Free Republic

A giant, bronze monument to the enema has been erected as a tribute to the cleansing procedure. An 800-pound syringe bulb held by three cherubs has been unveiled at the Mashuk-Akva Term spa in Zheleznovodsk, Russia. "There is no kitsch or obscenity, it is a successful work of art," spa director Alexander Kharchenko told the Associated Press. "An enema is almost a symbol of our region."

LONDON: A row has erupted over plans to install the waxwork of Adolf Hitler at Madame Tussauds new Berlin museum, with critics describing it as an attempt to glorify the Nazi dictator's reign. "It's tasteless. A waxworks museum is meant to entertain and to amuse. It's not appropriate to have a Hitler figure there," said Johannes Tuchel, from the Gedenkstaette Deutscher Widerstand, a memorial for opponents of the Nazi regime. Many fear that the waxwork, which will go on display when the museum opens next month, will glorify Hitler's reign, allowing younger visitors and neo-Nazis to pose for pictures with...

Naomi Campbell, one of the most famous and beautiful women in the world, and known for her Intemperate behavior, will be immortalized in sculpture. She has been posing for photographer Nick Knight, who is using three-dimensional scanners to create the sculptures...

SPRING GLEN - Those heartbroken women. Sculptor Karen Jobe Templeton's thoughts kept coming back to the wives and mothers as, day after day after day, she listened to radio accounts in August of the Crandall Canyon mine disaster. She would look around the light-filled studio she and her devoted husband, Kent, had spent two years building behind their home in this community between Price and Helper, and ponder: "How would I deal with losing Kent, if I had nothing to touch, to feel?" She resolved to do something about it. This week, Templeton is delivering clay bas-relief sculptures of the...

Brian Dettmer carves into books revealing the artwork inside, creating complex layered three-dimensional sculptures.

Lion sculpture gets record price The Guennol Lioness was discovered at a site near Baghdad A tiny limestone figure of a lion from ancient Mesopotamia has sold at auction for $57m (£28m), almost double the previous record price for a sculpture. The 8.3cm (3.25in) tall Guennol Lioness is thought to have been carved 5,000 years ago in what is now Iraq and Iran. The lion, whose new owner has not been identified, had been on loan to the Brooklyn Museum of Art for 59 years. The previous record for a sculpture was set last month when Pablo Picasso's Tete de...

NEW YORK (AFP) - A tiny and extremely rare 5,000-year-old white limestone sculpture from ancient Mesopotamia sold for 57.2 million dollars in New York on Wednesday, smashing records for both sculpture and antiquities. The carved Guennol Lioness, measuring just over eight centimeters (3 1/4 inches) tall, was described by Sotheby's auction house as one of the last known masterworks from the dawn of civilization remaining in private hands. "It was an honor for us to handle The Guennol Lioness, one of the greatest works of art of all time," Richard Keresey and Florent Heintz, the experts in charge of the...

Despite repeated requests by Pakistani archeologists to the local authorities to protect the seated Buddha and other sites, especially after the first attack, no action was taken. In fact, militants were able to carry out their work in broad daylight The world watched in horror when Taliban forces destroyed the monumental Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan in 2001. Political and cultural leaders from around the globe condemned the attacks. Offers of help poured in. Everyone asked: will the world be ready next time? Alas, the answer is a resounding “no.” In northwest Pakistan’s Swat valley, armed Islamist militants recently attacked...

I don't know if this has been placed out here before, but I received these pics via email and wnated to share it with FR: Luke 1:49 For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.

WASHINGTON — The selection of a Chinese sculptor to carve a three-story monument to Martin Luther King Jr. on the National Mall is raising questions about what part of his legacy should be celebrated. King promoted peace and understanding among all people. His primary fight, however, was to win particular opportunities for blacks in the United States by juxtaposing the plight of an oppressed people against a message of freedom and democracy.

