Today’s award goes to the person or persons responsible for a dubious artistic (?) decision in Romania. The Telegraph reports:
A statue showing a naked Roman emperor Trajan carrying a wolf has drawn jeers in Romania since it was unveiled outside Bucharest’s National History Museum.
The bronze statue by Vasile Gorduz (1931-2008) portrays the genesis of the Romanian people from the merging of the Romans and the Dacians, with the wolf as a symbolic animal.
The strange posture and the nudity of the male character, as well as the appearance of the wolf with a scarf recalling the Dacians’ flag around its neck have drawn an avalanche of mocking remarks from passers-by and on the Internet.
“I have never seen anything so grotesque, a wolf with a pitbull’s head, a lizard’s tail and a tumor on its neck, carried by a guy who is visibly embarrassed by his nudity,” said a woman in her forties about the artwork.
The curator of the museum, Ernest Oberlander Tarnoveanu, said he shared the criticism.
“I am not a prude or a conservative, but the statue should never have been erected here because of its doubtful artistic quality,” he told AFP, stressing that sooner or later it would have to go.
Meanwhile, websites were flooded by ironic comments from bloggers.
“I don’t get it, the guy has no underwear but the stray dog wears a scarf, so is it cold or is it warm?”, wondered NL on HotNews.ro.
“I suggest the statue should be called ‘Centurion Biggus Dickus (as in Monty Python’s Life of Brian) and the Levitating Dog’,” wrote another, I.
“Bucharest’s mayor has just inaugurated the first monument dedicated to Romania’s stray dogs,” wrote Times New Roman, a humorous website, while a reader, Sousake, added: “The orginal name of the statue was: Romanian man after paying his taxes.”
There’s a picture of the statue in question at the link. It leaves nothing to the imagination (which is why I haven’t reproduced it in a family-friendly forum such as this one). Those who choose to click over there and see for themselves are welcome to add their own views below in Comments – just keep them (relatively) clean, please!
Peter
What on earth is that sticking out of the side of the emperor? Another arm, complete with amputation? Pretty hilarious 😀
PS definitely NOT Biggus Dickus!
Ugh.
It looks like it was cut and pasted by an 8 year old.
Now that is one ugly statue.
He's not even holding the wolf – it's just stuck there, floating in front of the "emperor!" Ye gads and little fishes, that is appallingly bad sculpture. If they want to keep it, I'd suggest a new title and label it as a Dada or abstract expressionist work – you expect those to look bizarrely bad.
LittleRed1
let me guess, they chose the lowest quote.
I've seen high school artists who could have done a much better job.
To quote my five-year-old when we were looking at modern art sculptures, "Gramper needs to come with his cutting torch."
That's a pretty fantastically ugly statue, but, well, I think there's a class they make City Employees worldwide attend, on how to select horribly overpriced and ridiculously crappy art for cities.
Google "Chevy on a Stick albuquerque" for an example of some of the local wastes of money I live near.