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Ed Pokoj's sculpture "Ody the Outsider" in the courtyard of the Branch Museum of Architecture & Design (Photo by Hilary Pokoj)
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The sculpture in progress (Photo by Zacke Feller)
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The statue regards Monument Avenue. (Photo by Ed Pokoj)
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Ed Pokoj (Photo by Zacke Feller)
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The original and adjusted plans for assembling "Ody" (Photo by Ed Pokoj)
A colossal bamboo horse on wheels peers over the courtyard walls of the stately manor housing the Branch Museum of Architecture & Design. “Ody,” as artist Ed Pokoj named the piece, is part of the Branch’s third annual Emerging Artist Series and design/build project.
When Pokoj took on the challenge of creating a mobile bamboo sculpture for the museum, he didn't anticipate how his real work based on myth would resemble the challenges in the ancient stories.
The piece’s full designation is “Ody the Outsider.”
“The horse is an outsider,” Pokoj reflects. “I’m kind of an outsider. I’m originally from Buffalo and came down for VCU and stayed. The other horses on Monument are bronze, and here we have one out of bamboo. I’m not an architect by any means, but I’m working on this project outside of an architecture museum. In the story the Greeks use their horse to get into Troy and finish the war.”
Amid the recent events occurring on and near Monument Avenue, Pokoj’s project, which began in March at the precipice of pandemic and cultural shifts, is based on one of the oldest stories of them all: the Trojan War and the wooden horse built by the Greeks to get them inside the walls of Troy. Though the tale is many times told and in variations, a significant character in all of them is Odysseus.
The entire world these days is on an odyssey where we confront daily challenges and obstacles, much like Odysseus during his renowned travels.
With the "Ody" project, Pokoj embarked on a journey of artistic endeavor that, unlike Odysseus, didn’t involve battling Trojans or giant creatures or avoiding whirlpools. However, he did need to hear the siren song of inspiration.
A year ago, two of Pokoj’s former art professors at Virginia Commonwealth University, Camden Whitehead and John Malinoski, constructed a Poster Totem in the Branch courtyard. Pokoj, walking between VCU and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, stopped in and offered assistance. During this process the artists wondered about making something that could be moved around the space. Perhaps a Trojan horse.
A few years earlier, in a Malinoski class called the Puppet Factory, students received the assignment of creating a piece larger than the person manipulating it. Pokoj engineered a 10-foot-high bird with a wingspan of 12 feet. The wings, tail and head moved. He used bamboo. “It’s flexible, sturdy and light, and easy to build out of,” Pokoj explains. “Also, it's free in a lot of places, and plenty of people in Richmond who have it don’t want it.” The figures created in the class marched in procession in the spring 2013 VCU Arts graduation ceremonies, then held at the Greater Richmond Convention Center. Pokoj furthered his skills at Bristol, England’s Puppet Place.
Once officially invited by the Branch to build, in October Pokoj set about conception and solving problems, first in his second-story Manchester studio, where he soon realized he needed to assemble "Ody" in parts. He chose to skin the horse in T-shirt material. Then came COVID-19. A reveal at the annual Brunch at the Branch event got canceled, and due to shutdowns and gathering restrictions, Pokoj found himself without assistants. Yet by May he’d managed to put the horse together. A storm came through and knocked "Ody" down. The material wrapping the piece’s head acted as a sail.
Pokoj used a one-sixth scale model to work out how to reattach the head using a hinging mechanism, but what looked good in theoretical miniature didn’t function in 25-foot reality. What involved ladders and rope to pull on the hanging upside-down headpiece didn’t work due to leverage issues. Pokoj’s wife, Hilary, an art educator at the Children’s Museum of Richmond, suggested holding the head steady on a bar running across the neck, then sliding and lifting the piece into place. That worked. Pokoj decided to allow the bamboo to be itself and form the skin of the creation rather than covering the structure.
During the first weekend of the protests on Monument, a rather agile and inventive individual unfastened a guy rope that anchored "Ody" and used it as a noose to drape around the neck of the adjacent Jefferson Davis monument, since removed from the site altogether. Absent this stability, the horse risked going over again. Pokoj reattached a different rope.
"Ody" can actually roll on his ancient-looking wheels. “And, yes, during the summer we’ll move and shift 'Ody' around inside the courtyard,” Pokoj enthuses. “He’s like a giant Fisher-Price pull toy.” The work is ongoing, and "Ody" will acquire a final touch befitting a mythical horse: a tail.
“ 'Ody' became the bright spot in a strange new world for us,” observes the Branch’s executive director, Penelope Fletcher.
“I think that he makes all of us smile — although it’s hard to see the smile behind the masks — people stop from their business of viewing the monuments and take a break to photograph themselves with 'Ody.' ”
Curious passersby and intrigued Branch visitors engage Pokoj in discussion. Prior to the protests, a woman mused that perhaps the horses of Monument Avenue should remain, absent their riders.
“Struck me funny at the time, back in March,” Pokoj recalls. “I didn’t really give it much thought. But it’s kind of what’s happened with 'Ody.' He’s ended up in battles he didn’t sign up for, whether protests or the pandemic itself, or any of this stuff he’s happened to find [himself] in the middle of. He’s so far withstood them, and he’s become something that people look at to get their minds off social media and the news, and [he] gives them joy. My hope is that maybe he's come to mean that we'll prevail over injustices and this disease, and how in the end we’ll come out stronger."
