Some Say 10-Foot-Tall Lotus Blossom Sculpture Is Too Phallus-Like

[matcom]

<snip>

When is a lotus blossom really a phallus?

The question is on the minds of some Albany Park residents after seeing a rendering of the sculptures that will grace the front of the new Kimball Avenue Brown line station.

Ravenswood sculptor Josh Garber designed two 10-foot-tall aluminum lotus blossoms -- a Cambodian-inspired homage to "hope" and "renewal." The design was approved by a panel of local art experts and community leaders two months ago, but it became a controversy only after renderings were e-mailed to community leaders.

'I don't see a flower'

Gary Medina, an aide to Ald. Dick Mell (33rd), says he has been fielding a number of calls from angry residents wanting to know what his boss is going to do about it.

"Call me simpleminded. I appreciate art," Medina said. "But when I see this, that's what I see . I certainly don't see a flower."

Medina said he hopes Garber can be persuaded to "soften it up a little."

Mell promises to fight it, blaming "those people from space" who served on the selection panel for letting something like that get past them. "There's been a lot of concern about the pornographic nature of this thing," he said.

'Sick mind'

But John Friedman of the Horner Park West Association, the community representative Mell appointed to the panel, said, "We never saw anything phallic in this work. It didn't look like a phallic symbol to any of the nine committee members, who all voted in favor" of Garber's work.

Garber wishes everyone had taken a look at the three-dimensional model before rushing to judgement.

"The actual piece looks different from the picture, which is distorted," he said. "Anyone who sees a phallus here has a very sick mind."

Still, he's willing to tweak his work to enlarge the petals, which are also benches. But he also thinks a lot of people would feel differently if they saw the scale model of the work, which will be on display Sept. 8-Oct. 14 at Zola/Lieberman Gallery, 325 W. Huron.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-lotus02.htm...

[Squeech]

1. Heh. Indeed.

There's a similar story from the Brazilian city Recife. There's a way cool sculptor who lives there named Francisco Brennand, who was commissioned to come up with a monument for some city celebration (might have been the 500th anniversary of Portuguese settlement in Recife-- the city's that old). The design he came up with was basically a Roger Dean-style obelisk, sort of organically rounded and weirdly high tech at the same time, and plausibly phallic in its general outline. The mayor's wife started a whispering campaign to have it banned. One newspaper ran an editorial that dissed the wife as both a boor for her aesthetics and undemocratic for her tactics. The mayor stormed into the news office and threatened the editors. And that by itself ended the controversy: it was universally considered that the mayor had totally invalidated his wife's argument through his heavy-handedness. The monument was duly, um, erected, and stands to this day.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. Is this it?

[Squeech]

3. Yup

Cute and cuddly, isn't it? Just the sort of thing a mayor's wife might have an unhealthy obsession with

If it were me, I'd worry about those piercings just behind the glans.

[LeftyMom]

4. It's Ribbed for Her Pleasure! (TM)

[TrogL]

5. Those little gargoyles have gotta hurt

or whatever those things that stick out are.

[mwooldri]

6. Well a friend of mine once said.

"Phallic symbols sell records".

Maybe someone needs to take a picture of the finished structure and place it on the front of a CD cover. Maybe that will increase their record symbols? Especially if it is a classical album.

Mark.

[Deja Q]

7. What, no pictures?

[kay1864]

8. Found a pic...

[LeftyMom]

9. That only looks phallic if a meatotomy is involved

NSFW: http://wiki.bmezine.com/index.php/Meatotomy

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

13. I figured I would be the only person to think about a meatotomy.

Guess I was wrong...

[Lady President]

10. Looks like disco boots

Thank you for finding a picture. I usually love large sculptures, but this looks like four disco boots. I know it's been awhile for me, but that doesn't look like any phallic that I've ever met.

[Ecumenist]

15. Brava, Madame President!!

I ain't never seen anything that looked remotely like that...EVAH!! They look like shoes..

[NMMNG]

12. I can't say it looks much like a lotus to me, but it certainly looks

nothing like a phallus. I swear some people could see sex organs in a piece of blank paper.

[Ecumenist]

14. Looks like golf clubs...

Or the tragically badly designed platform shoe ware of 70's cartoon characters..
I don't get it. I get to see dh's member daily, noonly and nightly and it doesn't look anything like that.. I'll have you know. Good grief, no wonder Bob and his eternally annoying commercial about "natural male enhancement" seems to be constantly replaying. If that's what most yayas look like in that area, then I'm not surprised.

[NashVegas]

11. Hey, London Has the Gherkin

It's very cosmo, now, to have a phallus-shaped building.

[SoCalDem]

16. and the poll says... No...76%

http://www.wbbm780.com/pages/63942.php?&poll5654ViewRes...

WBBM rfadio poll


Do you think the 'Lotus' sculpture design looks like a giant penis?

Definitely.
8%
Maybe a little.
16%
No.
76%

[xchrom]

17. ok -- this guy thinks about dick too much.

personally -- i wouldn't have thought that possible -- guess i was wrong.

[gkdmaths]

18. There's a little town in central Washington

called Soap Lake that is saving its money for a 50-foot-tall lava lamp.

http://www.giantlavalamp.com /

No lotus in the world can beat that for phallic!