I doubt anyone will disagree (except the Walmart family) that there is nothing scarier than an evil corporation. But what about faceless corporate goddesses? Sitting atop a Philip Johnson-designed office building on the corner of Kearny and California Streets in San Francisco, twelve ghostly statues, wrapped in long cloth garments, looking like Grim Reapers must cause a bit of fright to whomever is looking up at the sky or out their window. Made of molded fiberglass and designed by the late sculptor Muriel Castanis in 1982, three 12-foot-tall female figures are reproduced on each of the four sides of the building; two lift their arms like they are Fates, while the one in the middle has her arms thrown back like she’s about to jump into oblivion. The official documentation describes the statues as “empty, toga-draped forms from which the figures have been removed, rendering the sculptures as abstracted reinterpretations of the neoclassical masterworks of Lorado Taft and Augustus Saint-Gaudens.” However you interpret it, this art is certainly the stuff of Patrick Bateman’s nightmares…or dreams?
