Transcript 1/29/10- Clyde Wheeler (Phil Ken Sebbin)

[secondchance]

SC, haven't you learned? Just nod and smile.Nod and smile.

[TheConfessor]

$15,000 (Airports)- Since 2008, “Mustang”, a 32-foot-tall sculpture of a blue horse, has stood adjacent to the terminal of what city’s airport?

A- Miami B- Denver
C- Pittsburgh D- San Antonio

I saw the blue horse statue again Sunday night when I was leaving Denver. It looks pretty cool at night, with red light coming from each eye. Here are a few other observations about it:

To say it is "adjacent" to the terminal seems like a stretch. It's probably about a mile away, in the median of the road that leads to and from the airport (Peña Boulevard). You would not normally see it from inside the airport terminal building.

The statue has a long and controversial history. Probably the most noteworthy incident was when the unfinished statue fell and killed its creator, Luis Jimenez.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Jim%C ... culptor%29

There is a smaller version of the same statue on the campus of the U. of Oklahoma, in Norman:
http://www.ou.edu/artcollections/collec ... steno.html

Some people started a campaign to remove the statue, but that sentiment seems to be fading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/arts/ ... 2hors.html

[Jeemie]

It does look kinda creepy at night.

[Estonut]

It does look kinda creepy at night.

Especially now, knowing that it killed its creator...

[ulysses5019]

It does look kinda creepy at night.

Looks a little anorexic.

[doitneatly]

Funny it wasn't until I saw the picture above that I finally made the horse-->denver connection. (a "bronco", duh!)


In my head I was picturing something cartoony and tame looking, a la Babe the blue ox:



And that didn't make much sense at all.

[silvercamaro]

$15,000 (Airports)- Since 2008, “Mustang”, a 32-foot-tall sculpture of a blue horse, has stood adjacent to the terminal of what city’s airport?

A- Miami B- Denver
C- Pittsburgh D- San Antonio

I saw the blue horse statue again Sunday night when I was leaving Denver. It looks pretty cool at night, with red light coming from each eye. Here are a few other observations about it:

To say it is "adjacent" to the terminal seems like a stretch. It's probably about a mile away, in the median of the road that leads to and from the airport (Peña Boulevard). You would not normally see it from inside the airport terminal building.

The statue has a long and controversial history. Probably the most noteworthy incident was when the unfinished statue fell and killed its creator, Luis Jimenez.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Jim%C ... culptor%29

There is a smaller version of the same statue on the campus of the U. of Oklahoma, in Norman:
http://www.ou.edu/artcollections/collec ... steno.html

Some people started a campaign to remove the statue, but that sentiment seems to be fading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/arts/ ... 2hors.html

As Ed pointed out, another bronco (actually more black than blue, despite the appearance in the photo) is on the OU campus. It is not widely beloved.

It was originally purchased in the 90s, perhaps because the sculptor was a Santa Fe friend of the university president's wife. (Private donors paid for it, but I do not know if they too knew the sculptor, if they loved the piece, or if they simply wanted to curry favor.) The horse first was placed in front of the president's house, then moved across the street to a prominent position near the art museum, where it was clearly visible from the primary boulevard that provides the main entrance to the main campus. At night, the eyes glow red. People with dogs and small children quickly began to report that their little ones were frightened by the fiberglass statue. Other people simply thought it was ugly and particularly out of place with the more traditional stone sculptures on campus. A few years ago, it was moved again -- to some out-of-the way corner on campus. In fact, I don't even know exactly where it's located now, and I can't tell from the photo. I will make no effort to find it.

[SportsFan68]

$15,000 (Airports)- Since 2008, “Mustang”, a 32-foot-tall sculpture of a blue horse, has stood adjacent to the terminal of what city’s airport?

A- Miami B- Denver
C- Pittsburgh D- San Antonio

I saw the blue horse statue again Sunday night when I was leaving Denver. It looks pretty cool at night, with red light coming from each eye. Here are a few other observations about it:

To say it is "adjacent" to the terminal seems like a stretch. It's probably about a mile away, in the median of the road that leads to and from the airport (Peña Boulevard). You would not normally see it from inside the airport terminal building.

The statue has a long and controversial history. Probably the most noteworthy incident was when the unfinished statue fell and killed its creator, Luis Jimenez.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Jim%C ... culptor%29

There is a smaller version of the same statue on the campus of the U. of Oklahoma, in Norman:
http://www.ou.edu/artcollections/collec ... steno.html

Some people started a campaign to remove the statue, but that sentiment seems to be fading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/arts/ ... 2hors.html

Ed's right -- to see it from the terminal would probably require actively looking for it. I've never seen it from the terminal. It's hard to miss if you're driving in, so overall, I think the question is unfair to most of the country. I don't recall any national news stories on this, but I suppose they would have seemed local to me anyway.

JMHO, I think asking about the stupid bear that was looking in the window of one of the Democratic National Convention's major venues would be similar.



