Foundry has interesting history and works out of history, too

I pass the Modern Art Foundry every day when I cover the Mansion. The MAF is headquartered in the Steinway Mansion stables (old photo below). The MAF's more modern building next door has now been gutted and is being renovated. Here are some photos I took of this ongoing renovation.

All the best,
GtheA

LIC getting ugly pink sculpture

From LIC Post:

A large, pink sculpture that sparked considerable debate last year has been approved for installation on Jackson Avenue.

“Sunbather” by artist Ohad Meromi received final design approval from the Public Design Commission at an Oct. 26 meeting, according to the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA). It will be built at Jackson Avenue/43rd Avenue before the end of next year.

Pink sculpture not popular

From PIX 11:

On Wednesday night, it was a packed town hall meeting at MOMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens. The town hall addressed many topics including affordable housing for artists, and also a sculpture slated to go up on Jackson Avenue.

One speaker said, “I think it’s an amazingly interesting piece of art, I think the location should have been discussed a little more in depth before the decision was made.”

According to a spokesperson for city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the sculpture is slated to go up on Jackson Avenue near 43rd Avenue in Long Island City, Queens, a public art project with a price tag of $515,000 funded by city capital dollars. The sculpture is called “The Sunbather.”

Protest art against wasteful spending in LIC

From DNA Info:

A $515,000 plan to erect a sculpture of a pink reclining figure by artist Ohad Meromi on Jackson Avenue as part of a public art program, has drawn fire from some residents, with one of them creating a protest sculpture of their own.

An angular structure painted with vibrant colors and wooden hearts appeared this week on Jackson Avenue near 23rd Street, near where the Department of Cultural Affairs is planning to install Meromi's sculpture on on Jackson Avenue at 43rd Avenue, appeared this week.

A sign on it critiqued the cost of the city's project, which it identified as $450,000, though city officials say it will actually run $515,000.

"This is not against the artist. It is against the misuse of our tax dollars," the sign on the protest sculpture read.

"It cost $350 dollars to make this sculpture which we are donating to Long Island City and there are many local artists that would do the same so this money could be spent on something constructive like education."

It's unclear who was responsible for the piece, which was placed on the sidewalk on Jackson Avenue near the Court Square subway station.

Bear Eats Man has been altered

Contributor George the Atheist received a response to the open letter he sent to Parks Commissioner Veronica White about "Bear Eats Man" at Socrates Sculpture Park:
It's hard to believe that the property owner, the Parks Dept, has no jurisdiction over what is placed on its own property.

A barely noticeable sign now warns visitors that there is a depiction of a "nude male" inside the park. (But not what is happening to the nude man's rear.)

Egad! The nude man has been vandalized!

An appeal to the Italian-American community

Un appello alla comunita italo-americana di New York

Original letter on George The Atheist's blog.


Dear friends:

Here is a photograph of the distinguished New York City-based Italian immigrant Piccirilli Brothers, master stone carvers of some of our town's and the country's greatest monuments. You can read about their illustrious history and artistic accomplishments here. Famed for carving the New York Public Library's iconic lions, the U.S.S. Maine Monument at the entrance to Central Park, statuary on the NY Stock Exchange and the United States Capitol. They carved the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. They worked with the greatest American architects and sculptors of their day: Carrère and Hastings, Daniel Chester French, Stanford White, et al.

They also collaborated with the renowned sculptor Frederick MacMonnies on the work of the statuary grouping known as "Civic Virtue" ("Virtu Civiche") - an artistic allegory depicting the conquering of Vice and Corruption in governmental affairs. This work of art was situated next to Queens Borough Hall for decades. Its tortured history can be read here.

It was moved from its original emplacement outside of City Hall in Manhattan because the then Mayor, a veritable artistic ignoramus (un vero ignorante artistico), Fiorello LaGuardia, it is said, could not stand looking at the statue's culo. A person who hated his own heritage! So it was shipped off to the "hinterlands" of Queens where it stood totally neglected, non-maintained, and exposed to the elements. This was the thanks that the great Italian-American Piccirilli Brothers were given by the civic authorities for the brothers' magnificent artistic endeavors. The statue stood there, ignored, unmaintained, and unloved through the years. But to make matters worse, the ignominy of Political Correctness (Corretezza Politica) reared its ugly head.

