What happens when those in authority really don’t like a work of art? I have a cautionary tale from Cincinnati, mostly from recollection. Seems city fathers, in the early seventies, wanted to commission a piece of art to stand in front of their new courthouse, while concurrently commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of the Cincinnati Bar Association, a grand occasion. Its title was to be, ‘Law and Society.’ They held an international competition and selected a german artist, Barna von Sartory.
To give the artist a head start they quarried a massive block of ‘miami river marble,’ a fine grained limestone complete with quarry marks, rough cut. They set the block up in public with the vague notion of some classical maestro in smock and floppy beret whacking away with mallet and chisel, heroic art emerging for all to see. There was a deadline. The block, gray and hulking, sat months in the sun and rain, ice and snow, nothing happened. Then in the final week, a low-boy trailer pulls up and delivers the rest of the artwork, four square highly-polished stainless steel legs about eight feet high. The block is hoisted on top and that’s it, commission complete. City fathers were aghast, perplexed, massively unhappy.
The piece never made it to the courthouse. It sat on fountain square for a couple of years, lonely, ignored, and unloved. It was on a cold day in march, me just hanging on the square and contemplating this odd sculpture, people passing by. In a moment a single woman in a red coat walked past, and reflected in stainless steel I glimpsed several red coats going different directions, all in a flash. ‘Law and Society’ I thought, the mandated name of the piece, and suddenly I understood -- which part was society and which was the law. I suspected they saw it too, but wouldn’t let on. They affixed a plaque directly to one of the legs, explaining that this sculpture was meant to represent the solid foundation law provided society, figure it out. They then started moving it closer and closer to the river. Its final destination, so far, is under a bridge next to a parking lot.
Those were not the only indignities they’ve heaped on it. When one of the stainless steel legs began to delaminate, they assigned some junior motor-pool apprentice to weld it back, globby and scorched, contempt exuding. It sits wounded, in constant shadow, maybe you could check it out while parking the car. Was it a joke, a singular abuse of ‘artistic freedom,’ or was it a legitimate statement, a check on the authoritarian drift of any civil society? Could it be just abstract? It’s certainly successful, even provocative, in that regard, but I suspect on some level everyone understands the subversion, the impudence, the gleeful anarchy it represents. One day it will just disappear, plop.
To give the artist a head start they quarried a massive block of ‘miami river marble,’ a fine grained limestone complete with quarry marks, rough cut. They set the block up in public with the vague notion of some classical maestro in smock and floppy beret whacking away with mallet and chisel, heroic art emerging for all to see. There was a deadline. The block, gray and hulking, sat months in the sun and rain, ice and snow, nothing happened. Then in the final week, a low-boy trailer pulls up and delivers the rest of the artwork, four square highly-polished stainless steel legs about eight feet high. The block is hoisted on top and that’s it, commission complete. City fathers were aghast, perplexed, massively unhappy.
The piece never made it to the courthouse. It sat on fountain square for a couple of years, lonely, ignored, and unloved. It was on a cold day in march, me just hanging on the square and contemplating this odd sculpture, people passing by. In a moment a single woman in a red coat walked past, and reflected in stainless steel I glimpsed several red coats going different directions, all in a flash. ‘Law and Society’ I thought, the mandated name of the piece, and suddenly I understood -- which part was society and which was the law. I suspected they saw it too, but wouldn’t let on. They affixed a plaque directly to one of the legs, explaining that this sculpture was meant to represent the solid foundation law provided society, figure it out. They then started moving it closer and closer to the river. Its final destination, so far, is under a bridge next to a parking lot.
Those were not the only indignities they’ve heaped on it. When one of the stainless steel legs began to delaminate, they assigned some junior motor-pool apprentice to weld it back, globby and scorched, contempt exuding. It sits wounded, in constant shadow, maybe you could check it out while parking the car. Was it a joke, a singular abuse of ‘artistic freedom,’ or was it a legitimate statement, a check on the authoritarian drift of any civil society? Could it be just abstract? It’s certainly successful, even provocative, in that regard, but I suspect on some level everyone understands the subversion, the impudence, the gleeful anarchy it represents. One day it will just disappear, plop.
No comments:
Post a Comment