#so much of this is getting into the mindset of a ps1 developer

[b0tster]

Why do all the item pickups in BBKart end with "!!!"? it seems like such a weird way to end a string in a silly horror racer. Is it a reference to something?

yes. let me explain.

bloodborne ps4 as a game doesnt exist in a vaccum, it exists as a sequel to dark souls 1 and 2. it streamlined the souls experience and offered a lot of quality of life features, things that would feel too polished for a ps1 game.

because of this, i rolled back a lot of features in bloodborne psx to demons and dark souls quality to make it feel more rudimentary. there were big things like the key system (which rolled QoL back even earlier to actual ps1 / n64 games like tomb raider or OoT) but there were also small things that were implemented just to nail the 'old game' vibe like adding a weird number of exclamation points to a status effect announcement window:

bloodborne kart built on top of bbpsx's ui system to make both games feel unified in their look (and to make dev easier and faster by recycling work), so i re-used the status effect announcer to show the name of the power up the player just picked up

[titus-su]

Practice Media 1 - Memory & Nostalgia 'Gaming All Day' Part 1

This is my thought from this topic. It's a scene when I play PS1 games with my brother. This is just the stylized and exaggerated version, little brother looks nerdy and big bro looks funky.

*The background is from Aeron Ng. Since my focus is to become a character artist, I skip some environment's explorations process. I use environment concept art from Aeron Ng and did the photobash + overpaint on top of it.

This is my overall moodboard for character & environment. Thinking about the timeline and the workload... It is possible to create this full scene, but I need to sacrifice a lot of learning process & reduce the quality. That is not a good idea. So I came with an idea to do a collaboration with my friend or split the workload into 2 weeks. Fortunately, the topic for next week assignment is 'Light & Shadow'. This topic suits my desire to explore the environment, lighting and rendering. So I decided to complete and explore more about characters this week, and the environment next week. This way, I believe I can achieve better result.

Okay, sorry for disturbing images! I took a photos of myself and try to replicate the pose I want to render. This helps me as guideline for making a character pose for my concept.

Blockout done in zbrush. Started from scratch, zphere for the body and dynamesh for heads.

Face expression, hand + foot detail. I used Hiro Hamada's hand (Big Hero 6) as reference for hand. I didn't get much reference for stylized foot, so I just exaggerate the foot and make it look stylized. Modeling foot is needed since I want to make the mood playing in the living room is comfy, there is no way we can play playstation with our shoes on and feel comfy. *Modeling shoes is so much easier though XD

So the next step is pose the character since I want to simulate the clothes at certain poses. Then export it as the avatar to Marvelous Designer. It would be better if we crop unnecessary parts of body that doesn't intersect, for example : head and hands. It reduce memory consumption and accidental colliding in MD simulation. Since I am weak in making patterns from scratch, so I help the workflow with UV. I model 3D dummy cloth and cut the UV like cutting a cloth pattern. I try to not being perfectionist on this because it can cost a lot of time to make a perfect garment. For example, I don't cut much on the T-shirt because it is very subtle. Meanwhile the hoodie need more attention because the fabric properties is kinda tricky, I need to pay more attention at pattern making so I can adjust some parts separately.

I cleaned the cloth topology back to zbrush and give some polypaint. The hand is still empty, I haven't model the playstation and the joystick!

Playstation done!! It is developed by SUNNY (alternate SONY). The challenge is to model the stylized version of joystick because the character hand is quite gigantic. I need to make sure the joystick is held-able and looks cute.

