Latest entrant in the Ugly Public Art universe.

Oh and this.

Only white men should make art about other white men. It's triggering to depictions of women and minorities (unless they are completely naked).

Oh, dear... Jaume Plensa's sculpture doesn't bear any relation to its surroundings, which is something that public sculpture should ALWAYS do. It reminds me of the sort of things that Lorenzo Quinn creates and, in another context, I would find it rather charming. At least it is realistic and it requires knowledge of perspective, proportion and possibly, actual sculpting technique.

That thing that looks like The Blob covered in acrylic scales @R1, is utterly vile. The outside is hideous and tacky, while the inside looks like something out of a Disney World attraction for the Little Mermaid... The pink clam shells are particularly horrid. This Pamela "sculptor" is a joke. Look at the incredibly tacky fountain she has created in the link below. It looks like something out of a cheap 1960s roadside hotel and casino.

[quote] Jaume Plensa's sculpture doesn't bear any relation to its surroundings, which is something that public sculpture should ALWAYS do

Gotta agree with you here.

I love his work and the piece he had in Madison Square Park about 12 years ago was great. This...not so much...

Is this thing made of chalk or asbestos?

It will show the mildew and dribble-stains.

It looks a quarter-way creepy as this odd, pale thing.

It’s better than the most prominent public art in Jersey City.

R3 Lorenzo Quinn veers more towards kitsch.

R3 The entire thrust of the article about where the sculpture is set and its surroundings. Reading is fundamental.

They didn't have the balls to just make a full-on Zardoz head.

If he really wanted to troll NYC, he should have sculpted a huge one of these so that New Yorkers could see it daily and be ashamed of what they spawned.

....

It reminds me of David Adickes' statues.

I think it’s pretty. I wonder how that ages. I didn’t look closely enough to see if it does engage with the context but I don’t necessarily agree that public art has to engage with the immediate context. It’s not a piece of architecture. Public art sometimes is about meaning, and that meaning might not be present at the site already, and if the artist isn’t interested in form as a driver then it’s tricky to make it relate to the site. Anyway as I said, I think it’s pretty, but as always with this stuff subjectivity is the shifting sands of its success.

[quote] the shifting sands

You adore it now but will abhor it later.

What an idiotic piece of art.

And after googling this artist, he has done this sculpture before. So he's recycling his previous work while collecting grant money.

Most so-called artists are shysters. But they shouldn't be using our money to feed their vanity!

R16 it’s called ‘recontextualizing’ lol. Idk i think of it like a comedian repeating jokes, you can’t expect them to rewrite their act for every performance. And he obviously thinks this one is great or he wouldn’t repeat it? But that’s the positive spin I suppose.

R18 It's not the same as comedians. And who cares if he likes it? He was paid (commissioned) to do something for the community, not himself.

This guy re-used his previous generic work, applied it to Jersey City, and then BS about the meaning of the sculpture saying it's an homage to the water. His previous sculpture had no water.