This is a great story! It's got a giant, glowing, phallic statue,
a gun-toting mayor, random mob violence, death threats against
art critics, you name it. This is the sort of thing journalists
live for.
It seems this artist, Francisco Brennand, was commissioned to build a statue in
the seaside Brazilian city of Recife as part of a city imporvement project.
Brennand came up with a 100-foot-tall glowing phallus that would act as a
"beacon to outer space."
That made some people in Recife sort of angry, having a giant, glowing cock in
their town. So people stormed city hall, demanding plans for this thing be
stopped. After some peacemakers tried to present a compromise where the statue
would be "toned down" to make it look more like a lighthouse, Brennand held a
dramatic press conference to announce he was quitting the project where he
smashed another of his artworks to pieces.
When the local newspaper then spoke favorably of Brennand and blamed the mayor's
wife for leading the public outcry against it, the mayor of Recife stormed into
the newspaper's office and showed everybody his gun while making veiled death
threats against the paper's gossip columnist and art critic.
In the latest turn of events, the city council has decided they still want to
build the space penis, and has brought Brennand back into the fold to oversee
its construction.
