Frederick Hart’s 1982 sculpture “Ex Nihilo” for Washington’s National Cathedral—
Related material — Tom Wolfe on Frederick Hart, said to have been
published in The New York Times Magazine of Sunday, Jan. 2, 2000—
| In 1982, Ex Nihilo was unveiled in a dedication ceremony. The next day, Hart scanned the newspapers for reviews… The Washington Post… The New York Times… nothing… nothing the next day, either… nor the next week… nor the week after that. The one mention of any sort was an obiter dictum in The Post ‘s Style (read: Women’s) section indicating that the west facade of the cathedral now had some new but earnestly traditional (read: old-fashioned) decoration. So Hart started monitoring the art magazines. Months went by… nothing. It reached the point that he began yearning for a single paragraph by an art critic who would say how much he loathed Ex Nihilo… anything, anything at all!… to prove there was someone out there in the art world who in some way, however slightly or rudely, cared.
The truth was, no one did, not in the least. Ex Nihilo never got ex nihilo simply because art worldlings refused to see it. |
Art worldings are one thing, Hollywood another.
Al Pacino’s moving wall sculpture in “The Devil’s Advocate” (1997)—
“After the film’s initial release, sculptor Frederick Hart sued Warner Bros.
claiming that a large sculpture prominently featured in the film
(on the wall of Al Pacino’s penthouse apartment) is an unauthorized copy
of his work ‘Ex Nihilo,’ displayed at the entrance of Washington’s Episcopal
National Cathedral.” — IMDb