By Terese Loeb Kreuzer
As controversy continues to surround the lions by sculptor Tom Otterness proposed for the front of the Battery Park City library on North End Avenue, another Otterness work, “The Real World” in Rockefeller Park demonstrably has legions of fans.
On Sunday, May 8, Otterness was supposed to give a tour of “The Real World” under the auspices of the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy, but he didn’t show up; Abby Ehrlich, director of parks programming, stood in for him. More than 100 people crowded around her as she walked them through the sculpture, pointing out its many droll, ironic, and sometimes mischievous scenes. People came from all over New York City and from as far away as Pound Ridge in Westchester for the presentation. Sign-up sheets were passed around so that they could be notified when Otterness himself would be giving the tour.
It appeared that few of the people who attended the tour were aware of the Battery Park City library lion controversy. When informed that Otterness lions were being contemplated for the front of the library, one visitor, Mary Anne Edwards, exclaimed, “Wouldn’t that be nice!”
On April 26 at its full board meeting, Community Board 1 put its stamp of approval on the proposal, passing a resolution that noted Otterness’ international reputation and the fact that an anonymous donor had stepped up to fund the project.
“Community Board 1 wholeheartedly supports the proposal for this installation by Tom Otterness and encourages the artist to move forward with the process and project, subject to approval by the Battery Park City Authority, New York Public Library, Department of Transportation and Public Design Commission,” the resolution stated.
“The Real World,” known by the familiar name of “Penny Park” because its multitude of people and animals labor and cavort among scores of sculpted pennies, was installed in 1992. Ehrlich described a visit to “The Real World” as a “journey.” There is a path that snakes through it, she noted, with sculpted bare feet embedded in it, the toes going in different directions.
“I think one of the things ‘The Real World’ is about is the multiplicity of experiences,” Ehrlich said. “We all come at the real world from different directions, just as you can enter this park from different directions and the paths meander in different directions but they all get to the same place. There’s always more than one way to experience life in the real world and more than one way to get there.”
Though Otterness’ figures are cute and roly-poly, the subtext of the sculpture is anything but cute. At the southern end of the installation, for instance, is what Otterness called “The cycle of desires” — a dog looking at a cat that is looking at a bird that is eyeing a worm.
Elsewhere in the “The Real World” are lordly capitalists who benefit from the sweat of others. However, the masters are not as secure as they first appear. A Humpty-Dumpty figure in a tie and suit, playing a violin (like Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned), sits atop a crooked house that is being attacked by a hydra-headed vacuum cleaner. Around the house are stacks of pennies, tails up — a possible sign of bad luck.
“Tom has said that pennies are on the ground in this piece because they’ve been devalued,” Ehrlich commented. “When people drop them, they don’t always pick them up anymore. But there isn’t a single meaning to anything here. There’s a lot of playfulness and things to explore that might provoke thought if you give them time.”
The numerous children who visited “The Real World” on Sunday were well situated to take in all that Otterness had wrought. Many of the scenes were at eye level for the tikes. Moreover, they climbed all over the sculpture, sat on it and used it in other ways that Otterness intended.
A girl planted her own small, sandaled feet atop the barefoot toes of feet that could have supported a giant. Another little girl used a bronze dog leashed to the water fountain as a footstool so that she could get a drink. A third child curiously eyed a monkey mother with her baby from close up, stroking the bronze, maternal arm.
“Children’s observations about the piece are very astute,” said Ehrlich, “and the piece is very direct.” The changes in scale apparently appeal to them, she said. On the tour, a child commented that “The Real World” was like “Alice in Wonderland.” Someone else compared it to “Gulliver’s Travels.”
After the tour, the Parks Conservancy spread out drop cloths and brought out clay and sculpting tools so that kids and grown-ups could make their own sculptures. Some of what they produced indicated that Otterness had inspired them: a lizard resembling a small dragon emerged, a clenched fist, a tall, fat flower on a fat stem.
Article BY Terese Loeb Kreuzer
