OTUS THE HEAD CAT : Croatian’s Skinny Fries to join sculpture at Federal Building
Posted on Saturday, August 23, 2008
Dear Otus Your recent column on all the theft of public statuary got me to thinking about how the scrap metal dealer didn’t recognize the Henry Moore statue Large Standing Figure: Knife Edge as art and melted it down.
How much of a mental eunuch does one have to be not to recognize genius when one sees it ?
I first became acquainted with Moore’s work when a similar smaller version (one of seven ) of the Moore statue was featured in John Hughes’ classic 1985 coming-of-age film The Breakfast Club.
Standing Figure: Knife Edge was the statue in the fictitious Shermer High School library that served as a backdrop for the entire film.
I was transferred from Chicago to Little Rock in 2005 and you can imagine my astonishment to discover a Moore masterpiece on public display in such a jerkwater hick town. I thought there might actually be hope for the place after all.
And now the Moore has been melted down to make copper tubing for someone’s toilet ball float.
If this was an isolated instance I could overlook it, but the recent public reaction to the new fountain at the courts building in downtown Little Rock only serves to confirm my opinion.
The fountain, a gleaming vision of the brilliant awardwinning Massachusetts artist Mikyoung Kim, is called Echo Dynamics and only cost taxpayers $ 391, 000. It’s cheap at twice that price. Naturally, the redneck yahoos hereabouts have labeled the piece “a bunch of rain gutters and air conditioning ducts tossed on the ground.” I can only rejoice that the few cultural visionaries among us have also purchased, as a companion piece, renowned Croatian metal artist Milorad Cavic’s Skinny Fries. That it cost taxpayers $ 2. 6 million pales next to the acclaim Little Rock will reap among the cognoscenti of the art world. Here’s hoping nobody tries to steal that sculpture. — Ben Giclee Little Rock Dear Mr. Ben, It was wholly a pleasure to receive your hand-written damask aqua and ecru notecard with the calligraphic quotation from noted art critic Clement Greenberg: “We have differences but we’re not made different. If you don’t agree with me, you’re wrong.” I must entreat you to not judge too harshly the fine citizens of Little Rock on the cretinism of a few. I blame it on Arkansas’ well-documented iodine deficiency.
Perhaps we can blame the loss of Large Standing Figure: Knife Edge on its extreme abstract nature. To the untrained eye, the statue hardly resembled art. In addition, the Kim water sculpture will take some getting used to, much the way it took America time to cozy up to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington.
That sculpture, by famed artist Maya Lin, was intended to symbolize “a wound in the earth,” but was excoriated by critics who called for a more traditional piece of art from a “real” American.
I note that Lin was born in Ohio as were other “real” Americans Neil Armstrong, Jeffrey Dahmer and George Armstrong Custer.
Even nonabstract sculpture has its detractors. For many years the lobby of Pulaski Bank in Little Rock displayed I. M. Agard, a lifelike statue of a bank guard by award-winning polymer resin artist Marc Sijan. The statue was so incredibly realistic, people often stopped to speak to it.
Sijan is also the artist who created the stunning statues of Ted Danson and Mary Steenbergen that grace the lobby of the Clinton Library. The statues depicting the close personal friends of Bill Clinton are seated on a bench and engrossed in reading Clinton’s favorite poetry collection, Leaves of Grass. They are so true to life that visitors have been known to ask them for autographs or if they could snap a photo and become upset when they’re ignored.
“Never mind,” one visitor was heard to grumble. “I hated you two in Ink anyway.” The Vietnam wall has since become a beloved icon and I rather believe that Kim’s Echo Dynamics will as well. I also have high hopes for Cavic’s Skinny Fries, if for no other reason than the piece actually looks like a tub full of fast-food skinny fries if you use just a bit of imagination. Cavic is currently putting the finishing touches on the sculpture; it will be delivered to the courts building this week for the unveiling at noon on Labor Day. The public is invited and the first 500 to arrive will get a complimentary medium tub of baked (no trans fats ) skinny fries courtesy of Ruby’s Restaurants. That’s a $ 2. 29 value. Until next time, Kalaka reminds would-be thieves that Skinny Fries contains no bronze or copper. Disclaimer: Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat’s award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. E-mail: mstorey@arkansasonline. com
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