Controversial public art -- just nude or crude?

KOMONews.com ^ | 06/24/09 | Ray Lane

[AngelesCrestHighway]

BURIEN, Wash. -- Controversy is surrounding a new sculpture at the Burien/Interim Arts Space. The bronzed piece is of a squatting, nude woman, and it leaves little to the imagination, according to concerned parents.

"Just cover it up a little bit. Too much parts showing for the little kids," said parent Adam Sankey.

Anybody can walk through the privately-owned art space at Fifth Avenue SW and SW 150th Street. And for some, that's an issue, especially with a new library right next door.

"I don't want my kids around it," said parent Jole Sankey. "My 8 year old doesn't need to be exposed to it. I don't even want my 14-year-old son to be exposed to it."

[AngelesCrestHighway]

First off....the face looks like a man.

[AngelesCrestHighway]

I vote: crude at best......

[ponygirl]

Or a constipated lesbian.

[MediaMole]

So, the land is privately owned? Simple, don’t walk through the area. It’s not your property.

[dead]

These critics don’t know squat.

[Just another Joe]

I guess my question is, does it reflect realism?
I mean, I know what I do normally when I'm squating nude.

[sionnsar]

Say WA? Evergreen State ping

Quick link: WA State Board

FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this ping list.

Ping sionnsar if you see a Washington state related thread.

[a fool in paradise]

Is this a statue of taxpayer funded (NEA) Karen Finelay shoving a yam up her can?

[RetroSexual]

I agree with the artist, Michael McGrath, when he says, “The kids are seeing - anywhere - every kind of expression of the body, nude, semi-nude, positions in a sense that are, if I can say the word, sexualized. This figure is intentionally non-sexualized.”

Hollywood & Madison Avenue’s sexualization and objectification of women are the problem in our society, not a couple of random nipples. Personally, I like nipples.

[Cicero]

Well, in the Renaissance they did nudes of beautiful ladies. Then in the early days of modernism, they welded a bunch of steel beams together.

Now, evidently, the fashionable thing in Seattle is a rich lesbian Seattleite, out squatting in the park because her toilet is plugged up.

She has that Seattle look, eh? I’ll bet she voted for Gregoire.

[wolfpat]

You’ve given me the biggest laugh I’ll have all day.

[muleskinner]

Rodan - The Thinker

McGrath - The Tinkler

[the_devils_advocate_666]

I don't think there's much to complain about, it's not that big of a statue and it is on private property:

This is a picture before it was moved to its current location.

[Pilated]

It’s just plain UGLY. It’s a dark, sad, disturbing piece. I could not call this art.

[reagan_fanatic]

She looks like she’s contemplating why she squatted to poop when there was an empty stall just over there on the right.

[Cobra Scott]

Okay, so who is taking bets on when the first political logo going to be strategically epoxied to the base?

[rockrr]

Need I say it?

"Liberalism is a (dangerous and degenerative) mental disorder..."

[lormand]

It is not even a natural pose.

What woman gets naked, then just squats down in a thinking pose? A liberal woman maybe (most are lunatics)? Ok, maybe it is natural after all.

[manic4organic]

Yeah, it reminds me of my wife on one of our camping trips.

[lojo]

I wouldn’t care if my 5 yr old son looked at it. It’s just a statue of a nude woman. He’s going to see boobies. This is art. Art I don’t care for, but art all the same.

[Renderofveils]

It’s just plain UGLY. It’s a dark, sad, disturbing piece. I could not call this art

All art should be joyous, uplifting and beautiful? Some of my favorite pieces of art are the ones that make me think... and some of them are quite dark (in tone, if not palette.) Caspar Friedrich's The Sea of Ice (or Death of Hope as it is sometimes referred) is an immensely sad, dark and disturbing piece, so is it not art?

[Renderofveils]

Er, The Wreck of Hope. I figured I'd correct myself before someone else did. ;)

[a fool in paradise]

Will it eventually be installed in an alley located in the New Orleans French Quarter during Mardi Gras?

[ByteMercenary]

I am pretty sure that my three teen-aged sons see better racks at HS. Insert the old saw about ‘they didn’t build ‘em like that when I was in HS’. Maybe they did, maybe not. But the showcase is sure different today.

[sniper63]

Is it slated to become a water fountain?

[Just another Joe]

Is it slated to become a water fountain?

Well, being a male, I don't usually squat to do that but I see your point.

