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Showing disrespect for Marshall Fredericks and one of his iconic sculptures stings almost as much as a direct slap at Detroit.
A New York Times headline describes "Freedom of the Human Spirit," a Fredericks work in that city, as "lackluster." It refers mainly to the bronze finish, which wasn't applied by the former Cranbrook Academy of Art sculptor who lived in Birmingham and was buried there in 1998.
New York's work, installed for the 1964 World's Fair, is in a Queens park near its original site. Restoration work costing $40,000 is under way, David W. Dunlap writes in The Times.
The patina looked as if someone had splashed a few buckets of aquamarine swimming-pool paint over the 28-foot-tall sculpture and called it a day. . . .
In its lack of artistic finesse, . . . it might as well be called “Naked Passengers Falling on a Saguaro Cactus From a Jetliner That Has Hit a Flock of Geese During Its Approach to Nearby La Guardia Airport.”
Ouch. Everyone is an art critic, right?
To support Wednesday's critique, Dunlap quotes another New Yorker:
Phyllis Cohen, the director of the Adopt-a-Monument and Adopt-a-Mural program, acknowledged the aesthetic shortcomings of the sculpture. “It’s ungainly,” she said, “and not exactly expressive of ‘liberation.’”
The artist they slam has about 200 works on permanent exhibit at the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum on the campus of Saginaw Valley State University. A second casting of the work that reminds the Manhattan reporter of a saguaro cactus is the centerpiece of Shain Park in Birmingham.
Fredericks said he designed the artwork so it was “as free of the earth, as free in space as possible . . . The thought that we can free ourselves from earth, from the material forces which try to restrain and hamper us, is a happy, encouraging and inspiring one.”
In the mid-1950s, the City of Detroit paid Fredericks $58,000 to create the 26-foot-tall "Spirit of Detroit" bronze that is a landmark alongside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. It was dedicated in 1958 and is a popular photo backdrop for residents and visitors, as well as a mannequin for oversize Tigers and Wings jerseys.
At The Times, even the acerbic Dave Dunlap acknowledges that the suburban Detroiter was "an accomplished figurative sculptor."
Sequel: On Thursday, the Timesman graciously tweets a link to this article.
