Venus

Venus rises 92 feet above a courtyard in San Francisco's South of Market area, a stainless-steel take on the Venus de Milo that Trinity Place's website described in 2017 as the tallest sculpture in San Francisco. The artist, Denver-based Lawrence Argent, told KQED in 2016 that he intended the swirling steel figure to look as though it was coming out of the ground “like a genie from a bottle.” It is the centrepiece of Piazza Angelo, the one-acre courtyard of the Trinity Place apartment complex on Eighth Street between Market and Mission streets. The complex's developer commissioned it as part of an art collection titled C’era Una Volta (“Once Upon a Time”). Hoodline reported in 2017 that the plaza was built under the city's one per cent for art requirement for downtown developers. The statue was fabricated in China and shipped to San Francisco in sections: 16 containers according to KQED and Hoodline, 70 pieces according to NBC Bay Area and Time Out. KQED said assembly took almost a month, and NBC Bay Area reported that the head was hoisted into place on 23 May 2016. The piazza opened to the public on 18 May 2017. Early coverage compared Venus with the Statue of Liberty. KQED later corrected that, noting the Statue of Liberty stands 111 feet from its feet to the top of its head, about 19 feet taller than Venus. Argent told Hoodline the base is four feet across, widening to 36 feet at its widest; Trinity Place's website gives the width at the shoulders as 35 feet. Around the base are other works by Argent, including a 20-seat Carrara marble table with a “ripple” in its top and glass bollards weighing 8,000 pounds each. In 2017 reports described the piazza as privately owned public space. Trinity Place's website still invites visitors to the piazza. In 2017 NBC Bay Area and Time Out gave opening hours of 8 am to 6 pm daily, while Trinity Place's own site that year said 10 am to 6 pm, so hours are worth checking before a visit.