NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 | TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE 141
Clockwise:
Spirit of the American Doughboy
by E.M. Viquesney,
Spirit of the American Navy
by E.M. Viquesney,
Untitled in its more spacious
Channelside roundabout
location in Tampa,
Visual Welcome by Yaacov Agam.
probably others in the 1920s in memory of
the 38 local war heroes who didn’t return
home from World War I. The statues were
dedicated in 1927, along with the million
dollar Soldiers and Sailors Memorial
Causeway and Bridge during a ceremony
attended by over 25,000 people, who were
entertained with a parade and fireworks.
It turns out that the statues had been
removed in order for Clearwater to build a
new, taller, wider and repositioned bridge.
The historic artworks were transported
on a 40-foot trailer to a city warehouse,
where they received much-needed repairs
after years of being ravaged by salt air, the
weather and even vandals.
Fortunately, when the new bridge was
completed in 2005, the refurbished statues
were installed the following year on either
side of the new entrance, which is now
accessed from Court Street, two blocks
south of Cleveland. The landmark works of
art, repositioned on much higher podiums,
once more welcome visitors to Clearwater
Beach, its bridge and causeway.
M.D. of Palm Harbor’s inquiry about the
large, colorful piece of outdoor art at Kennedy
Boulevard and Ashley Drive in downtown
Tampa was answered in our September/October
2002 issue’s Ask Margaret column. Since then,
I’ve received several questions asking where
the piece is now.
The outdoor art piece was
commissioned in 1988 by what was then
NCNB National Bank of Florida, which
became NationsBank, and is now the
Bank of America. The artist was the late,
internationally renowned sculptor George
Sugarman, who called his 36-foot high
minimalist steel alloy sculpture Untitled,
hoping that passers-by would use their
own imaginations to name it themselves.
Although the huge, yellow, black and
white painted sculpture has been referred
to by many names, the one that seems to
have stuck is the “Exploding Chicken,” a
nickname that Tampa Tribune columnist
Steve Otto created.
In 2010, the piece was dismantled from
its rather cramped corner location at the
downtown Tampa bank and in 2013, was
relocated to the center of a roundabout
at the city’s Channelside Drive and
Cumberland Avenue, where it can be
admired from every angle, as it welcomes
visitors to the Florida Aquarium, the Port
of Tampa, a parking garage and the new
burgeoning Sparkman Wharf (the former
Channelside area). 9