My town is something of a laughingstock

[Mari333]

posting the story in it's entirety because it is on Facebook now.
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Restaurant owner balks at nude sculpture used to promote fundraiser
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Tuesday, 09 March 2010 at 07:44
By BECKY BURKERT
Editor and general manager

When does one man’s art become another man’s ire?
Just ask South Haven restaurant owner A.J. Distefano. He’ll tell you - loud and clear.
Earlier this month local artist Patrick McKearnan wanted to promote the upcoming Night at the Museums fundraiser at Maria’s Restaurant.
So, he asked David Putman, owner of the former Wolverine Hardware building on Phoenix Street, if he could put a promotional display in a storefront window. Putman, who allows organizations. such as the South Haven Center for the Arts. use his window to promote upcoming events, said sure.
Little did he know that McKearnan chose to advertise the event by posing a nude sculpture with a plate and napkin covering his bathing suit area. Nearby stood a sign, urging people to eat at Maria’s on Thursday, March 4, to raise money for area cultural attractions.
“We were embarrassed,” Distefano exclaimed. “I don’t want that kind of advertising. Customers were asking me, 'A.J., have you lost your gourd?’” Another customer told the restaurant owner that underneath the plate people could see part of the sculpture’s groin area.
That really made Distefano upset. When he complained, Putman removed the promotional sign that referred to Maria’s restaurant and also put another napkin on the sculpture - this time covering all of its lap and part of its stomach.
“Patrick asked if he could put a display in the window to promote the event. I told him he could,” Putman said.
Putman, nor Art Center staff, said they were aware of what McKearnan was going to display, but Putman said he wasn’t particularly upset about the sculpture. “That’s Patrick,” he said with a shrug.
For his part, McKearnan also didn’t quite understand Distafano’s consternation.
“I thought it was kind of a fun thing to do,” he said. “I thought maybe it would generate more traffic at his restaurant to help with the benefit.”
Distefano was nonplussed. He admitted that the restaurant was quite crowded for the Night at the Museums Fundraiser, but he was still upset that he had no say in choosing what would be displayed.
“We don’t mind helping," Distefano said of the event that raises funds for area cultural attractions. "But to promote that? I don’t understand why the police didn’t do anything about it.”
Turns out the police probably couldn’t do anything about it, even if an officer had been alerted to the display, Police Chief Tom Martin said.
“Distasteful, yes,” Martin said. “I wouldn’t want it advertising my business, especially if I didn’t like it...but as long as it is not (ruled as) obscene, I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it.”
Proving that the sculpture is obscene wouldn’t be easy, mainly because the sculpture’s genitals were covered with a plate and napkin, Martin said. As another example, he referred to a South Haven man who, in the past, has cut his lawn clad only with a piece of clothing less scanty than a loin cloth.
“We’ve been around and around on that. It’s not considered indecent exposure,” Martin said.
The flap over the sculpture display isn’t going to deter McKearnan from promoting the Night at the Museums fundraiser. The next event will take place at Phoenix Street Cafe on April 1 with all of the proceeds from the evening earmarked for area cultural attractions. “I don’t think it will be a nude sculpture,” he promised.

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I called the restaurant owner, and told him politely that I would no longer be a customer.

And asked him if he would also censor Michaelangelo's David if it were shown in town.

NO THATS REAL ART!! he told me.

I have seen this sculpture, it is whimsical and non threatening. Michaelangelo's David is wayyyy more revealing.

a lot of artists in this community, this restaurant owner screwed the goose on this one.

nonetheless, this makes for an interesting community.

[Cirque du So-What]

1. I'm not surprised at all the brouhaha

Never underestimate the capacity of the American public to reveal their Victorian prudishness at the slightest provocation. Ours is a peculiar culture. I don't know of another country that gives off so many sex-obsessed vibes, but something as innocuous as a nude statue sends people reeling for the fainting couch with a case of the vapours. Such repression and denial cannot be good for the psyche. Meanwhile, the rest of the world - especially Europeans - chuckle at our puritanical tendencies.

[Mari333]

2. one of the dress shoppe owners here told me

that she was harassed by phone calls when she took the clothes off her mannequins whilst changing them for a store front display...the mannequins had no heads or arms and were non sexual..didnt matter..she got a weekend's worth of phone calls about it.

we need to have a nude bicycle race here...hahahahahaha

[Nay]

3. What perplexes me is that, if I were the restaurant owner and was

unhappy with the art for any reason, I would have quietly told the artist that the art clashed with my values, and could he please replace it with another?

Why all this whining to the newspapers, etc.?

[MH1]

5. why the whining - grandstanding their "righteousness"

it doesn't do the righteous one any good if no one else knows about it, right?

[ensho]

14. true

nt

[Mari333]

6. he told me it was 'filth!' and that he recieved numerous phone calls

from people saying it was 'filthy! obscene!'

oy. he will lose a lot of local customers now, artists used to like to go there.

[MH1]

4. People are taught to feel guilty about a natural impulse

so they suppress it then obsess about it and find ways to "sneak" it but then when they see a chance to prove their own righteousness they jump at the opportunity to show offense at the "naughty" thing.

Sigh. Welcome to America. We need to just get over it about sex, don't we?

[ChicagoSuz219]

7. I like South Haven. n/t

[peekaloo]

8. Shame on those naughty napkin under-lookers!

Shame, shame, shame.

:rofl:

[KharmaTrain]

9. Well Done PR

Had the sculpture been clad, no one would have noticed. This got free ink and maybe some free teevee time as well. Hope the fundraiser benefits.

[kywildcat]

10. Mapplethorpe-Cincinnati

when a prudish overbearing egotistocal sheriff decides what is art and what isn't.
You handled this well.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. What did he think the police would do??

That's just crazy.

[zbdent]

12. Didn't Reagan have the statues covered during the 1984 Olympic games?

and, of course, Ashcroft covered the breast of Justice, because HE had issues with nudity ...

[BlueJazz]

13. Beautiful restaraunt. Thanks for posting