essay by GERALD NEILY, photos by FERN SHEN  

Yes, absolutely: the controversial Hampden flamingo must be declared art, post-modern style. If The New York Times, arbiter of such things, writes about it, then it is so. The Times has become bored with Harborplace’s food court and is currently enamored with Hampden, so we’d better get used to it.

So what, if John Waters doesn’t like the bee-hived “hons” anymore, now that his kitschy imagery has been appropriated and commercialized by Hampden boosters? What does he know? The Inner Harbor’s got a giant guitar hanging from a smokestack. Penn Station is adorned with a 50-foot hermaphrodite sculpture. Acceptable public art? Real credentialed artistes and city review boards say it is, so thus it is.

Penn Station's ManWoman. (click to enlarge him/her.)

     Let’s not let Baltimore go through the civic convulsions that Philadelphia did when a Rocky statue was proposed in front of their sacred art museum, where a constant stream of Stallone pilgrims jogs up the giant staircase, waving their arms victoriously and vicariously. You’d think these guardians of the civic good might loosen up their rep ties occasionally and recognize pop culture tastes and tourist dollars when they see them.

     A few years ago, I made a similar pilgrimage to Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park, in a personal quest to find a sculpture of a rainy cake with sweet green icing flowing down. I was sorely disappointed. A friend of mine stood on every corner in Winslow, Arizona for the sole purpose of finding that flatbed Ford with a girl (my lord) slowing down to take a look at him. Nothing. Couldn’t Winslow’s civic leaders just find a junked Ford, strip it down to the bed and stick a hot mannequin behind the wheel?

     Sometimes it’s even easier than that. London’s Abbey Road became an instant icon after the Beatles produced their 1969 musical masterpiece. Beatles fans (which is almost everyone) came from all over the world to walk that crosswalk, many in their bare feet. Then some idiot traffic engineer decided to disfigure the intersection by painting some squiggly lane lines, to calm the traffic.

     Recognizing a genuine icon is a rare talent indeed. Hampden’s Denise Whiting, curator of the flamingo and founder of Hon-Fest, seems to be one of the few around here with that rare talent. Hampden may or may not appreciate her, but Baltimore as a whole desperately needs people like Whiting. Any city plagued with abandoned neighborhoods ought to embrace whatever identity it can to get on the map of the world’s cultural pilgrims. Baltimore’s future depends on this, not on our port or our manufacturing base.
 

Out of the limelight, on Falls Rd: the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

     Who knows where Baltimore’s future icons will come from? Mass culture is rapidly evolving. For all we know, the next icon may be created from an inflatable UFO that abducts a fake kid.

    So let’s embrace the flamingo. It took so long to bake it and we’ll never have that recipe again. Oh noooooooooooo…