Music
There's a heartfelt petition to bring back Vancouver's mysterious horny Satan statue
by Mark Teo
September 11, 2014
Yesterday, the city of Vancouver captured our hearts when someone anonymously erected—pun intended—a life-sized Satan statue in a park near Grandview Highway. Those lucky enough to see that statue, which was visible from the city’s SkyTrain, saw the King of Darkness at his most jovial, throwing a metalhead’s salute and sporting a massive, heatseeking boner. Then, the jokes started pouring in: It was dubbed the Devil Wears Nada. Or the Beelze-boner. We loved every minute of it.
The statue has since been removed, as the city says it didn’t commission the baloney baton of The Beast. Yet only a day after the lusty Lucifer was removed, citizens are petitioning to have the demon dong reinstated—and the petition, started by Darryl Greer, a man who’s written about metal for The Tyee, has already surpassed its goal of, you guessed it, 666 signatures.
Tongue-in-cheek as it may seem, though, Greer has turned the issue into one of public art. He cites two examples: Dude Chilling Park, a Vancouver prank that earned public art status, and the a rogue porcelain dog mounted on Main St., which cost the city a reported $100,000 to remove.
Here’s photos of the removal, compiled via Twitter.
Greer, and hundreds more from around the world, believe that it’s a waste to remove The Serpent’s serpent. Here’s what he wrote in the petition.
The City of Vancouver has long been a leader in investing in public art to beautify its legendary and illustrious landscapes. For example, its near $100,000 expenditure on a statue of a porcelain dog on Main Street in the recent past served as a reminder that the merit of art is subjective and the value of public art can’t be qauntified simply in a dollar figure. The Giant Satan-With-an-Erection statue, unlike the porcelain dog, cost the city nothing and was far more visible and likely to stir public debate than the barely visable cartoonish canine on a pole. Just as some were offended by the price tag and substance of the porcelain dog, others may have been offended at the sight of Lucifer’s Plastic Love Pump, but none would be offended at its price tag. It simply cost its creator(s?) time and energy to construct and install with no thought of monetary gain, especially from the public purse. Just like the beloved “Dude Chilling Park” sign that was clandestinely installed and later allowed due to public pressure and support, the Giant Beelzebub-With-a-Boner statue should be reinstalled as a piece of public art and serve as a reminder that art is in the eye of the beholder and nothing more.
Want to bring back The Fallen’s flesh flute? Sign the petition.