[AngelesCrestHighway]

She looks like she’s contemplating why she squatted to poop when there was an empty stall just over there on the right.

she has that constipated look.....

[ArrogantBustard]

Here I squat,
Broken hearted.
Tried to ...

[Minn]

It is not even a natural pose.

Except for the naked part, women mostly squat in public to tend to their young children. I've never myself even noticed that some of them look real good when they do it. But I heard that somewhere.

[AngelesCrestHighway]

Is that one sheet Sheryl Crow, I ask....?

[AngelesCrestHighway]

South East Asian women squat like that all the time....It looks un-natural for her.

[newheart]

I could not agree with you more. ‘Dark’ art, even that which attempts to express the hopelessness of the human condition, can be profound, providing a contrast that illuminates the genuine hope that exists. Even when it is not the intent of the artist.

Every picture has its shadows, and it has some source of light. (Joni Mitchell)

[Jewbacca]

“It is not even a natural pose.”

It’s called the “third world squat.”

In the first world where we have chairs and resulting stiff hamstrings, it’s not so common, unless you are in the Army or install floor tile for a living.

In the third world, where you don’t have chairs, and the only thing you dare let touch the ground is the bottom of your feet, this is the natural position. It’s hard for westerners to do it, but eventually you master sitting in this position (heels down) and can do so for hours at a time.

I learned it in the military, and used it in a survival school setting.

[lormand]

I'm taking Tang Soo Do, and am in the process of stretching most everything.

I will have to work on stretching for this "squat" Any special tips on doing so?

[flash2368]

“My 8 year old doesn’t need to be exposed to it. I don’t even want my 14-year-old son to be exposed to it.”

Thats it.. shield them from everything so they go nutso when faced with the real world. Very few Europeans would give a second thought about their kids being exposed to it. They would probably be climbing all over the thing. Matter of fact non-repressive attitude about sexuality is probably the reason the teenage pregnancy rate in other countries is zip compared to the U.S. Besides that I see nothing disturbing about the sculpture except for the fact its butt ugly. Certainly nothing erotic about it.

[mysterio]

I'm honestly tired of hearing people flip out over a human breast. We gave the fcc MASSIVE amounts of power because of one tit during a football game. That breast injured no one. The overreaction to it injured a lot of people.

We all have breasts. Almost all little kids have had intimate contact with a breast. Almost all men want intimate contact with a breast. It's a human body part.

[Jewbacca]

I learned with an Israeli Druze screaming at me, pretending to be a Hamas terrorists, and periodically hitting me with an AK-47, as I tried to keep from falling in donkey sh!t.

Worked pretty well.

(Or I suppose you could just do a front squat in a power rack if you are pussy. The weight will stretch your ham strings.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcZ-fS-X7k0

[ArrogantBustard]

I don’t see any sheets.

And she’s using her right hand.

Yuck.

[Redcloak]

Well... It's better than that Britney‑Spears‑giving‑birth‑on‑a‑bear‑skin‑rug sculpture from a few years back.

[Domandred]

I agree. Ugly.

Art is still lost

[Slings and Arrows]

"Where did I leave the Preparation-H?"

---

[Spunky]

"What woman gets naked, then just squats down in a thinking pose?"

Squatting in childbirth

I picked the least graphic picture. :-)

[BJClinton]

I am deeply offended by your pornographic post.

[ApplegateRanch]

Some of my favorite pieces of art are the ones that make me think... and some of them are quite dark

Caryatids...the convention

Fallen Caryatid, a statement about rethinking the convention...

...or maybe what happens if one tries to shrug at the wrong time.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

Quick, somebody photoshop the Obama “hope” circle-logo onto the top of the round pedestal she’s squatting on.

[allmendream]

Reminds me of the story (and movie) about Joan the Mad in Spain (Juana La Luna was its title in Spain, they called the release with English subtitles “Mad Love”).

She was quite fecund, and one of her ladies in waiting was quite upset when a pregnant Joan excused herself to the bathroom, squatted down and gave birth to the future Holy Roman Emperor. The other lady in waitings comment made me spit up my drink laughing....

‘Pay it no mind, her Majesty is like a COW when it comes to such things.’

[Baynative]

Privately owned art in a privately owned public park space???

What the hell kind of double talk is this? I have a feeling "us the public" is funding sumpin' we don't know about here!

[Darksheare]

That anti-diarrheal ad: “Where will you be when the urge hits?”

[Slings and Arrows]

*snicker*

[cyborg]

I think it’s beautiful.