Famous Ankles

I was wandering past “Lever House” and saw something I didn’t expect: something fun and interesting.

I’m getting way too cynical in my old age.

I’ve done a couple of earlier posts on Lever House artwork (see here and here) and I generally find their stuff not to my taste or just insipid. This one was absolutely primed for such treatment, and then I found myself enjoying it.

Wait for it….

It’s “Hello Kitty”.

Yeah. Hello Kitty. I have never for a moment found anything interesting about Hello Kitty…until now. I’ve always thought of it as the quintessential commercial dreck aimed directly at five-year-old girls and their mothers. And I’m a guy who was watching anime from way back. (I actually lived in Japan as a teenager and used to watch some of the shows and read their comic books. And I’m sure no teenager now. Decades away, in fact.)  Bluntly put:  until this exhibit, I hated Hello Kitty.

The pieces are huge. And, despite their white color; they’re made of bronze.  Okay, I don’t know that for certain, but the collection is called “Bronze Collection”.  I didn’t touch them to confirm. The sculptor is Tom Sachs and they are on display until September 6.

The next pictures above and below have some motion to them: streams of water shooting out of their eyes. That’s anime for crying. No tears: streams of water shooting outward.

Why did I enjoy them? I really don’t know. They are certainly a relief from the supposed intellectual content of the earlier sculptures that I didn’t like. I do enjoy playfulness and although a small Hello Kitty depiction on a handbag or t-shirt is not something I get any pleasure from; a ten or twelve foot one is a delight.

Sort of like a giant walking marshmellow if you catch my drift.

-H

This entry was posted on July 2, 2008 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Events, 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.