The DU Friday afternoon challenge question returns!

[CTyankee]

Put on those thinking caps, folks.

This metal structure was the subject of bitter controversy in the 1980s. What and where was it, what was the controversy all about?

Extra credit: what happened to it?

[Sal Minella]

1. Richard Sera (or Serra? Sera, I think) -- steel arc,

was in the walkabout public outdoor space at a huge building in New York and people resented the daylights out of having to walk around it.

Sera had a fit about people dissing his art, but it was moved.

[Sal Minella]

2. Cor-ten steel, I think? Meant to weather (i.e. rust) naturally which

some people thought made it even more unsightly than the eight- or ten-foot barrier to pedestrian traffic it already was.

[Hissyspit]

11. I can assure you...

that if a sculpture depicting Superman or a cute kid holding an ice cream cone or an Eagle rescuing a baby kitten, which took the exact same amount of room and caused people to have to alter their foot traffic the exact same amount as the Serra sculpture, had been installed, no one would have demanded its removal.

[CTyankee]

20. However, this was government workers who needed their space at their breaks.

I can understand their concern. This is a problem and is perhaps the real story here. That the workers did NOT appreciate the artist's effort has to give us pause. What is the value of what workers want vs. what the artist's vision is.

Serra took this to federal court on first amendment grounds and lost and he lost on appeal.

Do we agree with him or with the court?

[Hissyspit]

24. "Needed their space at their breaks."

Look at all the space in that photo.

[Hissyspit]

3. Serra "Tilted Arc"

Too easy, this week.

[CTyankee]

5. Awww, you are right. Some real Serra fans here evidently!

[CTyankee]

7. Moved?

[Hissyspit]

9. Into storage in New Jersey?

And then turned into scrap metal?

[Hissyspit]

10. "The Matter Of Time," a more recent work:

[CTyankee]

18. I saw that in person and it was one of my challenge questions just a few weeks ago.

I had no idea that Serra had such a following here. Quite a discovery.

A matter of time was a revelation to me. I walked through the entire thing and was a little dizzy from it but glad I did it. I'm not saying I had a "revelation" as a result of it, but I did find it very interesting and tantalizing. I "got" what he was trying to do...

[ClassWarrior]

12. Are you asking or are you saying?

NGU.

[Hissyspit]

13. That's what I seem to remember. But I may be completely wrong.

[ClassWarrior]

14. Well, CT offered that as a bonus question, so I'd hope there's an answer.

:hi:

NGU.

[CTyankee]

19. Ya know, some sources say it was hauled away as "scrap metal" and

another says it was put into storage for future "whatever." I really don't know. It is a quandary.

It's kinds too bad...the "people's art" that the people are so dead set against.

What do we make of that?

[Sal Minella]

21. Think it was Ben Gurion who said, "Anybody is Jewish who says he is."

Art is art because the viewer perceives it so, imho.

Serra might think it would be "art" to splatter the front of my house with hurled chicken eggs, but I would not perceive this as art.

A barrier that impedes one's path on one's lunch hour every day would come under the heading of "annoyance" rather than "art," in my book -- even if it were made out of Faberge eggs or stacked Henry Moore sculptures.

The Winged Victory of Samothrace is a marvelous sculpture, but I don't want it standing in my shower 24/7.

[CTyankee]

22. It is an interesting question. Does the artist have a First Amendment right that

supersedes the First Amendment rights of the people viewing/experiencing the art?

I don't know. The judge made his decision. Was it right?

[Sal Minella]

25. I'm not sure First Amendment Rights even enters into the fray, here.

More like "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose starts."

The people on lunch break aren't "experiencing art" at all -- they're experiencing a barricade.

I saw an aerial photo of this "sculpture" in situ, and it is/was monstrously huge and forbidding.

[CTyankee]

17. I think there is a dispute as to what happened to this thing.

It was chopped up into pieces in the middle of the night and some say hauled off to the dump and others say it was put into some sort of storage. I don't know who was right...

[CTyankee]

23. Right. In a nutshell. How did you know about this?

[Sal Minella]

26. I remember reading about it in a newsmagazine, Time or Newsweek

maybe, at the time of the controversy.

[Common Sense Party]

4. Is that Tilted Arc, in Federal Plaza, NYC?

Taken apart in 1989...

[CTyankee]

6. All ya'lls are right...you guys are great!

[elleng]

8. OK, here are some treats!

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/07/19/travel/20100725FLORENCE.html

[CTyankee]

27. Saw it this morning! Emailed travel buddy a google site on the Gozzoli

fresco. I knew the work but had no idea it had been so gorgeously restored! It's quite something, isn't it?

[kimmerspixelated]

15. Pshaw! Easy! It's the top of the Monolith from 2001!

And My God....It's full of stars.....when you throw a black light on it!

[mdmc]

16. kick

r