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Friday, July 18, 2008

Re: Submitted for Jen’s Approval, the Final

posted by on July 18 at 17:06 PM

Dan! I can’t wait until you get back, not only so that we don’t have to do this to distant sculptures anymore (I’m considering doing it to the local ones, in fact), but also so that I can show you my Renoir holograph postcard. It is a sculpture in itself! When you put your finger on it, because it tricks your eye into thinking it has depth, you think that you are right here in the Stranger newsroom while your finger is on an 1870s Parisian boulevard, waiting for its top hat. It really is something.

But back to what you tell me is a sculpture in Saugatuck, Michigan, called Family of Man IV by Cynthia McKean from 2005. (To see more of these, not only by me and Dan but including an interlude by Erica C. Barnett involving truck-flap ladies, click here.)

saugresponse5.jpg

I have to be honest. What I’m seeing here (and, to be honest, I can’t be quite sure what I’m seeing here, depth-wise) looks like a fire-engine Miro version of a nuclear family. It even seems to have 1.5 kids, or at least some sort of fractional person there in the lower right.

But my mind is telling me to like this thing, and it’s strictly because of the title, which reminds me of a great photography exhibition that Edward Steichen organized at the Museum of Modern Art in 1955. When my grandparents died, I inherited their hardback catalog from this exhibition, with its slightly torn cover, and I still cherish it. The cover of the catalog, paradoxically, is decorated with a sort of abstract design. That’s paradoxical because the images couldn’t be more grounded in things actual and real, and in the belief that photographs give you something actual and real. The show didn’t really make distinctions between photojournalism, sports photography, and fine-art photography. And from the catalog, it looks as though there were hundreds of images in that show. I’ve tried many times to imagine what it must have looked like.

I wish I could have been there, or that I’d asked my grandparents whether they were. Before they died, I never even knew they had it. So you see, when I look at this sculpture, I just feel like I’m holding that catalog.

Safe trip home, Dan!

RSS icon Comments

1

With regard to this week's Submitted... series, based on the quality of Jen's work I suggest that The Stranger has itself a brand new junior member of the distro crew and should immediately post for a new art critic.

See you in Berlin, Jen. Don't forget to pack your liquids in a clear plastic bag.

Posted by Jubilation T. Cornball | July 18, 2008 5:17 PM
2

"fractional person" is my new favorite phrase/band name of the day.

Posted by ellarosa | July 18, 2008 6:17 PM
3

Dan Savage advocates for the Iraq War in The Stranger--Oct. 2002

"War may be bad for children and other living things, but there are times when peace is worse for children and other living things, and this is one of those times."

"In the meantime, invading and rebuilding Iraq will not only free the Iraqi people, it will also make the Saudis aware of the consequences they face if they continue to oppress their own people while exporting terrorism and terrorists. The War on Iraq will make it clear to our friends and enemies in the Middle East (and elsewhere) that we mean business: Free your people, reform your societies, liberalize, and democratize... or we're going to come over there, remove you from power, free your people, and reform your societies for ourselves."

Posted by ................... | July 19, 2008 10:22 PM

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