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World's Ugliest Public Art (PHOTOS)

Posted: 12/09/11 07:50 AM ET

It used to be that if you needed to perk up a street or park, a statue of a mustachioed general on horseback or a goddess in a toga would do nicely. But these days, being pretty or handsome just isn't enough of a goal for public art, which is variably gigantic, stridently eclectic, borderline tasteless or some combination of all those things. If that means bringing the ugly, so be it.

To come up with candidates for the world's ugliest public art, we at Travel + Leisure sought pieces that shot for the moon and missed. Size counted: A weird little mural might not be your cup of tea, but it's a lot easier to overlook than a gargantuan sculpture of a starlet captured exposing her underwear.

Of course, many of the artists whose work is featured here are probably in on the joke, and wouldn't be bothered by a little ribbing. No one would ever make peeing automatons if he or she weren't ready to face a little blowback.

And if you find yourself thinking that a few of these works don't deserve inclusion on this list, so much the better. We might have been too hasty. As the Boston art critic Greg Cook puts it, "Public art -- even works we hate -- should be given a chance. Years. Sometimes it takes a while for something to grow on you. Sometimes it takes a while just to figure something out."

We're not sure that that's going to make many of these works much more palatable, but hey, you never can tell. In the meantime, we'll continue to give the sinister monk, and all the rest a very wide berth.

--John Rambow

Related Links:
World's Ugliest Buildings
World's Ugliest Airports
World's Strangest Statues

Abbé Faria Statue, Goa, India
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An 18th-century Portuguese monk who pioneered hypnotic techniques, Abbé Faria was honored in 1945 in the city of his birth with this rather unwholesome tribute. The novelist Evelyn Waugh called the thing “wildly vivacious,” saying that it captured the illustrious abbé at the “climax of an experiment, rampant over an entranced female.” Be that as it may, it’s easy to imagine that the abbé’s prostrate subject wishes that she could call the whole thing off and make a run for the beach instead.


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Photo: Wendy Underwood
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It used to be that if you needed to perk up a street or park, a statue of a mustachioed general on horseback or a goddess in a toga would do nicely. But these days, being pretty or handsome just isn't...
It used to be that if you needed to perk up a street or park, a statue of a mustachioed general on horseback or a goddess in a toga would do nicely. But these days, being pretty or handsome just isn't...
 
 
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12:45 PM on 12/13/2011
I have to see that ugly Metronome every single day of my life. Worst, I had to work with the artists who created that atrocity for another project in Hoboken, NJ. All their creations are kitschy and incomprehensible.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/travel-leisure/worlds-ugliest-public-art_b_1134079.html#
09:56 PM on 12/12/2011
Can't believe they missed this one: http://madisondailyphoto.blogspot.com/2007/04/camp-randall-statue.html
02:43 PM on 12/12/2011
i think whomever wrote this piece has never flown into dia and see the demon horse. see it once and you will know immediately why it deserves to be listed here. see here and shield the eyes of small children as this image will cause nightmares, lol kinda. http://www.squidoo.com/dia_mustang
11:11 AM on 12/12/2011
That Marilyn statue is hilarious
09:03 PM on 12/11/2011
Thank you for finally explaining that extremely confusing 15-digit clock in Union Square!
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
beyondliberal
Forward, never straight.
12:23 PM on 12/11/2011
How could they fail to share the ugliest of all, the clown head with a ballerina body at Rose and Main on the border of Venice and Santa Monica, CA?
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
carmenalex
!Mamá caliente humanista!
11:54 AM on 12/11/2011
If you want more check out these monstrosities

http://www.cracked.com/article_19155_the-14-most-unintentionally-terrifying-statues-in-world.html
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Rich Cash
Enlisted in 1971 - Retired in 1996
06:26 AM on 12/11/2011
I dunno, that "Forever Marilyn" statue looks pretty hot to me...lol
12:14 AM on 12/11/2011
If any of you have seen the Monroe statue up close and personal it wouldn't even be on this list.
09:27 PM on 12/10/2011
Detroit's "Fist" deserves (dis)honorable mention.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
48thGuy
10:06 AM on 12/10/2011
I love watching tourists on Michigan Avenue stop to look up Marilyn's dress, don't tell them it's bad art!
10:04 PM on 12/09/2011
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
ZenCrusader
trying to be more zen in a zany world.
04:57 PM on 12/09/2011
Seriously, Chicago has some of the best public art in the world.
photo
HUFFPOST BLOGGER
Adam Valen Levinson
04:50 PM on 12/09/2011
And then we watch tourists snap pictures of their friends looking right up Marilyn's skirt. It must be art if it pulls us in so.
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Tom Hendricks
see wikipedia
12:51 PM on 12/09/2011
Modern art is in many ways the salon art of our times. It has not fared well in the last few decades and is ready for the art revolution in the wings loosely called No-isms, that is back to basics. Why is most of this art not really good art (and certainly nothing modern - it really has been done before) I'll count the ways:
1. Cold 2. Disjointed 3. Can't communicate it's message 4.Weird 5.Elitist 6. Technically poor if there is technique at all 7. Pompous and inflated, often takes up a room 8. Non functional, not useful, not integrated into life 9 No breath or scope.