Troubled waters here just off Virginia Beach as the tourist season kicks into high gear and families spend the day collecting seashells and the random plastic bottle cap that washes up on the sand.

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Street Artist Olek ran into a snag this week here as she and a team of volunteers made and installed a crocheted covering for Paul DiPasquale’s original statue of King Neptune that has been here a little over a decade. The two year process for the project with Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and the New York based artist came to an inauspicious halt during the installation Wednesday when the inclusion of a rubberized gas mask caused a dispute that ended with King Neptune left to brave the elements in his raw mid-prime once again.

“Art is intended to be controversial. To some degree it’s intended to spark dialog,” MOCA executive director Debi Gray was quoted just last month when defending a couple of challenging artworks by artist Mark Ryden in “Turn the Page”, the museums’ Hi-Fructose 10^th Anniversary exhibition, a show Olek is also a part of.

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

Whether it was the prospect of another potential controversy so soon, an unapproved design change, or some other perturbed local gadfly whispering in her ear, the director and the museum were not letting the rubber mask go forward during the installation. With only about 60% of the installation completed, all of it came down, leaving the volunteers from the middle and high school and other local artists without the satisfaction of seeing the completed project for this week’s ArtWalk.

In terms of the interstitial approach to documentation that exists on The Internet, it doesn’t matter of course that the project was only partially up for part of one day because there were many good photos captured before it was disassembled, leaving the impression that Olek’s project was a success. Coming from the graffiti and Street Art milieu, we are all accustomed to the ethereal nature of art and our chance encounters with it. Not that this is much conciliation to those who had contributed toward the project.

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Olek)

According to statements from the artist and the museum, it appears that the mask would have been allowed to go forward if it had been entirely crocheted – at least that is our reading of the situation. We asked Olek why the monarch of the waters was wearing a mask in the first place, she told us that it was a commentary on our collective responsibility for dumping all kinds of waste into the oceans.

“My mission was to deliver the strongest work that would bring awareness to Mother Nature’s current disturbing situation; namely, the alarming state of our oceans. I added the mask because it was made a strong point. Everyone including the executive director, Debi Gray, and both curators, Alison Byrne and Heather Hakimzadeh agreed that it was a brilliant idea.”

Olek. King Neptune Intervention for Virginia MOCA. Virginia Beach. June 2016. (photo © Aaron McLellan)

“We placed a lot of trust in her and are dismayed that she would take advantage of that,” says Ms. Gray of the museum in an interview with local website WAVY.com. “Although MOCA and the city embraced her message of ocean conservation, the addition was not part of the approved proposal,” a statement from the museum said.

Comments sections on local website stories are mixed with anger at both parties, regret, indifference and naturally, some comments are unhinged, misinformed and completely hilariously unrelated. From our perspective, we’re sorry that an agreement could not be reached and it didn’t work out because we know what the power of art can be. That said, maybe there is a solution yet to be discovered! The summer has just commenced and the future is unwritten.

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