George Floyd’s younger brother, Terrence Floyd, stood in front of the sculpture and looked at the damage. On Saturday he spoke at the unveiling.

“This is a spit on my brother’s casket to me,” Terrence Floyd, 43, of Brooklyn said. “They just keep defacing him. Why do people hate him so much?”

When some of the passersby saw the damage, they got right to work cleaning it up.

“A few of us saw that the paint was still wet, so I ran to Blick and got supplies,” said Steve Constantine, 33, of  Austin, Texas. “Then we got a group together to clean it up.”

The now volunteers scrubbed and brushed off the grey paint that was poured on the face of the mahogany wood and bronze painted sculpture.

LaCrown Johnson, 28, of Brooklyn said the vandalism felt like another attack on Floyd, who was murdered by  now ex-police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020. He knelt on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes. His death sparked protests around the country in which justice was demanded  for Floyd and countless Black people killed by police.

This was not the first time this statue of Floyd was vandalized.  In June  four men threw black paint on the sculpture as it sat on display in Flatbush, Brooklyn.  Another Floyd statue in Newark was also defaced in June.

“This disgusting act can’t change this movement,” Johnson said.

A note from an anonymous person left at George Floyd’s statue in Union Square after a vandal threw grey paint on it.  Photo by Nathan Morris

Police footage show a man mixing paint behind the sculpture then getting on his skateboard and tossing the paint as he skates away.

The NYPD is looking for a suspect who is wanted for criminal mischief after defacing the new George Floyd statue in NYC’s Union Square Park, and they’re offering up to $3,500 for useful information. pic.twitter.com/jTYOMyrrSr

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) October 4, 2021

Adrienne Lotson, 59, of Harlem came to see the sculpture and was not surprised it was vandalized. 

“I came out because I knew it would happen eventually,” she said. 

Jesse Bolden, 28, of Manhattan said trying to destroy celebratory images of Floyd does not help anyone or anything. “They waste time doing this instead of putting their energy into something positive,” he said. “If it doesn’t make you feel some type of way, what kind of human are you?

This is the first outdoor exhibit for Confront Art, an organization that teams up with artists to create art related to social justice. 

Andrew Cohen, 44, a co-founder of the organization, was monitoring the cleanup of the statue.

 “They (police) said they will investigate this as a hate crime, but there’s no way of preventing this from happening again,” he said.

The post George Floyd statue vandalized in Union Square appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

This past weekend, an unexpected visitor came to Times Square.

Times Square welcomed Kehinde Wiley’s “Rumors of War” a 27-foot bronze statue of a black man with dreads wearing  “urban wear” — a hoodie, ripped jeans, and Nikes, while sitting atop a horse in mid-gallop.

The statue, which sits in the bustling plaza closest to 46th Street, was created by the  Nigerian-American visual artist and native New Yorker, whose most recent claim to fame is the 2018 oil painting portrait of former President Barack Obama. 

The statue, which mimics the statue of Confederate General J.E.B Stuart, provides an impressive trifecta of accomplishments for Wiley. It is his first public work of art, his biggest in size, and unarguably his most awe-inspiring, even for a place such as New York. The statue has been a jaw-dropping sight for visitors who can be seen circling the statue, reading the inscription to the left, moving to the center, craning their necks in order to take it all in from top to bottom, and then walking to the other side to assure that they hadn’t missed anything. 

LaDarryl Blair, 22 a rapper from Dallas, Texas, came to New York City for a business meeting, and admitted he didn’t really pay much attention to the statue at first.  He was focused on taking photos with his friend. Once he took time to learn about the significance of the statue, he became intrigued.

“This is groundbreaking and controversial for a lot of reasons,” Blair said. “It’s going to push the envelope because a lot of people would have been scared to do this type of thing, especially in a place where the majority is white people.”

Blair, said the statue’s bold message encourages him to continue to be bold in his music career, too.

“I like to stray from the norm and push kids away from doing drugs.’ he said. “The hip hop industry influences black youth to do crazy things. I think they need to hear something different.” 

Blair also expressed frustration, drawing a parallel between how the sculpture celebrates  the black man and the September 2018 shooting death of Botham Jean, a 26 year old black man from Dallas, and the meager 10 year sentence his killer received earlier this week. 

“It’s frustrating and I can’t even put into words what would it would have been like if it was a black man who entered a white woman’s home,” he said. “I think it just goes to show why these sculptures are important because we aren’t heard enough. We have so far to go.”

