A monumental sculpture of a massive tush appeared on the south lawn of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art over the weekend. The 8-foot-tall snow carving quickly caused a stir online and among walkers and joggers on Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard.
The project was meant to be all in good fun, said Zeke Henry, the artist responsible for the chilly cheeks.
“Everybody has a butt and everybody likes a good butt, and it just made sense,” Henry said.
Henry, his girlfriend and three friends spent five hours on Sunday on the sculpture.
“It was definitely a group effort,” said Henry. “I don't think we got too deep in it, it was more or less just, do something that makes people happy and makes somebody smile.”
“Snow is ephemeral. You can have fun with it, you can just have a good time and then it melts and goes away,” he said.
Henry chronicled their antics on Facebook, and the sculpture received a lot of attention on Reddit. In the days since, Henry has enjoyed watching the response to the sculpture.
“I just had a drive by there yesterday and there were probably like eight kids running around and they were slapping the butt,” Henry said. “It made me laugh so much I was, like, crying. There's something happy and good about the absurd.”
Henry met one of his artistic accomplices on the project, Bryan Morris, as students at Kansas City Art Institute, where Henry graduated in 2007 with a major in ceramics.
The large butt is only the latest snowy sculpture the two have created over the last decade.
The pair’s first effort, built shortly after graduation, was a giant Easter Island head. The next time it snowed, they made a large rubber ducky. Another year, Henry was out of town so Morris and his wife built a shark and a Loch Ness monster.
And the museum’s vast lawn makes it the perfect venue, Henry said.
“I could create a sculpture just as easily in the front lawn of my apartment complex and, you know, maybe 50 people would be happy about it,” Henry explained. “But you do it at the Nelson and thousands of people are going to drive by it.”
Henry expects that if Kansas City gets another snow, they will be out on the lawn again creating something new.
“Bryan and I probably have another dozen ideas that we're waiting for the right time and the right amount of snow,” he said.
“I guess if I were going to make an official comment, I would say that the sculpture is in the vein of both Andy Goldsworthy and Henry Moore,” Courtney Wasson, executive director of the Kansas City Artists Coalition, said with a laugh. “The artist is using nature’s materials at hand and it’s also an abstract sculpture that references the human body, so it might be a fitting placement.”
The museum is surrounded by a 22-acre sculpture park, including the work of Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, and husband-and-wife Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, who created the four iconic “Shuttlecocks.”
Wasson also noted the museum’s location, close to KCAI, often means creative things are bound to happen in the area.
“When you have a neighborhood filled with creatives and museums that showcase monumental sculptures on their lawn, it is the perfect setting for people to express themselves and have fun.”
Media relations manager Kathleen Leighton offered the Nelson-Atkins’ official response in a statement.
"While I understand the seriousness of your question, I can’t help but give you a cheeky reply,” she wrote.
“We do not know who is behind the snow sculpture on the south lawn, but they appear to be a cracking good artist. We have decided to allow the sun, in its own time, to deinstall this full moon.”