September 24, 2025 • 39 mins
Why does it seem so common that modern sculptures of iconic figures look so bad? Soccer star Ronaldo, NBA legend Dwyane Wade, and even the great Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. have been frankly disgraced by sub-par and strange renditions. Is creating a great statue a lost art, or are we being unfair? This week, we talk to a real sculptor to find out.
Our guest this week is John Belardo.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everyone. This episode features a lot of discussion about statues,
which are things that you can famously see but not here.
Uh So, we have an image gallery on our substack
and our Instagram page. If you want to take a
look and follow along, you can just hit the links
in our show notes below. All Right, onto the show.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Anny, I'm Noah.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
This is Devin and this is no such thing. The
show where we settle ourdam arguments and yours by actually
doing the research on this week's episode, Why do new
statues look so bad?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
No, there's no no such thing, no such thank no touch,
thank touch, thank no touch thank.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
So.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Here's a topic that comes up every few months. There
will be an unveiling of a new sculpture celebrating an
iconic historical figure politician, entertainer, often an athlete recently, and
the statue just look horrible. It might look like a person,
but not that person. Proportions are off or even just
like it's kind of close but just strange.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah, and it's tough because we all these are very
famous people. That's the bible we really know. We see
all the time, pretty recognizable exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Speaking of which, on the screen here our listeners can't
see it, but of course there'll be on our newsletter.
Probably the most infamous one in recent memory, even though
it's from twenty seventeen, is the statue that we're looking
at of soccer star Christiano Ronaldo.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
A very handsome man in real life, a real chad, yes,
And it was unveiled at Madeira Airport in Santa Cruz
when the airport was officially renamed.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I didn't know this part. It's the Christiano Ronaldo international level,
so it's a pretty big deal. It was like, all right,
he's you know, he's a legend.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Let's have a.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Lot of there's a Ronaldo Airport, but there's not a
messy airport.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
You're going through the trouble of renaming the airport, and
then this is the statue that you make of so
very attracted His statue is one of the ugliest people
I've ever Just.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
To make it clear for people who maybe don't watch
soccer Christiano Ronaldo. I think a lot of people consider
him one of the most attractive men on earth, and
then we've got this statue that kind of looks like
he's like sick. I think like he's got like something's wrong.
With him and he's fighting through it. He's like smiling through.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
The so just from neckup. Yeah, you know, a full
body here.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
What's the Danny Boyle movie with the drug addicts train Spotting?
Train spot He looks like one of the dudes from
train Spotting And yeah, like he was just on a bender,
you know, maybe he's gone through something withdrawal.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
To me, it's like his eyes are slightly different size
in there, kind of slanted and then his mouth is
slanted in the opposite direction.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, they've introduced like wrinkles in the statue, like very
natural wrinkles when you when you make faces, that happens.
But they just look so bad here. And what always
gets me about these statues is like, I guess humans
have been making realistic statues for thousands of years, right,
I don't understand why in the in the past like
(03:08):
twenty years, we've just simply cannot come up with a
good bust of someone.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So this statue here has had a bit of a saga.
It was made by a sculptor, Emmanuel Santos.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Doing disservice to the name and yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So yeah, you need to talk to your boy. So
everyone hated the statue kind of immediately as a total joke.
He was quoted by the BBC as saying that, you know,
making one of these is not as simple as it seems,
and it's a matter of.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Taste, a matter of taste.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
And then he also said it is impossible to please
the Greeks and Trojans. Neither did Jesus please everyone.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
He's comparing himself to Jesus.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
You know what, I kind of respect that, you know statue,
the trials and tribulations of Jesus Christ. You know, I'll
respect that. Do a bad job, and then be like,
well they also hated Jesus, you know who else was disrespected.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
He did make a replacement that went up the following year.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
This one looks more like a person. That one looks
like a cartoon almost. The new one just seems more simplistic.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
The new version is like a passport photo.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yes right, Yeah, it's a little bit more generic, but
I think in a good way. Yeah, or like it's safer, Yeah,
it feels safer. It's a good way. Put it so.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
And there's a few more, and we'll talk about these later.
There was Martin Luther King in Winter Park, Florida, NBA's
Dwayne Wade outside the Mines.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
That one is incredible because the meme of his son
giving him just like looking at him like, all right,
that's your statue.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
And he basically had to pretend to like it.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, So he's quoted by ESPN, he said, is Dwayne Wade.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
If I wanted to look like me, I'll just stand
outside the arena, y'all and take photos. You don't need
to look like me. It's an artistic version of a
moment that happened that we're trying to cement.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
So we'll get into that one later, all right, don't
need to look like me about a statue.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
He's being very nice.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I think he's defending the artist.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Maybe. I'm sure it was just a debacle.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
And I'm personally invested in them getting this right because,
as much as I don't like to admit it, in
a few years, Lebron James is gonna retire. They're gonna
have to make a bust or a statue of him,
and if it's bad, I might fucking act out. But
they need to sort this out as soon as possible,
(05:26):
and I want to see it through.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Only Yeah, only for Lebron.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, I guess what I'm thinking here, Like why these
end up being so ugly so often is that sense
of a sculptor's artistic take on what the person looks like,
which is what Dwayne Wade was saying, which I kind
of agree with, which is like, if I'm commissioned to
(05:53):
make a statue of Noah, like we know what Noah
looks like, I might want to do something different with it.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
I don't know, shange it up.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I think what they need to understand, I think, at
least for these athletes, is that we just want it
to look exactly like it should be photo realistic, and
that's going to make us happy. The masses don't need
a you know, yeah, we don't need an artistic take
on what no it looks like.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
See here's my issue with that. Okay, I'm okay with
them taking artistic licenses, but make it look good. Yeah,
you know. It's like what ends up happening is it
seems like they're just doing a bad job of like
making a photo realistic version of a person. And they're like, oh,
I'm just it's my interpretation. It's like, no, if you're
going to have a style, go for it. Make it
(06:36):
look completely different.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Because this doesn't look so different. It's not like a
full cartoon or exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
It's like, Okay, this is just like supposed to Yes.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I know you mentioned Martin Luther King and Florida. I
guess the MLK and DC is maybe a bit more
of like it's more of like an abstract take on it.
So I give a little bit more leeway to something
like that. But most of the feels like they're trying
to do the photo realistic thing and then feeling and
then being like, well, it was supposed to look bad.
(07:06):
That's my style. My styles, I make bad looking statues.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You know they hated Jesus too. That's the best excuse
I've ever heard.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Of my little It's also said because like you know,
we're not massive you know, contemporary sculpture heads. No, So
it's like all we know from this man now is this. Yeah,
by far gonna be the most seen statue that guy
ever makes.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yep, But you know, give me, like do a cause,
you know, give me. I hate to cause stuff at
this point now, but like you know, you know, do
that sort of thing where it's like, hey, it is Ronaldo,
but it's.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Just like costs Yeah, he's doing what he wants.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yeah, exactly like if you if they were to do that,
I'd be like, you know what, that's that's their take on.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yeah, And I think like for a portrait, a painted portrait,
we're a lot more forgiving of that sort of stuff
just because there's a little bit more to play with it,
or like we're just more used to that. So I
want to find out why are these statues so bad?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
That d Wade quote had me wondering, like are we
being unfair just because we do know these people?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Like you go to the.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Met there's all these beautiful statues, but they are like
mythical characters or something. They're not people that we actually
know or we know them by their statues.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Yes, not like introduction.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
We haven't watched you know, thousands and thousands of hours
of this guy running around. Yeah you know. And then
also just like should statues be like super realistic or
should we be more up to more creative interpretations? And
just generally like our sculptors getting worse, Like is this
the lost art form? So after the break, I'll talk
to someone who actually knows what they're talking about, a sculptor. Oh,
(08:42):
so to understand why these public statues are so bad.
