The Attack Of the 45-Foot *Woman* on San Francisco!

Photo Credit: Lincoln Road

Give San Francisco this much credit: at least their latest art installation doesn't prompt any confusion over what it depicts. We think, anyway. But we'll get to that point shortly.

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These days, civic art installations usually take the form of modern-art monstrosities, especially sculpture. The most common reaction to these municipal art choices is inevitably, "What is it?" These inexplicable tangles of metal and/or plastic resemble nothing in life, leaving each denizen to walk past and connect it to his/her own experiences, mainly in the paying of taxes that went into the commission of such "art."

But not San Francisco! Instead of choosing a post-modernist statement through tangled bronze that speaks to urban stupidity, the city chose instead to erect a monument to ... erections, I guess. There can be no mistaking what their 45-foot art installation depicts; it's the Attack of the 45-Foot Naked Woman on downtown! 

Here's a mildly NSFW look at the sculpture, entitled "R-Evolution" for max progressive cred, one supposes (via RedState's Bob Hoge):

Bob objects to the use of taxpayer dollars on this monstrosity, as do some residents in the city itself:

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It’s not that I’m some freakish prude who is aghast at the sight of nudity; my issue is that this is not a good use of taxpayer dollars for a besieged city, and it’s also not something that says, “we are a serious metropolis, and we’re on the comeback trail.” In fact, it says the exact opposite.

I almost imagine a smoky back room somewhere in the Tenderloin District a decade or two ago with Rep. Nancy Pelosi, now-Governor Gavin Newsom and folks like failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris in attendance, sucking on their stogies, and giggling, “hey let’s destroy this city—wouldn’t that be fun?” Because they certainly couldn’t have planned the decline any better if they tried.

I'm not freakishly prude either, especially in artistic depictions, but let's not allow this sculpture to evade criticism on this score, either. Put simply, there is no artistic presentation here. The sculpture of the naked woman suggests nothing artistic in the least. She is posed in a weirdly submissive form, void of any action or suggestion of agency. I'm no fan of the Fearless Girl sculpture on Wall Street, given its hijacking of someone else's art to make its point, but compare the action and the defiance that Kristen Visbal instilled into her 4-foot high sculpture to this passive exposition:


Apart from Visbal's attempt to turn the Wall Street Bull into some sort of battle-of-the-sexes statement rather than just a tribute to robust markets, Fearless Girl is a great example of sculptural art. The image is well-proportioned, realistic, and conveys honest energy and emotion. Contrast that action and meaning with the bizarre depiction of a naked woman in "R-Evolution." If this sculpture were set on its back, you might just as well call it "Autopsy" for all of the life its 'artist' imbued into it. What little suggestion of life or agency the installation does have is in its hands, which suggest nothing more than submission rather than "revolution" or "evolution." And given the perspective most visitors will have at the "R-Evolution" installation itself, it might be better entitled "Gynecological Exam."

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And while we're on the subject of submission, the installation is apparently designed to allow light projections at night to entertain the crowd. That too seems like a depiction of modern reality, in which progressive culture seizes on women and womanhood to project whatever else they believe and desire for themselves. It makes the statue even more submissive than its posturing suggests, depicting a helpless naked woman at the mercy of her surroundings as the city hijacks her femaleness for their own agenda. 

However, that may be its highest virtue, in another sense. The only "revolutionary" aspect to this 45-foot statue of a naked woman in San Francisco will be its reminder of what a "woman" actually is. It might take upskirt fetish to drive that point home in a progressive city like San Francisco, but a woman is a female human with distinct genetic and anatomical markers, such as a broader pelvis, breast development for nurturing babies, and female genitalia to conceive and deliver children. When you strip down humans to their natural state, "evolutionary" if you will, you discover that humans are sexually binary in a manner determined at conception and unchangeable. 

Maybe that is a revolutionary concept these days. Especially in San Francisco. 

As atrocious as this sculpture may be in an artistic sense, it's a gold mine in political and cultural contexts. And it's hilarious to consider that the city leaders in San Francisco may not have even considered any of these issues in their haste to construct a idol to licentiousness. 

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