When I was at UT-Austin, there was a house/co-op “Fredonia” (like in Duck Soup) where leftist activists lived. In the front yard was a metal sculpture (probably 12 feet high) of an atomic cloud, with a plaque at the bottom reading “R.I.P. The Human Race.” The whole thing was conveniently mounted on a utility trailer.
The house’s landlord opted to turn Fredonia into a boarding house or build a condo in its place (don’t recall which, but both were the the ongoing story of that neighborhood). When the occupants had to move out, they somehow drug the sculpture (the trailer undoubtedly helped) to UT’s West Mall, which is a large plaza with one of the libraries on one side and the administrative tower on the other, where rallies typically took place. They left the sculpture on its trailer right at the foot of the tower steps. I think it sat there at least a week or so.
Flash forward a couple of years, and I’d gotten a job in North Austin (seemed ‘‘far’’ north, back then). This meant I would drive past UT’s Balcones (now Pickle) Research Center, several miles north of the campus, on the way to work. I soon noticed the atomic cloud sculpture sitting in an outdoor storage area. From the freeway it looked like a rusted basketball goal, but that was it. I believe it sat there for several more years.
So the moral of this story is, if you mount your public art on a utility trailer, it makes things easier for you but it also makes it easier to confiscate. (There really is no moral, that’s just an excuse to post this anecdote)