I caught up John Ballardo. He's not only a sculptor himself,
but he also teaches and serves as Lehman College's chief
College Laboratory Technician for art, and he instructs out a
few other art schools in the city. I mean, I
looked at his stuff, and he does like proper sculptures
of people. Things like that looked pretty good. Okay, he
(09:03):
hasn't done any you know, athletes, as far as I know,
So first I asked John to walk me through the
history of portrait sculptures. How far back do they go
and what's their original purpose.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
The idea of an individual portrait, a likeness of an
individual is credited to the Romans, who it was part
of a pagan culture that they were doing life casts
or actually guest casts in wax of their family members,
this kind of patriarchal system, and it was part of
a ritual where they would pull these out during certain ceremonies,
(09:42):
and then of course as the culture grew, they would
take these deaths masks and actually carve them in marble.
The idea there was that these were revered individuals, and
so the likeness of them became very important, and that
included all the realism, which means all the wrinkles in
your face and everything that you can imagine in the
(10:04):
age of the individual, rather than a youthful, beautiful appearance.
So the idea of a death cast was the way
we would record more objective information about the portrait over time.
You know, you had those two things. You had, you know,
either some sort of a casting or you would have
(10:24):
the person directly in your studio. Michaelangelo famously never did
a portrait.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
He you know, was asked many times, but he in
some ways he refused. And so the idea of a portraiture,
it's not always something that artists take on.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
John got to what might be the key issue for
the modern sculptor, which we touched on earlier, is photography.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Photography changed everything because now the public generally knows what
the person looked like, you know, and that's important. Likeness
and liveliness or the living person underneath are our similar ideas.
But in a lot of ways, a person that you
don't know what they look like, as long as it
(11:12):
retained a certain liveliness, a certain naturalism, it didn't need
to obviously look exactly like the person, because eventually that's
what the person looked like and according to history. Obviously,
now we're dealing with more objective record of their image.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
So there's something there to the fact that we actually
just know what these people are because they're contemporary to us,
so we've seen them in action and doing all this stuff. Yeah,
Michelangelo obviously a great sculptor. I didn't know he was like,
I'm not going to do any real portraits, which is
pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
But yeah, I love that my boy knew his limits.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeah he I'll make an amazing David, but that's David. Yeah, yeah,
no last name exactly.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Don't ask me who he is. And maybe, you know,
no disrespect to our boy Manuel. Maybe maybe he should
have did the same, Maybe he should have opted out.
Actually I can't really, that's not for me.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
He's like, I'll do a soccer player, Yes, an amazing
handsome soccer player, but it's not necessarily not handsome.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
This one, the one he made, is not handsome handsome.
I can make a really kind of ugly dude and
may play soccer.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Boss. I got that sculpture for your real ugly, weird looking.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
I wonder if Mike. The reason Michaelangelo refused to do
them was because they it is something you can grade essentially.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it kind of I'm gonna look more
into that, but yeah, it seems like it where it's
like because like I think most of his work was commissioned.
It's like, you know, whoever these families or whatever. But
to just refuse to do that, it's like one leading
a lot a lot of money on the table.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And he used to say that the statues we know
in love actually look like the people that they were
supposed to look. Yeah, exactly, yeah, find us but yeah no, yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
When when John said, you know, they look fine, because
that's now what they look like, Yeah, it's like, oh,
I don't mind blowing. And that's just how it was before,
you know, basically whatever one hundred and fifty years ago.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Well imagine if our boy David was actually like an
ugly dude. Oh yeah, and he's like, damn, that's me.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, he's just a really really rich, ugly y. He's like, listen,
I'm gonna treat you well. Just give me a nice sport,
nice statue here. This is gonna last for.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Like, don't look at me, look at that statue. That's
what I look like at my soul.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, here's how John describes the process and considerations with
a project like this.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
If it's from life, then the person really should be
in the studio with you, but that's not always possible.
So we often at this point work from photography, which
is a blessing and a curse. So let's set up
a space where we can start working from photography. In
(14:07):
the case of many people that would deserve a portrait
in the public, it would be something that there's a
ton of photography over the course of many years, so
you would have to be very careful about the photographs
you are using, and certainly the more the better, but
also an understanding of how those photographs were taken, from
(14:31):
what distance, from what lighting source, and then whether or
not you can trust the measurements from them. All portraiture
or all likeness comes from proportions, believe it or not,
like the distance between your eyes and compared to your
size of your nose. But that's easy when you're doing
a painted portrait because it's two dimensional. And not to
(14:53):
say anything negative about painters, but sculpture is way more
difficult because now we're talking about the depths of form
rather not just heightened with and then from there you're
relying on several things that hopefully you've educated yourself on.
The first thing would be anatomy, what are the likely
(15:17):
formations on the human head that arise from bone structure,
muscle structure. And then you would also take information from
your own memory and your own imagination in order to
work from the portraits that you've done from life, so
that the information has to be both empirical as well
(15:38):
as rational, as well as just outside sources. And then
it ultimately comes down to trial and error adding and
subtracting clay. Something that people don't always consider is color.
The color of your eyebrow, the color of your eyes,
(15:59):
the color of your hair, the color of your pupils,
and the color of your lips, everything, And so how
do you do that with clay? That's one color? So
you're usually dealing with what's called a color, that is
this relief quality that has to do with the way
light sweeps across a surface, gaining light and shadow in
(16:23):
order to create this kind of black and white or
gray scale structure across that and of course you have
to be able to control that, even though you can't
ever control the lighting in an outdoor where you need
to be able to control it enough where those things
aren't going to destroy it.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
It's a really interesting point about the color because I'm
looking at the Ronaldo statue again, and I do wonder
if it were like painted to look to be like
his skin color and his lip color and his hair color,
like how much more realistic it would look.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
And it being this dark bronze. And then I'm assuming
this is probably camera flash, but also just even sunlight
the way it reflects so strong, like these highlights are
kind of glaring. Yeah, it doesn't do him any favors.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
It looks like it looks like Rinaldo did blackface or something.
And then they made a statue of him, and just
it just I wonder if it looked to put that on.
All right, we'll cut that out. But it's just like
such a weird it is. It's tough to kind of
parse this out as a real human being when it's
just bronze, like.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Yeah, or even if it was like a like a
classical marble or something, you know, and you know, yeah,
he tells a good story about the Lincoln memorial, and
once the statue was placed in the monument, the lighting
was really off and like kind of spooky, like it
was like under lighting him. And this is like, you know,
the two artists, the sculptor and the architect, were like
two legends of the game, like at the peak of
(17:48):
their powers, and like even they messed that up and
had to like they made some adjustments to the monument
so the light would work better.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
But it's like, ultimately, there.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Are so many different things, especially when it's gonna be outside,
that I certainly hadn't really considered, even aside from just
the difficulty of making a three D sculpture to.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Begin with, Yeah, the environment is going to be in it,
so important. Proportion really interesting when you think about photographs,
you know, if you photograph one person in the same
room with different lenses, Yeah, portly changed so dramatically. So yeah,
that wasn't something I considered. You know when you're looking
at these photographs, is that like, yeah, you may start
(18:25):
with one proportion and then you got to realize, like, okay,
you got to take kind of the averages of all
these things, because you know, just the front facing proportion
may not look the same from a point five versus
you know.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
One thirty five or something wider. Your face is like
way more pointed. Okay, yeah, but if it's the twenty
four millimeters lens, it's like your face is way more flat. Yeap,
that's like when the camera adds ten pounds espectually.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
So after getting insight on kind of how hard it
is to make a statue and what they're thinking about,
I ask kind of the big question, our sculpture is
getting worse or are we just more knowledgeable about what
these subjects actually look like.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
It's the latter, we know these people more over time.
There's a thousand things you're dealing with with a modern portrait.
You know. The first thing is the recognizability of the person.