This is the model turntable, the back of the model is awful!! I don't pay much attention since I have a plan to render it from front towards the TV screen! The render images is from BPRs Render in Zbrush. I try some blue-ish moonlight like in the first concept. So this is 'Memory & Nostalgia' in my mind : Playing games(PS 1) with brother until midnight. Reflective : - I like this topic and the mood but the time given is not friendly for this kind of concept. This is too 'animatic' heavy. It cost quite some time to pose this characters. I also model too much 'pieces', 2 characters, different poses, and props. It makes me reduce the quality of the work. - "Quality over quantity." This is a modern mindset of becoming a good character/environment artist. Meanwhile this project is towards 'quantity'. This is still a question for me. Do I want to make this 'quantity' to produce good story/mood? or avoid this kind of concept do go for 'quality' one? I'm not sure, but overall I learned some good stuffs and have fun on this. - Learned marvelous designer fabric properties, etc. - Learned new head stylized anatomy. Thanks for reading! References: Sony Pictures Animation. (2021). Aaron Mitchell. Available from: https://parody.fandom.com/wiki/Aaron_Mitchell?file=Profile_-_Aaron_Mitchell.png [Accessed: 24 October 2021]

Hong SoonSang. (2016). Adventures of Kayla "corba expression_action". Available from: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/QRBAl [Accessed: 24 October 2021]

Lane Garrison. (2014). The Art of Lane Garrison. Available from: https://lane-garrison.tumblr.com/post/81522012918/happy-to-give-paperboy-some-love-for [Accessed: 24 October 2021]

Aeron Ng. (2018). Living Room Mood Lighting. Available from: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/NdKLP [Accessed: 24 October 2021]

[kickoffme-blog]

Tekken 7 Out Today, Harada Talks History, Future of Fighting Games

New Post has been published on http://www.kickoffme.com/tekken-7-out-today-harada-talks-history-future-of-fighting-games/

Tekken 7 Out Today, Harada Talks History, Future of Fighting Games

Tekken 7 Out Today, Harada Talks History, Future of Fighting Games I’ve played every single Tekken game — all of them, even Death By Degrees — going all the way back to the original PlayStation game. So with Tekken 7 launching today on PS4, it only seemed appropriate to reach out to Katsuhiro Harada, Tekken’s longstanding game director, to reflect on where the series has been — and where the larger fighting-game genre is headed.

PlayStation.Blog: The Heihachi / Kazuhiro rivalry has been central to almost every Tekken game. With Tekken 7, you’re ending it. Does it feel like you are closing the book on a part of yourself? Katsuhiro Harada, Director, Tekken 7: It’s not just a chapter for me – you could definitely say that this is a major milestone in the storyline. I wasn’t expecting the Tekken series to be such a long-running franchise when we first started out. And since the series has continued for so long, the characters that we have put so much effort into have become like our sons and daughters. I have felt that I wanted to continue working on them for a long time to come, but it is almost like Heihachi and Kazuya are speaking to me, “everyone will die sometime. Rather than wait for it, you should move forward and keep fighting.” “The Tekken Project always develops the game as if it were the last in the series” At the very least, I think that both father and son have been longing for a conclusion to this feud. Win or lose, part of the theme of fighting games is how you accept the outcome, and it is something you can’t avoid. Every time we create a new numbered installment, the Tekken Project always has the mindset of developing the game as if it were the last in the series and to leave no room for regret once the game is completed. In this feud between father and son, one of them will most likely die, but their conviction kind of represents this mindset of the team. The result of this feud was quite a shock to me, but it also shows one reason why the series is able to continue for so long. The series can also attract new fans because we are able to break down what we have created in the past each time and create something new.

