January 4, 2021

"A 33-metre reinforced concrete vagina has sparked a Bolsonarian backlash in Brazil..."

"... with supporters of the country’s far-right president clashing with leftwing art admirers over the installation. The handmade sculpture, entitled Diva, was unveiled by visual artist Juliana Notari on Saturday at a rural art park... In a Facebook post, Notari said the scarlet hillside vulva was intended to 'question the relationship between nature and culture in our phallocentric and anthropocentric western society' and provoke debate over the 'problematisation of gender.'...  Bolsonaro’s US-based political guru, the professional polemicist Olavo de Carvalho, weighed in with a customarily foul-mouthed tweet."


The "foul-mouthed tweet" isn't quoted (in Portuguese or in translation), but I clicked through to Twitter and read: "Por que estão falando mal da buceta de 33 metros em vez de enfrentá-la com um pirocão?" And I have Google-translated it for you: "Why are they talking bad about the 33-meter pussy instead of facing it with a dick?" 

I guess he's suggesting that opponents of the hillside ought to devise a way to rape it, or no, maybe he's just calling for equality and would like another hillside with a sculpture representing male genitalia. Google translates "enfrentá" as "facing," but also as "confronting" or "encountering." 

Obviously, I am incapable of assessing the humor or hatefulness of a Portuguese tweet. One idea is to translate the responses at Twitter. For example: "Professor Olavo, you are a great intellectual and an exceptional teacher. But this compulsion for hostility and bad words related to sexual organs and waste are symptoms of psychiatric disorder. Try to treat yourself, your ideas will gain more strength!"

If you search for monumental constructions that represent genitalia, the vast majority of what you will find is male. Here's the Wikipedia article on "Phallic Architecture." There's no way feminist sculptors could ever carve enough concrete into hillsides even to begin to achieve equity. 

For another example of a monumental vagina sculpture, see "The Dirty Corner," a gigantic construction at Versailles, by Anish Kapoor, who described it as "the vagina of the queen coming into power." The article at the link — from BBC in 2015 — quotes a random German tourist: "It's confusing, a big vagina and a palace. It's one of the most famous places in Paris and I just wanted to see it and I saw this building, this statue, and I don't know what it is." That sculpture has been vandalized, and Kapoor, who is male, has denied calling it a vagina: "I never said vagina—I said ‘she sits here on the lawn’ or something to that effect."

Ah! The difficulties of translation!

79 comments:

Humperdink said...

In a show of support, The Most Reverend Emanual Cleaver has offered come to Brazil to bless the sculpture.

Rory said...

How much and who paid?

BUMBLE BEE said...

Much like the dog pissing on the museum of modern art? Bread and Circus phase duly noted.

Lash LaRue said...

But, is it art?

rhhardin said...

It looks like the Nixon monument.

rhhardin said...

I'd toss in a tampon string, but probably everybody does.

Witness said...

Literally every tunnel.

Daniel Jackson said...

Perhaps the problem here lies in our own ethnocentrism. Objecting to "equal time" for a penis opposite the vagina bespeaks of our own prudent culture and the separation of genitalia. Hindu culture, particularly the Shaivite traditions depict the cosmic creation with the phallus of Shiva embedded in eternal coital bliss within the vagina in the artistic form called the Lingam.

This icon, which is throughout Hindu culture, shows the male organ, the Lingam, embedded into the female organ, the Yoni, complete with clitoris and a run-off spout. The worship ritual, in countless Shaivite temples, has the Pucari, or priest, pour libations of milk, curds, and butter over the top of the Lingam. The liquid is collected by gutters about the base of the penis, flow through a spout, and is collected by the Pucari in a bowl, the contents of which are consumed by the devotee. The ritual, and its proceeds or prasad, is said to promote fertility as well as symbolize the eternal union of the male and female forces of creation.

The image is hardly new dating back to the Upanishadic period, about 3000 years ago. See the decent review article in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingam

On the other hand, the Venus figurines of the Paleolithic periods, among the first depictions of human form, represent some of earliest art works known. These figures depict very ample females with large breasts, full hips, and plainly visible vulva and genitalia. Even to the modern observer their intent is clear. Except for phallic pottery of the Inca peoples, the vast majority of the "stone age" art depicts the female sex organs in full fecundity than the male sex organs in erection. Okay, on some Greek pottery depicting the Homeric Heroes going into battle with hard-ons. Images of such here: https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS840US840&sxsrf=ALeKk00G_cp29wSPrLbeRtqixX3cde64CA:1609764388493&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=neolithic+venus&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi97rDUp4LuAhV6Q0EAHUEqB2gQjJkEegQIBRAB&biw=1366&bih=697

To return to point, perhaps we all need to take lessons from the Lingam-Yoni idol and make love not war?