We had talked earlier about photography, but now it's also
video and particularly sports figures. They are recognizable in action, right,
(19:28):
and so sculpture tends to be pretty static, right, So
now we have to deal with that energy. And so
how do you bring in energy into a portrait as
well as a likeness as well as liveliness and hit
it dead on? It is the sort of thing that
humans are very sensitive to, very sensitive to recognizability. We
(19:52):
can recognize our friends from down the street by the
way they're walking. The other thing that happens is that
art schools have not adequately trained sculptors over the past
fifty years, and so a sculptor who goes through a
(20:14):
normal education in America is not given any of the
adequate training in anatomy and modeling, and a lot of
artists don't realize that before they take on this very
important responsibility. Artists nowadays are trained to express themselves and
(20:35):
to be the center of attention, and to think of
their work as ephemeral and yet freewheeling, where a sculpture,
particularly of somebody as important as MLK, has to speak
to the past before you were born you as an artist,
and will retain its meaning after you're dead. So now
(20:58):
we are talking about something very important, and it's now
no longer about the artist. So the training of an
artist just goes counter to that. The first thing that
I saw with when I saw Ronaldo was maybe this
artist was trained more as an anime or they draw
(21:20):
on cartoons, you know, and that's unfortunately considered to be
a good training for the things that they're asking to do.
It needs to be about the individual you're portraying, and
the most important thing you can do is show respect
to that image. You're showing respect to what the public
(21:44):
thinks of that individual, what that individual has represented, and
the first thing they represented this image. So if you
show respect to a likeness, then you're showing respect to
what that person has done their entire career.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
One thing that really stuck out was kind of talking
about the training where and it makes sense when you
think about it. You say you really like painting, you
go to school. It's the idea is like you're painting
your own stuff, like whatever you want. And that's pretty
different than you know, the days of Michelangelo or wherever
where Okay, they're hired to paint the ceiling and then
you do that, and that's it's not really about you.
(22:21):
Obviously there's gonna be things you put in there right
as a great artist or whatever. But so kind of
in these situations, they're kind of trapped because you're you're
trained to do your own thing, and now the expectations
totally kind of flipped in a way. Even if you studied,
you know, representation on all these things, so you know,
you feel for these guys a little bit. That they
maybe were set up a little bit out of there.
(22:42):
So after that I ran a few of these sculptures
by John. I want to go to the Duwayne Wade statue.
Go to no such thing dot Show for the you
know to see these images. So on the bottom left,
that's the image that's being recreated. You see a you know,
closer up detail of the statue there. Man, why don't
you describe what's happening here in the original photo.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
In the original photo, I don't know. Dwayne Wade must
have hit a three or something.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
They did.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
They did a good job doing something specific, and he's
kind of he's amped up, he's yelling, he's hyping up
the crowd, and so he's in a position that's like
I think maybe he's doing a this is our house, yeah,
something like he's pointing towards the ground saying, you know,
this is our this is our spot, and in the
statue you know it. For whatever reason, he they look
(23:31):
like they just aged him by like thirty years, Like
he just looks like a really old man. This may
be the coloring sort of thing too, isn't helping because
Dwayne Wade in this photo is relatively young. Like that
was a long time ago. Yeah, he's probably late twenties
or something in this photo and in the statue, I
(23:52):
don't know. It just is like I don't understand the
aging aspect here. They've also seemed to do like the
statue version of his fade haircut, which yeah, a statue
just makes it look like he only has like a
tiny little bit of hair. It's tough to do a
fade in like bronze or whatever.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
He looks like the zombies from Iron Legends.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he looks so gaunt. I think, yes,
and d Wade is like, you know, pretty good looking guy,
but he had and he has like he.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Has like cheeks, he's got like yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
He's not chubby by any means obviously, but his face
has like yes, I mean he looks good, but yeah,
it's like you can see a smile in the photo
with the statue, It's like, yeah, it just looks pretty
different than this man in the sculpture.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Now, this is a This is an instance where with
the Ronaldo statue you can tell that there was an
attempt to make it look like Christiano Ronaldo and it
just went wrong. This looks like a different person. This
doesn't look similar to this.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
They're like, all right, here's the post we want and
put him into Miami Jersey. Yeah, it doesn't really look
like it's based on Wade, excepting the fact that he's
a you know, athletically built and wearing Yeah yeah, but yeah, Like,
if you just showed me that face, especially without Miami
on the I wouldn't even think that's ay.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
It's like a civil rights what is happening here?
Speaker 4 (25:22):
So the Duyane Wade portrait, So not only do you
have movement, you have energy, you have you know, you're
trying to deal with likeness and the proportions, but now
on top of it, expression with the mouth open. This
is something that happens all the time. A commissioner or
(25:43):
somebody who is paying for this will say, we want
the individual to have this expression or we want it
to be referring to this photograph. A smile is actually
one of the most difficult things in the world to
capture an expression like this, and he has this great,
you know, grin and this excited yell. This is one
(26:07):
moment in time. It's kind of like, you know, you
take a bad candid photo and you know you have
this weird expression on your face because you know you're
in the middle of talking like this, and that doesn't
look like you. But it's like this, this odd little shape,
you know, And so that's I think what's happening here.
A sculpture unfolds over time, so people interact with it
(26:30):
as if they come up to it and they see
it and they move past it, and now it's a
it's a three dimensional image that that's exposed to the
viewer over time. And to try to capture this snapshot
instant of time and a sculpture is extraordinarily difficult. And
(26:54):
so what's happening there is I think it has more
to do with our of it, our perception, this juxtaposition,
or this jarring experience of looking at this static sculpture
with this highly energetic expression. I think that's really what
it is. When his mouth is open, that changes the
(27:18):
way he squints with his eyes, and so that's that's
you're not going to recognize the person like that. You
don't recognize people in that state, but you could recognize
them if you saw them doing the jumping and excited dancing.
But it's over time. It's not an instance. You know,
(27:39):
we're always going to look awkward that way. I don't
envy the you know, the artist, you know, I think
in this case did an admirable job for an impossible cask.
That's my opinion.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
These statues, you know, I think maybe they should start
being closer to the classical portrait we're thinking of. So
if you're gonna have a statue of an athlete outside
of the stadium, maybe they really shouldn't be in in
like some crazy position or like doing something in motion, because,
like he was saying, you know, even when you look
(28:15):
at the photo of Dwayne Wade, like we know through
context clues and through just knowing his face that that's
Dwayne Wade, but it doesn't like, quote unquote look like
Dwayne Wade. Yeah, like he's he's like really scrunching his
face up. If he wasn't in that jersey, if he
wasn't if he was like on the street instead of
in the basketball scenario, we might be like, who's this?
(28:36):
Like I don't know exactly who that is.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Right, We're not looking at a statue being like, oh,
does this look like Dwayne Wade looked in that specifically
doesn't not ye frame of that shot. It's like this
this is like Dwayne Wade. Oh, and he's doing the
motion from that moment.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah, you need to trust your own legacy that you know,
you can just be be sat with a basketball I'm
going on a yeah, but you know, with a Miami
Heat jersey one. All right, so let's move away from athletes. Connor,
would you mind pulling up one of the MLK photos.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I don't think i've seen this all.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, let's know this so well. Obviously, love great reverend,
that's what are your what are your takeaways here?
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I mean yeah, like there's like a children's book.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
To me, the big thing is just his head.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I mean proportion sizes.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Aren't a particularly tall guy.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
No, you're sure.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
I'm pretty sure, you know, so they got the body
size accurate. But his head is enormous and his.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Hands ye huge. Sh Now, this is tough too, because
back then they were wearing some big ass suits. Yeah,
kind of hide what your body like?
Speaker 3 (29:38):
This looks like, uh if I was making an MLK
like sports team and I needed a mascot for it,
you know, it's like we were.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
R It does kind of look like a like a
a kid in in elementary school. Drew Drew image of him,
and then they're like, all right, we're gonna make a
statue of yeah, we got off the photos anything.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Which is why I wonder if it's supposed to look exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
I'm trying to look at the details of the face
to see doesn't look like, yeah, it looks like a guy.