35,000-Year-Old Mammoth Sculpture Found in Germany In southwestern Germany, an American archaeologist and his German colleagues have found the oldest mammoth-ivory carving known to modern science. And even at 35,000 years old, it's still intact. The 35,000-year-old mammoth figurine was revealed on Wednesday. REUTERS Archaeologists at the University of Tübingen have recovered the first entirely intact woolly mammoth figurine from the Swabian Jura, a 220-meter long plateau in the state of Baden-Württemberg, thought to have been made by the first modern humans some 35,000 years ago. It is believed to be the oldest ivory carving ever found. "You can be...

NEW YORK (AP) - A planned Holy Week exhibition of a nude, anatomically correct chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ was canceled Friday amid a choir of complaining Catholics that included Cardinal Edward Egan. The "My Sweet Lord" display was shut down by the hotel that houses the Lab Gallery in midtown Manhattan, said Matt Semler, the gallery's creative director. Semler said he submitted his resignation after officials at the Roger Smith Hotel shut down the show. The six-foot sculpture was the victim of "a strong-arming from people who haven't seen the show, seen what we're doing," Semler said. "They jumped...

This is a "headsup" for reviews of interviews on selected Civil-era War books on BookTV this weekend. (links to summaries of presentations will be posted in post 2). The "Generals In Bronze" segment is a rebroadcast. I saw an earlier airing. It is about a sculptor that got many Union Army generals to "dish" wartime details they'd never disclose to the public. If a more sensational editor had produced the book, it could easily be subtitled "Union General Confidential". I haven't seen the other two presentations, so I can't speak about the books or authors.

A Richard Serra sculpture is not always an easy experience. Most famous over the nearly half century of his career for the towering, metal shapes that have graced civic spaces from Tokyo to New York to Bilbao, Spain, he specializes in the monumental, the breathtaking, and the surprising. His deceptively unfettered, simple metal walls that cut through public walkways and plazas have confounded some while delighting others. This sheer physicality of his sculptures force passersby to approach the space with a new awareness. ........ "Public sculpture used to have a code," says the San Francisco native, who acquired his early...

(CBS) CHICAGO A plan to beautify a new CTA station with art is raising some eyebrows. Critics say the sculpture resembles a certain part of the male anatomy. CBS 2's Rafael Romo reports on the offending flower. At a Northwest Side workshop, Chicago’s next public art project is being created. Josh Garber is a local sculptor in charge of creating the two pieces of art that will decorate the Kimball CTA station. “These are petals right here and they come up to about 20 inches above the ground,” Garber said. But his sculptures are in the middle of a...

A Giant statue by Damien Hirst showing the insides of a pregnant woman and entitled The Virgin Mother was unveiled at the Royal Academy of Arts in London yesterday. The Virgin Mother took 18 months to complete The 35ft bronze sculpture, which dominates the courtyard in front of the gallery, reveals the foetus and the woman's skull, muscles and tissue. The work, weighing 3.5 tons, took a year and a half to make and will form part of the Summer Exhibition, From Life, which starts on June 12. "It will be very interesting to see people's reactions," said Edith Davaney,...

An artist's sculpture has been rejected by the Royal Academy of Arts which has instead opted to display the wooden support it was put on. David Hensel, 64, from East Grinstead, West Sussex, was told his 'Laughing Head' sculpture would be part of the summer exhibition. But at a preview he found that just a piece of wood intended to support the head was on display on the plinth. The Academy said the judging panel assumed the two pieces were separate and decided the support was better.

Archangel sculpture rises from Lichfield nave Maev Kennedy Monday February 20, 2006 Simply red ... the carving of the Archangel Gabriel recently discovered under the nave of Lichfield Cathedral. Photograph: Shelley Stratford The Archangel Gabriel, his wings still fiery with colour applied over 1200 years ago, has emerged from beneath the nave of Lichfield Cathedral. The Anglo-Saxon carved figure was found when builders, watched over by archaeologists, took up part of the floor of the nave to build a new rising platform for concerts and recitals. "None of us imagined that the project would provide a priceless gem, with the...