Bob Boyd said...

They should have had the Good Year blimp circling overhead for the unveiling.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Build the wall.

rhhardin said...

The trouble with vagina monuments is that you can't really tell them from assholes. I'd go with tits.

Bob Boyd said...

There's no way feminist sculptors could ever carve enough concrete into hillsides even to begin to achieve equity.

I like it, but is it really a problem that there aren't enough of these?

Mattman26 said...

In South Park’s incomparable ManBearPig episode, the kids are touring a cave with a ranger pointing out various stalagmites and their nicknames. One looks like an enormous penis with testicles. The ranger says, “We call this one ‘Man with helmet and two bowling balls.’”

That’s my contribution to the discourse for today. Have a nice day.

David Begley said...

Ann:

You are a gem. Very timely for me!

David Begley said...

Big public art installations attract attention!

Temujin said...

I think it represents the end of knowledge. The acknowledgement that, at last, we know less than the previous generation. Today we celebrate our ability to drag civilization backward. At long last, we're going back to the Dark Ages. No more progress! The schools are our hope, the Vagina our symbol.

Congrats, everybody. I hope there are jobs for 1 billion vagina artists.

Bob Boyd said...

I predict within 5 years the hillside will be a popular, off-leash cat park.

Dude1394 said...

I oppose all statues and monuments. They will be racist/sexist in the future to one person so they must all come down. Don’t waste the money.

John henry said...

That is one red.

Menstruating?

2 other question

Why is anything a plallic symbol to women?

Why, Ann, is your first thought about a penis Statue, "rape"

John Henry

Owen said...

Bonus for me is learning some bad words in Portuguese. Thanks!

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Somehow, just glad Gustav Eiffel decided against the giant Iron Vagina

Fernandinande said...

'question the relationship between nature and culture in our phallocentric and anthropocentric western society'

A Florida driver's license is on its way!

Rusty said...

"33 meter reinforced concrete vagina....."
That's a tall order.
I'll do my best.

Tom T. said...

Students at northern colleges occasionally craft large phallus sculptures our of snow. These are typically denounced as threatening: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/2/26/womens-group-debates-snow-penis-the/

Ann may also have forgotten about the recent removal of a phallic statue right there at UW-Madison: https://www.thecollegefix.com/u-wisconsin-madison-penis-shaped-sculpture-to-come-down/

Fernandinande said...

Daniel Jackson said...
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_ ...etc ...


By removing the tracking garbage in that URL, it can be shortened to:
https://www.google.com/search?&tbm=isch&q=neolithic+venus

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/2/26/womens-group-debates-snow-penis-the/

"Women's Group Debates Snow Penis"

I wonder who won the debate, the women or the snow penis?

Wince said...

Being Brazil, the burden to keep the patch around it closely manicured must drive the landscapers crazy.

Fernandinande said...

At least Bolsonaro is not Hispanic.

Dave Begley said...

Correction: This is pubic art; not public art.

Meade said...

Gorgeous. I give it 5 sinks.

John henry said...

Isn't he, ferdinandanad?

At least we all agree he is Latino, right?

John Henry

walter said...

From Farcebook translation of Artiste: "Diva is a land art, a massive vulva/wound excavation..."
So Trans-fixed as well.
Perhaps there's a difference between something can be construed as versus something specifically designed as.
The vaginal counterpart to phallic is...?

walter said...

Vagly familiar..

William said...

I was disappointed. The art was neither prurient nor objectionable. All the best vaginas are prurient. If they gave the work a different name, say, Davy Jones Locker, I'd have shrugged it off. More modern art....The problem is that although men wouldn't mind having a thirty foot phallus, most women would find a thirty foot vagina unwieldy, although undoubtedly useful during childbirth.......The sublime and the beautiful. The phallic symbol projects power and authority in a stark manner. Think Donald Trump's comb over or the Washington Monument. The vaginal symbol is supposed to be lovely and delicate. Think Georgia O'Keefe's flowers or Nancy Pelosi's refrigerator.

daskol said...

Pfft...no teeth?

Wince said...

"A 33-metre reinforced concrete vagina has sparked a Bolsonarian backlash in Brazil..." Bolsonaro’s US-based political guru... weighed in. "Why are they talking bad about the 33-meter pussy instead of facing it with a dick?"

