30 New York Statues Sport Cloaks To Promote NBC's The Cape (GALLERY)

above: The James Stranahan statue donning NBC's promotional "cape"


As part of a marketing push for the new NBC series "The Cape" (two-hour premiere tonight, Sunday, January 9, 9-11p.m. ET), 30 New York public statues and monuments have been cloaked in black fabric capes accompanied by a temporary kiosk or plaque that gives a brief mention of the figure's history along with the story of The Cape (Vince Faraday, a valiant cop framed for murder played by David Lyons) - linking the two "heroes".



The blue-black capes began appearing on statues all over the city on Januaray 5th. City Parks Department officials allowed NBC executives to create hype for "The Cape" by draping the frocks on sculptures of historic figures until Sunday in exchange for a $120,000 donation to maintain public art.

The locations:

NBC's interactive map tells you which statues have been cloaked.

Vickie Karp, Director of Public Information for New York City Parks & Recreation, says "The new NBC series is a novel way to remind even the most jaded New Yorker that heroes are all around us."

For those of you who don't live in New York, here's a look at some of the various "caped" statues:

President Lincoln:


Admiral David Farragut:

Frederick Douglass:

Christopher Colombus:


Harriet Tubman:

Jose Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva:

Eleanor Roosevelt:

George M Cohan:

Horace Greeley:

General Fowler:

Fiorello LaGuardia:

James Stranahan:


William Henry Seward:


Statue visitors will also be able to enter the “Hero Behind the Cape” giveaway contest using FourSquare and Twitter. Participants can enter the sweepstakes by visiting any one of the 30 caped statues all over New York City and checking in via their FourSquare account. Also, visitors can enter by taking a photo of themselves at any of the statue locations and posting their photo to Twitter. Users will simply need to direct message the official Twitter handle (www.twitter.com/NBCTheCape) or use the hashtag #herobehindthecape when they post their picture. You'll have a tough time beating Pete Labrozzi, though.


above: Pete Labrozzi has been diligently posting images of himself in front of the statues for the past few days.

You can get directions to all the cloaked statue locations here

Of course, had they cloaked Lady Liberty, I'd reeeeally be impressed.

above: digital art by laura sweet

Special thanks to the following sites and blogs for the images:
http://www.dnainfo.com/
http://online.wsj.com
http://www.nydailynews.com
http://www.brooklynpaper.com
http://www.wnyc.org
http://gothamist.com/2011/01/05/citys_statues_get_caped.php
http://emanatepr.com
http://prospectheights.patch.com/

Golden Girl: Artist Marc Quinn Unveils 18k Gold Statue of Kate Moss

An 18 karat gold sculpture of model Kate Moss in a yoga position is hardly my idea of a worthwhile way to spend approximately 2.75 million US dollars. But that's the estimated value of artist Marc Quinn's latest incarnation of his contorted life-sized Kate Moss figure.



above: Marc Quinn with "Kate" aka Siren.

Unveiled this morning in the British Museum as part of the Statuephilia exhibition, the work, entitled Siren, was created by sculptor Marc Quinn, best known for his sculpture Alison Lapper Pregnant, which stood on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square.



above: Marc Quinn's most well-known sculpture, 'Alison Lapper Pregnant', in Trafalgar Square.

The statue of Moss, described as an “Aphrodite of our times”, now stands in the British Museum’s Nereid Gallery alongside legendary Greek heroines such as the Crouching Venus, a statue of Venus caught bathing.



The sculpture, which is hollow, weighs about as much as the supermodel herself according to the artist, and is believed to be the largest gold statue made in the world since Ancient Egyptian times.



Quinn said of his choice of Moss as a subject: “I thought the next thing to do would be to make a sculpture of the person who’s the ideal beauty of the moment. "

This isn't the first time Marc Quinn has used the iconic model in his work. He originally cast Kate in white-washed bronze in 2005 and called it Sphinx (shown below).


above: 2005, Sphinx, from all angles.



The golden Kate, who stands in a yoga position, is not alone in the exhibition in the British Museum. She has 200 Damien Hirst skulls for company, which commandeer the historic wall cases of the Enlightenment Gallery (shown below).


above: Damien Hirst's "Cornucopia" and a Noble and Webster work, sculpted entirely from mummified animal parts.


above: Anthony Gormley's Case for an Angel I, the precusor to his celebrated winged sculpture, iconic Angel of the North, fills the front hall of the museum.


The Statuephilia exhibition of contemporary sculptures will run at the British Museum from October 4 to January 25