Crocheted Twigs and Berries

No, no, no...I'm talking about 'twigs and berries' a la Austin Powers. And these crocheted bits and pieces made quite a stink in 2005 when some lawyers in DC didn't take kindly to the artistic display in their office building.

In 2005, the Eleven Eleven Sculpture Space, located in an office building on Pennsylvania Avenue, had an exhibit on knitted and crocheted artwork entitled “Not the Knitting You Know.” It was the work of one artist, Ming Yi Sung Zaleski, that caused some of the building's tenants to take offense. Lawyers from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, a big Philadelphia law firm whose DC office is in the building, found Ming's work to be offensive and demanded the naked crocheted pieces be removed. Ming, on the other hand, crocheted some fig leaves to cover her sculptures' genitalia. This seemed to appease the lawyers - I wonder if they supported Ashcroft, the former US Attorney General, who had his own issues with naked sculptures. It's funny that at the time the lawyers were having a snit about naked crocheted statues, the Justice Department statues were returned to their natural state.

Here is an image of the less-offensive-to-lawyers sculpture:


Here's an article by Jonathan Padget of the Washington Post on all the excitement back in 2005:
Crocheted Nudes Cause Brows to Knit

Good news is that Ming's work has made it back to DC. Her work will be on display at The Nevin Kelly Gallery through February 2, 2007.

The Nevin Kelly Gallery is located at:
1517 U Street NW in Washington DC
For hours and metro directions (Red and Green line accessible) click here for the web site.

Here are a couple of links from the NK Gallery blog where you can read the press release and see photos of Ming's work from the documentary.

Subversive crochet? C'mon! Who doesn't like some crocheted nipples and genitalia? And even if that's not your cup of tea, why is a crocheted sculpture so different from other forms of sculpture (clay, stone) that show the human form naked? Why is a stone penis different from a crocheted one? Perhaps someone needs to crochet a penis-cozy for the sculpture of David.