Jesus Mary and Joseph on a raft. Even keeping in mind the setting and intentions, I’m deeply creeped out by the figural sculptures at the National’s Stadium.

(I can’t imagine the goal of this project was to encourage the viewer to think about the transmogrification of human flesh by the ravages of time or disease or alien attack, but maybe I’m wrong).

Washington Post Art Critic Blake Gopnik described the work:

At the unveiling, [sculptor Omri] Amrany said his goal was to use bronze to go beyond the physical so as to capture speed and time, “the fourth dimension.” Rather than zooming, however, his bronze appears to glop. It has the unfortunate effect of making his players seem covered in tumorous growths. They also get multiple arms. The creature designers from “Star Trek” have rarely played this fast and loose with bodies.

Gopnik briefly discussed the inoffensive and rather innocuous mobile hanging in the concourse, and then returns to the statues:

Amrany’s bronzes are weirder. You’d imagine that, at very least, they’d work simply to commemorate their three dedicatees. That they’d be the figurative equivalent of a plaque with a name on it: a symbol of the honor we hold these players in, even if the art itself does them no honor. Instead, Amrany makes Gibson, Howard and Johnson look so peculiar, their own mothers might not recognize them. Amrany says that the bronze growths that push out from the players’ backs and legs are meant somehow to indicate the momentum of their actions; that their multiple limbs are meant to convey the players’ moving parts. Instead, his bronzes look like how you’d commemorate the Elephant Man, if he’d been a Baseball Hall of Famer.

You should go look at the photos.