Apparently I'm the only person in SF who has always thought that Defenestration is a hideous fucking eyesore. Good riddance.Brian Goggin's "Defenestration" Installation Comes Down After 17 Years.
I think our only public art that I like less is that giant plastic bow and arrow on Embarcadero. Bleeeuuuugggghhhhh.
Blasphemy!
I will also not miss this.
You know my attachment to that word, but I too hate that building.
You're not the only one. I never appreciated it as art.
I'm with you. Fuck that thing.
Have you seen the giant turd sliced in half in downtown Berkeley?
Unless you mean the bear-that-looks-like-a-turd and/or the turd-that-looks-like-a-bear, no.
Turd bear.
Turd bear? or Golgothan from Dogma?
http://monster.wikia.com/wiki/Golgothan
Or Sterculius, God of Feces.
Ok, yeah, that's pretty bad.
Sliced turd.
I'm so pleased to see it go that I won't even bitch about the inevitable condos.
It was a cute joke, for a month. Then it became yet another monument to SF's grim determination to preserve its trash-strewn vacant lots and abandoned buildings at all costs. Good riddance indeed.
Agreed - it was great for a month. Maybe a year. I was surprised to hear it was being "kept up" by the artist. ...oh rly?
The bow/arrow is still way worse -
Especially in that it's hideously innacurate which bugs me as much as clocks set to the wrong time. THERE'S NO EXCUSE FOR SUCH AN EASILY AVOIDABLE ERROR!
(Couldn't help but run with the caps lock)
And that crap he hung next to the Twitter building isn't much better. Well, no, it's much better. It's still just not very good.
At least that one lights up. Apparently synced up to music somewhere on your FM dial, though I'm never on foot in that area.
The building wasn’t being kept up to preserve the artwork, was it? Goggin said he expected it to be up for six months. There would still have been a big rotting eyesore on that corner for all these years for some reason, just without the furniture.
> The building wasn’t being kept up to preserve the artwork, was it?
No. I seem to remember reading a medium-length article that proclaimed that the owner of the building was a sanctimonious dick who refused to work with anyone to make use of the building. I cannot now find this article. Back in 2009 The City started to make an eminent domain claim on the building. I guess they succeeded. WP link about the building: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Hotel
I greatly enjoyed the installation when I first came to the city. I can see how one would grow tired of it over the years.
The "artist" could have just let the stuff rot and fall off, and gotten even more critical acclaim for saying it was all part of his artistic vision.
I hated it, too. I like the new piano piece way more. This thing was ugly. I remember the first time I saw it, and it looked like blight.
That building and the rest of sixth street needs to go.
Hey, we could have gotten Oldenburg's typewriter eraser.
Apropos to the subject of public art, if you're at all interested in the light show on the Bay Bridge, there's a documentary about it called 'Impossible Light' that is worth seeking out. It covers a great deal about what it takes to get something like that approved, paid for and constructed. There's some nerd stuff in there, too, about LEDs, IP addresses and whatnot.
I am a fan of the bridge lights. They're soothing and awesome.
Also related, the collection of di Suveros at Marina Green has started to come down as scheduled.
Back when Newsom was mayor, one of his standard speeches was about how its impossible to get anything new done in this town, unless you tell people it's just temporary. Then all of a sudden everyone is fine with it. And sometimes, after it has been there for a year or two, people decide they want it permanently after all.
Sutro Tower faced opposition going up! It's something of an icon now.