Belgian coastal town bans Czech sculpture of Saddam Hussein 10.2.2006 - Dita Asiedu The massive protests against the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed have rocked the world. Buildings have been burnt down; people have died at demonstrations. To avoid further offence to the Muslim community, the mayor of a little Belgian coastal town recently banned a local exhibition from displaying a sculpture of Saddam Hussein, made by the Czech artist David Cerny. Czech Republic's David Cerny is one of the country's most original but also most provocative visual artists. His work includes the giant black babies that crawl up...

Ferrofluid is a very interesting material originally developed by NASA it has now found itself been used for a whole range of devices including dampers for controlling and stabilizing large building that move around in the wind. Whats also amazing is that they have such lovely visual qualities when magnetized. The term liquid architecture is used a lot in interactive architecture based on the ideas of how architecture becomes animated by adding the 4th Dimension of Time. Sachiko has taken this idea of liquid architecture more literally with these stunning sculpture made from Ferrofluid which changes its state by the...

Ancient furnace sparks archaeological interest A UNIQUE site in the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean and expected to shed more light on ancient copper mining has been uncovered in the Mathiatis area, about 20km south of Nicosia. It consists of the base of a copper smelting furnace with its last charge of slag still in place. The discovery was made by students participating in an educational research programme in cooperation with Inter Community School Cyprus Project 2005, under the direction of Dr Walter Fasnacht. The participants from the staff of the Department of Antiquities were G. Georgiou, archaeologist, and E...

Controversial sculpture on Poland's struggle removed from U.S. park 00:22 2006-01-19 A sculpture hailed by some as an apt tribute to freedom fighters and deplored by others as a depressing annoyance is headed back to its owner after 23 years on loan in Boston, according to a media report. The "Partisans" sculpture by Polish immigrant Andrew Pitynski, which depicts five weary, emaciated horsemen, was hauled to a South Boston storage facility to be returned to its owner, the Sculpture Foundation of San Francisco, the Boston Globe reported. The sculpture was inspired by Poland's struggle with the Nazis and communists, and...

Madrid 'mislays' Serra sculpture The sculpture comprises four large slabs A leading Spanish museum has admitted it has lost a massive steel sculpture which weighs 38 tonnes. Madrid's Reina Sofia Museum bought the Richard Serra sculpture in the 1980s for more than $200,000 (£114,000). The museum says that in 1990 it put the sculpture in a warehouse belonging to a company that specialises in storing large-scale artwork. But when it sought to put the sculpture back on display a few months ago, no-one knew where to find it. The police are now investigating its disappearance. The museum, one of Madrid's...

NEW YORK (AFP) - A large-scale metal sculpture by American artist David Smith has become the most expensive work of contemporary art ever sold at auction, fetching 23.8 million dollars at Sotheby's in New York. Five bidders competed for Smith's "Cubi XXVII" which was the starting lot at a Wednesday evening sale of 54 contemporary works that brought in 114.5 million dollars. The 1965 sculpture was finally snapped up by Manhattan dealer Larry Gagosian at nearly twice its high estimate of 12 million dollars. Experts attributed the record price to the fact that most of Smith's works are in museums...

BAYONNE (NEW JERSEY), September 16 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin laid a stone into the foundation of a monument to the victims of September 11, 2001 terrorist acts. The ceremony took place on Thursday in the town of Bayonne on the Hudson River. The stone bears a sign reading: “A gift from the Russian people. President Vladimir Putin. A monument will be erected here devoted to the fight against international terrorism. The work by sculptor Zurab Tsereteli”. The 30-meter high monument will be erected in front of lower Manhattan where the World Trade Center twins stood. The broken bronze...

In downtown Seattle, they light a big Christmas tree for the holidays. But in Fremont, they're going to light up -- what else? -- the big statue of Vladimir Lenin. Lenin will be lighted at 5 p.m. Dec. 3 at the corner of Fremont Place North and North 36th Street. (It's the intersection with the big statue of Lenin.) The monument will be bedecked with garland and lights -- and probably not just red ones. It will be the first time the 18-foot bronze statue has been lighted since it came to the Center of the Universe in 1995 by...

