A $600,000 frog sculpture that lights up, gurgles “sounds of nature” and carries a 10-foot fairy girl on its back could soon be greeting Defense Department employees who plan to start working at the $700 million Mark Center in Alexandria, Va. this fall. That is unless a new controversy over the price tag of the public art doesn’t torpedo the idea. [...]
Buch says he’s not opposed to art, just high-priced works that won’t be seen by many. He estimates that only 2,500 will see the artwork every day as they use the bus transfer station at the Mark Center. “Who the heck is going to see it,” he asked. “To spend six hundred grand to amuse the same people every day is nuts.”
Please click through to see a photo of this dumb thing. Obviously this is an artist playing a trick on the Pentagon, because who would put actual effort into making art for the death department? Still, this has to be the least amount of money those people have spent on anything. [US News]
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It's a great design for the Iraq WMD memorial. And if today wasn't April 1st…
I always thought the Iraq WMD memorial should be Bush and Barney the Dog playing fetch with a WMD.
Technically, there can be no Iraq WMD "memorial" since they never existed in the first place. A memorial to the soldiers and Iraqis who died so George W Bush could resolve his Oedipal issues would be more appropriate. How about two penises .. one labelled 41, and a bigger one labelled 43. The '43 is ejaculating skulls.
If it wasn't April 1st, I'd say "You can buy cruise missile for $600K! Think of all the brown people we could have killed with the money we spent on that thing!"
Also, too, you know you're going to read some godawful news stories today – even worse than this – that turn out to be true.
It's beautiful! It's like a 3-D Blingee!
*Wipes tears from eyes*
A $600,000 frog sculpture that lights up, gurgles “sounds of nature” and carries a 10-foot fairy girl on its back
Wow, that's as ugly as shit. At least it matches the rest of the building, though.
“To spend six hundred grand to amuse the same people every day is nuts.”
That didn't stop anyone in the Bush Administration.
I'm a big supporter of art, but fuck this.
If anything, DoD workers should be shuffled past giant murals depicting the Abu Gharib torture photos and and a huge version of Guernica.
10 foot high hooded Iraqi prisoner on a box, with arms outspread in abject terror. Could also see a cool interactive Lynndie England piece where anybody can hold the dog leash.
U 1 me!!!
Get some of these up in that piece: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Golub
Something tells me the subtley (of either of your suggestions)would be lost on most of the workers.
What, huger than the actual Guernica?
Yeah. I mean, look at us. It obviously wasn't big enough the first time.
I was thinking of Goya; http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ta...
Maybe Maine pig Governor can pony up that labor art he ate. Other than the LABOR department, why not DOD?
This sculpture belongs in the Denver airport.
Nah, not enough dead children and stormtroopers.
Or horse anus, for that matter.
Or give the toad red, demonic eyes and have the fairy wear a Masonic Lodge apron.
So, I had often heard how horrible the Denver airport was for people to experience, and figured, what could be so bad about it. So I google it and think, "Now the the outside looks okay." Then I see these murals: holy shit. I honestly believe these were influenced by someones peyote trip. Damn…
Why is the Pentagon using a sculpture that looks like it was designed to entertain six-year-old girls? Instead they should do something accurate, like a sculpture of a pile of mangled corpses of six-year-old Iraqi girls.
I am totally opposed to this but only on aesthetic grounds. It looks like a lawn ornament gone awry. What, didn't want to cough up $1.3 million for a plywood fat-lady-bending-over?
Why, I'd make them an inverted tire planter with a crenellated rim for 300K.
Heck I'd even throw in some flowers.
Aw, hell, they just need to plant one of those $400,000 toilets on the lawn and stuff in about $20 of flowers from Home Depot — a savings of $199.980!
You've obviously driven past my neighbor's house.
It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the pentagon has to hold a bake sale to buy a bronze statue of a winged fairy riding a toad.
Wait until Palin is POTUS and she gets the velvet painting of the virgin mother holding the baby Elvis.
Three Wolf Moon
Nah, Sarah's no idol-worshiping Catholic. Pretty sure it'll be Jeebus on a dinosaur rendered in Day-Glo orange and green on that particular piece of black velvet.
She'll probably sweep into New York City and rename it Hockey MOMA. *shiver*
Right next to the popsicle stick recreation of the paper mache recreation of the clay recreation of Reagan's buffalo or horse or dying Indian or whatever of Remington's bronze recreation of the West.
You guys sure this isn't an April Fool's joke?
There's some perfectly good Thomas Kinkaid stuff at discounted prices that would look great in a Defense Dept. building lobby.