PSB: Based on what I’ve played, Tekken 7 is the most complex Tekken game yet — but it’s also the most accessible Tekken game in years. How do you strike this balance between veterans and newcomers? KH: It is difficult to speak in general terms about complexity. I don’t believe that Tekken is complex. If it were complex, it probably wouldn’t have sold 44 million copies and be the best-selling fighting game it is today. Some people in the FGC may say it is complex, but then others even say you can win in Tekken by button mashing, which sounds contradictory. In fact, many techniques can easily be performed by “button mashing,” but this also means it could be said the game is accessible to a wide audience. It is frustrating when I see the same person say that Tekken is very technical, and thus difficult, but then says that it is a button masher with no depth in other instances. In actuality, I believe the game is easy for anyone to pick up and play, yet difficult to master if you want to compete at a tournament level. However, the fan base is about 70% casual. Otherwise, it would be much too difficult to sell 44 million copies. Half of the 44 million is from Europe, with the next biggest fanbase coming from the US, and most of the players will never go to a tournament. Special effort was made to ensure that Tekken 7 was more accessible than past installments. Getting up after being knocked down was made more simple, as well as the controls. The new mechanics also are quite simple. Long-time fans of the series have been saying this is the easiest Tekken for newcomers to pick up, and we have seen a large influx of new players for the arcade version in Japan and Asia. This was achieved because we have a good balance of breaking down/discarding what we have built up, and creating new content and mechanics on that streamlined base. PSB: In some ways, I almost see Tekken 7 as a fusion of the best gameplay elements of Tekken 5 and Tekken 6. Am I right or am I off? How did you approach the broad “feel” of the game, and where it would sit compared to the others? KH: I think this is half true, but maybe the other half is not accurate. Tekken has changed quite a bit with each installment from Tekken 1 to Tekken 7. Before it became what it is now, the base was established in Tekken 1 and 2, and went through an evolution with Tekken 3. Tekken 4 marked a leap in the technology behind the game, even if the system itself wasn’t well received. Tekken 5 and 6 each saw a renewal of the fan base, with an influx of new players. For Tekken 7, we took all of the knowledge that we had gained throughout the series, streamlined the game systems while eliminating elements that were maybe overly complex, and then added new gameplay mechanics on top of that, so Tekken 7 is an all-new installment in the franchise. What is important is not to reject everything that you tried and failed at, but to take the technology and ideas gained in the process and re-evaluate them from a different perspective. Also, to have the courage to break what you have built up, and also try new things, while evaluating your fans’ reactions to the results. If you try not to analyze but to just play the game for enjoyment, you will more quickly see how it feels quite different from past installments.

PSB: What are your thoughts on the modern fighting game genre, and dynamics that are driving it? One thought is that storytelling seems to be seeing far more importance over the last few years. KH: First, regarding storytelling, the Tekken series has probably devoted the most resources to this aspect of the game out of all of the games in the genre for the past 20 years, so I wouldn’t say that Tekken is influenced by this trend from the “last few years.” I want you to look back to when we released on the PS1. Tekken was one of the first games to be noticed for its pre-rendered movies available upon clearing the game that portrayed the storylines for each character. We even added very rich (and expensive!) CG opening movies to each installment to enhance the experience. For Tekken 5, there were even real-time demos in which characters interacted with each other to enhance the story plots. In Tekken 6, you can see in the Scenario Campaign mode the amount of resources that went into the storytelling portion. Storytelling has always been a strong point of the series and has made Tekken the leader in the genre. “Storytelling has always been a strong point of the series” It is because of this background that I have thought recently that in the current generation it may be quite difficult to develop a non-license IP and completely new fighting game. If you think about it, the fighting game genre was born from the arcade business model and continues to have these roots. It might not be a bad idea to design a fighting game from scratch that is intended for consoles and is more geared towards online VS play, that might be quite different from the current model we all know. Maybe the speed of game play or the strategy in reading your opponent and how you fight them might be something totally different. Of course, if we could create an attractive world setting even with original IP character through a heavy emphasis on storytelling, it might provide the environment to be able to create an all new game. PSB: Looking ahead, where do you think the fighting game genre needs to go to continue to enjoy success and earn new players? KH: Of course this doesn’t just pertain to fighting games, but new players are a necessity. There has to be an influx of new players with each installment. And it is very important that the game/IP be popular across generations of players.

I’d like to thank Harada-san for taking the time to field our questions. Tekken 7 is out today on PS4 — and from what I’ve played, it’s another polished entry in the historic franchise.

Read more

[mukyoucom]

Tekken 7 Out Today, Harada Talks History, Future of Fighting Games

From Playstation Blog USA

I’ve played every single Tekken game — all of them, even Death By Degrees — going all the way back to the original PlayStation game. So with Tekken 7 launching today on PS4, it only seemed appropriate to reach out to Katsuhiro Harada, Tekken’s longstanding game director, to reflect on where the series has been — and where the larger fighting-game genre is headed.

