Smool, Angry At Cancellation, To Show Sculpture

Friday at 3 p.m., artist Carl Smool - the man behind Seattle Center's piece "At the Crossroads" - will host what is essentially a protest viewing of the work whose ritual burning would have kicked off Seattle Center's civic millennium party.

It's being held, Smool emphasizes, to honor the efforts and intentions of all those who spent 18 months and $120,000 to create the 17-sculpture piece.

But that doesn't mean the curly-haired artist is happy about the cancellation. In fact, he's already consulted an attorney, Bob Kaplan. Smool believes the cancellation was a form of censorship.

Last Tuesday night, Smool says he was told that "the City Council felt presentation of my piece would be inappropriate, due to perceived threats from terrorists." The piece was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. on New Year's Eve. Initially, the artist says he was resigned because of public-safety concerns. But when, he claims, he was asked to announce that the decision was a personal one, the artist became suspicious that safety was not the actual issue.

Already, he knew, there had been criticism of the themes chosen for his work.

"At the Crossroads" is based on a traditional celebration held in Valencia, Spain. Every March 19 the city honors St. Joseph (patron of both carpenters and Valencia) with a city-wide street party known as the fire festival.

Begun in medieval times with "cleansing" burnings of wood from the carpenters' guilds, it has subsequently grown into a huge tourist draw. The festival Smool attended for his research involves more than 600 specially created wood statues. It is, he says, "a huge, delightful, yet very civilized party."

Clearly Smool found it inspiring. Especially in light of the WTO week, he adds, his project aimed to emphasize a similar civic unity. "It centers on a giant egg, a shared vessel for hopes and dreams. That is surrounded by a bestiary of small wooden animals."

They are flanked on four sides by the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, something which, many say, caused the first disquiet. One local curator points out they pre-dated worries about terrorists. "There have definitely been a few murmurs about Carl's Horsemen. But I think the cancellation is more a mixture: part legitimate concerns about some kind of incident, part pure censorship and part the council's skittishness after the WTO debacle."

Smool rejects the thesis that cancellation is due to his Horsemen. "Those are metaphors from a millennium ago. On the cusp of a new century, I wanted to highlight more than that. My piece reflects challenges and questions that we have to grasp now: economic decisions and decisions about social justice. I think its cancellation has everything to do with WTO."

"People in Seattle," he adds, "are tired of being lied to. WTO created an incredible distrust of our local government - mostly because we weren't told the truth. I think that canceling the piece is a similar, critical mistake."

Seattle Center sources were in meetings both Monday afternoon and this morning. An office spokesman said they were declining to comment, but emphasized along with Smool that they would co-host Friday's afternoon reception.

"At the Crossroads" is currently on display at Seattle Center's Flag Pavilion. Its creator's Web site is www.smoolstudios.com