In a city unaccustomed to public art, Nashville is about to get a big dose of it. This past weekend, cranes at the traffic roundabout at the foot of Music Row were unloading a series of nine bronze nudes that had been trucked in from a foundry in Wyoming. Towering to a height of 40 feet and weighing something on the order of 10 tons, the figures are the creation of Nashville sculptor Alan LeQuire. They comprise a work he has titled “Musica.”
If the sculptures are immense, there’s a good chance the response will be too. Their visibility at the foot of Music Row, in such a heavily trafficked part of town, will give them heavy exposure. The immensity of the arranged figures—the sculpture is “believed to be the largest bronze figure group in the United States,” a press release states—and the dance poses in which they are depicted are nothing short of overwhelming. Finally, the figures are nudes, and depending on how our more conservative brethren feel about this, a certain amount of debate is virtually assured. Already, The Tennessean’s letters to the editor section is abuzz.
“We’re prepared for that discussion,” says seasoned local public relations executive Tom Seigenthaler, whom LeQuire has hired. “You have to expect that some people are going to have concerns about it.”
The artistic merit of the sculpture is difficult to judge, in part because it’s not yet installed. But a visit to LeQuire’s studio, where a smaller model of the work is on display, reveals a lovely, fluid arrangement of five dancing figures in a circle. Inside of them, four other figures rise, one atop the other. A woman at the top holds a tambourine, covered in gold leaf, high above her head.
The figures are coated in a patina that gives them a greenish coloring. The entire work is on top of a limestone mound, trucked in from Liberty, Tenn. As LeQuire describes it, the work intends to recognize the “source of creative inspiration” and “represent all the different types of music that have come out of Nashville.” Naturally, their location at the foot of Music Row makes the artistic intention that much more appropriate.
LeQuire is probably best known as having re-created the ancient “Athena Parthenos” in the Parthenon and has made a career of creating figurative works in a decidedly classical vein. Avant-garde he is not, which he confesses sometimes brings him suspicious glances from the arts community here. If he feels as if a public storm is approaching—and nobody can really predict to what degree the nudes will cause any controversy—it will be only the latest in what has been a difficult struggle to bring “Musica” to life.
But barring unforseens, the grand unveiling will be Oct. 11. In the meantime, the sculpture stands wrapped in army green silk, surrounded by a chain-link fence.
In 1999, in the waning days of the administration of former mayor—and now Tennessee governor—Phil Bredesen, an anonymous donor approached the city. The donor wanted to give a sculpture, to be created by LeQuire and costing $1 million, to the city. The donor wanted the sculpture to be located in a roundabout, which was then in the planning stages, where Music Row intersects Demonbreun Street. Bredesen, displaying his typical entrepreneurial zeal, embraced the idea.
At that time, the donor had wanted the sculpture to include a fountain. LeQuire’s original design included jets of water that would shoot over cars from the outside of the roundabout onto the sculpture. “The concept was that the spring is the source of creative inspiration,” LeQuire says. “It was a fantastic design, with the figures all emerging from this white, foamy water.” LeQuire says that Bredesen “had been willing to help with the waterworks—it was a $350,000 to $500,000 contribution and Bredesen said it was in the road budget anyway.” Four days before Bredesen left office, the gift of the sculpture was announced.
Enter Bill Purcell, Bredesen’s successor.
Purcell officials told LeQuire and his wife, Andrée, that they had concerns over the money involved. So the two set out to raise the money themselves, which they did. But the mayor was still nonplussed. The reason, LeQuire explains, is that Purcell wanted a maintenance fund to take care of the fountain in the future. “He told us $1 million in a fund was needed.”
At that point, LeQuire says he had only “a tiny window to raise the million dollars because roadwork was starting.” As time ran short, he and his wife “went back a final time and asked if we could put the water pipes across the street before the roadwork took place so that we could always raise the money later. He said no.” LeQuire was so dejected he tried to find another piece of property on which to place the sculpture, but ultimately abandoned the effort.
LeQuire recalls that the whole episode “was the worst six months of our lives.” The meetings with the mayor had apparently been rocky, even by Purcell standards. But the mayor thought he had reason for concern.
Purcell officials recall that when they took office, nothing had been written down with regards to the project. No department heads had been told whose responsibility it was. The budget at the time was extremely tight—some departments were being cut as much as 10 percent, and libraries were being closed on Fridays. On top of that, there was this political dimension: Purcell and Bredesen have never been political allies. Few were surprised to see Purcell turn a cold shoulder to a Bredesen idea. Whatever the case, the sculpture never got its fountains.
For LeQuire, it was then on to the public art design review committee of the Metro Arts Commission, which is charged with reviewing art to be placed on Metro property. The committee reviewed LeQuire’s design for approximately three months. “I was wary of the process, but it was actually a really good thing to go through,” LeQuire says. As a result of the discussions, the number of figures in “Musica” was increased “because they didn’t think it was big enough for the site.” Both the underlying concept of the sculpture—and the nudity of the figures—were “discussed at length.”
The committee gave a nod to the project, as did then-MDHA head Gerald Nicely and current head Phil Ryan. The last hurdle LeQuire had to jump came on Aug. 19, when Metro Council both accepted the gift of the sculpture to the city and allowed the sculpture to be placed on city-owned property. (Of course, the agenda item didn’t say the sculpture included nudes, which makes it somewhat comical to consider that the council’s fire-breathing social conservatives, like Carolyn Baldwin Tucker, voted for it.)
The total budget for the sculpture is $1,120,000, most of which has gone to pay for the bronze castings. Unlike big-name sculptors who have the luxury of responding to commissions and focusing on their art, LeQuire has had to do a significant amount of the fund raising himself. He and his wife are still raising money, in fact, to pay for the sculpture’s unveiling celebration.
At the same time, Purcell’s own public art process, which will make some money available for artists, has come into sharper focus. Soon after taking office, Purcell passed a measure calling for 1 percent of any money spent by Metro Government on capital projects to go to a public art fund. Only in recent weeks has the Metro Arts Commission announced where public art should go in the city, that being at the foot of the Shelby Street Bridge and in the city’s soon-to-be-constructed public square in front of the Metro Courthouse.
Meanwhile, if relations between LeQuire and Purcell were frayed by the entire experience, word is that the mayor one day dropped by LeQuire’s studio to see what “Musica” looked like. According to all involved, he liked it a lot.
If people do complain about the nudity of “Musica,” and a public debate ensues, that may not be such a bad turn of events. If the controversy extends beyond certain parameters, the arguments could of course become destructive. But a reasonable—even loud—dispute about art is better than not talking about it at all.
“Installing art is sometimes not an easy process,” says one observer close to the project. “I don’t mind the controversy.”
