Congratulations to the winners of artcritical’s Valentine’s Day competition, Josephine Baker-Heaslip and Jim Walsh.
Josephine Baker-Heaslip:
To: Tilted Arc
Federal Plaza
New York City
03/15/1989
Since hearing the news of your immanent sentence, I am now aware that I have left it too late to write this letter. Your presence in my life has been unavoidable, and perhaps we may not have one last moment together before your removal. I know that most people don’t understand you and consider you an eyesore, but I appreciate your beauty and your seemingly precarious existence enthralls me. Although many have objected to your austere and uncompromising appearances, I must say I admire your integrity to not conceal your physical properties – unpolished steel is nothing to be ashamed of.
When you’re here I feel that every move I make with you resonates in the whole environment we inhabit. Every step I take is a new experience, every surface a voyage of discovery. You continuously challenge my very impressions of space, but because of this I hope you will not consider conscious human emotion too conventional. I understand that your manner of expression does not allude to or promote romantic acuity, yet I cannot help asking: You must be aware of what you are doing to me, and no doubt to many others! If your conditions for creation are abstract, then perhaps you empathize with such emotions that defy figuration and resolution?
Despite your immeasurable size, I think together we could achieve a balance – my love for you is on par with the city itself. When I am closely navigating your slender bulk, you sensuously curve toward me as if in an open embrace. You exist in a perpetual climax, which never grants a resolution or even closure to our relationship – sometimes I feel that my love for you is more of a hindrance than you are to the public.
I can understand that the specificity of the site is paramount to your existence, for it is the medium with which you have been created, but why should the conditions of your maker still prescribe your individual life? You cannot live without the direct experience you have been made to create, as I cannot live without experiencing you.
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Jim Walsh:
Dear Blue,
I nearly missed you in Matisse’s Red Studio, tucked up there in the corner.
And with Picasso it was all about you, wasn’t it? The closest I could get was being Rose…
Kelly brought us together, side by side, if only for a moment, but too close as the purple gulf ensued that always happens when we mix.
I’ll find you again, Cerulean Majesty, please rely on that! And then the sparks will fly!
Always burning for you,
Red
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