Tom Otterness’s sculptures are generally cartoonish, satirical pokes
at class issues: Fat men in suits sit on bags of money and eat oil
trucks; an anthropomorphic house in a skirt and high heels marries a
coin. And it’s fairly clear that The Miser is intended to push
the same buttons: A giant man dressed like the Monopoly mascot clutches
a half-dozen giant coins to his chest. He’s handing one coin to a tiny
man dressed like a proletarian. The coin dwarfs the worker, and the two
stand atop a globe held aloft by four smaller versions of the wealthy
man. It’s not a complex statement: The rich get richer, etc.
The problem with the piece is in its context: It stands in front of
the Grand Hyatt, one of the most expensive hotels in the city, and next
to the ridiculously extravagant Ruth’s Chris Steak House chain
restaurant. Placing the statue here makes it a celebration of hoarding
wealth, of withholding charity from the poor and even rubbing their
faces in the luxury. The aggravating combination of weak satire and
poor location makes this the worst statue in Seattle.