The Statue...
The Original Event...
Posted on 09/09/2009 7:28:14 AM PDT by epow
SARASOTA - The city that guards its bayfront against ugly bridges and homeless boaters made way for a gigantic smooching sailor on Tuesday night. Related Links:
Sarasota resident Jack Curran, center, salutes those who give him a round of applause at a public hearing on whether to accept his donation to keep the "Unconditional Surrender" statue.
STAFF PHOTO / E. SKYLAR LITHERLAND
After a spicy two-hour public hearing, commissioners voted 3-2 to accept a World War II veteran's donation of the 26-foot-tall "Unconditional Surrender" statue.
Much of the controversy was over one of the strings that the donor, Sarasota resident Jack Curran, attached to the deal: The statue must stay on the bayfront for a decade.
Curran, 88, emerged from City Hall victorious, an hour late for his 8 p.m. bedtime.
"I didn't want a fight, but I felt like I was right in the beginning," Curran said. "I'm glad I stuck to my guns."
The statue has been the subject of several thousand e-mails sent to City Hall over the past six months, as people debated whether the statue belongs in a city that has built an arts image.
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldtribune.com ...
I received my draft notice in 1960, but my age bracket made me too young for the Korean War and too old for Vietnam. But I am, and always will be, inordinately proud of the men and women, some of whom were close relatives, who fought and won WWII, the last real war that the US has won.
You have to click on one of the links in the article to find a picture of the statue. I remember seeing the original black & white newsreel film of that celebration, probably the couple depicted by the statue.
I like it. They can put it in MY yard if they please!
Sarasota snobs also opposed Ringling’s presence as too glitzy, anyone earning under 150K, attempts to democratize the electin process, and more.
A new Facebook site, SUNCOAST LOCALIST,is covering the struggle between the Sarasota snobs and real folk.
Just saw a photo of it, goodness, it’s big. I personally don’t like it, though I love the photo. Maybe if it was life size and not Paul Bunyan size it would be more appealing to me. I would have liked it better in bronze or something like that, not painted.
I would have graciously thanked the fellow and told him politely we didn’t need it. Why is everyone assuming the art crowd had a more nefarious intent; the statue is pretty ugly. As for the theme, it celebrates peace after a long, horrible war. A victorious peace over tyranny, to boot. What would be the beef?
Looks like the sculptor left off the one detail that really dates the photo to the end of WWII: the stocking seams up tha back of the nurse’s legs...
I agree. I love the sentiment and the capturing of the moment in the photo but the statue looks like the old Abdow’s BigBoy statue.
I noticed the same thing. I like it, though.
- "Diamond" David Lee Roth
The photo is timeless and priceless; the statue is junky... The original photo represented a microcosm embedded in worldwide rejoicing. The statue destroys that sense of intimacy and personal immersion in the world's sigh of relief...
Agreed - bronze or marble would have been nicer, in addiiton to a smaller size.
I can understand your negative reaction to the statue if you have an artistic bent, the photograph doesn’t translate into stone, or metal as the case may be, very well at the size of that 26 foot tall statue. However, I can easily tolerate the dubious artistic appeal of the statue and still respect and admire the patriotic appeal of the photo that to me represents the well remembered era of America’s unprecedented dominance over the world’s other great military powers at the end of the WWII era.
Except you said it a lot better than I did!
To epow and others
Although the population of Sarasota is over 52,000 only 179 registered voters in the city signed a petition to keep the statue. The population is over 52,000.
Home rule ought to prevail in such a decision about a municipal decision. The city council is deliberating the proposal. They are being very cautious not to offend the donor, who has been encouraged by a strange (and visible) alliance between a sculpture gallery who will receive a hefty commission from the sculptor and a father and son team supposedly representing veterans. They do not represent my opinion and have never asked it. No prominent veterans from the community are involved in their activities and most residents are shying away from participation because of the caustic accusations being made by a decidedly uncivil group. I see this as a rogue group and really question their motivations. I hope they are not just using this fellow Curran and the other well-meaning supporters.
Realistically, there are several severe issues that make final placement unlikely, even inadvisable.
The statue is an unauthorized derivative of the famous V-J Day in Times Square photograph published in Life magazine in 1945 and again in several publications authorized by its maker, Alfred Eisenstaedt. It is copyright and a lawsuit surely will follow when money changes hands that can be used to sue for losses. Sarasota will suffer from several directions. Some venues exhibiting copyright infringing items have been sued right along with those who have profited from their act, so the city is seeking assurance that this infringement issue is not a problem that will affect them. Federal law divests communities from certain funding when they participate in an infringement of a copyright. The photograph is almost universally admired, that is not even part of the debate. It is not very honorable to steal the work of others, and it should be respected.
The statue seems bogus as a patriotic memorial as well. It is pop art at best, kitsch at the worst, and poorly manufactured offshore (already showing deterioration). Its no wonder that the artsy people are against it. It is too cutesy to be a “memorial” and horribly out of place for a respectful one. When looking into the facts surrounding the photograph, it seems to have been the act of a drunken sailor on a much disinclined and unknown woman who just happened to be in the wrong place at the time. In the New York Times story of 2005, she stated that she was ashamed of what happened to her and for three decades, never told anyone that she was the woman.
Most importantly, an appropriate WWII memorial is located nearby, in a park within a few hundred yards of this statue on a local street that intersects at the other side of the road.
The placement insisted upon for the statue is flawed as well. It is near a major intersection with traffic whizzing by, including a state highway. There is no on road parking so that it becomes a road hazard when cars stop for drivers to gawk. It is placed in a water retention pond that will fill with storm water when the downpours of the subtropics appear as usually expected.
Questions about its stability need to be resolved as well. It seems that extensive engineering will be required to anchor this six ton statue that looms larger than most houses in Sarasota, coming in at almost thirty feet. Liability will rest on the council to protect the citizens from potential injury and accepting a statue that will require constant maintenance will present a burden that may fall to the taxpayers.
I served in WWII – being trained at the air base at Sarasota — for which it is noted during WWII. Doolittle’s Raiders felt such a strong tie to Sarasota that they held their Fiftieth Reunion there. The air bases in Florida were very significant in that war effort and a more likely subject of a special memorial for that war in relation to Sarasota.
Sorry to disagree with you Epow, but I live in Sarasota, am a veteran, and I can not support this on any level – not any.
They could be putting up a giant lava lamp that commerates exactly nothing.
How true, but it would be difficult to intimidate people by stating that a lava lamp is justified because it is “patriotic” (or would it?) -— well, time will tell what happens.
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