Midnight, Satuday, April 3rd, 2008.

At the top of the stairs of the Philadelphia Art Museum, halfway between Rodin's "The Kiss" and the Constantin Brancusi's "The Kiss," one of the most popular icons of modernist sculpture is on its side. This new rendition of The Kiss has been dubbed, "Make Love."

 

The sculpture, though huge, is virtually cloaked. At seven feet tall, and close to a thousand pounds, Make Love is a truly mammoth sculpture. So you would think it would be easy to spot, right? But the artwork seemed to blend into its surroundings. The plain concrete color-ubiquitous in any city- is not dissimilar to the limestone of the Art Museum steps. It is a larger-than-life public-sculpture-with-urban-camouflage twist.

 

Philadelphia artists Kate Kaman and Joel Erland collaborated in an act of "covert art". Make Love installed late Saturday night, was seen by thousands of people who walked right by it, sat on it, and balanced cameras on it during Sunday's race. Its location right above the infamous "Rocky Staircase" meant that tour bus after tour bus full of tourists piled out, ran up, and shouted "Adrian!" Some of them even climbed on top of it for a better view of City Hall. To the general public, the sculpture was just another part of the Museum's regular exhibits.