Hammering Man in Human Bondage
All tied up and no place to go. The Hammering Man (Jonathan Borofsky, 1992, #3277164.) was stopped and restrained this last fall as part of the Seattle Art Museum's huge construction process. If you haven't been downtown, the SAM is sporting a fancy, skyscraping new appendage off its Northside: The new WaMu Tower. Fortunately for SAM, this will increase the museum's floorspace. Meanwhile, the iconic, ever-hammering Man was stopped while fences surrounded his feet (and the rest of the building) and the construction pushed on.
He really deserves the rest: "The Hammering Man's arm "hammers" four times per minute from 7 am to 10 pm every day. He rests its arm each evening and every year on Labor Day." One day off a year? 15-hour days? He's a throwback to the American capitalism of the late 1800's, or the Asian capitalism of today. A time we'd be best off only remembering. (Of course with increasing overtime and lousy vacation compensation, Americans may be slowly moving back there anyway.)
At last visit a week ago, he'd actually been disassembled in part -- dis-armed, actually -- with no date posted as to when he'll be back on the line, banging away. Probably soon though, since the skyscraper thing (described as 'flute-like' by The Stranger's art critic Jen Graves) is finished and partially occupied already.
