to see the giant woman

As long as I was going in to the City for the Isidore String Quartet concert on Wednesday, I decided to add a little extra time so that I could see the piece of public art that's currently roiling the place in controversy, "R-Evolution" by Marco Cochrane, a 45-foot-tall statue of a giant (did I say that?) naked woman planted in the plaza in front of the Ferry Building. Photos I've seen of it there don't seem to capture it very well, but it looks sort of like this:

Apparently it's supposed to "transcend outdated perceptions of the female body and celebrate it as a symbol of strength, beauty and empowerment" or something like that, but perhaps it could convey that message a bit more clearly if it had a few appropriate clothes on. And was not quite so gigantic.

This is not (fortunately) a permanent thing. It's going to be there for six months. Apparently it's been going around on a world tour for about ten years now. Here's a bunch more photos in various locales.

The giant naked woman is made of a steel inner structure with a wire mesh framing to give her a female shape. That makes her fairly translucent. She has short hair. She has very long fingers. She has toenails, which I mention because you can get close enough to see that. She has no sign of any genitals whatever, which is relieving but a little dishonest.

There are a number of rude comments online - "dumb" "disgusting" "inappropriate" etc - but she's there and I didn't regret the little extra time it took to see her.