Cupid's Span

Created by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, the 64 foot high painted fiberglass and stainless steel sculpture represents a bow and arrow -- the traditional attributes of the imp of love -- shooting straight down into a sliver of pedestrian park. Observant passers-by will notice how it changes aspect with viewing angle and distance. Up close, its taut bowstring and vertical arrow relate to the cables and towers of the Bay Bridge. From a moderate distance, the bow, arrow and string suggest the hull, mast and rigging of a Spanish galleon -- the vessel of the colonizers -- a reading countered by the identification of bow and arrow with Native Americans -- the colonized. One double reading of bow, of course, is as the bow, or front end of a ship. Viewed from farther off, across the Embarcadero, the curves of Cupid's bow dovetail with the arching fronds of the palms that line the causeway and implicitly also with the swoop of the road itself.