Famous Ankles

Lever House is one of NYC’s historic skyscraper buildings.  It was built in 1952 by the Lever brothers, of soap-making fame.  It’s called the first of the “International Style” of buildings.

It’s green color makes it distinctive, along with the uniformity of its window shades.

There’s an art space in an open area within the grounds.  At present, there’s a weird statue called “The Virgin Mother” by Damien Hirst.  I guess he has all sorts of “art” reasons why it is great, but I must confess that I found it..unmoving.

Yep, it’s a nude woman; but more than just nude.  The artist want’s to show us what’s underneath, so he has it with cut-away flesh to show the baby within and the muscle below.

And strips away the face, at least in part.

My guess is that the artist is trying to be provocative by citing the virgin Mary and having her nude and beyond.  And it is…well, the only thing I’ll say is to quote from a song from the movie “Popeye” where Olive Oyl is trying to say something good about Brutus and simply comes up with “and he’s large”.  Yes, it’s a large sculpture.  Mr. Hirst can be proud of that.  Yep, it’s large.

 Although I’m not fond of a lot of art, my distaste towards this arises from the abomination around town called the Bodies Exhibit that I can’t stand.  Oh, and if you thought you were to think the sculpture is “educational” in any way, note that the flap of skin on the thigh.  That shows that this is supposed to be more an evisceration than an X-ray view beneath the skin.

-H

This entry was posted on March 6, 2008 at 7:34 pm and is filed under Manhattan, Mid-town, Wanderings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.