It looks like a man.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Yeah, it looks like a man. Like it looks like
a black man.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no mistake there.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
The hair looks pretty good on this one, actually, yeah. True,
he looks like a kid in his face, like his
church clothes.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
But what is fascinating about this is that every different
photo looks like a completely different set.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Like his head looks enormous in this wearing another different angle,
kind of slightly to the left, I suppose, really straight on. Yeah,
it's like a caricature style.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
And yeah, and this one not you know, there's motion
he's waving, but it's not like he's not it's not
celebrating a buzzer beater that would be.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
It's not like, oh, you know, you know, I'm okay,
I was, I was doing that waving his hand.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
It's like he's most famous for, you know, walking, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Stand walking very long distance. This.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I'm like, this is like a town assemblymen. Yes, no
offense to the greatest symbol. It's in winter Park, Florida.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Okay, it feels like Martin Luther King's statue in Winnipark, Florida.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yeah, you know this.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Is in the DC. Yeah. Yeah, it feels like, all right,
you've got a local artist in Winnipark like this.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
The other weird thing with the Florida statue of Martin
Luther King, And this is very similar to the Dwayne
Wade one in that they just aged him. Yeah, Martin
Luther King Ray. Well, a lot of people might not recall,
but he died very young. He's in his thirties when
he was killed. And so this guy in this statue
looks like he's seventy.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Everybody looks like their father thirty nine.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, I think late thirties. But yeah, still, oh yeah,
that's a very young person.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Yes, I'm about to be looks as we discussed people
used to look older.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah. No, I was thinking.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I was like, but not that, damn.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
I was.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
I was like, maybe it's in our head that just
like statues are old people.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Probably a little bit bronze's but like, yeah, the Ronado
one didn't look that old, you know, no like relative,
you know, just as another comparison point.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
And I know there's the famous one in d C
which I got to see a couple of years ago,
which does look just like him. But this is an interesting,
very interesting statue.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Yeah, the DC one's cool. Well, that one's like I
can't remember the word, but when it's like coming out
of the block.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Yeah, he's coming out of the slab.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I think his face looks much more accurate in this one,
I think.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
And the DC one yeah, yeah, this.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Was like the official Yeah, and that's.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
More if we want to do some artistic that's the
way to do it, right, Like, it still looks like
the person, but it's not just a straight statue. He's
coming out and let work. Yeah, yeah, you don't out
of slab.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Forget the back.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Not sure that's what he was thinking of.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
They got you ran up to the deadline. Actually it's
supposed to look like this.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah, I wasn't supposed to finish the back to there
knocking on the door. I feel like that one got
some criticism when it first came out too, though, Yeah,
probably I like this one. Yeah, I think it does
a great job. I feel like, yeah, the artist being
able to add their little touch to it, but also
representing the person well, looks like the person serving the
(33:09):
purpose of the statue, which is not that like, Oh,
this guy's just such a great sculptor, it's supposed to
look like them.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Well.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
The first thing I noticed about the Winter Park MLK
is that it is out of proportion. Now I'm only
looking at it from photographs and video, but it appeared
that the head was too large. That's the first thing.
Proportions in a very large statue outdoors is something that
(33:40):
a sculptor needs to be able to control. Sometimes we
might make the head slightly smaller because of the way
we might be looking up at the statue. Other times,
you know you were going to change the proportions in
different ways in order to again because of the way
you might interact with that's a sculpture. How big is
(34:02):
it in compared to the viewer? How big is it
in compared with architecture? The likeness itself, for me, it
doesn't look like an Okay, ultimately in likeness you're talking
about millimeters, But when you enlarge something sometimes those distortions
can feel exaggerated. So when you're talking about the proportions
(34:28):
of a likeness and then the scale of your proportions,
now you're going up and it's getting bigger and it's outside.
That's a terribly difficult thing to control. But it is
the responsibility of the sculptor.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
I do wonder seeing some of this stuff, especially looking
at a Martin Luther King thing. Right, this guy makes
this thing, he puts it all together and he sets
back and he's like, God, damn it that head is. Yeah.
Do they ever just start over, you know, like damn
you know, like I mean, well you're making it portrait.
You just get a new piece of paper and you know,
start sketching the game.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
I'm sure it depends on the material, and I imagine
like the budgets and all these things, but it's like
you're either then adding clay or whatever back on or
chipping away. It's like, all right, so now you have
this giant, mkay head. Now you need to chip away
the entire thing and keep it in proportion.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yeah, because then you'd have to if you made his
head smaller, you would have to go back and make
his eyes and his nose.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
And then you make it too small, then you need
to chop off the whole bot. You know.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
It feels like a lot of time these guys are
just like, oh bad first attempt, you know, like, oh damn,
you know, you try something that's not quite it. But
if I did it again, yeah, I could get a
little bit closer. Yeah, And it feels like they just
don't get another shot, you know, they get the one
shot and it's just not right.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
They need they need to put them on way longer time.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Feel like like when you invite people over for a
party or something and you give them, you know, two
hours early, knowing no one's going to be there exactly.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Oh yeah, yeah, so you do that first version. Not great,
you got another couple of months to get it together.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
So having learned all this, and John said, you know
several times, like he doesn't envy any of these artists
who have to do this, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
What I've learned is that it's a much more impossible
task than I had originally thought. Not not an impossible one,
but just like there's so many it's such an uphill
battle to make like an accurate statue. Yeah, and I
just want to again make sure that the people who
end up being in charge of the Lebron James Statue.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
To listen to this episode, so try to get on
the committee. I'm going to start making sure I don't
ever smile just for you know, for the artists down
the line when they're doing the NST. Yeah, you know statue. Yeah.
I definitely have deep respect for any sculptor of any
(36:59):
capacity who's done any of these. And you know, it's
given me more to consider when I am looking at these,
especially just simple stuff like the lighting and how much
that that can affect how you take these in. And
the biggest thing to me think like you're just interesting
to think about the history of it, where it's like, yeah,
like I actually don't know what any of these old
statues look like, or like even like someone slightly more recent,
(37:20):
but like pre photography. It's like someone like Napoleon or something.
It's like, all right, there's plenty of paintings too, so
like you're basing that and then whatever sculpture it's like,
but it's still like those are fake images, just like
make up this person in our head, you know.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Yeah, And I think the final thing they'll need to
consider is like making a flattering image of the person
instead of something that's one hundred percent supposed to be look,
you know, one to one realistic, something that you know,
gives you something to look at that is flattering of
the subject.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
Yeah, and feels represented. I feel like we gotta somebody's
gotta change our expectations, right, We got to stop asking
them to make statues of very specific moments in time, right,
Like it just needs to be like, okay, make it
look like this person. And I feel like the artists
need to just understand, Hey, we're not here.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
It's not about you.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
We're not here to see your work. Yeah, We're here
to see a representation of this person.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Yeah, you have to understand you put your personal style
to the side unless you know you're going to do
something like the like I said, the MLK and DC
pretty good combination of those two. This guy doing a
Ronaldo like like, like I boy said, I don't know
if he's doing anime drawings or whatever the hell he
was trying to do with the statue. We don't want
(38:42):
the statue to look like an anime draw.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Soon, all these statues are gonna look like damn laboo boos.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, these statues were really meant to walk up to
them and be like, that's yep, that's Lebron James.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, it's essentially. We want a photograph. Yeah, a three
D photograph made of one color. I mean, good luck, Yeah,
good luck. Any sculptors are listening in wanna make a
free sculpture of us? Shoot us an email.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
We won't be too harsh. He's He's helsay Hewsay Hews.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
No such thing as a production of Kaleidoscope content. Our
executive producers are Kate Osborne and Mangesh hot To Cadur.
The show was created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and
Devin Joseph Them and credits song by Manny. Mixing is
by Steve Bone, our guest this week with sculptor John Billardo.
You can visit www dot No such thing dot show
to subscribe to our newsletter, where you can find images
of all the sculptures discussed in this episode, and if
(39:37):
you have feedback for us or a question, our email
is Manny Noah Devin at gmail dot com, or if
you're in the US, you can also leave us a
voicemail by calling the number in our show notes. We'll
be back next week with a new episode. Thanks for listening,
Hell's hell's, hell's ayes, Hell's no such thing.
