Mayor Says He Hasn't Seen Public Nude Art Project

A plan to install a statue of a nude woman's torso could raise eyebrows in a 300-year-old town with genteel values.

It certainly raised the eyebrows of new Haddonfield Mayor Jeff Kasko, who said this week he had not seen the statue, scheduled to be dedicated and installed next Saturday in the heart the borough's historic district.

The statue is part of a public art project by the Haddonfield Outdoor Sculpture Trust, which wants to create a "walkable showcase for contemporary outdoor art."

But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, a famous phrase says. And, will those eyes be covered by parents aghast at a disfigured nude in the center of town?

"No one has told me until now what it looked like," Kasko said Tuesday after a public ceremony to swear him in as mayor. "Some people might be offended. We're going to have to take a look at it."

The art is being loaned to the borough at no cost. It's part of a project to "transform this walkable, attractive and historically significant borough into a significant center for juried, outdoor sculpture," an organizer said.

"We're doing this...to bring notable work to accessible locations throughout the town," said Stuart Harting, a local real estate developer and chairman of the trust. "We hope this first site...will be joined by additional locations at as many as a dozen sites in the borough."

The nude is a work called Uno by Miguel Antonio Horn, a Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts graduate. It resembles the famous Venus de Milo sculpture surrounded by tangled vines of bronze and steel against a backdrop resembling a parlor mantle. It is scheduled to be set in a display of tiles made by Haddonfield Memorial High School students.

HOST plans to rotate art projects throughout the town after a period of display. Some budding critics of the plan have also questioned if the project needs to be approved by the borough's Historic Preservation Commission.