US State Department spends $1 MILLION on a single granite sculpture to decorate new embassy in London



The U.S. Department of State will spend $2.5 million next year on art to decorate its embassies, it was revealed Tuesday. The agency's 2013 spending included $1 million for a single granite sculpture set to adorn the new American Embassy in London.

It's part of the State Department's 'Art In Embassies' program, which has 16 government employees curating art exhibits at diplomatic stations all over the world.

The State Department writes that the program 'provides exhibitions to represent American art abroad.' The $1 million art award will go to Sean Scully, an Irish-born artist who emigrated to the U.S. at age 30, and whose work resembles stacked piles of paving stones..



Sean Scully's 2008 granite sculpture, titled 'Wall of Light Cubed 2,' suggests the kind of structure the State Department thought was worth $1 million Million-dollar award: The granite sculpture with a seven-figure price tag will sit in the U.S. Embassy in London Scully's 'Wall of Light' series of panitings are popular at Sotheby's auction house in London, and regularly fetch five- and six-figure prices

'The presence of American art exhibitions overseas builds strategic international partnerships,' State claimed in its 2014 budget request to Congress, an 'exchange of ideas' that 'encourages strong bilateral and multilateral relationships.'

It's a program that has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $9.6 million since 2011.

Scully's paintings, photographs, prints and sculptures all resemble tiled mosaics of oversized rectangles of different colors. One sculpture consisted of a checkerboard of black and white stone squares forming a 10-meter-long wall.

Another is a 20-meter-long assemblage of criss-crossed bricks, sitting in a field as part of someone's 'private collection.'

He did not respond to a request for a description of the piece the U.S. government has commissioned from him.



Scully, 68, is a two-time Turner Prize nominee and very much the 'it' artist to collect in London

The American Embassy in London will soon have a new art installation, which some onlookers might mistake for a pile of granite construction materials U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is presiding over a State Department budget with room for its own private art collection

The State Department's current art-buying spree also includes spending $120,000 for 'Flowers,' a gangly bronze sculpture by Donald Baechler. That piece will be sent to the new U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan

The agency also bought a $150,000 tile mosaic mural from the Miotto Mosaic Art Studio in Carmel, NY for the American Embassy in Brasilia, Brazil.

Another $150,000 purchase, earmarked for the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, consists of 'The Black Arch' by the Saudi Arabian writer Raja Alem and artist Shadia Alem.

The State Department told The Weekly Standard that its 'Office of Art in Embassies' has been in service for 50 years and covers 200 venues in 189 countries.

