THE TOWN-HO’S STORY
The Chicago Tribune was of two minds about the sculpture. On September 12, reporter Michael A. Lev characterized it as a typically incomprehensible example of postmodern art, agreeing with a crane operator who described it as “a lot of molten scrap.” Three days later Alan G. Artner, the paper’s regular art critic, attempted a more sensitive interpretation, calling it “a mushroom cloud of dense visual activity” and describing some of the stages of production it underwent in its birthplace, the Tallix foundry in Beacon, New York.
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One of the most frequent complaints is about the work’s $450,000 price tag, which was set according to a federal policy that’s been in effect since 1963. As part of the General Services Administration’s Art-in-Architecture program, one-half of 1 percent of the estimated construction cost of a government building is earmarked for public sculpture. The same policy allowed for federal funding of Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc in New York in 1981, a minimalist monument that received constant, violent criticism until it was finally hauled away in 1989.
To help people see the “fun” side of the piece, the GSA has erected a display with photos of Stella’s past work, a text describing his career, an assortment of critical raves from sources ranging from the New York Times (“one of the most important artists of the day”) to Elle Decor (“Blade Runner meets Bernini”), and a videotape of the Town-Ho’s installation. Set to a slick jazz sound track, the tape shows cranes operated by men in hard hats lifting the segments of the sculpture out of the truck and setting them down in the lobby. Thanks to time-lapse photography, the whole process takes only about three minutes, with everybody hopping around like Charlie Chaplin. Stella, looking every bit the regular guy, chomps on a cigar, confers with the hard hats, and even sweeps up when it’s all over.
A year ago Stella stopped producing bulkier and bulkier paintings, moving off the wall altogether and onto the floor. Not so much a giant leap as yet another small step along the artist’s journey, that move forced him to think less theoretically about structure, space, and gravity than he had in paintings. Considering how the pattern of his career has evolved, he’s now taking the next logical step by moving into architecture: his next project is a public park in Dresden.
