It is okay to not like the sculpture. Parisians originally hated the Eiffel Tower. New Yorkers hated the Empire State Building, Auguste Rodin’s Monument to Balzac as well as art by Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, and Duchamp were all considered to be worthless at one time.
Art is subjective and no art is more subjective than public art. Public art is public in name only, intentional or not it is seldom for everyone. There is a triad involved between the artist, the government, and the public. Within the public there is an additional triad of art lovers, art critics, and those who could care less one way or another. An artist has a near impossible task to please everyone, and seldom does.
The artist that designed our sculpture put a lot of thought and creativity into his design.
In his own words;
The sculpture is set to be 151 feet tall, or 1822 inches, which corresponds to Jacksonville’s founding date (June 5, 1822). The total linear length of the sculpture is 310 feet, which represents the length of St. Johns River in nautical miles.
“That’s the beauty of public art, it creates dialogue and discussion” shares JEFRË. “Everyone has an interpretation for it, it’s called “Jax” but IT’s NOT A SIGN, font or letters. It’s a fluid form of water rising up from the river into the City skyline that forms curving shapes reminiscent of the oxbows and bends of the St. John’s River.
From every view point, the river form is a completely different sculpture and reflection of a timeline in history. If you think it looks like Jax then great but if you think it looks like a heart, an anchor , a figure eight knot, a letter “J” , lox, lex, love, steel spaghetti or paperclip then that’s fine as well. “
Diversity of the people of Jacksonville and it’s direct relationship to the river has changed numerous times over the course of history and will continue to do so. It’s my hope the it will have the similar effect of how people will interpret and engage with the sculpture today, tomorrow and forever into the future. Just like a river, the “Jax” Icon is a container of memory.” ~JEFRË
Misinformation
Complainers keep saying the sculpture this, the sculpture that. There is much more to the redevelopment plan than just the sculpture. The plan also includes a beer garden, a hotel, a play area, a river terrace, a park pavilion building, a sky garden, which includes outdoor dining options and a bike and pedestrian connection to the Main Street bridge.
Complaints have been made about not including local artists. That is a total fabrication.
Each design team had to include an artist, landscape architect and at least one professional with park programming and “place-making” experience. The winning team had a local Florida artist.
The third place team had a local Jacksonville artist. There were other locals involved as well. Any local artist or design team who was willing to put forth the effort to be involved had the opportunity.
There have been complaints about the cost with some claiming 30 million dollars, others 20 million dollars and everywhere in between for “just a sculpture” All of those claims are false. The complete design is expected to cost $23 million. That it is for everything. The sculpture itself is more than likely to end up costing taxpayers nothing as there has been great interest in sponsorship of it.
There have been complaints of people not being able to be involved in the process.
That is also false. There have been over seven months worth of meetings open to the public throughout the process. Anyone who wanted to be involved had the opportunity to be involved, either in person or via zoom.
The sad thing about this very open process that anyone could have been involved in, either directly or indirectly, is the amount of misinformation that is being spread and readily gobbled up by those who chose not to be involved, only to complain afterward.
Haters are going to hate, and as mentioned above, it is okay to not like the sculpture. It is okay to even hate the sculpture. However, it is not okay to hate the artist, and much of the hate that has been floating around town and on social media is meant for the artist, who happens to be a Filipino American. Unfortunately some folks just can’t stand it when a person of color earns an opportunity to shine.
Racism
They can’t get away with using overt racial slurs and attacks like they used to, at least not publicly, now they use code words and phrases, less overt racism more covert racism; “not from around here” , “where is he from?” He speaks “gibberish”. Attacks are made against the work, rather than the person directly. No where is covert racism more prevalent in society today than in the Arts. The subjectivity of Art makes it easy to discriminate.
One local white artist spreading misinformation and hate even boasted “…I got some energy and someone just volunteered funding to throw some shit at this!”
Who would be willing to bankroll a campaign of hate and disinformation?
White people with money, that’s who. After all, Art is one of the last bastions of whiteness left in America.
According to Philanthropy News Digest 28% of staff at the museums they surveyed are from minority backgrounds, the majority of those individuals are in security, facilities, finance, or human resources, while among museum curators, conservators, educators, and leaders 84 percent are white, 6 percent are Asian, 4 percent are African American, 3 percent are Latina/o, and 3 percent have a mixed race background.
Artnet News adds even more dirty laundry to the pile stating that “Researchers examined more than 40,000 artworks in the collections of 18 museums across the US, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the Art Institute of Chicago, to analyze the gender and ethnic diversity of their holdings. They estimate that 85 percent of artists represented in these collections are white.” This is, notably, significantly out of step with the US population at large, which is 61 percent non Hispanic white.”
There is an even greater disparity in Jacksonville where the population breakdown is White: 58.22% Black or African American: 30.95% Asian: 4.76% Two or more races: 3.64%.