Althouse said...
I guess he's suggesting that opponents of the hillside ought to devise a way to rape it.


"Destroying property, arson... sexual assault with a concrete dildo?"

Fernandinande said...

Isn't he, ferdinandanad?

Nope, because they don't talk Spanish. I was making fun of the dopey US terms they use when they mean "Mestizo".

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

So, she's against the "anthropocentric" tilt of "Western civilization"? Why have it resemble a human vulva, then? Unless she's silly enough to have shot for "androcentric," and missed.

tim maguire said...

One problem with comparing the frequency of phallic architecture to vaginal is that the phallus is such a simple design with common practical uses that it will appear regularly without any intention on the part of the creator, ewhereas vaginal architecture will have to be deliberately made with few if any purposes other than to look like a vagina.

Unless we call the well, mine shaft, or fallout shelter vaginal architecture, in which case your wrong about which one shows up more.

Sam L. said...

I'd bet that Sarah A. Hoyt could tell you, she being born and grown up in Portugal.

Paul said...

What a joke.... a stupid joke at that.

Ice Nine said...

>>A 33-metre reinforced concrete vagina has sparked a Bolsonarian backlash in Brazil<<

Stop with the "vagina!" You would need a flashlight to see any hint of vagina in that sculpture.

Joe Smith said...

Here's the Wikipedia article on "Phallic Architecture."

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

And besides, don't the ladies already have all the tunnels, caves, sinkholes, crevasses, etc. on their scoresheet?

We guys get the occasional obelisk.

Doesn't seem equitable to me...

Joe Smith said...

"A 33-metre reinforced concrete vagina..."

When it needs cleaning, do they haul out the 100-meter douchebag?

How deep is your love?

ALP said...

Unless we call the well, mine shaft, or fallout shelter vaginal architecture, in which case your wrong about which one shows up more.

***********

I had a similar thought: if skyscrapers are phallic, every home or office space could be considered a womb.

Jupiter said...

"There's no way feminist sculptors could ever carve enough concrete into hillsides even to begin to achieve equity."

This is what we've been trying to mansplain to you for all these years.

Bob Boyd said...

How long until a kid falls in and has to be rescued by the fire dept? They'll end up covering it with a chain-link mat, sort of like a giant chastity belt.

Jupiter said...

'Google translates "enfrentá" as "facing," but also as "confronting" or "encountering."'

Well, but. Let's remember that Google, mindful of its ethical responsibilities, is not going to produce a correct translation if that might prove hurtful to the sensibilities of a protected group.

Ken B said...

My hovercraft is full of eels.

tcrosse said...

It reminds me of the ending of North by Northwest. Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint are shown conversing in the train compartment, then we cut away to the train entering a tunnel. Good old Hitchcock.

Narr said...

Brazil is the cuntry of the future.

Narr
And always will be

Big Mike said...

Send down a bunch of American college students and tell them it symbolizes white supremacy.

PM said...

Mother Earth.

Known Unknown said...

Strange! Scarlett Hillside-Vulva is my stage name!

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Narr:

Brazil is the cuntry of the future.

Hamlet: Lady, may I lie in your lap?
Ophelia: No, my lord.
Hamlet: I mean, my head on your lap?
Ophelia: Aye, my lord.
Hamlet: Did you think I meant country matters?

(Cited as an early Shakespearean pun using the C-word.)

Joe Smith said...

What does Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero have to say about this?

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Bob Boyd:

How long until a kid falls in and has to be rescued by the fire dept? They'll end up covering it with a chain-link mat, sort of like a giant chastity belt.

Timmy's fallen down the well!

Or, more a propos,

Ding dong dell, pussy's in the well!

Anatomically impossible, if you know what I mean, but an actual bit of nursery rhyme.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Tom T.,

I have never seen the problem with "snow penises." They're just 3-d representations of a human body part, yes? Besides, what woman could "fear" being raped by something that (a) is much, much larger than she is; and (b) melts?

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...

"Obviously, I am incapable of assessing the humor or hatefulness of a Portuguese tweet."

Allow me. The solution to bad concrete art is more bad concrete art. A sentiment the founding fathers could love.

Timotheus said...

Then there's the 9/11 Memorial in Bayonne, NJ

Skippy Tisdale said...

9/11 Memorial in Bayonne, NJ

To me, that looks like someone with very low hanging testicles.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Bob Boyd said...

