Why is this statue seen as offensive? It is a very challenging and possibly disturbing image but then again Sept. 11th wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.
I agree that maybe a very public place was not the place for such a work to be displayed but I think it’s an incredibly moving image.
Is it just a time thing? Here are some statues from Dublin that also are quite disturbing. The famine happened a long time ago but it’s repercussions still ripple through the Irish psyche(sp?)
I thought the statue was moving. I thought that I had become quite hardened to a lot of the shocking imagery from September 11, but I found that I was very affected by still photographs of people falling that were shown on a recent anniversary documentary.
I can understand why the work would have upset people, and I think time does have a lot to do with it. But I can also understand why the artist chose the subject he did: it’s one of the most powerful and affecting reminders of what happened on the day of the attacks.
While I believe that artists have a right to display their work, I’ve come around to the idea that the public also has a right to decide whether or not they want to see it. Therefore the public has a voice in what is publicly displayed.
I fully realize that this has the potential to hamper an artist’s creativity, but my opinion is that art is a participatory process for both the artist and the viewer. If an artist is creating something for public display, then s/he must also be artful enough to guess where the line between “provocative” and “offensive” is going to lie for most people.
Where I usually draw the line for publicly funded art is somewhere waaay past Mapelthorpe, so long as the viewer can choose whether or not to go see it. But Mapelthorpe’s controversial stuff was on display in a museum, where the viewers had to choose to go there.
Putting artwork up in public places where the viewers do not anticipate or agree to seeing it must conform to some reasonable standard. People apparently found this particular work to be unreasonable, for reasons which should be obvious. But just in case it isn’t obvious, one reason might be that some folks don’t want to be confronted with such a mental image when they’re on their way to lunch. Pursuit of happiness being what it is these days, those people have just as much a voice as the rest of us, and if enough of them complain about it loud enough, then we probably ought to accede to their wishes regardless of our personal opinions.
Therein lies the problem with ‘art’. While you may see the statue as art, I do not. Ditto for the ‘making a statement’ bit. (Since when have artists stop producing ‘art’, and begin producing ‘statements’?)
Not being familiar with NYC, I do not know if this was a public place or not that the statue was displayed in. If it was in a public place, then it has no buisness being there. If it was a privately owned building, then as tacky as it is, it can stay.
Of all the things that happened on September 11th, this artist chose to remake a woman that jumped out of a building. From what I remember there was a lot more than a woman jumping out of a building that day. This statue was also placed in the city where the incident took place a year after it happened. I am no art critic, but I do have common sense. People there still remember it, and most of them went through it. They saw the planes, they saw the buildings fall, they had loved ones in the building and saw them jump to there death. This statue isn’t just something that happened that day, its something that happened to the city of New York’s friends and family, and to remind them so quickly of it is insensitive and offensive. If I lost someone that way I would not want a remake of their body put on display…,
Its too soon for this piece of art. Maybe someday it will be a nice addition for a museam, or memorial. Today its offensive.
Of all the things that happened on September 11th, this artist chose to remake a woman that jumped out of a building. From what I remember there was a lot more than a woman jumping out of a building that day. This statue was also placed in the city where the incident took place a year after it happened. I am no art critic, but I do have common sense. People there still remember it, and most of them went through it. They saw the planes, they saw the buildings fall, they had loved ones in the building and saw them jump to there death. This statue isn’t just something that happened that day, its something that happened to the city of New York’s friends and family, and to remind them so quickly of it is insensitive and offensive. If I lost someone that way I would not want a remake of their body put on display…,
Its too soon for this piece of art. Maybe someday it will be a nice addition for a museam, or memorial. Today its offensive.
It’s Prometheus, a Titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans, for which Zeus chained him to a rock and sent an eagle to eat his liver, with some fava beans & a nice chianti.
Umm… I see it as neither moving nor particularly offensive. I must be a really bad person, because I laughed pretty hard when I saw that picture. It’s just so tacky, somehow. It should be removed because it’s silly.
i think that the artist was moved by the plight of the people who fell. he created a statue to express the emotion. this is what artists do.
unfortunately i think the timing is a bit off. he may have to wait 50-100 years for this piece to go on exhibit. i was reminded of a jfk quote, when asked what he thought of kevin costner’s movie about his father, he replied, i haven’t seen it, i don’t find my father’s death entertainment.
not that this statue will entertain, but it represents, someone’s loved one, too close to their passing. perhaps if it was exhibited in the back of beyond in outer mongolia, people there could expierence the statue the way the artist intended?
I agree. NYC is not the place for this piece. Perhaps an inspiring one, such as the two men who carried a woman in a wheelchair down 60 flights of stairs, would be more in order.
AIUI, this was not in a museum, but outside Rockefeller Center, where people had no choice but to see it as they walked by.
The artist’s intentions may have been honest, but the timing is way off.
I don’t understand what the big deal is about displaying the statue. On Sept 11, the played the events of that day that happened a year ago over and over, I saw it on a jumbotron on 42nd street, plane flying into the building, hugh fireball in vivid color. I’ve also seen videos that you can rent from Blockbuster about the event. What’s the problem with a statue, that by itself doesn’t evoke memory of the event, but requires the description of the piece to get that across. I think they should have let it remain.
It’s too much to be displayed in a public place, in NYC, a year after the attcks. Even the large-format polaroid portatits done in the days following 9/11, which were also on display at Rockefeller Center last week, were in an enclosed tent. You had to voluntarily go inside to see them all–you weren’t bombarded every time you walked past R.Ctr. As I have to, every day. Man, just the look on the face of that fighter pilot whose portrait was there was enough to creep me out. I don’t want to see that haunted look every single day.
I think it was a bad idea to put the statue where they did, when they did. It’s not a bad piece, but it’s too soon. In a gallery it would be fine. People might complain, but they don’t have to go see it. In a public place is another matter. I agree that perhaps in the future it would be taken differently, but it is too soon.
From what I read, the artist, Eric Fischl, doesn’t seem too put out by having it removed. He’s not trying to upset people, just express what came to him seeing the people fall from the buildings. He’s certainly not to blame (if anybody is) for the statue being in Rockefeller Plaza. I doubt he put it there himself without permission, right?