Here's a bit more on the bear, the horse, and a red rabbit:

Artist behind Denver's Big Blue Bear has Californians seeing red
Published on February 18, 2009 at 10:30am

Denver artist and educator Lawrence Argent has been closely following the controversy over "Mustang," aka the Blue Demon Horse of Death, which some critics would like to see gallop away permanently from Denver International Airport. While Argent's "I See What You Mean," his sculpture of a big blue bear peeking into the Colorado Convention Center, has become a favorite sight in town (and inspired miniature souvenirs), his plans to place a giant red rabbit at Sacramento International Airport have some residents in California's capital seeing, well, red.

Argent was picked to create a defining piece for the airport's $1.3 billon expansion project last June and came up with a 56-foot-long rabbit with a "Ferrari red" paint job suspended in mid-leap on its way to a huge, twelve-foot-wide suitcase containing a swirling vortex. The concept plays with the idea of airports as anxiety-inducing spaces, Argent explains, as well as the metaphorical baggage all travelers carry. "If you go to DIA, there are rabbits all around your vehicle," he adds. "They're nibbling on your car wires, your brake lines."

Argent's giant rabbit will be fabricated in California and ready in about eighteen months. "I felt really good about this piece," Argent says. "It took a lot for me as an artist to realize I don't want to be called the 'large animal guy.' But this is a piece that will make sense. Because of what it is, it can make a difference, and I shouldn't worry about those other elements."

After Sacramento officials approved the piece in October, though, some residents balked at the sculpture's size and its $800,000 price tag.

"Are you kidding me, we are cutting teachers from schools, slashing the police and fire budget and they want a fiberglass rabbit in the airport. OUR GOVERNMENT HAS GOT TO BE CRAZY," fumed one of many angry Internet posters.

Like Denver, Sacramento has a program in which the city sets aside a percentage of all municipal building project budgets for public art. Never before has an art choice stirred so much controversy, noted an editorial in the Sacramento Bee, but Argent has no problem explaining his work.

And he thinks it's too bad that Luis Jimenez, who created "Mustang" and was killed when a piece of the still-under-construction sculpture broke off and crushed him, isn't around to be part of the discussion over his piece. "And not necessarily to be able to defend it," Argent adds. "I don't think we need to defend it. It's triggered a discussion of something that people are noticing. If people start realizing what they have as a value system of what they think art is, then maybe that's a good conversation to have. Maybe we should have it more about the buildings that are around and cheap development that goes up in my neighborhood...

"It's infuriating that people are so zealous about something that is there," he continues. "Why aren't they more livid about other volatile abuses of aesthetic criteria in our community? Who the hell let those things go up? That's just as important to my environment as that horse out there."

Welcome to the Mile Haiku City: It was just four weeks ago that realtor Rachel Hultin started a Facebook group devoted to the proposition that DIA's Heinous Blue Mustang Must Go — "Maybe if we drum up enough people, we can go push the thing over in the middle of the night as an act of civic duty."

Or at least prod almost 300 poets to compose "Mustang"-inspired haiku, which Hultin delivered to the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs on February 2 — just four days before her efforts landed Denver on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, complete with a trademark dot portrait of Hultin that's now on her Facebook page.

But by then, Hultin had learned that no matter how erudite the poems, no matter how embarrassing all the coverage, it's city policy to leave newly installed pieces for five years. "Meanwhile," she recently posted, "I encourage anyone who has a suggestion or ideas on what can be done in the next four years."

How about a slam poetry reading of all the haikus at this week's Mayor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts ceremony?

[MarleysGh0st]

JMHO, I think asking about the stupid bear that was looking in the window of one of the Democratic National Convention's major venues would be similar.

I don't recall ever hearing about the bear, but I like it!

[SportsFan68]

JMHO, I think asking about the stupid bear that was looking in the window of one of the Democratic National Convention's major venues would be similar.

I don't recall ever hearing about the bear, but I like it!

I think it would go perfectly on the Cornell campus!

Please send money for transport.

[MarleysGh0st]

JMHO, I think asking about the stupid bear that was looking in the window of one of the Democratic National Convention's major venues would be similar.

I don't recall ever hearing about the bear, but I like it!

I think it would go perfectly on the Cornell campus!

Please send money for transport.

Yeah, they could stand it up next to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art! It'd be perfect!

We have some particularly ugly sculptures on the Route 96 bridge that I'd be glad to trade for the bear, but the artist filed a lawsuit to keep them where they are, when the city council wanted to move them somewhere out of the way, a decade or so ago. Something about the sculptures being designed specifically for that site and his artist's rights being violated if they were moved.

[ulysses5019]

JMHO, I think asking about the stupid bear that was looking in the window of one of the Democratic National Convention's major venues would be similar.

I don't recall ever hearing about the bear, but I like it!

I think it would go perfectly on the Cornell campus!

Please send money for transport.

That should be his next audition hook...there's an intinerant bear that needs a home.

[takinover]

Finally saw it since I missed it the first time around. Belated congrats.

[Bob78164]

Looks like I'm not going to get to see it this time around. TiVo tells me that the last three shows of the week are no longer on the schedule out here. --Bob