Two Louisiana Exhibits Named to ‘Ugliest Public Arts’ List

(KMDL-FM) When it comes to art, most of us are casual observers. We know what we like to look at, and we know what is not pleasing to our eyes. It's the "not pleasing to the eye" exhibits that we'll focus on today. A new survey has revealed its choices for America's Ugliest Public Art, and of the 90 exhibits that made the list, two of them were in Louisiana.

In fact, one of the Louisiana exhibits is in the Top 10, and the other makes the Top 20 with an entry at number 20 on the list. The list was compiled by Rivers Wall Art; they've evidently been compiling their list of "unattractive artwork" for a few years now. They've compiled what they believe to be the 90 ugliest pieces of public art on display in America as we speak.

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I am sure you are asking what makes a particular piece of artwork "ugly", and I don't know exactly how the folks at Rivers Wall Art defined that word for this particular project. But we do know that they received some 2,000 suggestions from around the country. From those suggestions, they managed to cull the herd down to 90.

Where Is the Ugliest Piece of Public Art In America Located?

If you wanted to see the exhibit that captured the "award" for the ugliest piece of public artwork, you won't have to travel too far. You'd only need to visit Enterprise, Alabama, where they have a giant statue of a boll weevil. Yeah, a bug, a bug that is the reason that so many Alabama farmers quit growing cotton and started growing peanuts and soybeans.

That same city boasts a Ronald McDonald statue of Ronald the McDonald's spokesclown reimagined as a boll weevil. I am guessing the folks of Enterprise, Alabama, are either a really fun group or they have some serious issues between their ears.

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What Are The Ugliest Pieces of Public Art in Louisiana?

The ugliest piece of public art in Louisiana is housed in New Orleans, and it ranks at number nine on the Rivers Wall Art List. It is the Giant Safety Pin in New Orleans. The exhibit is officially entitled The Safety Pin by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.

You can view this exhibit in the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Again, that is the 9th "ugliest" piece of public art according to the survey. To reach the only other Louisiana exhibit to be included for this "honor," you have to head to the opposite end of the state.

Where is Louisiana's Second Ugliest Piece of Public Art?

Not only are New Orleans and Shreveport opposed on different sides of the state, but the mindset between the two cities is measurable. New Orleans is more of the Cajun/Creole "let the good times roll" culture, while Shreveport is a far eastern suburb of Dallas.

And in that "east" Dallas suburb that we call Shreveport, Louisiana, you will find Art the Dalmation Sculpture. In the video below, you can see the exhibit during its unveiling back in 2014.

The piece can be found at the Central ARTSTATION in Shreveport. The sculpture was presented to the community as a gift from the Academy Award-winning duo William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg of Moonbot Studios. Again, that sculpture ranked at number 20 on the "Ugly" public artwork list.

We hope you won't take offense at our use of the word "ugly" in describing these and all the exhibits that were featured in the survey. Ugly is the word chosen by the curators of the survey; we can't say we agree or disagree, at least on all of the exhibits they included.

I did find it interesting that no exhibits from Mississippi were included in this list. I guess the folks at Rvers Wall Art didn't have a "portraits painted on water towers division". Maybe they can use that as a suggestion for next year's list.