Getting tired.

I recall the first time I saw one of Claes Oldenburg’s public sculptures. Union Square, NYC, 1981. It was a toothbrush some seven stories tall. Or maybe it was a corn-on-the-cob. I forget. After a while these giant daily objects all meld into one. Rarely has the old dictum “When you have seen one you have seen them all” been more true.

The best that can be said for these huge ‘sculptures’ – a denigration of the noun – is that they can provide opportunities for amusing pictures but if my apartment faced one I would likely turn to a life of crime, procure some high explosive and rig the thing in the middle of the night.

Sometimes they are placed well away from homes, like the Cupid Bow and Arrow on San Francisco’s Embarcadero. It’s mildly amusing in a gauche sort of way, sufficiently isolated to prevent it from becoming an eyesore and, after a while, I imagine one walks past it without noticing. Wit, whimsy and lightness are strangers to the Oldenburg school of public works.

Cupid’s Bow and the Oakland Bay Bridge, Embarcadero, SF. G1, kit lens @ 14mm, 1/4000, f/6.3, ISO320.

Oldenburg’s works are now to be found in every big American city, the municipal planners proving yet again that one of the key dictates of government employment is a total lack of original thinking and a wild disregard for the wise use of taxpayers’ money.

But the other day I did come across a neat piece which had everything Oldenburg’s lugubrious works lack. Humor, lightness and smart placement. And not a taxpayer cent involved. This pair of martini olives shaped into a heart with a swizzle stick denoting Cupid’s arrow, can be found in the forecourt of a restaurant not a thousand yards south of Oldenburg’s charmless bow and arrow. And it really works well.

Martini olive heart. G1, kit zoom @ 23mm, 1/1250, f/4.7, ISO320.

MoMo’s restaurant is located at Second and Townsend Streets in San Francisco and I wouldn’t go there to order girlie drinks, if I were you.