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Via the comments and IMGoph's blog, it looks like the uproar over a large mural by local artist Lisa Marie Thalhammer is just refusing to die down. A Bloomingdale Civic Association meeting tonight will reportedly focus on whether to force the artist's "Boxer Girl" mural to come down.
"Boxer Girl" was installed on the side of the Bloomingdale home of collector Veronica Jackson back in May, and the neighborhood reaction was decidedly vehement. Some neighbors love it, but others just plain hate the thing, for reasons ranging from generalized complaints that it's an "eyesore" to it being "ghetto," whatever that means. The piece, which was funded by a grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, depicts a young woman wearing boxing gloves, sporting a black eye, amid some rainbows and stars.
Tonight's BCA meeting will take place at 7 p.m. at St. George's Episcopal Church, located at 160 U Street NW. Word around the neighborhood is that pressure on the city to destroy the mural is mounting.
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How can they "force" the Boxer Girl mural to come down? Who is doing the forcing, and who will take it down? At least it doing what art is suppose to do...evoke feeling if not thought.
Down with art!! Plain brickface is where it's at!
Definitely ghetto. And, the feigned ignorance aside, we all know what that means.
ph7: what, does it mean black? is that what you mean? since "we all know" what it means, i just want to make sure we're all on the same page here.
oh please stop being all PC. Ghetto, mofo. No it doesn't mean black, race baiter. It's a synonym to "triflin". Not all people that live in ghettos are black are they? If anything is racist it's that assumption.
awesome! i am a racist! thanks for pointing it out to me, sordid. and i thought all along all i had to do was say "but i have a black friend..."
Maybe the urban dictionary definition will assist. I have a feeling that it's some combination of #2 and #4, not everyone is racist because they call something ghetto.
ghetto
1. (n.) an impoverished, neglected, or otherwise disadvantaged residential area of a city, usually troubled by a disproportionately large amount of crime
2. (adj.) urban; of or relating to (inner) city life
3. (adj.) poor; of or relating to the poor life
4. (adj.) jury-rigged, improvised, or home-made (usually with extremely cheap or sub-standard components), yet still deserving of an odd sense of respect from ghetto dwellers and non-ghetto dwellers alike
1. John's paranoia about triple-checking whether or not he's locked his car doors comes from his growing up in the ghetto
2. "Why you always be talkin' ghetto? Get yo'self a propa' e-ju-ma-kay-shun, kid!"
3. Jane hid her head in embarrasment as her mom shamelessly committed the ghetto act of stuffing the restaurant's bread rolls, sugar packets, and silverware in her purse
4. "A TV Guide duct-taped to a 4 foot stick?! That's one hella ghetto 'mote control!"
Technically, I'm an octaroon but this is my lunch hour.
I didn't say you were racist IMGoph, I said you were being overly PC. I did imply that the notion of ghetto inherently implying something is black is along the lines of racism. The definition from urban dictionary is a very good example of what ghetto means in a general sense how most non-racist people would use it. Whether or not the first person who said the artwork was ghetto (from Sommer's story reference) meant it that way or as a racial slander I can't speak to. For the most part, I would say the commentariat on DCist is not racist, although sometimes nasty comments do appear when talking about teens throwing rocks at cyclists, losing open space to soccer players of latin origin (although isn't open space to be open for all to use?), and other matters of gentrification arise.
I would think though that we all know what ghetto means and it seemed silly for Sommer to say "whatever that means" to something so banal.
i still say that we don't all know what "ghetto" means, and a lot of people mean wildly divergent things when they use the term. read this greater greater washington post to get a feel for what i'm thinking about.
So silly.
It's private property. People might as well complain about someone painting their trim in a color they don't like.
It's like a parody some suburban home owners association, but without any restrictive covenants to back it up.
You've been on the Mount Pleasant Forum I take it. There was a general sense of apoplexy when the guy who owns the hours on Park Road painted it bright colors and decorated it with tricycles. Now its part of the neighborhood character and everyone loves it or at least has stopped screaming that he redo the house.
If the homeowner wants it there, who would be able to take it down?
The real tragedy, "The piece, which was funded by a grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities"
This is DC right? I thought they saved all that HOA BS for the 'burbs. Does this Bloomingdale Civic Assoc. actually have the authority to force its removal?
I rather like the mural.
I had long suspected that the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities was staffed by really stupid people who don't know much about art, and this pretty much confirms my suspicion. Check out the terrible, universally-panned statues at Nationals Park, and the proposed "Latino bike minstrel" for 18th and Columbia for further evidence.
...because if they get rid of the mural, bloomingdale will suddenly resemble tenleytown?
I don't like the mural but art is very subjective and to each their own. I however do support the home owner's right to decorate their home as they see fit.
Agreed. Replace "Boxer Girl" with "Hitler Tubgirl and Her Technicolor Goatse" and we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
Monk, did you just attempt to shout down a woman by referencing offensive internet pr0n? That is by far the most hateful and misogynist thing I've ever seen you write and you should be very very ashamed because you've exposed yourself as a real creep. It's sexist in the extreme, almost to the point of online harassment. Are you talking to a doctor?
Clearly, I need to invest in subtitles or a decoder ring. I was critiquing the idea that homeowners can do whatever they please with their home exterior. Unless you live on an island, your home doesn't exist in a vacuum. Everybody's got to deviate from the norm, but don't be suprised when your neighbors aren't happy with you spraypainting Rush lyrics on the side of your gothic colonial rambler.