How long until a kid falls in and has to be rescued by the fire dept?

Meh! It'll be a drunk frat boy getting pulled out long before any kid falls in.

Biff said...

I often have the impression that many artists and "humanities" types are people who combine graduate school vocabularies with the emotional development of nine year olds who never quite matured beyond "boobies," "peenies," etc. while desperately craving the attention of a responsible adult.

n.n said...

Gender differences? Penis envy is a common cause for people... persons with articles of religion/ethics that deny men and women are equal in rights and complementary in Nature.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Biff said...

I often have the impression that many artists and "humanities" types are people who combine graduate school vocabularies with the emotional development of nine year olds who never quite matured beyond "boobies," "peenies," etc. while desperately craving the attention of a responsible adult.

P.J. O'Rourke likened them to toddlers since all they seem to want to do is shout obscene words and wave their private parts around in public.

Earnest Prole said...

The most offensive thing about the Brazilian sculpture is that it exists in something called a “rural art park.”

RichardJohnson said...

Big Mike
Send down a bunch of American college students and tell them it symbolizes white supremacy.

If the Woke Folk ever found out about São Paulo's DuckDuckGo: Bandeirantes monument, they would have a collective nervous breakdown. This is a HUGE multi-person monument celebrating the Bandeirantes, who in the 17th century initiated the Portuguese settlement of interior Brazil, beyond the coastal range. As their settlement of the interior also involved capturing and enslaving Indians, their activities today are seen as, to say the least, being rather controversial.


WIKI: Bandeirantes.
Outcome: Bandeirantes explored unmapped regions of the Brazilian colony and captured and enslaved Indians. Expansion of the Brazilian territory far beyond Tordesillas Line.

The main focus of the bandeirantes' missions was to capture and enslave native populations.

The term comes from Portuguese bandeira or flag, and by extension, a group of soldiers, a detached military unit or a raiding party. In medieval Portugal a bandeira was a military unit of 36 soldiers. The words were not used by the bandeirantes themselves. They used words like entry (entrada), journey, voyage, company, discovery and rarely, fleet or war. One writer dates bandeira from 1635 and bandeirante from 1740.


I have a soccer T-shirt for the defunct Club Bandeirantes (Paraná state). I occasionally wear it to see if I get a reaction from any Woke Folk in the neighborhood. Judging by the number of people putting up the silly sign about believing in Science etc./no person is illegal(unless they happen to be one of the deplorables),there are enough Woke Folk in the area, but none who are knowledgeable enough to catch on about the Bandeirantes (slave grabbers).

Clyde said...

From Pacemaker to puss-maker in one post!

Narr said...

Good one, Michelle. Shakespeare had a great time titillating his audiences.

Narr
Hamlet: Early Practitioner of Informed Consent?

Rabel said...

At first I thought this was about Tom Cotton.

Narr said...

One of my old friends got a masters degree in PoliSci. He asked me to read, proofread, and comment on his thesis before he submitted it, which I was glad to do. His topic was the relationship between advertising expenditures and electoral success in our then-newish county mayoral system.

Unfortunately my friend is a bit dyslexic and had typed--several hundred times, probably--"cunty" for "county."

Narr
(The winner spent less money)

Tom T. said...

Bob Boyd said...

How long until a kid falls in and has to be rescued by the fire dept?

They'll charge him for rebirthing therapy.

rhhardin said...

her
flesh
Came
at

meassandca V
ingint
oA
chute

I had cement for her,
merrily
we became each
other humped to tumbling

garble when
a
minute
pulled the sluice

emerging.

Concrete

- ee cummings

rhhardin said...

Some guy got stuck in a vagina in Germany and had to be lubed out by the fire department. Maybe can find it .. yes Daily Mail

via derb long ago

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

There's no way feminist sculptors could ever carve enough concrete into hillsides even to begin to achieve equity.

a very un-woke assumption going on here--

...not all hillsides with vaginas identify as female

rhhardin said...

The hills to start on would be in Grand Teton national park.

Daniel Jackson said...

"The hills to start on would be in Grand Teton national park."

What about Jackson Hole?

Rusty said...

That's the second biggest vagina I've ever seen.

LakeLevel said...

Vagina? I don't think so. It looks more like The Eye of Sauron... Maybe I'm just not getting along with my wife lately.

daskol said...

The Sarlac in Return of the Jedi was pretty vaginal until they edited in those special effects, at which point it became kind of a vagina dentate. But everyone only notices all the light sabers.