Billie Lawless
The Politician A Toy is a kinetic sculpture by artist Billie Lawless created between 1993-1996 under the fiscal umbrella of The Cleveland Public Theatre which is located at 6345 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio. The sculpture was made possible with the support of over a hundred and fifty corporations of both local and national origin. The sculpture is located close to downtownat the corner of Payne Avenue and E. 45th Street on a site adjacent to Mr. Lawless' studio. The sculpture stands over forty feet tall and is enclosed with a wrought iron fence forty five feet by thirty feet. The sculpture is open to the public daily.
Green Lightning was originally conceived as a project at Artpark, Lewiston, New York for the 1983 season (maquette submitted). It was subsequently erected in Buffalo, New York in 1984 (Video Clip of Dedication) and heavily damaged a week after its unveiling by the City of Buffalo and City of Buffalo Arts Commission (Director, David More.) Its total destruction was prevented when Lawless obtained a court order halting the destruction which was begun by the City under the cloak of darkness well after the Courts had closed.
Theoretically, this, is one of the artists simplest pieces, containing no sexual imagery, and should not have engendered nearly the amount of controversy that it has. As part of its annual sculpture invitational at Heritage Village in Columbus, Ohio Lawless was asked to join 31 other artists in mostly large-scale installations that were requested to be site specific. Lawless chose a site close to Interstate-70 where he erected Didy Wah Didy named for the mythical railroad bound for hell (Black Southern folklore.)
Broasted Babies is an installation dealing with the subject of genocide over the last 2000 years.
(Uncensored Einstein to Uncensored Bork)
Armed with inspiration in the form of Walter Kendrick's, The Secret Museum and Walker Percy's The Message in the Bottle, books dealing with the history of pornography, its suppression, and the nature of language and man, Lawless created a complex, multimedia installation at SPACES (Cleveland, Ohio), a key work in the Uncensored exhibit in 1987. Although smaller than Green Lightning this work confronted many of the same issues, resurrected the offending "images" and incorporated video technology.