The premier of Nijinski's Le Sacre du Printemps damn near caused a riot and almost resulted in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées being burned down. Today bourgeoisie go apeshit over boxer murals. That's the great thing about public art: "public taste" is a fickle mistress indeed. Otherwise we'd all still be wearing white spats and huffing ether, and a mural of a woman with a black eye can be both ghetto and a positive feminist image. But mark my words: there will come a time when "Hitler Tubgirl and Her Technicolor Goatse" will be looked upon not as a controversial misogynist image, but as a quaint homage to a simpler time when internet shock sites were actually shocking instead of boring. Like a crucifix in a jar of pee or a boxer with a buncha rainbows and shit.
And yes, I am seeing a mental health professional. Does it make you feel better knowing that you've insulted someone with mental illness?
Saying the commission is staffed by "really stupid people who don't know much about art" shows that you, unfortunately, know little about the local art scene. The city's arts commission only administers the projects. All projects, including the boxer girl mural and the pieces at Nationals Stadium, are selected by a panel of community members. The commission has no say over which submission is selected for a particular site. Support art, support DC.
Gotta say, I don't particular care for it. But I'd also say my $.02 worth isn't worth crap since I don't live in the neighborhood. The decision should be up to property owners in the area whose property values could potentially be affected by the piece in question.
You want to know what the problem is?
The owner of the house (african american) loves the mural, commissioned the mural by artist (caucasian). Woman across the alley from mural (african american) doesn't like the artist, doesn't like that white people are moving into the neighborhood (where, incidentally, the artist has lived for 5 years).
it doesn't help that the director of the Arts Commission keeps spewing the phrase "the NEW 202" because it's all just bullshit. We ALL live here (except for you MD/VA interlopers)
The woman across the alley needs to get the fuck over it and let cool stuff happen.
All of this could have been avoided if the artist had just met with the community and neighbors from surrounding houses before painting the mural. That is considered a best practice standard in the community arts world for public mural installations. Of course she would not even be obliged to operate by those standards if the mural was not publicly funded - she could have done whatever she wanted,and then this would only be an argument about the eccentric homeowner and her peculiar tastes.
If the artist had given herself the opportunity to explain her ideas behind the mural in a community setting (this is usually done by sending out letters, hanging doorknockers, or sending a simple email to a community bulletin), I think the neighbors would not have responded the way they did - they may have even liked it. I think it's a little pretentious to assume that the homeowner's neighbors somehow lack the capacity to appreciate the artwork. This happened because of a failure to disclose the project with enough lead time before it appeared.
More often than not, neighbors get upset if no one has given them any warning that something new is about to appear in their neighborhood - they have a right to know, and everyone involved has a right to give input on what will be produced, even if their input is not a part of the final product.
To be frank, Philadelphia has hundreds of murals, not because residents in the city wanted more 'cool stuff,' but because the artists and creative individuals who got those first programs going had the sense to speak with others around them before painting - the dogged individualism that is usually rewarded in the gallery world (the myth that the 'one artist with an uncompromising vision' should be able to do whatever s/he wants) does not translate to art made in this setting. It's just a completely different process. This little squirmish shows once again that when that particular brand of free expression is the operative notion, it will always translate messily.
She did. And she involved kids from the community in creating the mural which is more than was asked of her.
typically in works where the budget is larger, community involvement is mandatory (see: the giant mural in Eckington/Le Droit park)
I believe her budget was 1/10 of that.
Lisa Marie's work has been all over DC for several years now and she is a valued member of the local arts community - it's not like she's some evil invader who's out to destroy DC one mural at a time.
Chill pill.
I think it's about how she presents herself and her work to people beyond the 'local arts community.' If she doesn't do the work to identify herself when she's making art in a non-gallery setting, people who are not regulars in the 'local arts community' will assume the worst.
There are just hundreds of professional art resources out there concerning how to go about installing a mural on your own terms while avoiding these worse-case scenarios.
What makes me most upset is that the whole discussion around Lisa's artwork is all about 'whose right it is to do what' and it just keeps making so many of the people who are getting angry about this sound kind of self-absorbed. Art is supposed to be beneficial, and I've talked to who actually likes the mural seems to have said why they like it so much or why it is good. Maybe instead of attacking the people who don't like it they could talk about why it is great!! Isn't that what we're supposed to do?
Thanks for clarifying twinkie, I wish the stories about what was going on would detail that information. it's very confusing to try and figure out what is going on.
wow, ok so this really is just about aesthetic differences. Thank goodness!! I don't have anything lofty to say in the face of that!
I see I am late to the argument, but it is definitely "ghetto".
BoxerGirl represents a strong independent woman. That is all I see when I look at this great piece of public art.
Shout down? Hateful? Misogynist? Creep? Sexist? Online harassment?
It's the internet and all, but that seems a bit much, particularly given that it's possible you've misconstrued his comment.
You fool! Learn to click reply.
I don't get it. Those chicken-wing legs scare me, and the little arms and the big bobble head remind me of those fighting dolls where you push the levers in the back and the doll reaches forward with it's tiny fists, praying-mantis style. Or that J-Lo movie "Enough". I like rainbows and stars, but that mural probably haunts the dreams of all the neighbors.
To the owner -- I'm sure the ACLU or someone else has offered assistance, but if not, and if someone tries to make you take this down, please let DCIST know you need a lawyer and if they do a blurb about it, I will either represent you or find someone who will, for free. I'd put my email on here but there are too many nutjobs and I don't want to deal with it. I've already spoken with some colleagues at prominent DC firms. Don't roll over, this is your property and we would help you protect your 1st Amendment rights without cost to you.