A couple of weeks back, the Bostonist made an off-hand remark about the dreadfulness of the Irish Potato Famine Monument located in front of the Washington St. Borders. I have to second that indeed, it’s the worst public sculpture in Boston. It puzzles me why tourists crowd around to take pictures of such an ugly thing. Has anyone else noticed that the Hunger and Prosperity look an awful lot like a GDR parable of Capitalism and Socialism?
This encapsulates the worst in public sculpture… the turn to bronze as quick signifier of gravity, the overly edifying tone, the rendering more fit for socialist realism than for living, breathing art. It made me wonder what works and what doesn’t in edifying public monuments, memorials and scultures. Let’s start with the worst.
Wentworth cougar. Nothing says you want to be taken seriously as a higher-ed institution than a cheesy bronze mascot at the entrance to your campus.
“Thermopylae” at the JFK Federal Building. It’s based on Profiles in Courage and boasts organic form. But it’s modernism gone wrong, with abstraction justifying formlessness. Like an elephant-dung Miro tossed into a blender.
Tortoise and Hare. I should appreciate giving something for the kids, but this just seems a cheesy rip off of Make Way for Ducklings.
That Ted Williams-Jimmy Fund memorial. The hyperrendering just comes across as creepy.
But I’m not all curmudgeon. Here are some ones I really think work well (in no particular order):
The Shaw memorial. Sure, I like the political symbolism of having this pro-abolitionist Civil War monument catacorner from the gold-domed Statehouse. But there’s something more. This bas-relief changes character and mood depending on time of day or night. So many of the 19th-century sculptures — even those in the Common — are forgettable. This one is iconic.
The Hungary monument. Tucked into a hidden downtown intersection near Broad Street and the Exchange, I find something powerful about the juxtaposition between its expressive, expressionistic metallurgy and its quiet setting.
The lollipop sculpture, now moved to Roxbury. This used to be on display on Summer Street, near Arch St. The high, even rococo modernism harkens back to the New Boston and a weird compromised utopianism that produced aesthetic travesty (Govt. Center) and aesthetic achievement (Prudential bldg). I put this in the latter category. It always brightened my walks around the Financial District and I miss it.
BU’s MLK monument. Probably a sculptural clichÃ(c), but I like the use of negative space.
Any that I’m missing out on?
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