Like a luxury garden gnome, real estate mogul and art collector Aby Rosen has put his 33-foot Damien Hirst sculpture The Virgin Mother out on his front yard, in the upscale neighborhood of Old Westbury, N.Y. The neighbors are so offended by the sculpture, they’ve having a hearing later this month, proposing a local law that will limit the height of outdoor statues to 25 feet — just to shun this one.
The intensity of his neighbors’ outrage against the installation is hilarious. The New York Times describes the installation as “a beyond-naked pregnant woman with an exposed fetus.” One neighbor said that the 13-ton sculpture is “out of character with the neighborhood,” and suggested a more appropriate location — outside a obstetrics/gynecology building, because obviously things that look like medical things should be next to other medical things, especially if their parts of women presented in a less than delectable manner.
The sculpture, valued at one point at over eight million dollars, is not particularly amazing and a known rip of John LeKay’s work, but damn it if we’re not cheering for Rosen’s right to display her, in all that exposed, fleshy, pregnant g(l)ory.
Rosen is known mostly for disrespecting Picasso, threatening to demolish beloved things to build condos and selling condos pre-accessorized with famous art. (Photo: DamienHirst.com)
