Hyperallergic’s Claire Breukel:
“Dub poet Mutabaruka found it necessary to argue, in a public contribution on the subject, that the statue [Emancipation Monument], which represents a woman and a man, both nude standing in a pool of water and looking upward as a symbolic representation of the spiritual emancipation from Slavery, was ‘gay’ because the male figure did not respond sexually to the presence of the naked female figure.” explains Veerle Poupeye, Director of the National Gallery of Jamaica.
“And then too, I said to myself, why not a Stalin in heroic nudity? … Yes, but, Stalin nude, and what about his virility? … If you take the pecker of the classical sculptor … So small … But, come on, Stalin, he was a true male, a bull. So then, if you give him the phallus of a bull, and you’ve got this little Stalin behind his big thing they’ll cry: But you’ve made him into a sex maniac! A satyr! Then if you are a true realist you take your tape measure and you measure it all properly. That’s worse, you made Stalin into an ordinary man. And then, as you are ready to sacrifice yourself, you make a plaster cast of your own thing. Well, it’s even worse. What, you dare take yourself for Stalin! … After all, Stalin, he must have had an erection all the time, just like the Greek statues. … Tell me, you who knows, Socialist Realism, is that Stalin with an erection or without an erection?”
Dicks are hard.
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Yes, it is true that men who don’t immediately sprout boners when nekkit bitchez are present are gay. Or blind. Or gay and blind (blind because they masturbated too much).
And speaking of classical sculpture, gayness, dongs, and satyrs, it’s also well known that the Barberini Faun is the great-grand-leather-daddy of gay dicky sculpture. And, according to Wikipedia, it may also be the gayest/dickiest thing to have ever been lobbed at barbarians.
Firstly, having read Procopius (but not, of course, being an archaeologist or degree’d classicist), that dude was up to his neck in bullshit. I really doubt that (gay-ass) statue was thrown at anybody. Also, I need to do more research, but there’s gotta be a gayer historical projectile. Aren’t diseased cattle a gay thing?
Secondly, as you point out, the biggest problem with this emancipation statue is that it’s going to stay where it is, presumably forever. Nothing says “freedom” like people who can’t move. I would have much preferred a wooden statue, designed to stay where it was only until a hurricane of sufficient force would come along and take it to the sea.
Procopius (and Wikipedia) proffer hyperbole and apocrypha…
Plague-bovine notwithstanding, the gayest projectile is the missile. They are essentially cocks-of-steel, and the word itself cannot be uttered without lisping like a total sissy.
Torpedoes are also a form of homo-ammo (and the word has Latin roots in torpere, meaning “to be stiffâ€). They, too, are dickular and are shot from submarines (which also generally resemble stout phalli).
A more appropriate title for a stalwartly landlocked & bulky statue would be Constipation Monument (because it’s hard to move).
funny..looks like we have a closet gay on our hands
Dicks! I should have better things to do than talk about flaccid v. hard cocks, but I do have a few things to say about the iconography of sex in Roman times. Big dicks were silly and meant to ward off bad vibes, like this one of Priapus: (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_olThHR7YHPc/TPudZ8bStYI/AAAAAAAAAP4/57d_xcpWJEY/s1600/priapus.jpg)
If you’re curious, just ask John Clarke, the author of “Roman Sex” and “Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art.” (http://www.utexas.edu/finearts/about/directory/person/225)
Also, I heard that My Little Ponies are genderless. (http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/09/my-little-pony-pop-icons/) Maybe MLPs will signal a new wave of public sculpture/cartoony plop art.
And just what is wrong with an emancipated gay man, anyway? That is the real question. Or is the complainer of the aesthetics just being a bully?
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