Echo

Having an errand to run on East 21st St. I took a little side trip over to Madison Square Park to take look at “Echo” which, The NY Times informed me, has been placed there by Jaume Plensa who, “Over the last decade has become one of the world’s most celebrated public artists, best known for wondrously monumental figurative sculptures that can be seen from Calgary to Dubai.” Well, excuse me!

In the age of Google I was able to bring myself up to speed about Mr. Plensa and, sure-enough, his stuff seems to have been placed all over the place. I just wish we could have gotten one of those instead of Echo. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Echo is kind of cool and certainly, at 44 feet, monumental. I don’t know if it was just the dreary, rainy day or just my mood (which was, I thought, pretty much one of benign congeniality—I had downed an excellent bagel and still had my latte clutched firmly in hand). I love public art of all kinds, especially when it’s quirky and amusing (or sexy) but Echo didn’t move me to much emotion of any kind. Maybe it doesn’t belong in a small park; perhaps the canyons of Park Avenue North would have served it better. I know not. I did go right up to it and gave it a good knock to see what it was made of but was unable to decide what the material is; probably some kind of resin amalgam. Back to Google.