Too Hot For City Hall

April 28, 2009 10:13 AM

I'm looking for examples of public art exhibitions in New York City that were covered, removed, or otherwise vanished, due to critical response or other factors. (For example, Eric Fischl's Tumbling Woman.)

I'm interested in examples of pieces that were beloved by the public but deemed unsuitable by corporate or municipal entities, as well as those that were reviled by the public and/or art community. Bonus points if you can point me toward where a piece is now. I welcome anything that was deemed a nuisance, a hazard, an obscenity, or just plain unsightly.

posted by hermitosis to media & arts (9 comments total)

Richard Serra's Tilted Arc
posted by JulianDay at 10:29 AM on April 28, 2009

That's a perfect example of what I'm looking for, JulianDay. I hope there are more!
posted by hermitosis at 10:31 AM on April 28, 2009

Tilted Arc is the first one that comes to mind; there was a huge brouhaha over it back in the 80s. I saw it in situ, I liked it, although I could see how walking around it every day could get annoying.
posted by mygothlaundry at 10:31 AM on April 28, 2009

Yup, "Tilted Arc" is definitely the most famous case of this.

My favorite example is the story of "Civic Virtue," a statue installed in front of City Hall in 1922. It was an allegory of the triumph over Vice--Virtue was a big naked guy with a club, trampling on a couple of women. Pretty much everyone thought it was awful and offensive. Finally, in 1941, Fiorello La Guardia got sick of looking at thing, and exiled it to Queens, where it still stands, hated and neglected. Evidence of its tenure in Manhattan survives in an obscure line in the Rogers and Hart song "Manhattan": "But Civic Virtue can not destroy/ The dreams of a girl and boy..."
posted by neroli at 10:37 AM on April 28, 2009

See "Man at the Crossroads" by Diego Rivera.

In 1932, Nelson Rockefeller persuaded Diego Rivera to take a commission to paint a huge mural in Rockefeller Center. Rivera painted a mural that celebrated American industry and labor and he included a scene of a May Day march led by Lenin.

Rockefeller objected to the inclusion of Lenin and told Rivera to remove it. Rivera refused. Rockefeller paid Rivera the commission and had workers destroy the mural with pickaxes.
posted by marsha56 at 10:48 AM on April 28, 2009

Also, Dennis Oppenhiem's Device to Root Out Evil in Vancouver
posted by JulianDay at 11:36 AM on April 28, 2009

Sorry to post something that didn't happen in NY, but it happened quite recently and seems too relevant not to mention: Peter Fuss's Achtung! was destroyed in less than half an hour.
posted by dizziest at 3:05 PM on April 28, 2009

Jose Orozco's frescoes at the New School for Social Research (link, link).
posted by gum at 3:48 PM on April 28, 2009

How about "The Holy Virgin Mary" during the Sensation exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art? To me this was a very memorable event. The artwork itself was not removed, but the city tried to withdraw funding from the museum.
posted by DavidNYC at 4:00 PM on April 28, 2009