Here's a short list of things more important than the terror that the above sculpture, at the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, is causing one think-of-the-children rube: (1) anything else; (2) no, really, anything else in the world; (3) especially the season premiere of The Real Housewives of New York.
Yu Chang's smart, socially engaged "Accept or Reject" is too nipple-y for noted art critic Stilwell mommy Joanne Hughes, who has started a petition to have the bronze statue hauled away from the public space. (She says she has 1,500 signatures.) Her stance may come from a place of pure, giddy ignorance, but you gotta hand it to her for sheer bravery: In last night's on-camera interview, she out-crazy-eyed the KCTV Channel 5 team - not easy! - achieving a kind of Michele Bachmann transcendence.
KCUR 89.3's Laura Spencer posted a typically informative and calmly presented account yesterday of the embarrassingly provincial suburban controversy. That's what you should read if you want to know, for instance, that Chang's piece is part of the China-U.S. Sculpture Park dedicated last year at the arboretum.
If you like a little hysteria, though, be sure to watch Channel 5's hilarious report, which humors Hughes by blurring out the sculpture's breasts:
Like I said, embarrassingly provincial. Both reports note that Overland Park has no plans to do anything about Hughes' moronic drive to de-boob the garden. So let's just sit back and enjoy a much more disturbing piece of multimedia art, one I like to call "Careful, Joanne Hughes Is Watching You":
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