European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 23, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Richard Serra t Gigantic cup Flor of rutting Tttus lout the Twain it Marta of with Graffito that roads get rid of this St. a photo Hanks of rank or is it Art by Hugh a. Mulligan associated press he philistines Are coming and this Lime they May be winning. A role reversal in he biblical script now casts the Little Guy As their Champion loading up his Slingshot to keep from being dumped on by the Goliath a of he Art world. In several cities aroused and outraged citizens Are intent on giving the bums Rush to slabs of rusting steel Oul sized Concrete cubes and accretions of twisted pipe Neon tubing and Bent Railroad track paid for by taxpayers Money Atler beatification by the custodians of Public culture As masterpieces of minimalist environmental or Post modern Art the old Mem roaring lion Over the legend ars Gratia Arlis Art Lor Art s Sake comes across these Days As a carnivore Lei Loose in the coliseum with an appetite for sculptors who be strew the landscape with unpopular pieces of Public Art. Minimalist sculptor Richard Serra is suing the . General services admins ration for $30 million for damage to his career alter a panel bowed to Public protest and ordered the removal of his 120-foot-Long, 12 fool High 78-ton tilled arc trom Manhattan s Foley Square. His massive creation has been Spray painted with obscenities mistaken for an outdoor privy renamed the Berlin Wall and denounced As an eyesore a hideout for muggers and a hospice for bag ladies. Some 1,300 office workers in the Jacob k. Jails Federal building signed a petition to get rid of it. In St. Louis Alderman Timothy Dae is pushing for a binding referendum to remove Twain another Gigantic Serra sculpture of rusting slabs of steel taking up almost an entire Block on the High ground above Eero Saarinen s soaring Gateway Arch Art lovers say the eight panels of sleep Sel in the ground to form an irregular polygon Are the cutting Edge of the Public has overwhelmingly decided in newspaper and television polls that Twain week or be grand Bissoir As it is also known to scoffers should be Cut up and carted away to the junk pile. Serra a major sculptor whose massive creations occupy Parks and squares in Paris Toronto the Netherlands Pittsburgh and West Germany contends that removing his works would be immoral a desecration of Art and censorship in his lawsuit filed in . District court in Manhattan he argues that tilted arc is site specific which in Art vernacular Means the piece was created or this particular Plaza and to move it anywhere else would destroy it. In other words get out of my space. The dark red oxidizing piece of car ten steel was thrust across the Federal Plaza at a Cost of $181,000 a part of the Art in Archit Clura program which allocates one half of 1 percent of the estimated Chat of All Federal building for Fine arts to enhance the environment and improve the Quality of Many who look at it every Day say it s a hunk of junk that does neither. Art critic Michael Branson who praises the Savage elegance of Serra s unadorned slab of curving steel argues that removing it would badly Compromise the Federal Art program and unmistakably condone the kind of stubbornly uninformed Public opinion that should never be encouraged by any serious cultural at first some of the uninformed occupants of the javits Complex thought Serra s sculpture was a huge beam left behind by the construction Crews. When it Ofreci it was put there Lor Art s Sake and maybe forever they became even More stubborn. They found the piece hostile threatening bullying and pronounced it Penny a Pound scrap Iron that blocks entrances and Walls off the Plaza from use for noontime Rock and jazz concerts. The Ait is depressing and overbearing testified judge Gregory Carman of the court of International Page 11 the stars and stripes Trade during the Throe Days of hearing Ihal whipped up the Cream of now York s Art world against the proletarian protesters. Ii invites Gra Lili. Transients have actually been seen urinating on it. Some people avoid the Plaza because they think it is subway a committee chosen by the National endowment for the arts to find an alternative site that will nol impair the integrity of the work has yet to hold its first meeting preferring to await the outcome of Sena s suit. Minimalist my stirs up the Public mostly because there does t seem to be anything minimal about these Mammoth creations. Controversies have raged Over Claes Oldenburg s 100-foot High steel baseball Bat in Chicago his Clothespin in Philadelphia is Crusoe umbrella in Des Monas Iowa Robert Murray s Nimbus in Juneau Alaska and Christo javacheff festoon ing 11 islands in Miami s Biscayne Bay with 6 million Square feet of Pink plastic and Gilt wrapping the Pont Naur in Paris and he Reich Stag in Berlin. Last october Iho Good burghers of Allentown pa., awoke to find their Parks and intersections decorated some say littered with nine More abstract sculptures the gift of Hometown philanthropist Philip Barman who made his Fortune in trucking and retailing. The cily of 104,000 in the peaceful Lehigh Valley had soil of grown accustomed id Berman s couple of dozen previous benefactions like Paul Sisko s big red cube with the Bolt through it in Cedar Park known locally As the screw in the Park and theseus by israeli artist Yigael Tumarkin a Large White figure on what seems like Railroad tracks and which May or May nol be a woman pushing or pulling a plow. Berman s latest Batch was too much for Holly Gabovitz who thought the citizens should be consulted before modern Art was forced Down their she collected 900 signatures petitioning their removal to a less conspicuous site perhaps a sculpture Garden where those who wan to see them can they can sell it destroy it. Do whatever they want. It s theirs was donor Berman s reaction but he hoped in time people might even coma to understand Ami Jove sunday. M
