James Gardner, formerly the architecture critic of the New York Sun, now writes on culture for several publications.
That Golem that was just unveiled in one of the main squares of Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, turns out to be none other than William Jefferson Clinton. Apparently he is something of a god over there: The locals are grateful for his initiating, in 1999, the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia that curbed Serbian aggressions against the ethnic Albanians, and so they have raised this astounding monument to the man. Eleven feet tall and fashioned from bronze, our 42nd president towers above one of the capital’s main thoroughfares (also named for him), holding a dossier in one hand while raising his other in something between a greeting and a salute.
"I never expected that anywhere, someone would make such a big statue of me," Clinton, clearly abashed, announced to the crowd at the unveiling.
His palpable unease was surely as much a question of aesthetics as a protestation of modesty. For the sculpture really is lousy. Though ultimately based on the ancient Prima Porta statue of Augustus Caesar, it can be more immediately traced back to those superhuman man-tractors representing the likes of Lenin, Brezhnev, and Ceauşescu that littered the Soviet Block in times gone by.
Indeed, just as Augustus, Nero, or Marcus Aurelius might be depicted in the guise of Hercules or Apollo, or some minor local divinity, so Clinton is bodied forth here in a form that apparently resonates with the citizens of Pristina. He stands as the type of benign, yet forceful strong man that is well-known in these parts, a friend and protector of the people, who, by virtue of being bigger than they are, can also see further into the future and will take them there.
The ham-fisted realism of Clinton’s tie, his creased trousers, and his buttoned jacket definitively clarify—for anyone who needed clarification—why such forms of monumental art, entirely forthright and without irony, are no longer being made today, at least not in the First World. From antiquity through the aftermath of WWI, we knew how to make commemorative statues. But more recently our culture has become so incapable of monumentality, and so saturated with irony, that even as we feel more inclined to commemorate events than ever before, we have lost all instinct for how to do it: Witness the unending controversies surrounding any monument to 9/11.
The one thing that redeems the new Clinton monument, in human if not aesthetic terms, is that it’s very maladroitness is an incontestable warrant of its sincerity.
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COMMENTS (6)
Another thing that redeems the statue is that Clinton is smiling.
Public expressions of self, whether self-inhabited or formed by an artist, tend too often toward the grim, as if such were the appropriate default. Furrowed brow above the frown--it's a push-back against the viewer getting too close. (Young artists, in particular, affect this countenance. Maybe it helps them get laid.)
Well, screw that. Most people (at least the people on my planet) are only sometimes like that. Clinton above most is a picker, a grinner, a lover, and a sinner. To render him without a smile borders on the dishonest.
Another thing that redeems the statue is that Clinton is smiling.
Public expressions of self, whether self-inhabited or formed by an artist, tend too often toward the grim, as if such were the appropriate default. Furrowed brow above the frown--it's a push-back against the viewer getting too close. (Young artists, in particular, affect this countenance. Maybe it helps them get laid.)
Well, screw that. Most people (at least the people on my planet) are only sometimes like that. Clinton above most is a picker, a grinner, a lover, and a sinner. To render him without a smile borders on the dishonest.
Could be worse. For example, take the statues of Josh Gibson, Frank Howard, and Walter Johnson (pictured) installed this year at Nationals Park in Washington, DC. These statues attempt to depict motion in bronze, but succeed only in turning their subjects into multilimbed mutants with rotting metal flesh melting off nightmarishly deformed skeletal appendages.
Or the Godzilla-scaled bust of John F. Kennedy at the Kennedy Center, which depicts the president in an advanced state of postmortem decay.
Could be worse. For example, take the statues of Josh Gibson, Frank Howard, and Walter Johnson (pictured) installed this year at Nationals Park in Washington, DC. These statues attempt to depict motion in bronze, but succeed only in turning their subjects into multilimbed mutants with rotting metal flesh melting off nightmarishly deformed skeletal appendages.
Or the Godzilla-scaled bust of John F. Kennedy at the Kennedy Center, which depicts the president in an advanced state of postmortem decay.
Compared to the hellscape monstrosities that have graced our capital city in recent decades, the merely banal Clinton statue in Pristina seems almost the acme of good taste and restraint. Though honestly, the few pictures I've seen of it look rather more like Ronald Reagan, and this is exactly the type of statue I could see being erected by the Reagan idolators in Dixon, Ill., or in the Reagan Memorial they'll inevitably try to put on the National Mall.
I'm glad rhubarbs saw Ronnie too, because my first reaction was "good God, why did someone graft the lower half of Jack Nicholson's face onto a statue of Reagan?!"
As for yard's comment, I agree that Clinton ought to be portrayed smiling. But he also ought to be portrayed on the receiving end of an epic bronze blowjob. Seriously, let's memorialize the man at his best.
I'm glad rhubarbs saw Ronnie too, because my first reaction was "good God, why did someone graft the lower half of Jack Nicholson's face onto a statue of Reagan?!"
As for yard's comment, I agree that Clinton ought to be portrayed smiling. But he also ought to be portrayed on the receiving end of an epic bronze blowjob. Seriously, let's memorialize the man at his best.
I tend to agree with rhubarbs. What we're seeing is probably the postmodern irony of the artistic elite in Pristina. What the average Kosovar Joe or Jane wanted was almost certainly a more emblematic vision: Clinton seated on a rearing charger, plunging his spear into the prone body of Slobodan Milosevic.
I tend to agree with rhubarbs. What we're seeing is probably the postmodern irony of the artistic elite in Pristina. What the average Kosovar Joe or Jane wanted was almost certainly a more emblematic vision: Clinton seated on a rearing charger, plunging his spear into the prone body of Slobodan Milosevic.
Did James Gardner travel to Pristina? Did he see the statue there?
Did he take the photo himself? (There's no photo credit).
Just curious.
Did James Gardner travel to Pristina? Did he see the statue there?
Did he take the photo himself? (There's no photo credit).
Just curious.
Well, at least his fly is zipped up.
Well, at least his fly is zipped up.