Critics “miss the whole story” behind works of art

HIGHWOOD, Ill. – The day after he attended the unveiling of the Dwyane Wade statue outside the Kaseya Center in Miami, the artist behind the accidentally provocative work, Omri Amrany, was back in his suburban Chicago art enclave and focused his litany of future projects.

“I don't check the comments at all – one of the many things I don't do – because I keep my brain open to dreams and opportunities and looking forward,” he told a reporter while standing in the hallway Ms. Julie Rotblatt Amrany has been running the art studio here since 2005.

A sign on the front door of the red brick building read: “We're sorry we can't invite you as we're working hard on several projects of our own.”

But on Wednesday afternoon, Amrany agreed to the invitation Sportico into the studio on the condition that none of his ongoing projects, which include those of other famous athletes, will be reported or photographed.

Over the past 48 hours, the Wade sculpture has been subject to something of a name, image and likeness debate among sports fans: namely, whether the statue's open-mouthed expression captures the essence of Wade. The verdict, according to social media followers — and self-proclaimed art critics like Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal — was that it had failed.

On hers Within the NBA On the TNT show, Barkley suggested dismantling the statue and rebuilding it. Shaq called it the “scariest thing this Halloween,” apparently unaware that he was insulting the work of a man who had previously memorialized him in bronze.

The aim of their ridicule was to capture Wade's demonstrative reaction when he hit a game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer in the Miami Heat's 2009 home win over the Chicago Bulls, his hometown team. After firing the shot, Wade jumped onto the scorer's table at what was then American Airlines Arena and shouted to the enthusiastic crowd, “This is my house.” Wade, who retired from basketball in 2019, called it his “single most privileged moment of my career.” .

Wade, for his part, has come out in defense of the statue, saying it reflects his vision.

“The brief (of the art) is a triangle between the client, the subject and the artist,” said Amrany, who worked on the project with Oscar Leon, one of seven artists working at Rotblatt Amrany Studios. “And the end result of this triangle will likely be placed on a pedestal for scrutiny by the rest of the world.”

Here's what Amrany hopes the world will eventually understand: The purpose of sculpture should not be a product of portrait realism, but rather to capture the essence and story behind the subject. The sculptor insists he has no problem criticizing his work, but believes his recent critics have failed to recognize this distinction.

“You miss the whole story of a kid who had nothing becoming everything, and that was the look on his face when he jumped up on the table and told his hometown team, 'This is my house,'” Amrany said. “It's a wonderful American story that they're missing because they want a very boring face. And I’m sorry, they won’t get it from me.”

Wade's sculpture was unveiled nearly 30 years after Amrany and his wife's most famous sports creation, the Michael Jordan statue at the United Center. Known as “The Spirit,” the figure of a mid-flight MJ helped launch the sports cast metal subgenre and became the calling card of the Rotblatt Amrany studio. Amrany said the Bulls paid $250,000 for the commission, but he did not say how much the Heat paid for Wade.

In the three decades since The Spirit was conjured, Studio Rotblatt Amrany has produced bronze statues to commemorate the achievements of Kobe Bryant, Barry Sanders, Dirk Nowitzki, Bob Cousy, David Beckham, Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Bobby Hull, Vince Lombardi and others to remember the already mentioned Shaq, among many other well-known athletes and coaches. In total, the studio has completed over 300 projects around the globe, from individual busts to city parks.

But as Amrany recalled, when the Jordan Statute was publicly presented at a press conference on November 1, 1994, it was not exactly met with praise. Rather, there were initially a number of complaints from the public and media about the way Jordan's face was portrayed, including the decision to hide the Hall of Fame's famous wagging tongue behind his lips.

“They didn’t like that his face didn’t come straight out of a cereal box,” Amrany said. “They didn’t want what (Jordan) said he wanted. And they didn’t know that because they didn’t meet him, they didn’t sit with him.”

Luckily, this experience went back long before the era of social media and the current “world of algorithms,” as Amrany puts it. The peanut gallery in 2024 is much more critical and eloquent.

“I mean, after 20 articles (about Wade's sculpture) in the last three days,” Amrany said, “what you've become is not famous, but infamous.”

Although he was not intimidated, he said he took note of the experience for future reference.

“Maybe next time I would even suggest to the subject that they be aware of what (reaction) you are going to get,” Amrany said.