Nah, NoCoolUserName, I think us Coloradoans have a certain edge when it comes to butt-ugly public art. I give you the statue in downtown Ft. Collins:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22181091@N03/2221987318/
Used to have a nice, western-appropriate statue of a cowboy on a bucking bronc. Then some couple with way more money than tatse decided to donate the above monstrosity to the city. We’re all supposed to like it though, because it was free, ya know!
Huh, that looks exactly like the mortar shelters in Iraq.
I nominate this hideous thing in a central square in downtown Sofia. From the In Your Pocket guide:
There’s a wall around it to stop people from getting too close, where they might get hit with falling concrete.
Barely a blip on the ugly radar compared to a few of the pix here, but I nominate this, if only becuase I had to look at it every day for about 4 years.
There are a few pieces around Calgary that, while not as ugly as some of the Towers of Turds linked here, are still eyesores. I’ll see if I can get some pictures of them.
The really disturbing thing is that there’s apparently a debate with a couple other cities over who really has the largest fire hydrant.
This seems as good a place as any to share my personal theory regarding public art sculpture: almost all of it is “Purloined Letter”-style camouflage for a secret network of subliminal broadcast antennas. What are they broadcasting? Financial propaganda. Virtually all these works have been sponsored in part by banks, or are within line-of-sight to a bank, or both. Visit the financial district of the nearest city and see how the concentration of huge abstract public sculpture suddenly spikes. You think bankers love huge abstract sculpture? This is no coincidence.
And the most hideous of all abstract sculptures?
Sub-prime mortgages!
I can’t say much for the sculpture itself, but that photo is fantastic. It makes it look like a portal leading away from doom (the vast, forboding cloud-filled sky) into a tranquil paradise.
http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=165 At the bottom of these Detroit statues si the Joe Louis Fist. It is special.
Damn it, I was down there and never saw that.
Looks like the perfect place to score an eightball and a sack of weed…
The giant corn scares the crap out of me–it’s like ghost dildoes in the field or something. If you build it, they will come?
I like the giant fist, though, it makes me think dirty things.
Hmmm, I think I might need to get laid or something…
The link is actually in Dutch, otherwise I might have been able to help 
This is a fairly good English description, with photos. It has more photos and links to other pages as well.
The thing to remember is that the park is intended as a single installation. Not that all of the individual statues “make sense” in that context, whatever that phrase means, but they are not nearly as shocking when viewed together as a few of them are when seen individually.
Well worth visiting if you’re ever in Oslo.
I LOVE that! By far my favorite on this thread so far, although I don’t find many of them too awful, and like most. I agree about the exorbitant cost problem, though–most cities shouldn’t be spending massive amounts of money on public art–it’s too subjective.
I acutally think most of this stuff is okay, kind of "why?"ish, but okay.
However, and I realize I am about to make several enemies and have my inbox flooded with death threats, but I have to say I utterly and completely DESPISE Jean Claude and Christo. Great, you covered something large and unwieldy in Saran Wrap… good for you? The only one I can tolerate in the umbrellas one. I don’t know if it necessarily counts as public art (they fund the projects completely independently), but it’s out there for everyone to see so it’s public enough.
I give you Toronto’s own Airman Memorial, also known locally as “Gumby Goes to Heaven”:
Just hideous, and I go past it all the time. Somehow, the fact that it is supposed to be a solemn memorial to WW2 servicemen adds insult to injury.
This hideous proposal by Jaume Plensa didn’t come to pass, even with a $2.5 million gift from a private donor to support it: http://www.raleighnc.gov/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_2_99538_0_0_18/FeatDtl-PubAff-Jaume_Plensa_Unveils_Pla-20060330-142148.html
The pictures don’t do its impracticality full justice, as it involved fountains in a city with frequent shortage-driven water restrictions and had a bunch of hanging lights that would need to be maintained from burning out and getting covered with birdshit.
This proposal for Durham is not thrilling me, either, although at least it doesn’t seem like such a money pit http://www.newsobserver.com/print/thursday/city_state/story/1265376.html
Of the existing ugly public art around here, the Light+Time tower usually takes the medal - File:Light-Plus-Time-Tower-Raleigh-NC-20081012.jpeg - Wikimedia Commons
No, it is not involved in cell phone or other transmission. Its purpose is decorative.
Carnegie Mellon University has this lovely thing. They didn’t even have the decency to try and hide it; it is very clear from the bus that goes past CMU on the way to Squirrel Hill.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_RmA2hopg-mA/SAq0Cf2REqI/AAAAAAAAC_E/tyn11ELX6hc/IMG_0565.jpg
(couldn’t find a much better pic)
The statue of Peter the Great in Moscow is not only ugly; it’s absolutely huge. (94 meters tall). I must admit that I kind of like it for being so horrible. Apparently it was first concieved as a statue of Cristopher Columbus and offered to the city of New York. When they rejected the “gift”, it was renamed as Peter the Great and sold to Moscow (where the artist’s friend was mayor at the time).
And thank God the city of Copenhagen rejected this 72.5 meter eyesore. “Gateway to Copenhagen” my a**.
This, except that your link doesn’t work and I have no idea what the Indo Arch is.