Hey, everyone. This episode features a lot of discussion about statues,
which are things that you can famously see but not here.
Uh So, we have an image gallery on our substack
and our Instagram page. If you want to take a
look and follow along, you can just hit the links
in our show notes below. All Right, onto the show.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Anny, I'm Noah.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
This is Devin and this is no such thing. The
show where we settle ourdam arguments and yours by actually
doing the research on this week's episode, Why do new
statues look so bad?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
No, there's no no such thing, no such thank no touch,
thank touch, thank no touch thank.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
So.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Here's a topic that comes up every few months. There
will be an unveiling of a new sculpture celebrating an
iconic historical figure politician, entertainer, often an athlete recently, and
the statue just look horrible. It might look like a person,
but not that person. Proportions are off or even just
like it's kind of close but just strange.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah, and it's tough because we all these are very
famous people. That's the bible we really know. We see
all the time, pretty recognizable exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Speaking of which, on the screen here our listeners can't
see it, but of course there'll be on our newsletter.
Probably the most infamous one in recent memory, even though
it's from twenty seventeen, is the statue that we're looking
at of soccer star Christiano Ronaldo.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
A very handsome man in real life, a real chad, yes,
And it was unveiled at Madeira Airport in Santa Cruz
when the airport was officially renamed.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I didn't know this part. It's the Christiano Ronaldo international level,
so it's a pretty big deal. It was like, all right,
he's you know, he's a legend.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Let's have a.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Lot of there's a Ronaldo Airport, but there's not a
messy airport.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
You're going through the trouble of renaming the airport, and
then this is the statue that you make of so
very attracted His statue is one of the ugliest people
I've ever Just.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
To make it clear for people who maybe don't watch
soccer Christiano Ronaldo. I think a lot of people consider
him one of the most attractive men on earth, and
then we've got this statue that kind of looks like
he's like sick. I think like he's got like something's wrong.
With him and he's fighting through it. He's like smiling through.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
The so just from neckup. Yeah, you know, a full
body here.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
What's the Danny Boyle movie with the drug addicts train Spotting?
Train spot He looks like one of the dudes from
train Spotting And yeah, like he was just on a bender,
you know, maybe he's gone through something withdrawal.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
To me, it's like his eyes are slightly different size
in there, kind of slanted and then his mouth is
slanted in the opposite direction.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, they've introduced like wrinkles in the statue, like very
natural wrinkles when you when you make faces, that happens.
But they just look so bad here. And what always
gets me about these statues is like, I guess humans
have been making realistic statues for thousands of years, right,
I don't understand why in the in the past like
(03:08):
twenty years, we've just simply cannot come up with a
good bust of someone.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So this statue here has had a bit of a saga.
It was made by a sculptor, Emmanuel Santos.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Doing disservice to the name and yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So yeah, you need to talk to your boy. So
everyone hated the statue kind of immediately as a total joke.
He was quoted by the BBC as saying that, you know,
making one of these is not as simple as it seems,
and it's a matter of.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Taste, a matter of taste.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
And then he also said it is impossible to please
the Greeks and Trojans. Neither did Jesus please everyone.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
He's comparing himself to Jesus.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
You know what, I kind of respect that, you know statue,
the trials and tribulations of Jesus Christ. You know, I'll
respect that. Do a bad job, and then be like,
well they also hated Jesus, you know who else was disrespected.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
He did make a replacement that went up the following year.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
This one looks more like a person. That one looks
like a cartoon almost. The new one just seems more simplistic.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
The new version is like a passport photo.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yes right, Yeah, it's a little bit more generic, but
I think in a good way. Yeah, or like it's safer, Yeah,
it feels safer. It's a good way. Put it so.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
And there's a few more, and we'll talk about these later.
There was Martin Luther King in Winter Park, Florida, NBA's
Dwayne Wade outside the Mines.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
That one is incredible because the meme of his son
giving him just like looking at him like, all right,
that's your statue.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
And he basically had to pretend to like it.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, So he's quoted by ESPN, he said, is Dwayne Wade.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
If I wanted to look like me, I'll just stand
outside the arena, y'all and take photos. You don't need
to look like me. It's an artistic version of a
moment that happened that we're trying to cement.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
So we'll get into that one later, all right, don't
need to look like me about a statue.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
He's being very nice.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I think he's defending the artist.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Maybe. I'm sure it was just a debacle.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
And I'm personally invested in them getting this right because,
as much as I don't like to admit it, in
a few years, Lebron James is gonna retire. They're gonna
have to make a bust or a statue of him,
and if it's bad, I might fucking act out. But
they need to sort this out as soon as possible,
(05:26):
and I want to see it through.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Only Yeah, only for Lebron.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, I guess what I'm thinking here, Like why these
end up being so ugly so often is that sense
of a sculptor's artistic take on what the person looks like,
which is what Dwayne Wade was saying, which I kind
of agree with, which is like, if I'm commissioned to
(05:53):
make a statue of Noah, like we know what Noah
looks like, I might want to do something different with it.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
I don't know, shange it up.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I think what they need to understand, I think, at
least for these athletes, is that we just want it
to look exactly like it should be photo realistic, and
that's going to make us happy. The masses don't need
a you know, yeah, we don't need an artistic take
on what no it looks like.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
See here's my issue with that. Okay, I'm okay with
them taking artistic licenses, but make it look good. Yeah,
you know. It's like what ends up happening is it
seems like they're just doing a bad job of like
making a photo realistic version of a person. And they're like, oh,
I'm just it's my interpretation. It's like, no, if you're
going to have a style, go for it. Make it
(06:36):
look completely different.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Because this doesn't look so different. It's not like a
full cartoon or exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
It's like, Okay, this is just like supposed to Yes.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I know you mentioned Martin Luther King and Florida. I
guess the MLK and DC is maybe a bit more
of like it's more of like an abstract take on it.
So I give a little bit more leeway to something
like that. But most of the feels like they're trying
to do the photo realistic thing and then feeling and
then being like, well, it was supposed to look bad.
(07:06):
That's my style. My styles, I make bad looking statues.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You know they hated Jesus too. That's the best excuse
I've ever heard.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Of my little It's also said because like you know,
we're not massive you know, contemporary sculpture heads. No, So
it's like all we know from this man now is this. Yeah,
by far gonna be the most seen statue that guy
ever makes.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yep, But you know, give me, like do a cause,
you know, give me. I hate to cause stuff at
this point now, but like you know, you know, do
that sort of thing where it's like, hey, it is Ronaldo,
but it's.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Just like costs Yeah, he's doing what he wants.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yeah, exactly like if you if they were to do that,
I'd be like, you know what, that's that's their take on.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yeah, And I think like for a portrait, a painted portrait,
we're a lot more forgiving of that sort of stuff
just because there's a little bit more to play with it,
or like we're just more used to that. So I
want to find out why are these statues so bad?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
That d Wade quote had me wondering, like are we
being unfair just because we do know these people?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Like you go to the.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Met there's all these beautiful statues, but they are like
mythical characters or something. They're not people that we actually
know or we know them by their statues.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Yes, not like introduction.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
We haven't watched you know, thousands and thousands of hours
of this guy running around. Yeah you know. And then
also just like should statues be like super realistic or
should we be more up to more creative interpretations? And
just generally like our sculptors getting worse, Like is this
the lost art form? So after the break, I'll talk
to someone who actually knows what they're talking about, a sculptor. Oh,
(08:42):
so to understand why these public statues are so bad.