PlayStation.Blog: The Heihachi / Kazuhiro rivalry has been central to almost every Tekken game. With Tekken 7, you’re ending it. Does it feel like you are closing the book on a part of yourself?

Katsuhiro Harada, Director, Tekken 7: It’s not just a chapter for me – you could definitely say that this is a major milestone in the storyline. I wasn’t expecting the Tekken series to be such a long-running franchise when we first started out. And since the series has continued for so long, the characters that we have put so much effort into have become like our sons and daughters.

I have felt that I wanted to continue working on them for a long time to come, but it is almost like Heihachi and Kazuya are speaking to me, “everyone will die sometime. Rather than wait for it, you should move forward and keep fighting.”

“The Tekken Project always develops the game as if it were the last in the series”

At the very least, I think that both father and son have been longing for a conclusion to this feud. Win or lose, part of the theme of fighting games is how you accept the outcome, and it is something you can’t avoid.

Every time we create a new numbered installment, the Tekken Project always has the mindset of developing the game as if it were the last in the series and to leave no room for regret once the game is completed. In this feud between father and son, one of them will most likely die, but their conviction kind of represents this mindset of the team. The result of this feud was quite a shock to me, but it also shows one reason why the series is able to continue for so long. The series can also attract new fans because we are able to break down what we have created in the past each time and create something new.

PSB: Based on what I’ve played, Tekken 7 is the most complex Tekken game yet — but it’s also the most accessible Tekken game in years. How do you strike this balance between veterans and newcomers?

KH: It is difficult to speak in general terms about complexity. I don’t believe that Tekken is complex. If it were complex, it probably wouldn’t have sold 44 million copies and be the best-selling fighting game it is today. Some people in the FGC may say it is complex, but then others even say you can win in Tekken by button mashing, which sounds contradictory.

In fact, many techniques can easily be performed by “button mashing,” but this also means it could be said the game is accessible to a wide audience. It is frustrating when I see the same person say that Tekken is very technical, and thus difficult, but then says that it is a button masher with no depth in other instances. In actuality, I believe the game is easy for anyone to pick up and play, yet difficult to master if you want to compete at a tournament level.

However, the fan base is about 70% casual. Otherwise, it would be much too difficult to sell 44 million copies. Half of the 44 million is from Europe, with the next biggest fanbase coming from the US, and most of the players will never go to a tournament.

Special effort was made to ensure that Tekken 7 was more accessible than past installments. Getting up after being knocked down was made more simple, as well as the controls. The new mechanics also are quite simple. Long-time fans of the series have been saying this is the easiest Tekken for newcomers to pick up, and we have seen a large influx of new players for the arcade version in Japan and Asia. This was achieved because we have a good balance of breaking down/discarding what we have built up, and creating new content and mechanics on that streamlined base.

PSB: In some ways, I almost see Tekken 7 as a fusion of the best gameplay elements of Tekken 5 and Tekken 6. Am I right or am I off? How did you approach the broad “feel” of the game, and where it would sit compared to the others?

KH: I think this is half true, but maybe the other half is not accurate. Tekken has changed quite a bit with each installment from Tekken 1 to Tekken 7. Before it became what it is now, the base was established in Tekken 1 and 2, and went through an evolution with Tekken 3. Tekken 4 marked a leap in the technology behind the game, even if the system itself wasn’t well received.

Tekken 5 and 6 each saw a renewal of the fan base, with an influx of new players. For Tekken 7, we took all of the knowledge that we had gained throughout the series, streamlined the game systems while eliminating elements that were maybe overly complex, and then added new gameplay mechanics on top of that, so Tekken 7 is an all-new installment in the franchise.

What is important is not to reject everything that you tried and failed at, but to take the technology and ideas gained in the process and re-evaluate them from a different perspective. Also, to have the courage to break what you have built up, and also try new things, while evaluating your fans’ reactions to the results. If you try not to analyze but to just play the game for enjoyment, you will more quickly see how it feels quite different from past installments.

PSB: What are your thoughts on the modern fighting game genre, and dynamics that are driving it? One thought is that storytelling seems to be seeing far more importance over the last few years.