The statue was considered demeaning to women!! Why? It was alleged that the Conqueror, Civic Virtue, was slaying 2 women in the guise of snakes. Pandering-to-the public politicians, with nothing else to do, paraded in front of it demanding that it be sold off on CraigsList: here is the House of Representatives disgraced sex-pervert Anthony Weiner, opining on its merits. (If you look carefully, you can see, the ineffective Ann Jawin of the Center for the Women of New York, standing under her umbrella, like a Bobble-head doll, nodding in agreement.) -

There you have it folks. The statue, a sterling example of Italian-American artisanry, has been castigated instead of honored. What is its message? It champions "civic virtue" - something that that should be lauded and not despised. Its future has yet to be written. Help write it.

A slap in the face to Italian-American endeavor?

An insult to the legacy of the Italian-American community?

It is time to wake up! It is time for action!

Don't let them steal it from you. Fix it! Honor your ancestry!

ALL HAIL TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS PICCIRILLIS! / TUTTA LA GRANDINE AL PICCIRILLIS ILLUSTRE!

Saluti, giorgiol'ateo

Statue design ripped off by Chinese manufacturers

From the Daily News:

There's something unseemly about a Statue of Liberty souvenir that says "Made in China."

Yet there they are by the thousands - pink, white and blue in Times Square gift shops.

Workers in Shanghai making just $197 a month churn them out by the truckload. No wonder China just passed Japan to become the world's second-largest economy, gaining on us fast.

Don't get me wrong. China makes cool souvenirs of New York City. Like the water tower bank, King Kong climbing the Empire State Building eraser and the skyline-in-a-book keychain complete with pop-up midtown and foldout Central Park.

I just wish they didn't all seem to be made in Guangzhou.

So does Ovidiu Colea. The Romanian immigrant, who did five years in a labor camp, says it's strange that a country with few freedoms mass-produces our most recognizable symbol.

"I find it very ironic," Colea says from his small Colbar Art factory near Calvary Cemetery in Blissville, Queens.

As workers finessed the folds on Lady Liberty's resin robes, added silver crowns and dipped her torch in gold elixir, Colea, a 71-year-old sculptor with hands like mitts, observed: "China makes so many freedom symbols, but their country is not free. Their people are not free. People here fought for liberty; they died for liberty."

Queens sculptor recreates a classic scene

From Interactive Journalism:

Queens-based artist Sergio Furnari has stayed afloat during the recession by working on projects abroad.

But Furnari got another chance to create an American icon on American soil when two Indiana restaurateurs commissioned a remake of his life-sized sculpture of 11 ironworkers eating lunch on beam during the construction of Rockefeller Center, which is based on a 1932 photograph.

The sculpture will be installed on top of a 1920s-themed restaurant in Valparaiso, Indiana called Industrial Revolution, which is set to open in February 2010.

When Fat Boy was a Manhattanite

From the Daily News:

...for weeks there raged the Battle of the Sexes in one volcanic public hearing after another as city fathers pondered the appropriateness of installing in a public place Frederick MacMonnies' vision of goodness victorious, which by now the whole town had nicknamed Rough Boy.

Hylan made a large point of siding with the irked critics – "I don't claim to know much about art," he said, "but I know I don't like the looks of this chap" – but in the end the Board of Estimate voted yea, given that the statue had cost $60,000 anyway, and on April 20, 1922, workers hoisted Civic Virtue into place outside City Hall. Where he remained for nearly 20 years, an eternal municipal emblem, sort of, until he got moved to Queens.

Truck sculpture spectacle

From Interactive Journalism:

Queens-based sculptor Sergio Furnari is constructing two life-sized sculptures of a 1932 photo showing 11 ironworkers taking a lunch break while building Rockefeller Center. Furnari and his team of workers are about a third of the way through the project. When the sculptures are complete, they will be displayed in a restaurant in Chicago with a 1930s motif.

These are the second and third sculptures Furnari has made of the photograph. He finished the first in 2001 shortly after 9/11. For five months in 2002, the original sculpture stood near the viewing platform by the World Trade Center site. In a week or so, the sculptures will look like the original, which now sits on top of the truck Furnari drives around Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens while picking up materials.