believe, was that no one had the courage to critique the design once it was in motion.
One suspects that picking the "right" or most "correct" sculptor was the key consideration, and that the actual result in terms of the physical object was not really at issue.
Even from a non-aesthetic standpoint, we're talking about a couple embracing, which could be any couple embracing for any reason, since people cannot be expected to recognize the specific individuals from just their hands. How does that portray or reflect the historical significance of these figures? Wasn't that the point of this monument? Or is this a resurgence (the horror!) of Surrealism?
Rhetorical questions: Would this commission ever have gone to, say, an Asian or Indian or (gasp!) white sculptor, no matter how talented and well-suited for the work he or she may have been? Would that even have been considered to begin with? Would anybody dare to object (openly) about the commission for a public sculpture honoring a white historical figure going to a person of color?
I think that an MLK commission in current times should go to a black sculptor. The part that strikes me as cynical is its award to one of the darlings of the regime art world.
Well, even apart from race, the commission for such a high-profile work certainly was not going to be awarded based primarily (let alone purely) on the sculptor's talent and suitability for the particular job. It had to be the right brand.
Speechless
The situation itself and the commentary upon it really do defy further remark.
" There are no plans to modify it or change it?" Heheh... Modify a public artwork that likely weighs several tons, is made of bronze and I'm sure had plenty of time for public comment along time ago...
Aside from which there is a, ahem, LONG and storied history of public statues that teenage boys have realized that at "just the right angle" seems to suggest something "else." The one of Roger Williams in Providence is a prime example. Whatever. Love it or hate, who cares what the "social media" reaction is? Parisians hated the Eiffel Tower with a passion for years until they loved it.
Personally, I'd rather someone aim for something different and fail then just push out another obvious 30' high mannequin.
This is the converse of the Roger Williams statue. It looks more or less as intended from one angle if you squint at it just so, and from every other looks like a Lovecraftian excrescence.
If you followed the charrette you would know that public review, such as it was suffered, was carefully corralled into the handful of outcomes ordained by the organizers. The obvious 30-foot mannequin was never on offer. You'll recall that progressive postliberalism answers the question "Are our natives any good?" in the negative.
http://www.artblog.net/post/2021/11/art-after-liberalism-3/
"Embrace" succeeds because it was intended as an act of humiliation of the opponents of the regime that produced it.
Do I recall? "You'll recall that progressive postliberalism answers the question "Are our natives any good?" in the negative."
My friend, what I "recall" is that you posited the question, and then provided your answer. Personally I never agreed that it's even the least bit relevant because the arc of any people's history will be mixed at best, terrible at worst, and quite often both at once. For the US, it's only our obsessive cult of our "Founders" that even makes such a question "seem" relevant. It's not. The only thing relevant as to what is any good are the ideas put forth in our founding documents, which as you know were purposely written in such a way to provide a great deal of leeway to modify in the future.
If you honestly think that the artist of this piece thought it was to be a "secretly punishing" visual to the city of Boston then I invite you examine your logic. By far the most likely scenario here is that what looked good as a model looks weird on a monumental scale.
Is it stupid to not do some 3D images of a model and drop it into scaled photos so that you have an idea of what it's really going to feel like? Yes, but ALL the time this step is skipped for any number of public works. I'm pretty sure the entire Boston City Hall ended up the way it did for this very reason. Which sort of brings us to that reality: maybe cities are just really terrible at choosing ALL large public artworks?
It wasn't secret punishment, it was tacit humiliation. The New Blue Bloods can't help who they are.
That step you're suggesting was skipped was in fact the very manner in which the project was proposed. You certainly are making a lot of excuses for this sculpture. Why?
I believe that you missed my point about the question of the natives being good. American progressive postliberals deem the natives wicked and the founding illegitimate purely to establish a progressive postliberal autocracy. It's not trying to determine the truth about anything.
I don't think the sculpture is particularly good, just not for the reasons you are suggesting, which seem overthought. To be sure I am guilty of the same on many an occasion, which is why I'm usually not very good with Trivial Pursuit. I tend to imagine complex and fascinating (to me) answers when it's most often answers I discarded as to simple. Perhaps I'm dead wrong, but the assumption I'm going with is that it seemed like a nice idea in the concept stage and turned out to be pretty clunky once it was scaled up. Again, like so much modern architecture is too.
At the end of day, Art picked by committee is rarely very good in any form, aside from a few notable exceptions.
In my opinion, even a small scale version should have set off alarms, at least enough to prompt taking action to get a better idea of how the full-size version would look (which is absolutely doable with available technology).
In other words, the matter was mishandled, and there is no excuse for that other than obtuseness or ineptitude--or not being primarily concerned with the quality or appropriateness of the end result as a physical memorial.
No doubt Lemon, apart from his color, was not the best person to interview Thomas about this situation, but I suspect even someone more thoughtful would have drawn a similar response.
Lemon is underwater on this, Thomas looks like a deer that just jumped out in front of a truck, and I'm curious if this conversation went on or if someone working the controls saw that everybody was dying at the 75 second mark and yelled Cut.
I expect it was the latter, or that certainly seems plausible. However, it may also be that things got a little too uncomfortable and CNN didn't want to look at all "incorrect." No doubt the "appropriate" response is to accept and praise Thomas's concept regardless of how he executed it physically.