Phallus art puts father in a fury

Exhibit choice over flag display spurs man to act

By Owen S. Good, News Staff Writer

Bob Rowan has a wife, a 5-year-old daughter and a house north of Boulder, and to all three he returned Saturday morning, carrying a bag full of penises.

He put them in a box in the family room, and started getting over his rage.

Rowan, 49, was infuriated by a display inside the Boulder Public Library's gallery, where the colorful ceramic penises had dangled from a clothesline in a domestic-violence themed exhibit.

Only a week before, talk radio hosts thrashed the library for refusing to make a patriotic display of an American flag. Then they learned the penises had quietly been shown since October.

The two symbols, the flag and the phallus, were inseparable to Rowan. One supported fighting men overseas; the other, he said, was a strident, sensational "male-bashing" work, and the library selected the latter. Rowan simmered over that choice for a full day, then drove to Boulder to do something about it.

In full view of a few silent onlookers, Rowan plucked the 21 penises from the line, put them in a trash bag, and left a small American flag and a calling card: "El Dildo Bandito was here." It was an act that would bring police to his house in the middle of the night, but it is not one he regrets.

"It's not art, it's garbage," Rowan said Sunday morning. "I detest the fact they're hanging there, number one, but the timing; it's the wrong time to do something like this. And it should never belong in something I pay taxes for."

Rowan should find out today if he will be prosecuted. City spokeswoman Jennifer Bray said it is artist Susanne Walker's prerogative to file charges, though the theft occurred on city property. The case will be referred to a detective.

Walker could not be reached for comment Sunday afternoon. A statement at her display called the theft "an attack on my freedom of speech," as well as the gallery, and the issue of domestic violence against women.

"It makes a joke of the pain and suffering involved in this exhibit," she wrote.

The penises were not on display Sunday evening, presumably because they were in police custody, Bray said.

Rowan had telephoned the news offices of Denver radio station KOA-AM (850) on Friday night to tell them what he would do the next day, said producer Cory Lopez. Rowan had heard about the controversy on an FM station owned by KOA's parent company.

Then, Saturday evening, Rowan called the radio station again to confess. KOA told police, who went to Rowan's home to recover the penises.

"My intent was not to break and smash them," Rowan said. "I told police, here's the box, I was going to mail them back. I wanted them down, I didn't want the stupid things."

Rowan, a plastering subcontractor, said two friends accompanied him but they didn't witness or participate in the theft. He said his brother-in-law, a lawyer, tried to talk him out of his plan.

Rowan didn't flinch. "This was a smack in the face of pure decency," he said.

Walker, in her statement, demanded the thief confront her personally. "If you want to attack me or my artwork, then confront me with discussion," she wrote.

"There is no face-to-face discussion," Rowan said. "I'd be glad to stare at her, but we won't have a conversation on what the value of her art is. Not in our public library, anyway. You don't hang penises and then discuss what the value is."

Rowan said he is not insensitive to the issue of domestic violence, and he said other pieces in the exhibit, some of them nudes, are tasteful and appropriate.

But for his penis pilfering, "If I gotta go to court, I gotta go to court, and maybe it happens that way," he said. "I'm just so ticked about the whole deal, I can't believe it."