KH: First, regarding storytelling, the Tekken series has probably devoted the most resources to this aspect of the game out of all of the games in the genre for the past 20 years, so I wouldn’t say that Tekken is influenced by this trend from the “last few years.”

I want you to look back to when we released on the PS1. Tekken was one of the first games to be noticed for its pre-rendered movies available upon clearing the game that portrayed the storylines for each character. We even added very rich (and expensive!) CG opening movies to each installment to enhance the experience. For Tekken 5, there were even real-time demos in which characters interacted with each other to enhance the story plots. In Tekken 6, you can see in the Scenario Campaign mode the amount of resources that went into the storytelling portion. Storytelling has always been a strong point of the series and has made Tekken the leader in the genre.

“Storytelling has always been a strong point of the series”

It is because of this background that I have thought recently that in the current generation it may be quite difficult to develop a non-license IP and completely new fighting game. If you think about it, the fighting game genre was born from the arcade business model and continues to have these roots. It might not be a bad idea to design a fighting game from scratch that is intended for consoles and is more geared towards online VS play, that might be quite different from the current model we all know. Maybe the speed of game play or the strategy in reading your opponent and how you fight them might be something totally different.

Of course, if we could create an attractive world setting even with original IP character through a heavy emphasis on storytelling, it might provide the environment to be able to create an all new game.

PSB: Looking ahead, where do you think the fighting game genre needs to go to continue to enjoy success and earn new players?

KH: Of course this doesn’t just pertain to fighting games, but new players are a necessity. There has to be an influx of new players with each installment. And it is very important that the game/IP be popular across generations of players.

I’d like to thank Harada-san for taking the time to field our questions. Tekken 7 is out today on PS4 — and from what I’ve played, it’s another polished entry in the historic franchise.

bandai namco gamesPlayStation 4playstation gamestekkentekken 7

The post Tekken 7 Out Today, Harada Talks History, Future of Fighting Games appeared first on Ship 2 Block 20.

http://ift.tt/2rzQby8

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: The Trials of a Hot-Pink Sunbather

Ohad Meromi, “Sunbather” (2016), cast bronze, industrial paint; commissioned by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs’ Percent for Art program, the Department of Transportation, and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (courtesy the artist, photo by Kristof Wickman)

After inching through the public art gamut for nearly three years, undergoing numerous trials by committee and verbal hazing by dissident locals, last fall Ohad Meromi finally unveiled his public sculpture “Sunbather” (2016) to the world.

This ambiguous sunbathing humanoid is endowed with neither gender nor age. Its dimensions approximate the chassis of a Fresh Direct delivery truck. It’s made of about 400 pounds of bronze. It looks like something a pre-schooler might construct out of hot-pink pipe cleaners, magnified a millionfold.

The work has not been installed in a contemplative, tranquil nook like so many pieces in the nearby, walled-in sculpture garden of the Noguchi Museum, which has managed to remain invisible for decades now. Nor, does it occupy a weathered pier just past Socrates Sculpture Park, heroically turning to rust like one of the gargantuan Mark DiSuvero abstractions there. . “Sunbather” is not so sublime. It has been plopped down in the middle of Jackson Avenue in a rapidly gentrifying part of Long Island City, Queens, between four lanes of traffic (not including turning lanes). At rush hour, it seems to revel in a cloud of Volkswagen fumes, as irreverent as someone still smoking Marlboro Reds.

The sculpture was commissioned by New York’s Department of Cultural Affairs through its Percent for Art Program, which has been one of the most prominent public art organizations in New York City. Since 1982, the program has pursued its mission to allocate one percent of the yearly budget of city-funded construction projects to the realization of large-scale public artworks. With this one percent, a few artful human beings are brought to the table with many an artless human being to take part in the urbanism conversation.

But the artless — the developers focused on the bottom line rather than the top of the line — have also benefited from this one percent, receiving a boost by the big-hearted Dostoyevskian idiots of the world who transform uninspiring city plots into destinations for investment.

