Dear Otus,
My family and I drove to Bentonville last Saturday to see the famed Swedish/American artist Tomte Nisse's giant gnome sculpture Nakna Tradgardstomte that's on permanent loan from the Edward James Foundation.
We had been told the sculpture is especially breathtaking at dawn, so we started our trip at 4 a.m.
Imagine our disappointment when we arrived to discover the piece guarded and entirely covered with silver Mylar. There was a sign that said it was "Closed for Review." The kids cried all the way back home. The guard was clueless. Can you tell me what's going on?
-- Sally Anne Franks,
Van Buren
Dear Sally Anne,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you. My mail concerning gnomes always increases around St. Patrick's Day for some reason. I believe folks confuse them with leprechauns.
As we all know, leprechauns are not real, although gnomes are.
I feel your pain, Sally Anne, as do a number of other Arkansans who made the trek to Bentonville only to find the famous 24-foot-tall sculpture under wraps at Lawrence Plaza across Blake Street from the 21c Museum Hotel.
Knowing I'm a longtime patron of the arts, several dozen disgruntled art lovers have sent me email to protest the censorship.
Evidently the only prior notification that the sculpture had been temporarily covered appeared on the official City of Bentonville website, bentonvillear.com, under the Parks & Recreation link. Lots of folks missed that.
According to the posting, the Bentonville City Council had initially been delighted to display the sculpture at Lawrence Plaza at the request of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
The internationally renowned piece (valued at $168.7 million) sits in the center of the plaza's ice rink (which closed for the season Jan. 19) and was to be the plaza centerpiece until the splash park opens May 31. The plan was to then move the 2.5-ton piece to Dave Peel Park on East Central Avenue near the city square.
The sculpture was to be in town until the Crystal Bridges Alice Louise Walton BioSphere and Herb Garden is completed next to the Frank Lloyd Wright Bachman Wilson House that's being reassembled on the site.
The herb garden will be the only area on the museum grounds suitable for a piece of this size and theme.
Nisse's towering sculpture, fashioned of Plexiglas, chrome, resin, recycled plastic bags and gliadin, was awarded the coveted Georgia O'Keeffe Distinguished Corpo Provocante Award in 2002.
As with most good art, Nakna Tradgardstomte is open to interpretation. For some, it's just a big lumpy flower vase not unlike what you could buy at Pier 1. But for most, the sculpture resembles a giant nude abstract garden gnome holding a jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum). The flower is also known as the bog onion, brown dragon, Indian turnip, wake robin, snog hopper and devil's harmonica.
For several on the city council, however, the sculpture is nothing less than a vulgar display of crude and graphic botanical smut of the basest sort, combined with tawdry garden kitsch.
"I've never seen such a pornographic spadix or provocative corm in public art," said one council member, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The inflorescences and spathe are particularly lewd."
Contacted in Somerville, Mass., world-renowned architect Moshe Safdie, designer of Crystal Bridges, disagreed.
"Nisse's Nakna Tradgardstomte will be a spectacular addition to Crystal Bridges once it's moved to its permanent site," Safdie said. "The sculpture, part of Nisse's celebrated lobsters and telephones period and an homage to Dali, represents the height of neo-Dada postmodern surrealistic expressionism.
"Those who see only gauche nudity obviously will be happier with gardens containing only gazing globes, solar-powered dragonflies, whirligig windsocks, fake deer and lawn sprinklers shaped like spitting turtles."
Protesters from both sides of the issue -- aging, free-spirited, hemp-wearing, vegan, libertarian hippies, and hidebound, Bible-thumping, conservative, fundamentalist, Rush Limbaugh dittoheads -- squared off at Lawrence Plaza on Monday. Epithets were hurled. It got ugly.
Mayor Bob McCaslin has called for an emergency April 1 ad hoc city council meeting to resolve the issue.
Meanwhile, you can decide for yourself. For a nominal fee, visitors (over the age of 17) will be allowed to walk under the covering for a peek.
Until next time, Kalaka warns you that the gnome is anatomically correct.
Disclaimer
Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
HomeStyle on 03/14/2015