Salacious Santa

This sculpture by the American artist Paul McCarthy, who was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, has been standing in the courtyard of the Boijmans van Beunigen Museum in Rotterdam for several years. It always struck me as silly, funny, clunky, something to appeal to a child's sensibility. I'd sometimes joke with my kids about it in a passing way while walking up the stairs to the entrance, trying to stimulate their interest in art in whatever little way I could. Funnily enough, they never expressed much interest in the sculpture, preferring a double-mirrored tunnel-like sculpture by Dan Graham that stood in the courtyard for a while.

I always thought of the sculpture as a gigantic gnome, or "kabouter," in Dutch, pretty neutral stuff, and I still do. I hadn't realized it was a work by McCarthy, who is known for his shocking, at times horrific, and bloody, sometimes fecal, video works. His work is aesthetically revolting, unappealing. I avoid it whenever I can.

About a week ago I was surprised to read in the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad that it's a McCarthy, and that it originally came to the Boijman's courtyard to be hidden from the general public. Originally intended as a public sculpture, it incensed a lot of people as sexually provocative. The thought never occurred to me at all, and I'm kind of disappointed to know about it, because now whenever I go there, and look at it, I'll have to be reminded of its popular nickname, "Kabouter Butt Plug." Just goes to show how much my thinking apparently diverges from general thinking, perhaps, because I never saw an inkling of sexual connotation in the brass gnome.

The City of Rotterdam is currently looking for a new home for the sculpture, also known as Santa Claus, but no one wants it in her neighborhood because they don't want to look at what to them looks like an over-sized dildo regularly. The thing he's holding is supposed to be a Christmas tree, which makes more sense to me. It might end up on the shopping and gallery street, the Witte de With, a decision McCarthy was happy with, since he says it's meant as a commentary, or criticism, of consumer culture. It still seems more like a giant garden gnome to me. I always thought the thing he's holding was a "soft" ice cream cone. Ah, the pleasures of interpretation, of still seeing the world somehow innocently. ;-)