On Unbosom (Part II) Angie Chan

“The Thinker”statue outside the Cleveland Museum after the bombing event

In the essay, “leftover I Was Open” an anonymous writer confesses to the bombing of Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” outside the Cleveland Museum. The author reflects on the decision and implementation of the bombing, and deliberates on the Museum’s decision to present damaged work of art unchanged. The author points out “the gesture [of the bombing] cannot be so easily contained... [as the bombing] “had become a historical artifact”.

After serving U House’s purpose to hold the family of Toyo Ito’s sister following the death of her husband, the demolition is itself recorded, imagined from the inception of the house as the only conclusion. While Rodin’s sculpture still stands where its base and leg denoted the force of the bomb, no part of the U House remains. Yet U House’s absence is itself an event, historicised, so any account must hold both the life it serves and the final swing of the wrecking ball. As the author of the essay states, the act of bombing in fact“completed [the statue]”.

This studio, Antoun establishes the last remaining wall of the U House and in turn reflects the museum’s Rodin returned to its plinth. However, the wall is not returning to maintain the illusion of the U House. It returned so we may take aim.