Smashed to Bits

Since last October, a two-ton green granite sculpture has been on display outside an uptown Manhattan art gallery. Valued at $80,000, the abstract 8-ft.-high Ubatuba (named after the Brazilian town where the granite was quarried) was the work of French Sculptor Antoine Poncet, a disciple of Jean Arp. Poncet hoped that Ubatuba would bring "a fresh and pure breath" to a city he calls "New York--the Tough." He was pleased that Gallery Owner Jacob Weintraub had put the sculpture outdoors "because there it comes in contact with the people." New Yorkers were pleased too: they often stopped to run their hands over the sculpture's smooth, glossy surface. But Poncet did not reckon just how tough New York could be: one night last week unseen vandals pulled Ubatuba from its pedestal, smashing it into bits.

The following day, Joseph Ternbach, an art restorer who has worked with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, examined the shattered fragments and announced that he could mend Ubatuba in two months. New York Senator Daniel Moynihan, one of the sculpture's more vocal admirers, then called a fund-raising meeting, where the Art Dealers Association of America volunteered to underwrite the $2,000 needed for restoration. Poncet, who worked on Ubatuba over a five-year period, was less optimistic that all the Senator's men could ever put Ubatuba back together again. "Everything would be destroyed in terms of its integrity and its authenticity," he said sadly. "I don't know how all this will end."

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