I caught up John Ballardo. He's not only a sculptor himself,
but he also teaches and serves as Lehman College's chief
College Laboratory Technician for art, and he instructs out a
few other art schools in the city. I mean, I
looked at his stuff, and he does like proper sculptures
of people. Things like that looked pretty good. Okay, he
(09:03):
hasn't done any you know, athletes, as far as I know,
So first I asked John to walk me through the
history of portrait sculptures. How far back do they go
and what's their original purpose.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
The idea of an individual portrait, a likeness of an
individual is credited to the Romans, who it was part
of a pagan culture that they were doing life casts
or actually guest casts in wax of their family members,
this kind of patriarchal system, and it was part of
a ritual where they would pull these out during certain ceremonies,
(09:42):
and then of course as the culture grew, they would
take these deaths masks and actually carve them in marble.
The idea there was that these were revered individuals, and
so the likeness of them became very important, and that
included all the realism, which means all the wrinkles in
your face and everything that you can imagine in the
(10:04):
age of the individual, rather than a youthful, beautiful appearance.
So the idea of a death cast was the way
we would record more objective information about the portrait over time.
You know, you had those two things. You had, you know,
either some sort of a casting or you would have
(10:24):
the person directly in your studio. Michaelangelo famously never did
a portrait.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
He you know, was asked many times, but he in
some ways he refused. And so the idea of a portraiture,
it's not always something that artists take on.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
John got to what might be the key issue for
the modern sculptor, which we touched on earlier, is photography.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Photography changed everything because now the public generally knows what
the person looked like, you know, and that's important. Likeness
and liveliness or the living person underneath are our similar ideas.
But in a lot of ways, a person that you
don't know what they look like, as long as it
(11:12):
retained a certain liveliness, a certain naturalism, it didn't need
to obviously look exactly like the person, because eventually that's
what the person looked like and according to history. Obviously,
now we're dealing with more objective record of their image.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
So there's something there to the fact that we actually
just know what these people are because they're contemporary to us,
so we've seen them in action and doing all this stuff. Yeah,
Michelangelo obviously a great sculptor. I didn't know he was like,
I'm not going to do any real portraits, which is
pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
But yeah, I love that my boy knew his limits.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeah he I'll make an amazing David, but that's David. Yeah, yeah,
no last name exactly.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Don't ask me who he is. And maybe, you know,
no disrespect to our boy Manuel. Maybe maybe he should
have did the same, Maybe he should have opted out.
Actually I can't really, that's not for me.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
He's like, I'll do a soccer player, Yes, an amazing
handsome soccer player, but it's not necessarily not handsome.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
This one, the one he made, is not handsome handsome.
I can make a really kind of ugly dude and
may play soccer.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Boss. I got that sculpture for your real ugly, weird looking.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
I wonder if Mike. The reason Michaelangelo refused to do
them was because they it is something you can grade essentially.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it kind of I'm gonna look more
into that, but yeah, it seems like it where it's
like because like I think most of his work was commissioned.
It's like, you know, whoever these families or whatever. But
to just refuse to do that, it's like one leading
a lot a lot of money on the table.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And he used to say that the statues we know
in love actually look like the people that they were
supposed to look. Yeah, exactly, yeah, find us but yeah no, yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
When when John said, you know, they look fine, because
that's now what they look like, Yeah, it's like, oh,
I don't mind blowing. And that's just how it was before,
you know, basically whatever one hundred and fifty years ago.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Well imagine if our boy David was actually like an
ugly dude. Oh yeah, and he's like, damn, that's me.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, he's just a really really rich, ugly y. He's like, listen,
I'm gonna treat you well. Just give me a nice sport,
nice statue here. This is gonna last for.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Like, don't look at me, look at that statue. That's
what I look like at my soul.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, here's how John describes the process and considerations with
a project like this.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
If it's from life, then the person really should be
in the studio with you, but that's not always possible.
So we often at this point work from photography, which
is a blessing and a curse. So let's set up
a space where we can start working from photography. In
(14:07):
the case of many people that would deserve a portrait
in the public, it would be something that there's a
ton of photography over the course of many years, so
you would have to be very careful about the photographs
you are using, and certainly the more the better, but
also an understanding of how those photographs were taken, from
(14:31):
what distance, from what lighting source, and then whether or
not you can trust the measurements from them. All portraiture
or all likeness comes from proportions, believe it or not,
like the distance between your eyes and compared to your
size of your nose. But that's easy when you're doing
a painted portrait because it's two dimensional. And not to
(14:53):
say anything negative about painters, but sculpture is way more
difficult because now we're talking about the depths of form
rather not just heightened with and then from there you're
relying on several things that hopefully you've educated yourself on.
The first thing would be anatomy, what are the likely
(15:17):
formations on the human head that arise from bone structure,
muscle structure. And then you would also take information from
your own memory and your own imagination in order to
work from the portraits that you've done from life, so
that the information has to be both empirical as well
(15:38):
as rational, as well as just outside sources. And then
it ultimately comes down to trial and error adding and
subtracting clay. Something that people don't always consider is color.
The color of your eyebrow, the color of your eyes,
(15:59):
the color of your hair, the color of your pupils,
and the color of your lips, everything, And so how
do you do that with clay? That's one color? So
you're usually dealing with what's called a color, that is
this relief quality that has to do with the way
light sweeps across a surface, gaining light and shadow in
(16:23):
order to create this kind of black and white or
gray scale structure across that and of course you have
to be able to control that, even though you can't
ever control the lighting in an outdoor where you need
to be able to control it enough where those things
aren't going to destroy it.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
It's a really interesting point about the color because I'm
looking at the Ronaldo statue again, and I do wonder
if it were like painted to look to be like
his skin color and his lip color and his hair color,
like how much more realistic it would look.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
And it being this dark bronze. And then I'm assuming
this is probably camera flash, but also just even sunlight
the way it reflects so strong, like these highlights are
kind of glaring. Yeah, it doesn't do him any favors.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
It looks like it looks like Rinaldo did blackface or something.
And then they made a statue of him, and just
it just I wonder if it looked to put that on.
All right, we'll cut that out. But it's just like
such a weird it is. It's tough to kind of
parse this out as a real human being when it's
just bronze, like.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Yeah, or even if it was like a like a
classical marble or something, you know, and you know, yeah,
he tells a good story about the Lincoln memorial, and
once the statue was placed in the monument, the lighting
was really off and like kind of spooky, like it
was like under lighting him. And this is like, you know,
the two artists, the sculptor and the architect, were like
two legends of the game, like at the peak of
(17:48):
their powers, and like even they messed that up and
had to like they made some adjustments to the monument
so the light would work better.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
But it's like, ultimately, there.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Are so many different things, especially when it's gonna be outside,
that I certainly hadn't really considered, even aside from just
the difficulty of making a three D sculpture to.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Begin with, Yeah, the environment is going to be in it,
so important. Proportion really interesting when you think about photographs,
you know, if you photograph one person in the same
room with different lenses, Yeah, portly changed so dramatically. So yeah,
that wasn't something I considered. You know when you're looking
at these photographs, is that like, yeah, you may start
(18:25):
with one proportion and then you got to realize, like, okay,
you got to take kind of the averages of all
these things, because you know, just the front facing proportion
may not look the same from a point five versus
you know.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
One thirty five or something wider. Your face is like
way more pointed. Okay, yeah, but if it's the twenty
four millimeters lens, it's like your face is way more flat. Yeap,
that's like when the camera adds ten pounds espectually.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
So after getting insight on kind of how hard it
is to make a statue and what they're thinking about,
I ask kind of the big question, our sculpture is
getting worse or are we just more knowledgeable about what
these subjects actually look like.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
It's the latter, we know these people more over time.
There's a thousand things you're dealing with with a modern portrait.
You know. The first thing is the recognizability of the person.