Attention all FReepers ~ I just discovered that we have a very special new FReeper on board! She hails from Jennerstown,PA. and signed on with us this past Sunday. Get your ping lists ready and please help give this very special lady a really special Freeper welcome.

Road to the Top Renaming of street spotlights sculptor's resounding success BY WILLIAM KERNS A-J ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Internationally revered sculptress Glenna Goodacre on Friday morning officially joined award-winning singer-songwriter Mac Davis with a Lubbock street renamed in her honor. Eighth Street between University Avenue and Avenue Q now is Glenna Goodacre Boulevard. Nearby is Mac Davis Lane, formerly Sixth Street. Even more streets in the same area could be renamed after Lubbock natives who shine a favorable light on the city, according to Mayor Marc McDougal. City Councilman Jim Gilbreath opened Friday's ceremony at The Centre, 2400 Glenna Goodacre Blvd.,...

ST. PETERSBURG, August 2 (RIA Novosti, Olga Vtorova) - Russian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli's monument to the victims of the 9/11 attacks on New York City has been loaded onto a ship in the port of St. Petersburg. The monument, weighing 150 metric tons, will now be taken across the Atlantic and mounted at a site near Ground Zero. Its centerpiece - a huge crystal sculpture representing a tear (hence the title, "Tear of Sorrow") - has been clad in leaf iron to keep it from being damaged along the way. In accordance with Tsereteli's design, the tear, with water pumped...

A sculpture and a controversy of mythological proportions.-- WELLINGTON — She's a striking figure called The Siren, these days spending borrowed time in the flower bed fronting Wellington's Community Center. Her arms are raised above her head like a ballerina's, and her frame — as slender as a whip —- is curved back and up in the shape of a teardrop. Bill Ingram/The Post A MATTER OF SIZE: The Siren, a bronze and steel sculpture donated by artist Norman J. Gitzen to Wellington's nascent Art in Public Places program, outside the community center. But it's the part of her anatomy...

It is one of the world's most baffling puzzles, the bane of professional cryptologists and amateur sleuths who have spent 15 years trying to solve it. But the race to find the secrets of Kryptos, a sculpture inside a courtyard at the CIA's heavily guarded headquarters in Langley, Virginia, may be reaching a climax. And interest has soared since Dan Brown hid references to Kryptos on the cover design for his bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, and suggested it might play a role in his next novel, The Solomon Key. The Kryptos sculpture incorporates a coded message made up...

HENDERSON, N.C. -- People in Henderson are talking about the massive sculpture of a woman's legs, spread open on Welcome Avenue. At first glance, it looks more like something you'd find at a strip club, instead of a quiet neighborhood. A backhoe contractor, Ricky Pearce poured concrete into hand-drawn molds to create the 40-ton, 17-foot-high legs. Then, he lifted them into place with a crane. Complete with some landscaped foliage, strategically placed, the display is making some folks chuckle, and others shake their heads in disgust. "The project took about three years," Pearce said. "I was inspired by Marilyn Monroe's...

A scholar has suggested that "Laocoön," a fabled sculpture whose unearthing in 1506 has deeply influenced thinking about the ancient Greeks and the nature of the visual arts, may well be a Renaissance forgery - possibly by Michelangelo himself. Her contention has stirred some excitement and considerable exasperation among art historians in the Classical and Renaissance fields. Many other challenges to accepted attributions have faded quickly into oblivion. The scholar advancing the theory, Lynn Catterson, a summer lecturer in art history at Columbia University, presented her argument in a talk at the university's Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America...

Artist Andy Goldsworthy is best known for working alone in nature, making fragile, temporary sculptures from leaves, rocks, even ice. The sculptor works quietly for hours in each place, a process captured in the 2001 documentary Rivers and Tides. Photographs of Goldsworthy's work hang in galleries and museums around the world. His latest project is a permanent piece in the center of Washington, D.C. It's the first new work commissioned by the National Gallery of Art in 26 years. Goldsworthy mastered optics and engineering to create a series of domes constructed of slabs of slate designed to hold together permanently...