Pentagon employees walk past collections of paintings of deceased service members every day. The paintings were done based on official records and similar photos by artists who volunteered their labor on behalf of the families of the deceased. Many Pentagon employees can also see Arlington National Cemetary outside the window or on their way to and from work. In other words, they know when things go wrong, usually before anybody else does.
It's the people at the White House and Congress, and their corporate and political masters, who need those daily reminders.
We've had several contracts smaller than that. Well, mods to larger contracts. So be fair.
And by the way, is that stupid Web site all that's left of US New and World Report? Good.
Toad is to art, as Boehner is to keeping emotions in check.
gurgles “sounds of nature”
Such as? Will we finally hear what it sounds like when a (non – human) toad has an orgasm? For $600K this toad better have multiples…
Gotta be an April Full's thing, right? It looks like something you buy at a tourist trap on Fisherman's Wharf. But yes, $600k is about the same as a hammer, so I can see that.
Holy shit! A 10 foot Fairy riding a toad? This is somehow symbolic of the tea party movement but I can't quite place how.
Koch bros are fairy's, teatards is toads.
Check.
A statue with a fairy? What a great way to honor the end of DADT!
If Hieronymus Bosch took Lunesta…
Worst. Hummel. Ever.
Or most visually arresting dung cake ever (you know, the kind that are just too darn pretty to cook your husband's papadums over).
Dear God. McCain was right about ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Welcome to the United States — where anatomical terms like "uterus" are banned from legislative discourse, but bulbous nutsacks squilching with sound effects capture the nation's collective imagination.
The dead rat in the filthy toilet would be more attractive and befitting. It could even spew "stuff" if the public demands special effects.
I hate to say it, but that frog looks like he's eating a turd sandwhich, so maybe this is very appropriate art for our military.
At least it's not a "black gash of shame" etched with the names of all "the fallen heroes."
Just moving one of the captured aliens out of Area 51 is not "art".
Is this the finale of Mr. Toad's wild ride?
No, that's when you pay a couple of Czech hookers 200 euros a piece.
"And give that fairy some hooters. For 600 large I expect some major hooters."
[/channeling The Donald, by way of Doonesbury]
Frog's name is "Lindsey". Live's in Adams Morgan. Work's as a "congressman" in a Southern state. Hate's to admit it, but likes having a fairy on his back.
Truly awesome, but what does Pedo Bear think?
It would have been a lot cheaper if they'd just Fed-Exed the 10 foot fairy girl in.
This is exactly the kind of shit you expect to be called "art" when republicans take over congress. Oh, no, we can't have CPB, NPR, or the NEA, but a fairy riding a frog? You betcha.
#DUH, WINNING!!!
Only the 10-ft fairy girls have the proven capability to waterboard these enormous frogs and those chicks don't come cheap.
Amphibian/fairy art is the glue that holds western civilization together. Why can't you people understand this? Fucking dilettantes on this site.
Time to fly in some Iraqi nationals for the photo-op of toppling another staue while simultaneously thwapping it with their shoes, or something.
"To spend six hundred grand to amuse the same people every day is nuts."
I agree. You should spend some money on amusing some new people.
Like me!!!!!
Why not a huge sculpture of the Frazetta "Destroyer" ? You could put Donald Rumsfeld's face on the main character and it could light up and play an endless loop of "Beast and the Harlot" by Avenged Sevenfold.
THAT is the kind of shit I would get behind paying 600 grand for. But then, I smoke a lot of marajuana…
According to Wikipedia, you could buy 10 JDAM bombs for about the price of the statue. They'd entertain more people, but only that one time.
All glory to the Hypnotoad!
Oveheard: "Oh, ho, ho! That's so whimsical! Utterly delightful! Oh, where were we. Bomb Iran then? Great. Oh, look at that little toad!"
This is an April Fools' joke, amirite? 'Cause otherwise, gah, what a butt-ugly piece of pretentious shit.
Holy crap, is it me, or has the DOD really started to cut back? Just $600,000 for a fairy-riding-toad sculpture and now just $40 million a month or so for the war in Libya? What the hell is happening to our military? It's like someone told them the government is almost out of money or something…
Will people have jobs in the building? Are there jobs near there? Is the frog supposed to bring jobs? Do little girls have to kiss it over and over until it gurgles out a reasonable living? The possibilities are endless. Do you think it might annoy some people because it isn't military-y, it is kind of ghey-y.
Just buy the fuckin' thing. The artist can live for a couple of years and make lots more froggy stuff.
I blame Thomas Kincaid.
That fairy's stance is pret-ty wide, if you ask me.
I want to franchise the miniatures in airport and hospital gift-shops.
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