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Not that it will matter much here, but the Fischl design for the Arthur Ashe sculpture was selected by his widow from among 12 finalists, so to say that it's self-promotional is merely to note that he entered the contest. Mrs. Ashe herself had imposed the requirement that the sculpture NOT be done in the likeness of Arthur Ashe. She is reported to have been very pleased with the sculpture and stated that she was sure her husband would have been, too. That sculpture was also of a nude, hence much of the controversy surrounding it. Apparently sculptures of Greco-Roman sports participants aren't shown in schools anymore. Too nasty. (Yet we insist that academic training include years of life drawings of nude models. Go figure.)
Being somewhere between enlightenment and idiocy (you make the call), I would not insist on "defending" Fischl's design choices, just as I would not insist that anyone bothered by the nudity of Michelangelo's "David" -- and a lot of people are -- should just have to deal with it because the majority have accepted it as "great art". (I, insophisticate, find it rather ordinary and uninteresting.) And I also doubt that the "David" would go over very well either in Rockefeller Plaza these days.
I do all the cooking around this ranch, and occasionally I prepare Italian dinners while wearing an apron I bought in Florence, depicting the "David" from neck to knees, which is placed in roughly similar global position on me (and let me tell you, as my wife told me, it's a lousy match). It gets a laugh but makes people very uncomfortable, quickly. There's no accounting for taste. I hope that Michelangelo guy didn't get any funds from the Roman Endowment for the Arts.
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