USA: A thirty-foot large golden replica of Michelangelo's famous David sculpture takes New York by surprise as it travels through the city in an open trailer

Record ID: 189984

  • Title: USA: A thirty-foot large golden replica of Michelangelo's famous David sculpture takes New York by surprise as it travels through the city in an open trailer
  • Date: 7th March 2012
  • Summary: FLORENCE, ITALY (FILE - MAY 24, 2004) (REUTERS) A PHOTOGRAPHER TAKING PICTURES OF MICHELANGELO'S DAVID VARIOUS OF MICHELANGELO'S DAVID IN GALLERY
  • Embargoed: 22nd March 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa, Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Quirky,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVADJ2LFUF502MIXXRU9LXMJYQM8
  • Story Text: New York got a taste of the Renaissance on Monday (March 6) when a replica of the most famous icon of Renaissance male beauty visited the city. Inspired by Michelangelo's David, a golden 30-foot-tall sculpture roamed the city streets on a trailer, taking New Yorkers by surprise.
    Its creator, Turkish conceptual artist, Serkan Ozkaya, accompanied the gleaming sculpture as it arrived at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, a Manhattan nonprofit that provides a platform for alternative architectural exhibitions.
    Titled "David inspired by Michelangelo", the statue was visiting New York as part of an international journey from Istanbul, where it was built, to Louisville, Kentucky where it will be exhibited at the 21c museum. The American museum, dedicated to 21st century art, acquired the sculpture in 2010 and commissioned its travel.
    Ozkaya, who has always been fascinated by copies, used a 3D program to create his David based on a Stanford University professor's computer model of the original.
    The first copy was made of styrofoam but it collapsed. Ozkaya revised the material, eventually using metal to build the skeleton, and then using fiber glass over the armature. It was constructed with the help of six people over the course of six months, although Orkaza likes to say that from its conception to its final construction after several setbacks, took nearly seven years.
    The Turkish artist had originally envisioned it as being erected in Istanbul because he felt the city lacked Renaissance sculptures.
    "Istanbul is a city that doesn't really have that kind of aesthetics, like Renaissance aesthetics. People seriously couldn't look at it, like people covered their faces when they saw this because it was a naked boy and that was the moment I realized that it was actually a sculpture of a naked boy, instead of Michelangelo's David. In New York I wanted to have it on a truck because I wanted to see it in Chinatown, I wanted to see it on the bridge, I wanted to see it on 5th Avenue and so on and so forth, and bring it over and offer it to people," he said.
    Ozkaya grew up admiring Michelangelo's David and he wanted to make it his own by making his version even larger and in flamboyant gold.
    He has not seen the original Michelangelo's David in person. The six-tonne marble nude depicting the biblical hero who killed Goliath, has been standing since 1504, and is now displayed in a museum in Florence.
    Alice Gray Stites, Chief Curator and Director of Art Programming at 21c museum, was instrumental in bringing Ozkaya's David to the United States.
    "Is this a work of art? Is this a copy? Is this a reference to the reproductions of David that you see all over the world as little tchotchke? But this one's on steroids. So there are lots of ways that people will interact with it, she said, "The whole kind of multiplicity of human responses kind of forms the performative aspect of the work itself."
    While the gleaming David is now headed to Kentucky to a warm welcome, Stites isn't sure whether it will be permanently stationed there, or become a performance piece that continues to travel.
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register