Interesting article about the statues of Adam and Eve by Fernando Botero, in the lobby of the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. First of all, Columbus Circle is one of those spectacular urban landmarks that serves a mundane function (it is a traffic circle) but raises that function to a higher level by honoring an important cultural figure (Christopher Columbus), but it is also a rather grand monument, (especially when viewed from a car as you drive north on Eighth Avenue). The Circle itself reminds me of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris: placed at then of a broad avenue near a park, a large urban cultural marker for its city.
The Time Warner Center (which also houses the Jazz at Lincoln Center complex) is an astounding high end shopping mall with restaurants, a Whole Foods, high end shops and concert spaces. It includes several large and impressive works of art, among them, these large bronze statues of Adam and Eve by the Columbian artist Fernando Botero. These statues stand at the entrance like sentries, both guarding this temple to consumerism (food, clothing, housewares, jazz, what else does one need?), but also representing our common heritage (i.e. Adam and Eve), the progenitors of all that they guard.
It is funny, ironic and somehow fitting that this little article in today’s paper focuses on a little known “tourist” attraction: having your picture taken while touching Adam’s penis. (They have to have the patina restored on a regular basis, because it gets rubbed off from people touching it). Despite the “fact” that Eve was created from Adam’s rib, his penis would have to represent the source of everything else, no? This was NOT planned this way, but the juxtaposition of the statue (and the extra attention afforded Adam’s virility) with the shopping mall, at Columbus Circle, in New York, In the US, is a spectacular series of self-encased metaphors for power, influence, consumerism and the American Way!
click here for the article:
(I will leave it to you to fish for the NY Post pictures of the same phenomenon, which are less reserved.)
It is such a coincidence that you there’s a post about this because I actually passed by this statue a week ago unintentionally. My first impression was confusion because I wondered why there is this large statue here in the middle of this “classy” mall and why this statue. I did not really explore it therefore before reading this post, I had not known this was supposed to be Adam. Speaking from first hand experience, the penis aspect of the statue is the first thing that hits you and the fact that so many people take a picture with it shows how our society may appreciate or notice more “sexual” related art than other type.