Birthday for The Kook

Controversial surf sculpture unveiled in Cardiff
Keith Rushing, North County Times, July 23, 2007
"Some 200 area residents clapped, cheered and enthusiastically snapped photos Sunday morning when the city's first surf sculpture was unveiled. The sculpture, made from bronze and granite, was intended to memorialize the community's surfers, organizers said. It depicts a teenage boy balancing on a board with his arms held aloft while riding a wave.

...The group raised $92,000 to commission the work and reviewed portrayals of surfers made by a number of artists before selecting sculptor Matthew Antichevich to sculpt the piece.

...Bond called it an extremely important event "in a … special city" and said it was meaningful that Antichevich, who learned to surf in Cardiff, was chosen to create the sculpture.

...While many seem pleased with the sculpture, a group of men who described themselves as local surfers criticized the work for not properly portraying their sport.

"That's just not a move that any good surfer would want to be in," said one man, referring to the posture of the boy depicted in the sculpture.

He said the sculpture is akin to a professional football player being memorialized in a sculpture that shows him missing a catch and dropping the ball.

Another surfer, Chris Ahrens, said the piece came from people with money who wanted to make their own artistic statement, which didn't involve seeking input from the surfing community.

...Antichevich, who worked on the sculpture for two years, said members of Cardiff Botanical Society chose the design from a number of miniature sculptures he created.

He said the end result was somewhat different than he originally planned. Antichevich said he initially wanted to portray a female surfer but organizers wanted a male figure since the majority of surfers in the area are males.

...Clark [chairman of the Cardiff-By-The-Sea Botanical Society] said some of the critics seemed to want a sculpture depicting a professional athlete in top form.

But, he said, "we purposely didn't want to make it an Olympic Adonis," Clark said. "We wanted the everyday kid who uses the reef to surf.""

Park, sculpture singled out – but for different reasons
Elizabeth Fitzsimons and Bruce Lieberman, San Diego Union-Tribune, December 5, 2007 
"...And then there is the statue. Everyone does not love it. The sculpture, of a surfer on his board at South Coast Highway has been mocked as effeminate and just weird. One night someone dressed it in a tutu. 

...The park, Cottonwood Creek, received a Landscape Architecture Orchid; the sculpture, "Magic Carpet Ride," won a Public Art Onion. And Encinitas earned the distinction of being the only city in the county, besides San Diego, to win two awards. 

"Art is never universally acclaimed and there are certainly some people that don't like that particular piece," Deputy Mayor Jerome Stocks said of the sculpture. "All I've ever said to anyone who's complained about is: Well, you go raise your own $90,000 and put up a statue that you like."

"Magic Carpet Ride" was installed in July. Commissioned by the Cardiff Botanical Society for $120,000, the artwork was given to the city, which contributed $30,000 toward the cost. Calls to the society and to the artist Matthew Antichevich were not immediately returned. 

Stocks said he reckoned that people don't like the statue because it isn't the macho representation of surfing they wanted.

"To me, what it looks like is a child trying to learn. You know? Surfing is a difficult sport to learn and I don't know anyone who looks terribly graceful when they're learning," he said."

When Trying to be Cool goes Wrong: Cardiff-by-the-Sea Surf Statue a Total Bust
Patrick, 5ones.com, August 13th, 2007
"...If you are a surfer, you may be able to see right away why it might get criticism: He is scrawny, and his pose is off. Without knowing from Matthew Antichevich (the statues’ creator), it would be hard to know what the surfer is doing. According to him, the surfer is doing a "floater". Doesn’t look like it to me. Last time I did a floater which was Saturday, my back definitely wasn’t that straight and my arms so bird-like. It looks more like a beginner trying to keep his balance. But if that was the case, he wouldn’t be getting spray from his measly turns. Not to mention, he looks a little whimpy. Which is why some pranksters took it up themselves to dress him up one day in a pink bikini top, skirt, and lucha lubre mask (see the pic at the bottom of this post). Apparantly Matthew, the creator of the statue has surfing experience himself. If that was the case, would he really name the statue "magic carpet ride"?"

Choppy Seas for Surfer Statue
Roadside America, 08/26/2007
"...Especially loud in their criticism are what Clark calls "middle-aged surfer guys" (by middle-aged, Clark explained, he meant anyone older than 29) who insist that the statue is an embarrassment. The surfer boy is too pansyish, they complain; his pose is dorky. By extension, the statue ennobles surfers who aren't surfers at all, but surfing-wannabes -- the accountants and insurance agents and tourists who buy thousand-dollar boards, come to Cardiff, and get in the way. The kind of people that real surfers hate more than anything. 

Magic Carpet Ride has been pranked by its critics, which takes some effort given that it stands 16 feet in the air and is next to a busy highway. "They put a pink, pleated skirt on it with a bikini top and a Mexican wrestling mask on its head," Clark told us. "Then somebody tried to put a top hat and cane on it, but they got caught." Clark, however, accepts the protests in a laid-back, southern California kind of way. "Everybody in Cardiff prides themselves in having their own opinion," he told us. "I totally respect that."

Clark says that there are no plans to replace the statue or to modify it to please those who find it offensive. Magic Carpet Ride, all 10,000+ pounds of it, will remain just as it is. "Frankly, I'm just pretty okay with it," Clark told us. "We did what we could. No agendas.""

Amid criticism, artist defends Cardiff surfing sculpture
Adam Kaye, North County Times, July 25, 2007
"...Models of the sculpture show a surfer carving across the crest of a wave, looking for a place to land.

"If I was able to do the wave, people would not have questioned what the move is," Antichevich said. "That's the missing link."
...Antichevich said he understands that public art is controversial but he never expected such a negative reaction.

"I didn't think it'd be like this," he said. "I didn't think that everyone would not understand the move. I didn't think it would be this bad.""
[The wave the sculptor is talking about is what he wanted to show the surfer on - instead the surfer's board is on top of a large block of stone which is supposed to represent the wave.]

The 'Cardiff Kook' statue is gaining acceptance
Brad Melekian, San Diego Union-Tribune, August 25, 2008
"...Over the last year, it has become an unexpected rallying point for local surfers, and, in its own way, it has galvanized the surfing community. ...The more civil among the statue's detractors complained that it simply wasn't an accurate representation of a surfer; the opinionated suggested that the statue was effeminate, inauthentic and an embarrassment to the local community. 

And they let their opinions be known. Last summer, immediately following its unveiling, controversy about the statue, as discussed in local lineups and parking lots, and on surfing message boards on the Internet, was at fever pitch. Bumper stickers were printed and distributed, imploring city officials to “Remove the Cardiff Kook.” Blog posters threatened to tie a chain to their pickup trucks and drag the statue down, drawing overwrought mental parallels to the iconic fall of the Saddam Hussein statue in central Baghdad five years ago. For his part, Antichevich was said to be “devastated” by the reaction.

Since that time, though, the vitriol has died down, and while surfers may not like the statue, they seem to have come to a wholesale acceptance of its presence in the community... 

...On a monthly, sometimes weekly basis now, the statue is dressed up anonymously, presumably by the surfing community. So far, the young boy has been made to wear a Mexican lucha libre mask, a woman's skirt, a floppy hat with Zinc Oxide applied considerately to his nose, and, most recently, a diaper. He has served as a public forum, like when he was earlier this month dressed up with Stand Up Paddle gear and held a sign that said “No Sweepers.” (“Sweeping” being a derogatory term for Stand-Up Paddling, the fad du jour at Cardiff Reef.)"