Monolith is gone but not forgotten
 |
|
||||||||||
The Seattle monolith departed yesterday as mysteriously as it arrived.
Gone from public view to local lore, sure to become another "remember when" question for years to come.
Remember when someone attached a 700-pound steel ball and shackles on the Hammering Man in 1993? Remember when someone left an 1,800-pound metal heart in Westlake Park in 1996?
Remember when a dark-gray, 9-foot-tall rectangular steel structure appeared at Magnuson Park on New Year's Eve? The one that brought back memories of the dark, shrieking monolith in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey"?
"It seems to be kind of a tradition here," said Barbara Goldstein, who manages the Seattle Arts Commission's public-art program.
Make no mistake, the mysterious monolith isn't among commission-approved artwork that appears throughout the city, such as the towering Hammering Man at the Seattle Art Museum, the bronze dance steps laid along the sidewalk in Capitol Hill, or numerous paintings on the walls inside public buildings.
But Goldstein said it appeared to fulfill the purpose of public art, which is to bring people together and stimulate discussion.
"I don't think there's anything wrong with it," Goldstein said. "As long as it's temporary, as long as the parks department was comfortable and as long as the people who created it remove it."
Goldstein, however, considers such anonymous work more social commentary than art, something similar to postering, where social or political messages are rarely signed.
"Usually, artists want their work to be recognized," she said. "This seems to be more satirical commentary on the fact we've reached the year 2001."
Goldstein also said it's important to distinguish the monolith from other renegade public art statements as the ball and shackles on the Hammering Man.
"When you make an alteration to something you didn't create, without permission, it's kind of intruding on someone's intellectual property," she said.
A main issue with temporary art is whether it's going to fall over and hurt somebody, Goldstein said.
That was also a concern of city parks officials, who were just getting ready to inspect the sculpture yesterday morning, only to discover it was gone. Only a rectangular hole with concrete inside, a few candles and a broken-stemmed rose remained.
"We were looking forward to having the sculpture around for a while," said C. David Hughbanks, executive director of Sand Point Magnuson Park.