Friday, March 07, 2008

New Public Art

Photo by Cyrus McCrimmon, Denver Post
The latest piece of public art at Denver's airport, installed about a month ago, is a 32-foot, bright-blue mustang rearing up on its hind legs above the rolling plains. You can see it from quite far away; its eyes are a glowing red.

This definitely sends a message. I am not sure what the message is... The flashing red eyes are a bit creepy, especially at night. The public response has been strong, and much of it critical.

I was not able to get close enough to take a photo but here's one from the web from when the work was being installed.

Well, it turns out there's quite a story behind "Mustang," the most interesting part of which is that the statue is guilty of manslaughter. (Patricide?) A large piece of it fell on the artist when he was working on it and killed him. (Read more.)

Here's a closeup. The artist, by the way, was a well-known New Mexican sculptor named Luis Jimenez.

Photo from www.westword.com.

7 comments:

paulmerrill said...

Sad story about the death of the artist!!

Anonymous said...

That's disturbing!

Courtney O. said...

we were just out at the airport and you're right, the eyes are creepy!!!!!!

Marti said...

yeah, I thought so - I was going to write about that. Then when I read about the statue's history, the eyes seemed sort of apropos. It is an impressive piece, though... a pity that the guy died making it.

It's easy to be critical of these things... does anyone have a =favorite= work of public art?

Barb said...

the eiffel tower - never been there but it's iconic, beautiful.

Marti said...

Someday, Paris. I've never been there either. Meanwhile, read 'Paris to the Moon,' by Adam Gopnik (?). It's brilliant, a collection of essays about an American family living in that great city. Loved the book.

Marti said...

My sister used to live in a part of Seattle that had a great many public art installations, most of them very popular. The giant stone troll under the bridge... the statue of people waiting for a bus, which was dressed up for special occasions... and Meg lived near the Lenin statue (purchased from some former-Soviet city that no longer needed it).