Dylan Brogan
Since its erection in 2005, “Nails’ Tales” has been the butt of phallic jokes. UW-Madison removed the statue Aug. 21.
A construction worker is taking off the bolts that secure “Nails’ Tales” to its pedestal. The surgical unmounting of the 48-foot obelisk has begun. The crane in the parking lot behind it roars to life; its cold metal jib moves into position. Today, Aug. 21, is the last morning the work by renowned sculptor Donald Lipski will cast its controversial shadow outside Camp Randall Stadium along Regent Street.
Sandy and Jerry Rodenberg have arrived on bikes to witness this public art penectomy.
“She thinks it should be taken down,” whispers Jerry, as Sandy walks towards us. “I kind of like it, though.”
Sandy thinks UW-Madison should ship the shaft to the current occupant of the White House where she suspects it will find a more appreciative audience.
“I don’t like the look of it,” says Sandy. “I never understood it. I guess I’ll just say it: It looks like a man’s penis.”
A worker from J.P. Cullen — the self-described “tough job experts” — is being lifted in a cherry-picker to the top of the eroding pile of gray footballs. A few of the fiberglass pigskins have been removed so a line can be secured to the tip of the monument to Badger pride.
Workers on the ground use large crowbars to pry the sculpture from the pedestal a few times before the crane does the heavy lifting. “Nails’ Tales” then slowly rises into the air. More than one passing car beeps its horn in approval.
“Nails’ Tales” — named for Lipski’s college roommate at UW-Madison — has been mercilessly ribbed since it was installed in 2005. Evgenia, who didn’t provide her last name, wants to know what the commotion is about as she passes by the scene. She’s never noticed the public art piece. What does a fresh pair of eyes think?
“I don’t really like it, to be honest,” she says. “It’s okay.”
By now a small crowd is gathered, watching the crane lift the imposing spire high into the air. The crane then slowly swings the dangling art over to a parking lot, where a flatbed truck is waiting to haul it away to an undisclosed location. UW-Madison has yet to announce where it plans to stick “Nails’ Tales” next.
A worried man in a pink polo takes a deep breath when the sculpture is safely out of range of morning traffic.
“I’m the project manager,” he says. “But I’m incognito today.”
Ed Tallard, who owns some rental properties across the street from Camp Randall, strides up to the gathering of onlookers with purpose.
“Is anyone sad to see it go?” booms Tallard.
Crickets. “Didn’t think so.”
Tallard believes the selection of the public art installation was half-cocked.
“During the Saturday games, there are always opposing fans standing around it going, ‘What is this thing. Why is it here?’” says Tallard. “I’m hoping they bring it in the yard of whoever made the final decision to put it out here.”
It’s hard to fault Lipski. As Tone Madison recently detailed, UW-Madison Athletic Director Barry Alvarez and other officials wanted a public art piece that projected “strength, power, virility.”
“They were all but making phallic gestures with their hands,” Lipski told The Badger Herald in 2014. “They were — without saying it — saying that they wanted something phallic.”
The (temporarily) decommissioned phallus now hovers horizontally a few feet above the flatbed of its makeshift hearse. It’ll take longer to secure the sculpture to the truck and wrap in a tarp, than it did to hoist it from its stone perch.
Nancy Graf is a long-time resident in the area and remembers the initial hubbub over “Nails’ Tales.”
“I think I may have liked it more if I hadn’t heard all the criticism before I even got used to it — so then of course I couldn’t like it either,” explains Graf. “I don’t know. Hanging in the air it didn’t look so bad.”
Cost of “Nails’ Tales”: $200,000
Cost to remove it: $55,000
Official reason for its removal: So a new “entryway” to the UW campus can be completed as part of a plan to renovate the Field House and create an outdoor gathering place.
Madison’s newest obelisk: A sculpture placed in Marshall Park in October 2018 honoring Mildred Fish Harnack, a World War II resistance fighter and Wisconsin native who was executed by direct order of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