Whites have been and remain the gatekeepers when it comes to Art.
Minorities can mop the floors and guard the doors but whites must remain in charge.
So when a Filipino American’s sculpture was selected as part of a design team’s redevelopment proposal for Riverfront Plaza a large number of white people took to social media in protest.
Not all of those people are racists, but many of them have been manipulated by racists.
That is why it is so important to fact check before you share things on social media.
That is why it is important to fact check before you sign a petition.
Just because a friend from work posted it does not mean it is truthful. Your friend from work could have been duped, or maybe your friend from work is a white supremist and you were the one duped.
Do your homework before sharing things. If you can’t do that or you’re unwilling to do that, don’t share it.
One thing to remember is that a meme doesn’t need to contain hate speech to benefit hate groups. It may seem cute or funny, often times they design them that way as their goal is to manipulate good people into helping them achieve their more sinister goals. In this case they seek to get a Filipino American fired from his job.
I also love that a Filipino American’s sculpture was selected as part of the winning design team’s proposal. Filipinos are Jacksonville’s largest immigrant group. They make up 35% of the city’s Asian community, and about 12% of all Duval immigrants.
It is great to see the Filipino Community receive representation within the Arts in our city.
This is a great day for Jacksonville and a great day for our Filipino Community!
The Artist
Jefrë Figueras Manuel, or more often known simply as Jefrë is the artist.
He is a Filipino-American born and raised in Chicago, Jefrë started creating at a young age and took particular interest in design and architecture. He majored in sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago and then went on to pursue a degree from Ohio State University in urban design and landscape architecture before attending the Architecture Association in London to study Morpho-Ecologies. After working in the field of urban design and architecture for a firm in Chicago, he was persuaded to “turn in his bowtie for some flip-flops” and move to Florida to work on the now world-renowned resort Atlantis in the Bahamas. Jefrë moved to Lake Nona, FL in 2004 and has been a resident since.
Some of the hate
We discussed covert racism above. Below we share a sampling of the more overt racist comments our examiners have pulled from the internet. These target the artist directly.
Breaking down the racist statements that have been made against the sculpture and artist.
“30 million dollars for some art and they buy it from china, philippines or wherever”
This and other outlandish claims about the cost of the sculpture are complete fabrications as the sculpture will be paid with donations, not taxes. They use these falsehoods to stir up anger.
They add “from china, philippines or wherever” In this they are insinuating that all Asians are the same, it makes no difference whether the artist is from China, the Philippines, or wherever. The important part, they believe, is that he is not from here. He is different. They use lower case rather than capitalizing the countries to further denigrate Asians in general, the artist in particular.
They use a similar derogatory remark later
“Can you believe little lenny is going to spend 25 mil on that made in taiwan crap?”
“It spells gook”
Gook is a derogatory term for people of Asian descent.
“Looks like flip to me”
Flip is a derogatory acronym that stands for “f***ing little island people.”
“Have you heard the artists explanation? nothing but gibberish.”
Jabber, gibber and gibberish are words that come with a racist history. For centuries, these words have targeted the speakers of a language that happens to be unknown to the person levelling the charge. The implication being that the one speaking gibberish is less than them.
“That artist is too dark skinned to be getting 20 million for anything in the South.”
Self explanatory, or should be.
“Flip doing that statue used to work at Jollibee thats why it looks like bad spaghetti”
Flip is a derogatory acronym that stands for “f***ing little island people.”
Jollibee is a Philippines-based chain known for its burgers, fried chicken, spaghetti & Filipino dishes. This statement reduces a credentialed world renowned artist to a burger flipper.
For the record, there is nothing wrong with earning a living in fast food, it is just the people making these statements believe those workers to be beneath them.
“How about we give a white artist a chance and that ain’t racist just facts cuz we the majority live here and will be the majority to look at it and face it, we will be the ones footing the bill.”
Translation, white artists are better, whites live here, whites will be looking at it and whites will have to pay for it.
“Some folks come here and don’t want to speak the language this boy can’t even write the language”
Again with the not from around here, can’t speak or write “our language” he must be less than us. They toss in “boy” for an additional shot of racism. Boy is usually reserved for Blacks but as with their mixing of Asians above they mix people of color here as they are all the same to them, less than.
“If we gonna use an illegal at least get a mexi”
Illegal reads as “does not belong here” but if they have to have one get a “mexi”, again, lower case shortened version of Mexican to belittle Mexican people.
“Sugar in the spag sugar in the tank don’t need their kind on our river bank”
Sugar in the spag goes back to Jollibee.
Sugar in the tank implies the artist is homosexual, which there is nothing wrong with that, but the people making the statement believe that Gay people are beneath them.
They add “our river bank” again to show “they” belong here and the artist does not.
This is a developing story, updates will be posted as they become available.