http://www.theatlanticcities.com/ar...lin-sculpture-roasts-whole-pigs-chicago/1885/
You'd think that folks who love both red meat and Sarah Palin would rally behind a sculpture devoted to both. But for some reason, the Tea Party is not happy with this BBQ smoker in the shape of the conservative firebrand's freedom-filled noggin.
News organizations have been rooting and snuffling around the immense Palin head, titled "We're Having a Tea Parody" (not "Pear-ody," as reported elsewhere), ever since mixed-media artist J. Taylor Wallace debuted it in 2011 at a Memphis public-art show. The anthropomorphic cooker hit the news again last week, when Wallace fashioned a meal with it to celebrate the opening of a new sculpture garden in Chicago.
A couple notes about its provenance are worth mentioning here. The sculpture includes an oven for smoking delicious meats because, in charming Southern fashion, that was a requirement for entry in the Memphis exhibit. The Palin element is there because Wallace wanted to make a statement about her rigid, some might say extremist ideology.
"I know Alaskans have their own issues up there, but helicopter-wolf killing is not what I'm a big fan of," he explains. "A terrifying prospect to me is, what if she was in charge of the Department of Interior?" (That could conceivably happen under the reign of President Newt Gingrich.)
The Palin cooker's current home is outside the Bridgeport Art Center, a cultural venue/housing project for artists in Chicago, where it stands like a screaming Moai head guarding the premises. In its trip from Tennessee to the Windy City, the sculpture has attracted a lot of attention, not all of it fawning.
"I've gotten some really lovely emails, like, 'You suck, and you'll be the next one to burn,'" says Wallace. Here are a few choice selections from the artist's inbox:
You'd think that folks who love both red meat and Sarah Palin would rally behind a sculpture devoted to both. But for some reason, the Tea Party is not happy with this BBQ smoker in the shape of the conservative firebrand's freedom-filled noggin.
News organizations have been rooting and snuffling around the immense Palin head, titled "We're Having a Tea Parody" (not "Pear-ody," as reported elsewhere), ever since mixed-media artist J. Taylor Wallace debuted it in 2011 at a Memphis public-art show. The anthropomorphic cooker hit the news again last week, when Wallace fashioned a meal with it to celebrate the opening of a new sculpture garden in Chicago.
A couple notes about its provenance are worth mentioning here. The sculpture includes an oven for smoking delicious meats because, in charming Southern fashion, that was a requirement for entry in the Memphis exhibit. The Palin element is there because Wallace wanted to make a statement about her rigid, some might say extremist ideology.
"I know Alaskans have their own issues up there, but helicopter-wolf killing is not what I'm a big fan of," he explains. "A terrifying prospect to me is, what if she was in charge of the Department of Interior?" (That could conceivably happen under the reign of President Newt Gingrich.)
The Palin cooker's current home is outside the Bridgeport Art Center, a cultural venue/housing project for artists in Chicago, where it stands like a screaming Moai head guarding the premises. In its trip from Tennessee to the Windy City, the sculpture has attracted a lot of attention, not all of it fawning.
"I've gotten some really lovely emails, like, 'You suck, and you'll be the next one to burn,'" says Wallace. Here are a few choice selections from the artist's inbox:
