Annals of phallicity (and transgressive art). This giant statue in Paris:
(#1)
(Hat tip to Arne Adolfsen.)
From the Wikipedia page on the artist, Paul McCarthy:
In October 2014, he unveiled his statue “Tree” in Place Vendome in Paris. It stands 24 feet tall and resembles a large green butt plug. This has caused controversy among citizens, who believe their historic square has been sullied.
(On butt plugs, with illustrations, see this posting of 2/18/13 on (gay) sex toys. I’ve posted extensively on the language of sex, but almost entirely on English vocabulary, so plug anal was something of a find, though not an enormous surprise.)
More on McCarthy:
Paul McCarthy (born August 4, 1945), is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
… Originally formally trained as a painter, McCarthy’s main interest lies in everyday activities and the mess created by them. Much of his work in the late 1960s, such as Mountain Bowling (1969) and Hold an Apple in Your Armpit (1970) are similar to the work of Happenings founder Allan Kaprow, with whom McCarthy had a professional relationship.
… his work evolved from painting to transgressive performance art, psychosexual events intended to fly in the face of social convention, testing the emotional limits of both artist and viewer.
… McCarthy has created several Christmas-themed works. Through them, he combines the dismal aesthetic and the real meaning of Christmas. In 2001 he created ‘Santa Claus’ for the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Originally it [was] intended to be placed next to the concerthall at the locally famous square ‘Schouwburgplein’, but it never was. This was due to controversies around the statue (the work is seen by many citizens to have a sexual connotations, and therefore it also is colloquially referred to as ‘Butt Plug Gnome’), and besides the original location it was also rejected by (citizens and retailers of) several other proposed locations. On the 28th of November 2008 did it, however, receive a permanent destination: the square Eendrachtsplein, within a walkway of statues project.
The Butt Plug Gnome:
(#2)
Ooh, ribbed!