March 27, 2005 Goddess with 100ft breasts to rival Angel of the North Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor FIRST came the Angel of the North. Now motorists using the A1 are to be confronted with the far earthier figure of a giant reclining “goddess” stretching her curves alongside nearly half a mile of the dual carriageway. The woman, with breasts and hips up to 100ft high, will be created 10 miles north of Newcastle from the waste material generated by open-cast mining, with each of her enormous curves concealing millions of tons of mining spoil. By the time the “Goddess of...

. NEVER FORGET . ...Now there is a way for all of us to help Mrs. SUSAN RESCORLA properly honor her Lifetime Lifesaving Hero husband RICK RESCORLA... ...who died so that 1,000's of others would live past a soon collapsing World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. ...A Man for All Seasons who focused on saving the lives of others his entire life, so very willingly. RICK RESCORLA - Lifetime Lifesaver 1965 Battle of the IA DRANG Valley 1993 Bombing of the World Trade Center 2001 Airstrikes on the World Trade Center for: Sacrifice begets Sacrifice for: LOVE is the...

Sudarsan Patnaik of Orissa thought of a novel way to greet fellow artists and spread the message of Christmas. On Thursday, Patnaik crafted a image of Jesus Christ in sand. "The image, build on the sands of Puri beach, is about 15-foot-high and it took us 20 hours to complete," Patnaik, who hails from Puri in Orissa, told rediff.com. The sculpture will remain till the New Year. "The world is facing tumultous times and we want peace. Under such circumstances, we must remember Jesus' messages," he said. Patnaik, who has already represented India in 23 international sand sculpture festivals, recently...

Stanford University President John Hennessy has overruled the recommendation of a panel that the university created to select outdoor sculptures for the campus and rejected a work that features an upside-down church with its steeple poking into the ground.Tom Seligman, director of the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford's art museum, said this was the first time in his 13 years at the university that a Stanford president has overruled a recommendation by the panel, which has helped select more than 70 sculptures for campus.The 22-foot-tall work, titled "Device to Root Out Evil," is by Dennis Oppenheim, a New York...

One of the major discoveries of the Italian Renaissance, this sculptural grouping was found in Rome in 1506 in the ruins of Titus' palace. It depicts an event in Vergil's Aeneid (Book 2). The Trojan priest Laocoön was strangled by sea snakes, sent by the gods who favored the Greeks, while he was sacrificing at the altar of Neptune. Because Laocoön had tried to warn the Trojan citizens of the danger of bringing in the wooden horse, he incurred the wrath of the gods.

BRADENTON -- A decade ago city officials set the stage for an artists colony near downtown. They created a special zoning category for the artists, allowing them to sell art out of their homes. They offered grants that helped the artists renovate houses and paint them in bold colors. But now it seems an artist has gone beyond the bright paint and moderate designs in Village of the Arts, and it's making some city leaders uncomfortable. Mark Runnals erected a shiny piece of metal work, "The Loss of Innocence," in front of his 12th Avenue bungalow. The 10-foot-high aluminum sculpture...

SCOTTSDALE - The controversial life-size Jesus nailed to a cross in downtown Scottsdale isn't coming down before Easter, according to the gallery owners cited for illegally displaying the icon, and the sculptor who created it. The city gave the Lyon Gallery until March 29 to remove The Christ, or its owners could face fines up to $500 each day it continues to loom over Scottsdale Road and Main Street. The gallery was also cited for displaying nine other sculptures by Duke in the public right-of-way, and could be fined as much as $5,000 a day http://www.azcentral.com/community/scottsdale/articles/0303sr-christ03Z8.html

