Art?

While I'm on the subject of art, allow me to let you in on a little controversy brewing right here in Des Moines.

Apparently some artists have painted a nekkid babe on the side of a building downtown:

Downtown nude

A painting of a nude woman on the side of a downtown Des Moines building has raised eyebrows, elicited smirks and forced city inspectors to determine whether it's art or graffiti.

If it's deemed art, it might need a permit. If it's graffiti, it must be removed.

When we first moved to this area, we lived near Merle Hay Mall. There was a gigantic bronze sculpture inside the mall... it was a giant demon-looking fellow riding a tricycle in the nude. It was offensive to me and I never understood the artistic value of the monstrosity. I wish I'd had a digital camera back then and had gotten a photo of it; I can't even find one on the web anywhere. At any rate, it disappeared a few years ago. If anyone knows anything about the current whereabouts of the sculpture, please e-mail me at gradualdazzle-at-gmail-dot-com.

There are tasteful ways to depict people, but that naked-man-tricycle thing was so enormous and his nether regions were right at eye-level so you couldn't miss them.

I'm not a prude, and I think the human form is a valid subject for an artist to depict. I do, however, think that tastefulness counts. The bronze sculpture in the courtyard of Methodist Hospital is quite lovely (although it does offend some of my friends, I think it's beautiful); it's several female figures dancing or celebrating something, and it's stylized somewhat.

The giant sculpture in the traffic circle in Nashville of the frolicking nekkid people is also quite lovely, although pretty outrageous too... but it's not being a snickering ten-year-old boy about it. The mall sculpture was. The artist could've put a flashing red light bulb on the end of the man's wing-wang and it wouldn't have been any more in-your-face than it already was. Puh-lease!!!