Wednesday 27 July 2011

Boy With Frog

Charles Ray's magnificent 8-ft tall sculpture Boy With Frog (2008) has moved from François Pinault's Punta della Dogana museum in Venice to the Getty Center in Los Angeles, where it will be perfectly in keeping with the museum's Renaissance masterpieces. This, the original, is made of fibre glass painted white. Ray has recently completed a second version made of stainless steel, also painted white to give the appearance of marble. Royal Academicians, eat your hearts out. This is art.

4 Comments:

At 28/7/11, Anonymous Anonymous said...

In its Venice location it apparently had a guard in the daytime - and a glass cage at night.

It has been much photographed on Flickr. Several photographers said that they had a problem finding an angle to keep it "decent". Some comments also called it "disgusting" - even when the framing of the shot was on the frog.

Prurient prudes seem to be a genetic strain in some countries.

 
At 28/7/11, Blogger Unknown said...

Yes. There are better photos on Flckr than the one I posted, but most of them give the Venice location away. And I've seen the guard and the glass cage there too. Having a human figure in the shot does show the statue's size, but I went for the "news" photo, which is actually dated 2008.

Prudes everywhere! How can such a beautiful statue celebrating human life be called "dusgusting"? Have they never seen neo-classical sculpture?

 
At 24/10/15, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This US artist has perhaps unwittingly created a masterpiece full of symbolism. The American, holding the rest of the world by it's leg. The mind of a child and a penis with a striking resemblance to that of another group often viewed as privileged.

 
At 24/10/15, Blogger Unknown said...

I agree it's a masterpiece. Read what you like into it. My take is the saying that small boys throw stones at frogs in sport, but the frogs die, not in sport, but in earnest. The unwitting cruelty of children.

 

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