As guru and I were walking to the car after sexie last night, we realized that one of my most hated pieces of outdoor sculpture is gone. I was astounded.

Palazzo Nudo emitted and received, the plaque states. It was an open container, encompassing the past but receptive to the new.
It also was kind of stupid, according to KD of Brighton Heights. She has become an inadvertent patron of the public artwork over the years from her vantage point of the 16B bus stop across the street.
"I hated it," she said. "I thought it was the ugliest damn thing." - Trib

Now any of you who know me know that I have a shaky cease fire with outdoor sculpture. (much as I battle with house plants) As an intern I ended up doing a video about outdoor sculpture in the land of calder. I walked away from that experience realizing there are a lot of poisers and there is a lot of sculpture that should not be funded. That is the essential problem with sculpture, imo. It takes a lot of time, energy and money to produce the final piece and you don't know what you're going to get until it is done.

Take our subject Plazzo Nudo. In itself this piece is probably fabulous.
The piece, which incorporates architectural fragments from demolished city buildings, was commissioned by The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. To the artist, it signifies "a new structure rising from the old remnants of the Cultural District." - PG

In its environment it was an eyesore. Why do I say this? Because sending out this reminder of the destructive tendency of our culture to throw out the old, or worse, borrow the old out of context for our own purpose, only serves to renforce the seemingly hopelessness of renewal in the pgh area. For a region already struggling with its identity, this type of message does not help.

Build this type of art where it can be appreciated. That place is not at the corner of 7th and Penn.


1999 - PRESENT, PALAZZO NUDO
Alexandr Brodsky
Information

PG's take: Alexandr Brodsky's "Palazzo Nudo," one of the best pieces of public art to have graced our fair streets in recent memory, is being dismantled.
PG's original story