Design Toscano Pop Art Lips Wall Sculpture

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The Wyandots had been decimated by disease and a disastrous war with the Five Nations of the Iroquois, and moved to Ohio territory from their original home near Lake Huron. Leatherlips served as a sachem of the Wyandot tribe in Ohio, and controversially encouraged maintaining peace with white settlers, even at the cost of losing native lands. Native Americans lost most of Ohio with the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, and Chief Leatherlips was among the signers—a stance that ultimately led to his death. This sphinx-like sculpture is a tribute to Shateyaronyah, a leader of the Native American Wyandot tribe. He was known as “Leatherlips” by settlers because when his word was given, it could be trusted—his words were as strong as leather. His pieces mostly feature women, he says, because he sees life and the world as female, while "boys are just an accident - a very nice accident, but an accident."

Haggerty is clearly a master of lip art, with a growing portfolio of museum-worthy looks. From individually placed sequins to hand-painted motifs, each haute couture look showcases the artist’s incredible skills and boundless imagination. Some works even feature insect-inspired trinkets that seem to crawl from the bejeweled mouths. Leatherlips’ unpopular position divided the Wyandot. In 1810, a committee headed by his own brother sentenced him to death for witchcraft, though it was widely known the reason for his execution was political. Despite the protests of white settlers and their attempts to dissuade and bribe the executioners, Leatherlips was executed by tomahawk. The sculptor, who admits that he “didn’t go to art school to cast people’s private parts,” was originally inspired by the rise of cosmetic procedures that dictate how a woman should look—not just in terms of her face or her figure, but even in her most intimate areas. He refers to it as “body fascism.”

Miriam, 46, a travel agent who declined to give her last name, has a direct view of it from her apartment window. She gave it a thumbs-down. "I don't find it fitting in the entire environment," she said. In the public space, the piece is the piece, and it's competing with so many other objects," he said.

Like many of Plensa's works, including several new pieces at the Galerie Lelong show, "Water's Soul" is the elongated head of a woman with closed eyes.

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I'd say it's telling New York City to keep this area a secret because we don't want to drive more people to work here," said Huan Yan, 31, a software engineer. Plensa said the sculpture is not sending a message to Manhattan, and she is not "shushing," but silently calling for quiet.