As Meromi’s “Sunbather” does its thing in the middle of Jackson Avenue, it also broadcasts the message, “Long Island City has arrived!” — which is code for: the idiots (the artists) have thrown in the towel and vacated; the industrial property is now ripe for the bidding war.

Ohad Meromi, “Sunbather” (2016), cast bronze, industrial paint; commissioned by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs’ Percent for Art program, the Department of Transportation, and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (courtesy the artist, photo by Kristof Wickman)

Contemplating a work of art in this extraordinarily unsexy part of Queens, as opposed to, say, the ritzy Seagrams Plaza in midtown Manhattan, reminds me that the “everyman” does still exist. “Sunbather” is not there as eye-candy for the out-to-lunch investment banker or the pack of Swiss tourists caught in all-day gridlock between MoMA, the Whitney, and the New Museum. It is there for the un-arty, un-culturally-sophisticated working-class resident, 9-to-5 laborer, and just plain old commuter, who populates our city’s outer boroughs and its 24-hour circulatory system.

This perspective on the city reminds me of Hokusai’s “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” from the 1830’s, the famed woodblock series celebrating quotidian life. In one of the most famous views, we witness the exact moment a gust of wind blows a stack of paper out of a person’s hand. One forgets about the stoic mountain looming far from the action. In other images, the mountain’s tip just barely peeks over the horizon line, as if to say: whoever you are, however far way from the mountain you are in this sprawling landscape, you are still part of the picture. Mount Fuji is just as centralizing as the tallest steeple in any hilltop town, or the highest skyscraper in any financial center. The toothpick of Freedom Tower (whatever its called), asserting its authority all the way out to Coney Island, is our Mount Fuji.

“Sunbather” seems to indulge this premise. Like Hokusai’s prints, Meromi’s sculpture bathes us in life on the outskirts. But however it may undermine the ivory tower of the art cabal, it also, paradoxically, fulfills the dream of another variety of plutocratic mindset. Here, I refer to the multitude of real-estate agents who have achieved an expertise at exploiting artists in order to transform the perception of such peripheries as far more central, and thus far more expensive, than they were before the installment of the artwork.

* * *

Art’s beauty (or repulsion) lies, as they say, in the eye of the beholder, and Meromi’s “Sunbather” is no exception. Its lumpy, anatomically incorrect distribution of body mass is not exactly walking off with the best-on-the-beach trophy. Yet, it’s hard to say precisely which of its displeasing aspects has rubbed so many people the wrong way.

When the work was announced back in 2014, the artist and the Department of Cultural Affairs were slowly backed into a corner by local residents who objected to being left out of the machinations of exactly how $515,000 taxpayer dollars were poised to leave them with a man-who-fell-to-earth. The locals demanded inclusion on the vetting process, and as a result the commentary floodgates sprang open.

In the meantime, Meromi’s work had already been selected by a panel of arts professionals and representatives from the Council Member’s Office and Community Board. It was somewhat late in the game (March 2015) for the sculpture (and its creator) to face the nearly 300 local residents who gathered for a town hall meeting at MoMA PS1 to air their grievances.

The first question from the locals was certainly legitimate: who is this artist the cat dragged in? Meromi, now in his mid-40s, is an Israeli born resident of Brooklyn who has taught at Columbia University and Bard — is a seasoned pro on the international art circuit, having exhibited his work all over the place, and emphatically not the pre-schooler dabbling in pipe cleaners that he may appear at first to be.

But his work, perhaps unintentionally, turns out to be a button pusher. And the pushback it has already received is a healthy sign. One would hope that the outer-borough everyman and -woman would get in on the action, given that it’s the context of their neighborhood that supplies the work with its leverage.

Ohad Meromi, “Sunbather” (2016), cast bronze, industrial paint; commissioned by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs’ Percent for Art program, the Department of Transportation, and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (courtesy the artist, photo by Kristof Wickman)

But leveraging anything in this city is no easy trick, and just because something occupies a public place doesn’t make it visible. If anything, there is a level of reverse psychology to the art of sticking out. Even the people most obviously in need attention, consideration, and help — the broken-down woman with her overstuffed garbage bags in the middle of the subway car, or the man at the intersection with two stumps for legs and a cardboard sign asking for change — tend to blend in as if camouflaged by the city itself.

