Pulled for being ‘too political’
Sculpture depicts man as most invasive species
LoNLorM » Many say that art is subjective and that people bring their own interpretations to paintings or movies or music.
In the case of one particular sculpture showcased at the Hapgood Wright Town Forest, the interpretation was a bit too topical to stand.
Barbara Fletcher, a mixedmedia artist out of Lowell, said
she had to remove her sculpture from The Umbrella Arts Center’s fifth annual Art Ramble due to it being deemed “too political” by officials.
Located on Stow Street at the old Emerson School building, the center has galleries and studio space to host community arts initiatives, workshops for children and adults, and private events.
The center also offers creative art summer camps, Makerspace labs, a 344-seat main stage, theater and a 100-seat black box theater for performance artists. The center’s ramble is an annual outdoor public art installation in collaboration with the Concord Natural Resources Division.
Fletcher’s sculpture, titled “Invasive Eaters,” uses a combination of air-dry clay, plaster and bittersweet vines to depict a roundtable of gluttonous caricatures of the most-invasive species on Earth: man.
According to Fletcher, she installed the sculpture on Sept. 9 and had to remove it six days later after officials at the center found the sculpture controversial, which she disagrees with. However, she did agree that some of the caricatures looked like certain famous figures, including President Donald Trump, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un, controversial figures in their own right. Still, despite the similarities, Fletcher wants viewers to bring their own interpretations to her sculpture.
“The piece is whimsical and very tongue-in-cheek,” she said. “The six caricatures in the piece represented different industries, like oil and fossil fuels. Sure some of them might be recognizable as people, but it’s not offensive in my opinion.”
It’s an opinion shared by Susan Israel, the curator of this year’s Arts Ramble. Israel said she had to deliver the bad news to Fletcher after being told on Sept. 12 by Nancy Lippe, Umbrella’s director of arts and environment, that the sculpture had to be removed. Israel speculated that Lippe got the order to take the sculpture down from a higher-up official in Umbrella’s staff. As for the reasoning of the removal, Israel said the sculpture was deemed inappropriate for the area despite fitting with the event’s theme of “Water Change: Where Spirit, Nature, and Civilization Meet.”
“In my opinion, the sculpture matched the theme of the show in addressing climate change and invasive species,” she said. “In fact, it was the sculpture that gave the most direct stance about climate change. What upset me the most was that I was saying that we could find a solution to this problem but I kept hearing, ‘It has to be gone by Monday.’ I have no good explanation as to how Umbrella behaved.”
A statement from Umbrella, located in Concord, issued Friday noted that Lippe and Executive Director Jerry Wedge had accepted Fletcher’s original proposal with the “explicit understanding” that the final sculpture wouldn’t have “recognizable political faces” when presented.
Umbrella officials said that the installed sculpture was “materially different from what was agreed-upon for the exhibit,” which led to trouble.
“Two days later, the curator was able to tour the exhibition, and met with The Umbrella’s staff,” the statement explained. “Given that the piece installed was not the piece accepted into the exhibition, The Umbrella requested that the piece be removed. The Umbrella’s staff reached out to several local galleries to find a host, and was later glad to hear that the artist had found an exhibition in Boston that aligned with and accepted her finished work. The Umbrella wishes her the best.”
Fletcher said that the sculpture is currently sitting in a friend’s backyard in Arlington, but it will reappear at the SouthEnd ARTS gallery for the “Art and Activism” showcase opening Oct. 27 and running through Nov. 3. As for the Art Ramble fallout, she felt Umbrella gave a “pretty extreme reaction” to her piece.
“It was devastating, physically and psychologically,” she said. “It was a lot of work to bring it in and I feel this was ridiculous censorship. I’ve never dealt with something like this before.”