We had talked earlier about photography, but now it's also
video and particularly sports figures. They are recognizable in action, right,
(19:28):
and so sculpture tends to be pretty static, right, So
now we have to deal with that energy. And so
how do you bring in energy into a portrait as
well as a likeness as well as liveliness and hit
it dead on? It is the sort of thing that
humans are very sensitive to, very sensitive to recognizability. We
(19:52):
can recognize our friends from down the street by the
way they're walking. The other thing that happens is that
art schools have not adequately trained sculptors over the past
fifty years, and so a sculptor who goes through a
(20:14):
normal education in America is not given any of the
adequate training in anatomy and modeling, and a lot of
artists don't realize that before they take on this very
important responsibility. Artists nowadays are trained to express themselves and
(20:35):
to be the center of attention, and to think of
their work as ephemeral and yet freewheeling, where a sculpture,
particularly of somebody as important as MLK, has to speak
to the past before you were born you as an artist,
and will retain its meaning after you're dead. So now
(20:58):
we are talking about something very important, and it's now
no longer about the artist. So the training of an
artist just goes counter to that. The first thing that
I saw with when I saw Ronaldo was maybe this
artist was trained more as an anime or they draw
(21:20):
on cartoons, you know, and that's unfortunately considered to be
a good training for the things that they're asking to do.
It needs to be about the individual you're portraying, and
the most important thing you can do is show respect
to that image. You're showing respect to what the public
(21:44):
thinks of that individual, what that individual has represented, and
the first thing they represented this image. So if you
show respect to a likeness, then you're showing respect to
what that person has done their entire career.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
One thing that really stuck out was kind of talking
about the training where and it makes sense when you
think about it. You say you really like painting, you
go to school. It's the idea is like you're painting
your own stuff, like whatever you want. And that's pretty
different than you know, the days of Michelangelo or wherever
where Okay, they're hired to paint the ceiling and then
you do that, and that's it's not really about you.
(22:21):
Obviously there's gonna be things you put in there right
as a great artist or whatever. But so kind of
in these situations, they're kind of trapped because you're you're
trained to do your own thing, and now the expectations
totally kind of flipped in a way. Even if you studied,
you know, representation on all these things, so you know,
you feel for these guys a little bit. That they
maybe were set up a little bit out of there.
(22:42):
So after that I ran a few of these sculptures
by John. I want to go to the Duwayne Wade statue.
Go to no such thing dot Show for the you
know to see these images. So on the bottom left,
that's the image that's being recreated. You see a you know,
closer up detail of the statue there. Man, why don't
you describe what's happening here in the original photo.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
In the original photo, I don't know. Dwayne Wade must
have hit a three or something.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
They did.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
They did a good job doing something specific, and he's
kind of he's amped up, he's yelling, he's hyping up
the crowd, and so he's in a position that's like
I think maybe he's doing a this is our house, yeah,
something like he's pointing towards the ground saying, you know,
this is our this is our spot, and in the
statue you know it. For whatever reason, he they look
(23:31):
like they just aged him by like thirty years, Like
he just looks like a really old man. This may
be the coloring sort of thing too, isn't helping because
Dwayne Wade in this photo is relatively young. Like that
was a long time ago. Yeah, he's probably late twenties
or something in this photo and in the statue, I
(23:52):
don't know. It just is like I don't understand the
aging aspect here. They've also seemed to do like the
statue version of his fade haircut, which yeah, a statue
just makes it look like he only has like a
tiny little bit of hair. It's tough to do a
fade in like bronze or whatever.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
He looks like the zombies from Iron Legends.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he looks so gaunt. I think, yes,
and d Wade is like, you know, pretty good looking guy,
but he had and he has like he.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Has like cheeks, he's got like yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
He's not chubby by any means obviously, but his face
has like yes, I mean he looks good, but yeah,
it's like you can see a smile in the photo
with the statue, It's like, yeah, it just looks pretty
different than this man in the sculpture.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Now, this is a This is an instance where with
the Ronaldo statue you can tell that there was an
attempt to make it look like Christiano Ronaldo and it
just went wrong. This looks like a different person. This
doesn't look similar to this.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
They're like, all right, here's the post we want and
put him into Miami Jersey. Yeah, it doesn't really look
like it's based on Wade, excepting the fact that he's
a you know, athletically built and wearing Yeah yeah, but yeah, Like,
if you just showed me that face, especially without Miami
on the I wouldn't even think that's ay.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
It's like a civil rights what is happening here?
Speaker 4 (25:22):
So the Duyane Wade portrait, So not only do you
have movement, you have energy, you have you know, you're
trying to deal with likeness and the proportions, but now
on top of it, expression with the mouth open. This
is something that happens all the time. A commissioner or
(25:43):
somebody who is paying for this will say, we want
the individual to have this expression or we want it
to be referring to this photograph. A smile is actually
one of the most difficult things in the world to
capture an expression like this, and he has this great,
you know, grin and this excited yell. This is one
(26:07):
moment in time. It's kind of like, you know, you
take a bad candid photo and you know you have
this weird expression on your face because you know you're
in the middle of talking like this, and that doesn't
look like you. But it's like this, this odd little shape,
you know, And so that's I think what's happening here.
A sculpture unfolds over time, so people interact with it
(26:30):
as if they come up to it and they see
it and they move past it, and now it's a
it's a three dimensional image that that's exposed to the
viewer over time. And to try to capture this snapshot
instant of time and a sculpture is extraordinarily difficult. And
(26:54):
so what's happening there is I think it has more
to do with our of it, our perception, this juxtaposition,
or this jarring experience of looking at this static sculpture
with this highly energetic expression. I think that's really what
it is. When his mouth is open, that changes the
(27:18):
way he squints with his eyes, and so that's that's
you're not going to recognize the person like that. You
don't recognize people in that state, but you could recognize
them if you saw them doing the jumping and excited dancing.
But it's over time. It's not an instance. You know,
(27:39):
we're always going to look awkward that way. I don't
envy the you know, the artist, you know, I think
in this case did an admirable job for an impossible cask.
That's my opinion.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
These statues, you know, I think maybe they should start
being closer to the classical portrait we're thinking of. So
if you're gonna have a statue of an athlete outside
of the stadium, maybe they really shouldn't be in in
like some crazy position or like doing something in motion, because,
like he was saying, you know, even when you look
(28:15):
at the photo of Dwayne Wade, like we know through
context clues and through just knowing his face that that's
Dwayne Wade, but it doesn't like, quote unquote look like
Dwayne Wade. Yeah, like he's he's like really scrunching his
face up. If he wasn't in that jersey, if he
wasn't if he was like on the street instead of
in the basketball scenario, we might be like, who's this?
(28:36):
Like I don't know exactly who that is.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Right, We're not looking at a statue being like, oh,
does this look like Dwayne Wade looked in that specifically
doesn't not ye frame of that shot. It's like this
this is like Dwayne Wade. Oh, and he's doing the
motion from that moment.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah, you need to trust your own legacy that you know,
you can just be be sat with a basketball I'm
going on a yeah, but you know, with a Miami
Heat jersey one. All right, so let's move away from athletes. Connor,
would you mind pulling up one of the MLK photos.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I don't think i've seen this all.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, let's know this so well. Obviously, love great reverend,
that's what are your what are your takeaways here?
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I mean yeah, like there's like a children's book.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
To me, the big thing is just his head.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I mean proportion sizes.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Aren't a particularly tall guy.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
No, you're sure.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
I'm pretty sure, you know, so they got the body
size accurate. But his head is enormous and his.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Hands ye huge. Sh Now, this is tough too, because
back then they were wearing some big ass suits. Yeah,
kind of hide what your body like?
Speaker 3 (29:38):
This looks like, uh if I was making an MLK
like sports team and I needed a mascot for it,
you know, it's like we were.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
R It does kind of look like a like a
a kid in in elementary school. Drew Drew image of him,
and then they're like, all right, we're gonna make a
statue of yeah, we got off the photos anything.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Which is why I wonder if it's supposed to look exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
I'm trying to look at the details of the face
to see doesn't look like, yeah, it looks like a guy.
