This dispatch just in from Lee Enterprises reporter Fred Love —
File this one under “bizarre lunch experiences.”
I knew something was amiss when a television news van stopped in the street directly in front of me and a cameraman jumped out of the driver’s seat and hurriedly rummaged through the back of his vehicle for a camera and tripod.
I’d just returned from picking up lunch and parked my car along Locust Avenue, just a few blocks west of the Statehouse and a short stroll from Lee Enterprises’ Des Moines bureau.
The cameraman set up his camera and tripod as I grabbed my McDonalds to-go bag and circled around my car to feed a couple quarters into a parking meter. That’s when I saw it.
Progressing slowly down Locust and holding up traffic was a rubbery Barack Obama sculpture saddled on the back of a donkey. I’m not sure what materials were used to craft the likeness of the president-elect, but its hands sort of jiggled as the donkey clip-clopped down the street. A pair of black SUVs led the procession and two more trailed behind, Secret Service-style. A couple of the SUVs were decked out with tiny American flags.
A few men led the Donkey down the street and a woman made her way along the sidewalk, keeping up with the procession and handing out palm branches to the few perplexed onlookers who had gathered on the sidewalks to see what the fuss was about.
I stopped the woman to ask what was going on, and she explained that this was the work of her husband, an artist who fashions these sorts of statues.
I asked her what sort of political statement they were trying to make with this display, and she said only that it was the “triumphal entry,” referring to the scene in the Gospels in which Jesus Christ returns to Jerusalem a week before his crucifixion and resurrection, riding on a donkey.
The woman also told me how to get to her husband’s Web site, www.matthewjclark.com, to find other examples of his work.
Here’s how the site describes the artist: “Matthew J. Clark is a contemporary visual artist whose primary medium is sculpture. His projects are concept driven and primarily concerned with highlighting contradictions between ideas and their outworking in our current culture.”
Now, I’m no art critic, but I’m willing to bet whatever statement the artist had in mind was lost on the several cars and the downtown shuttle bus that got stuck behind the procession, creeping along at a snail’s pace.
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