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Jan. 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The sculpture of a Catholic bishop with a grotesque facial expression wearing a phallus on his head that is shaped like a bishop's miter and entitled "Holier than Thou," is the focus of a federal lawsuit against Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Mich., filed the civil rights lawsuit alleging that the university's display conveys the impermissible message of hostility toward Catholics and the Catholic religion in violation of the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. The...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--A privately funded 40-foot-high bronze sculpture of five naked women and four naked men has been unveiled on public ground in Nashville, Tenn., and some are questioning why such "artwork" is acceptable while a display of the Ten Commandments is not. The $1.1 million sculpture, called "Musica" and placed in the center of a roundabout on Music Row in downtown Nashville, is meant by the sponsors to provide tourists with a sense of the different types of music that have emerged from Music City. But some observers note there is no obvious connection between naked sculptures and music,...

A proposal to build a landmark piece of sculpture sparks a debate over artistic taste and the city's identity. SPIRIT OF THE SEAS: Five killer whales pull Neptune in artist's conception of a 50-million-dollar civic fountain on San Diego's waterfront. The city's artistic community and residents are divided over the merits of the proposed sculpture. COURTESY OF A. WASIL SAN DIEGO - Considering that they're a creative bunch to begin with, it's perhaps no surprise that the art crowd in America's seventh-largest city has come up with plenty of ways to describe a proposed $50 million civic fountain. The real...

Sculpture of cleric called 'Catholic bashing' Washburn official says piece of art will stay in place on campus By Tim Hrenchir The Capital-Journal Some area residents want Washburn University to remove a sculpture displayed on campus that they say shows a Roman Catholic clergyman wearing a tall hat resembling a penis. John Cooney, a Catholic from St. Marys, said Tuesday he felt deeply offended by the sculpture, "Holier Than Thou," which he considered "Catholic bashing at its worst." A Washburn official said the university planned to keep the sculpture in place and likely would organize events to promote discussion about...

Three tall, sad figures, lean on each other for support, joined together in grief and anger, but also in hope and strength. The four-metre high bronze figures, reminiscent of those drawn by cartoonist Michael Leunig, arch over and interlock in a sign of strength in unity on the windswept northern headland of Coogee Beach. A model of the Bali memorial sculpture was shown today at Coogee's Dolphin Point.Here David Byron and son, Jared, who lost Chloe in Bali, inspect the art. Photo: Robert Pearce The sculpture will be unveiled at next month's first anniversary of the Bali bomb blast as...

Las Cruces School Sued Over Art Sculpture On Campus Contains Three Crosses POSTED: 6:33 p.m. MDT September 20, 2003 LAS CRUCES, N.M. -- Two men are suing the Las Cruces Public School District over a sculpture at a sports complex that includes three crosses. Jesse Chavez and Paul Weinbaum are founding members of the southern New Mexico chapter of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Their federal lawsuit alleges the artwork violates a constitutional ban on government endorsement of religion. The $21,000 steel sculpture is the work of Las Cruces artist Ruth Bird. It has an...

The supreme court of the United States already has the ten commandments. Read my comments to find out more

Here's a supreme hypocrisy: The Supreme Court of the United States refused Wednesday to block a lower court's order that Alabama's chief justice must remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state's Judicial Building. But ... United Press International notes that if the justices want other examples of the Ten Commandments in courthouses, they don't have look far. They just have to look up. A larger-than-life sculpture extends around the top of the justices' courtroom. One section depicts "lawgivers." And there he is. Moses. Holding the Ten Commandments. He's been there since the building was completed in 1935, and...

With regard to today's refusal to hear the case against Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, the court has at least delayed a legal decision about defacing its own hallowed halls.It is likely well-known to the justices that the East Pediment of the Supreme Court showcases the image of Moses bearing the two tablets upon which the 10 Commandments are enscribed. In fact, Moses is front and center and indeed the largest figure in the entire sculpture.Ironically, the Chief Justice's offices are immediately behind this portico.Moses center stage on the USSC East Pediment, brandishing his illegal "Ten Commandments."The sculpture, "Justice the...