Garden Party: Wladyslaw Pleszczynski goes to the EU sculpture show - One last observation - Brief Article

Women's Quarterly, Autumn, 2001 by Wladyslaw Pleszczynski

IT'S HARD TO IMAGINE NOW, but not that many months ago the U.S. and Europe weren't quite getting along. Then someone came up with a brilliant idea. Why not have the Europeans shower the U.S. with peace offerings, which we would proudly display along one of the loveliest locations in our nation s capital? Without further ado, the European Union in April proceeded to plant about thirty fresh sculptures from its fifteen member countries atop the Kennedy Center's vast terrace. Instead of forming a cozy sculpture garden they protruded like scattered weeds or a collection of unwelcome litter along the smooth, clean plates of the terrace floor.

But even if its art wasn't in the right place, the EU's heart surely was. The show was titled Connecting Worlds: Contemporary Sculpture from the European Union. Dr. Gunter Burghardr, EU ambassador and head of delegation, praised it for giving "tangibility" to the vision of some of Europe's "foremost contemporary artists." NPR said the show was "supposed to be a demonstration of European unity and cultural excellence."

And all for our edification, if Laura Coyle, the Corcoran School of Art's curator of European art who helped organize the displays, is to be heeded. "Most Americans are woefully ignorant of contemporary art abroad," she writes in the introduction to the exhibition's catalogue. "Connecting Worlds helps to remedy this." A fellow-traveler in the best sense, Ms. Coyle just loves her long-suffering Europeans, whose "rich heritage ... can also be a tremendous burden." Backwater America has much to learn.

Ms. Coyle notes that Italy's Enrica Borghi had once used a piece "to comment on the pollution of the Danube River" (none of it fortunately caused by NATO). Though that work wasn't part of the recent show, Ms. Borghi's mere presence with another item inspired Ms. Coyle to rue the condition of "the great river of Washington, DC" that runs past the Kennedy Center. Just so you know, "the ecosystem of the Potomac is also sullied and endangered."

Art for environmentalism's sake was in good hands with Ms. Borghi. For the Washington show she created a red-white-and-blue multi-triangled design made up of a thousand plastic bottle caps topped off with pebbles of glass. The piece is called Mandala, which shouldn't be confused with Nelson Mandela.

The catalogue defines it as "a prayer dedicated to the infinite to save nature." No word on whether the infinite is a she.

Another piece devoted to what Ms. Coyle calls "overconsumption" was Austrian artist Manfred Erjautz's Container. It was by far the sturdiest item in the show, which isn't surprising given that the eponymous subject is an impressive factory-built cargo container. Its interior wails and floor, alas, have been defaced by a rich array of countless product logos, all of them meant to symbolize the indiscernible "babble of voices" advertising has let loose on our vulgar world.

With typical modesty, the EU didn't come all this way to celebrate its economic achievements. In fact, in the show's view European man's struggle is just about over. The point was driven home by Christina Saradopoulou's The Myth of Sisyphus, which might be called the centerpiece of the exhibit since it was the first item visitors saw on leaving the elevators for the terrace. Atop a red steel incline rested an ornate--and hollow--steel ball, waiting for its Sisyphus who evidently had fallen victim to automation. An electric powered track was supposed to keep the ball moving--but luddites at the Kennedy Center wouldn't allow it to be plugged in. No big deal. As a Greek Embassy spokeswoman told NPR, "You don't really feel sorry for Sisyphus because that process in itself, pushing that rock up the hill as best as he can and as well as he can and as beautifully as he can, is his purpose in life." She must not have noticed that he'd been cut from the team.

Who's the joker who came up with the line that the exhibit was held over beyond its initial June 15 closing date "by popular demand"? Still, even with better material the Europeans would have been hard-pressed to compete.

The Kennedy Center terrace offers perhaps the most spectacular view of Washington anywhere. The southeast corner presents a stunning vista of the Washington Monument and the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. To the west there's the thriving verdancy of Roosevelt Island, to the northwest a graceful bend in the Potomac at Georgetown.

The Europeans came to play, only to be swallowed by America's grandest sculpture garden.

Wladyslaw Pleszczynski is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.