Darian Jones, 24, a paralegal administrative assistant came to New York City for business and was pleasantly surprised to come across Kehinde Wiley’s “Rumor of War” an  art installation in Time Square. Photo by Sope Aluko

 Darian Jones, 24, a paralegal administrative assistant, from Dallas, Texas said the messaging was very powerful to her.

“In terms of the message, I can sum it up in a few words:  rise above,” she said.“I see the hoodie and it represents the Trayvon Martins of this time. The different pieces that he put on the statue are many items that African Americans wear everyday and are stereotyped for. You wear a hoodie, you’re a thug. You have dreads, you’re not well groomed. I have so many thoughts and just not enough time.” 

For Paul Ferrara, the monument has served as an opportunity to talk to the public about his passion for art education, as an Art Ambassador for Time Square Alliance, a group founded in 1992 that works in the plaza to promote major events.

“When I found out about this possibility [of the statue being unveiled here] I was very excited to engage with people about it,’ he said. “It’s a sculpture that’s really changing the dialogue. There’s so much going on with monuments, evaluating what significance they hold in society and the stories that they tell.  What Kehinde is doing with his work is changing the story and offering another story.”

The sculpture will be in Times Square until December, and then be moved to Richmond, Virginia It will be permanently installed in Virginia’s Museum of Fine Arts on Ashe Boulevard, less than a mile from the J.E.B Stuart monument.

The post Times Square statue promotes bold message appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

But it wasn’t a suicidal man. It was a statue.

The statue is one of 31 others that make up the “Event Horizons” art exhibit, created by British artist Antony Gormley. Each statue is 6-feet-2-inches tall, and most can be found on ledges and rooftops of buildings, with four standing at eye-level around Madison Square Park. The statues are scaring — and confusing — many New Yorkers.

“I don’t get why it’s naked or who this is,” said David Park, 75, as he tapped the legs of a statue with his wooden cane.

The metal statues, brought in by the Madison Square Park Conservatory, were made from a mold of Gormley’s body. They appear rusted and stiff, with their arms to their sides and fingers pressed tightly together. The statues on the ground look straight ahead, while the ones on the building ledges look down at the streets below.

Details on the statues’ faces are minimal — they have closed eyes and no lips. And there are eight flat, circular knobs, about the size of silver dollars, dotting the statues’ torsos, which were used to remove the molds from Gormley’s body.

While the figures on the ground are made of iron and weigh about 1,400 pounds, the ones on buildings are made mostly of fiberglass and weigh about 75 pounds.

Because of the realistic appearance of the statues and their positions perched atop buildings, many Flatiron pedestrians believe they are suicidal jumpers.

“I started to get out my phone to call the police when I saw it up there,” said Margaret Jones, 36, as she pointed up to the statue on the Empire State Building. “Why else would someone be that close to the ledge if they weren’t going to jump?”

“I looked up and saw a man standing near the edge,” said Catherine Zimmers, 38. “I had an instant flash to what happened when people were jumping on 9/11, and my heart dropped.”

While the New York Police Department could not provide an exact figure of how many people call about these “possible jumpers,” one police officer said at least hundreds of calls have come in because of the statues.

In a written statement, Gormley said the intent of this exhibit was not to cause people to be alarmed, but to get them to slow down and notice their surroundings. Gormley came to New York City in August 2009 to scout out locations for his statues. Together with representatives from Madison Square Park Conservatory, Gormley decided that placing the statues as close to the ledges as possible would help with visibility and would add a dramatic effect.

When Zimmers was told about this, she shook her head in disbelief.

“Why would someone do this to the people in this city?” Zimmers said. “I still have nightmares about those people who felt there was no way out but to jump (on 9/11). I don’t need a reminder just because someone feels they are being creative.”

Gormley developed a large following in Europe after the release of his statue “Angel of the North,” which became one of England’s most famous statues. After a similar “Event Horizon” display along a London shoreline in 2007, Gormley decided he wanted to create an exhibit for New York City. This is his first public art exhibit in the United States.

Patricia Shiplett, a visual artist from Saskatoon, Canada, has been studying Gormley’s work. She didn’t think she would get to see the exhibit in person unless she went to London, but she said she was thrilled to see it on her trip to New York City.

“I think they’re actually beacons to what’s happening in the world,” Shiplett said. “I think they’re placed there to sort of observe mankind and maybe have us think a little bit about what we’re doing with the world.”

Others simply enjoy the experience of searching for the statues.

“It’s like a puzzle trying to figure out where they are hidden on the buildings,” said Alexa Kinsley, 20. “I like it.”

The statues are on exhibit until August 15.

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