Or is Meromi’s sculpture less about the ignorable victim and more about a kind of subliminal aberration? That is to say, a magical, almost divine presence? Consider the Babushka Lady — the nickname given to the unknown woman caught in the Zapruder film of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy — so called from the headscarf she was wearing as she stood in the middle of the grassy knoll, which is similar to those worn by elderly Russian women (babushka literally means “grandmother”). Is she the smoking gun? Ask Oliver Stone.

In its long life as a permanent fixture on Jackson Avenue, Meromi’s “Sunbather” will go through phases of being seen and unseen. It may stick out lie a sore thumb for one generation, and then wear a cloak of invisibility for the next. It will pulsate over time. People will stop seeing it one day and then wake up the next and say: What is that thing, and who made it?

Despite its current conspicuity, the “Sunbather” is quite conventional and conforming. What, after all, could be more traditional than a reclining nude? Every sculpture park and college green in the Western world displays at least one ambiguously reclining form by the likes of Henry Moore or Anthony Caro. Meromi’s sculpture is perfectly in sync with the subject matter of modernity, as well as a nod to so much art history that it’s hard to know where to begin. (The Parthenon’s river gods? Cezanne’s bathers?)

Ironically, I would think that virtually anything other than a reclining pink figure would have been even more controversial. Imagine if Meromi’s sunbather had been a 20-foot-tall standing naked woman with the body type of an R. Crumb model. Or a man flat on his back? And what about the color? If you look at the classic Crayola crayon set, you will find that we still live in a world where the brown crayon is labeled “brown” and the peach crayon is labeled “flesh.”

Meromi has sculpted perhaps the only politically correct human figure that can be made in the sexually and racially-charged climate we are living in. His pink androgyne seems bred for balance in the current topsy-turvy limbo of race and gender polemics.

The work, which is as anatomically out-of-whack as any bather Cezanne ever painted, is not even the point. Given its title, “Sunbather,” Meromi’s imaginary form — displaced from Cezanne’s pastoral arcadian world of Aix-en-Provence — is more evocative of a person who has survived the radiation storm of a Bikini Island A-bomb test than someone out to catch a few rays in the South of France.

While the comments Meromi has received may at first seem shallow, they are in fact quite thought-provoking. Some outspoken critics plainly call it “bad.” Others have labeled it an “ugly piece of poop” and a body sculpted with “used bubble gum.” One art lover wrote: “This looks like you dug up Gumby’s grandmother and threw it on the median.” Gumby’s babushka? That is like totally Grandma-phobic!

Ohad Meromi, preparatory sketch for Sunbather (2014) (courtesy the artist)

At a recent public discussion at The Sculpture Center, Meromi himself used the word “ugly” at least three times to describe his own piece. Clearly he was getting in on the fun of trashing his art, while cleverly deploying his skill at the art of self-deprecation.

This is of course not the first time that a reclining pink nude shocked the public. Consider Manet’s “Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe” (“The Luncheon on the Grass,” 1862/3), as bold and scandalous today as it ever was. Manet’s infamous naked lady sits between two rude dandies who haven’t even bothered to remove their hats. A scantly clad second woman off in the distance is said to be douching in the river, if you can believe that.

Some of the quotes I found from the time that Manet painted his masterpiece are not unlike the current discourse around Meromi’s “Sunbather.” A critic once wrote of the “Luncheon”: “Some seek ideal beauty, Manet seeks ideal ugliness.”

Or consider the other French Realist of painterly shock and awe, Gustave Courbet. Courbet wrote the book on making art to piss off the peanut gallery, or whatever jury happened to be out there. In an 1850 letter to a friend, he wrote: “I will be so outrageous that I’ll give everyone the power to tell me the cruelest truths.” And in reference to the critical reception of his “La Femme au perroquet” (“Woman with a Parrot,” 1866) he once wrote: “I told you a long time ago that I would find a way to give them a fist right in the face. That bunch of scoundrels, they caught it.”

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