CHICAGO, IL – Sculptor Josh Garber intended his piece to be an “homage” to hope and renewal.According to some residents and local government representatives in Chicago’s Albany Park area, what Garber created was nothing but a pair of big metal dicks.
Garber’s sculptures, a pair of 10-foot-tall aluminum lotus blossoms, is intended to be placed at the front of a new Brown Line train station on Kimball Avenue. If some Albany Park residents and aldermen get their way, though, that plan could change.
Gary Medina, an aide to local Alderman Dick Mell, said that he had received a number of calls from residents who were upset about the sculptures and wanted to know what Mell was going to do about the purportedly phallic artwork, according to reports in the Pioneer Press.
“Call me simpleminded,” said Medina. “I appreciate art, but when I see this, that’s [a penis] what I see. I certainly don’t see a flower.”
Medina added that he hoped Garber would be willing to “soften it up a little.”
According to the Pioneer Press, Garber’s design was approved by a panel of local community leaders and art experts two months ago and only became controversial after renderings of the design were emailed to community leaders.
John Friedman of the Horner Park West Association, whom Alderman Mell appointed to the panel that reviewed Garber’s design, told the Pioneer Press that the panel did not see the sculptures as even remotely penis-like.
“We never saw anything phallic in this work,” said Friedman. “It didn’t look like a phallic symbol to any of the nine committee members, who all voted in favor.”
Garber himself believes the problem stems from people viewing a two-dimensional representation of his three-dimensional work.
“The actual piece looks different from the picture, which is distorted,” Garber said.
Garber said he would be willing to increase the size of the petals in the design, petals which will also serve as benches, but he thinks that most people would change their mind if they viewed the work in three-dimensional form.
The public will have an opportunity to see Garber’s allegedly phallic flora, as a scale model will be on display at the Zola/Lieberman Gallery starting in September.
Garber also contends that the penis is in the eye of the beholder, asserting that “anyone who sees a phallus here has a very sick mind.”