It looks like a man.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Yeah, it looks like a man. Like it looks like
a black man.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no mistake there.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
The hair looks pretty good on this one, actually, yeah. True,
he looks like a kid in his face, like his
church clothes.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
But what is fascinating about this is that every different
photo looks like a completely different set.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Like his head looks enormous in this wearing another different angle,
kind of slightly to the left, I suppose, really straight on. Yeah,
it's like a caricature style.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
And yeah, and this one not you know, there's motion
he's waving, but it's not like he's not it's not
celebrating a buzzer beater that would be.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
It's not like, oh, you know, you know, I'm okay,
I was, I was doing that waving his hand.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
It's like he's most famous for, you know, walking, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Stand walking very long distance. This.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I'm like, this is like a town assemblymen. Yes, no
offense to the greatest symbol. It's in winter Park, Florida.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Okay, it feels like Martin Luther King's statue in Winnipark, Florida.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yeah, you know this.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Is in the DC. Yeah. Yeah, it feels like, all right,
you've got a local artist in Winnipark like this.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
The other weird thing with the Florida statue of Martin
Luther King, And this is very similar to the Dwayne
Wade one in that they just aged him. Yeah, Martin
Luther King Ray. Well, a lot of people might not recall,
but he died very young. He's in his thirties when
he was killed. And so this guy in this statue
looks like he's seventy.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Everybody looks like their father thirty nine.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, I think late thirties. But yeah, still, oh yeah,
that's a very young person.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Yes, I'm about to be looks as we discussed people
used to look older.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah. No, I was thinking.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I was like, but not that, damn.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
I was.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
I was like, maybe it's in our head that just
like statues are old people.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Probably a little bit bronze's but like, yeah, the Ronado
one didn't look that old, you know, no like relative,
you know, just as another comparison point.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
And I know there's the famous one in d C
which I got to see a couple of years ago,
which does look just like him. But this is an interesting,
very interesting statue.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Yeah, the DC one's cool. Well, that one's like I
can't remember the word, but when it's like coming out
of the block.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Yeah, he's coming out of the slab.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I think his face looks much more accurate in this one,
I think.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
And the DC one yeah, yeah, this.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Was like the official Yeah, and that's.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
More if we want to do some artistic that's the
way to do it, right, Like, it still looks like
the person, but it's not just a straight statue. He's
coming out and let work. Yeah, yeah, you don't out
of slab.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Forget the back.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Not sure that's what he was thinking of.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
They got you ran up to the deadline. Actually it's
supposed to look like this.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah, I wasn't supposed to finish the back to there
knocking on the door. I feel like that one got
some criticism when it first came out too, though, Yeah,
probably I like this one. Yeah, I think it does
a great job. I feel like, yeah, the artist being
able to add their little touch to it, but also
representing the person well, looks like the person serving the
(33:09):
purpose of the statue, which is not that like, Oh,
this guy's just such a great sculptor, it's supposed to
look like them.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Well.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
The first thing I noticed about the Winter Park MLK
is that it is out of proportion. Now I'm only
looking at it from photographs and video, but it appeared
that the head was too large. That's the first thing.
Proportions in a very large statue outdoors is something that
(33:40):
a sculptor needs to be able to control. Sometimes we
might make the head slightly smaller because of the way
we might be looking up at the statue. Other times,
you know you were going to change the proportions in
different ways in order to again because of the way
you might interact with that's a sculpture. How big is
(34:02):
it in compared to the viewer? How big is it
in compared with architecture? The likeness itself, for me, it
doesn't look like an Okay, ultimately in likeness you're talking
about millimeters, But when you enlarge something sometimes those distortions
can feel exaggerated. So when you're talking about the proportions
(34:28):
of a likeness and then the scale of your proportions,
now you're going up and it's getting bigger and it's outside.
That's a terribly difficult thing to control. But it is
the responsibility of the sculptor.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
I do wonder seeing some of this stuff, especially looking
at a Martin Luther King thing. Right, this guy makes
this thing, he puts it all together and he sets
back and he's like, God, damn it that head is. Yeah.
Do they ever just start over, you know, like damn
you know, like I mean, well you're making it portrait.
You just get a new piece of paper and you know,
start sketching the game.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
I'm sure it depends on the material, and I imagine
like the budgets and all these things, but it's like
you're either then adding clay or whatever back on or
chipping away. It's like, all right, so now you have
this giant, mkay head. Now you need to chip away
the entire thing and keep it in proportion.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yeah, because then you'd have to if you made his
head smaller, you would have to go back and make
his eyes and his nose.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
And then you make it too small, then you need
to chop off the whole bot. You know.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
It feels like a lot of time these guys are
just like, oh bad first attempt, you know, like, oh damn,
you know, you try something that's not quite it. But
if I did it again, yeah, I could get a
little bit closer. Yeah, And it feels like they just
don't get another shot, you know, they get the one
shot and it's just not right.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
They need they need to put them on way longer time.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Feel like like when you invite people over for a
party or something and you give them, you know, two
hours early, knowing no one's going to be there exactly.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Oh yeah, yeah, so you do that first version. Not great,
you got another couple of months to get it together.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
So having learned all this, and John said, you know
several times, like he doesn't envy any of these artists
who have to do this, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
What I've learned is that it's a much more impossible
task than I had originally thought. Not not an impossible one,
but just like there's so many it's such an uphill
battle to make like an accurate statue. Yeah, and I
just want to again make sure that the people who
end up being in charge of the Lebron James Statue.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
To listen to this episode, so try to get on
the committee. I'm going to start making sure I don't
ever smile just for you know, for the artists down
the line when they're doing the NST. Yeah, you know statue. Yeah.
I definitely have deep respect for any sculptor of any
(36:59):
capacity who's done any of these. And you know, it's
given me more to consider when I am looking at these,
especially just simple stuff like the lighting and how much
that that can affect how you take these in. And
the biggest thing to me think like you're just interesting
to think about the history of it, where it's like, yeah,
like I actually don't know what any of these old
statues look like, or like even like someone slightly more recent,
(37:20):
but like pre photography. It's like someone like Napoleon or something.
It's like, all right, there's plenty of paintings too, so
like you're basing that and then whatever sculpture it's like,
but it's still like those are fake images, just like
make up this person in our head, you know.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Yeah, And I think the final thing they'll need to
consider is like making a flattering image of the person
instead of something that's one hundred percent supposed to be look,
you know, one to one realistic, something that you know,
gives you something to look at that is flattering of
the subject.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
Yeah, and feels represented. I feel like we gotta somebody's
gotta change our expectations, right, We got to stop asking
them to make statues of very specific moments in time, right,
Like it just needs to be like, okay, make it
look like this person. And I feel like the artists
need to just understand, Hey, we're not here.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
It's not about you.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
We're not here to see your work. Yeah, We're here
to see a representation of this person.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Yeah, you have to understand you put your personal style
to the side unless you know you're going to do
something like the like I said, the MLK and DC
pretty good combination of those two. This guy doing a
Ronaldo like like, like I boy said, I don't know
if he's doing anime drawings or whatever the hell he
was trying to do with the statue. We don't want
(38:42):
the statue to look like an anime draw.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Soon, all these statues are gonna look like damn laboo boos.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, these statues were really meant to walk up to
them and be like, that's yep, that's Lebron James.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, it's essentially. We want a photograph. Yeah, a three
D photograph made of one color. I mean, good luck, Yeah,
good luck. Any sculptors are listening in wanna make a
free sculpture of us? Shoot us an email.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
We won't be too harsh. He's He's helsay Hewsay Hews.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
No such thing as a production of Kaleidoscope content. Our
executive producers are Kate Osborne and Mangesh hot To Cadur.
The show was created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and
Devin Joseph Them and credits song by Manny. Mixing is
by Steve Bone, our guest this week with sculptor John Billardo.
You can visit www dot No such thing dot show
to subscribe to our newsletter, where you can find images
of all the sculptures discussed in this episode, and if
(39:37):
you have feedback for us or a question, our email
is Manny Noah Devin at gmail dot com, or if
you're in the US, you can also leave us a
voicemail by calling the number in our show notes. We'll
be back next week with a new episode. Thanks for listening,
Hell's hell's, hell's ayes, Hell's no such thing.
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