Cadillac Ranch, located just off Interstate 40 a few miles west of Amarillo, is one of the most famous roadside attractions in America. The art installation, consisting of 10 tail-finned, brightly painted Cadillacs planted nose down in a pasture, was financed in 1974 by Stanley Marsh 3, the eccentric Panhandle oil heir and arts patron.
It has appeared as a backdrop in magazine fashion spreads and music videos (even Bruce Springsteen has sung about it) and has become a destination for a regular stream of visitors from all over the country.
But since October, when Mr. Marsh was named a defendant in the first of a series of lawsuits filed on behalf of 10 teenage boys who say he sexually abused them, Cadillac Ranch is attracting a different kind of attention. As details of Mr. Marsh’s alleged abuse emerge, citizens in Amarillo are debating whether the quirky Texas landmark should be dismantled.
“Seize the property at Cadillac Ranch under forfeiture laws!!!” one resident recently posted on the Web site of The Amarillo Globe News. Another wrote, “A stupid bunch of junk cars.”
For nearly a half century, Mr. Marsh, 74 — who uses 3 at the end of his name because he says he finds Roman numerals pretentious — was celebrated as a free-spirited mischief maker who livened up the Panhandle with what he called “unexpected art.”
Besides the Cadillacs, he once built a pool table the size of a football field on his ranch, painting the prairie green and creating large, beanbag-like billiard balls. He was known as a mentor to Amarillo’s young people and hired many for his art projects, including the installation of mock traffic signs with cryptic slogans like Road Does Not End and You Will Never Be the Same.
But according to the lawsuits, which were filed by Anthony G. Buzbee, a Houston lawyer, Mr. Marsh purposely sought out “troubled young men” as his protégés and took advantage of them. The plaintiffs not only accuse Mr. Marsh of paying them for sexual favors in 2010 and 2011, when they were 15 and 16 years old, but they also contend that several adults close to Mr. Marsh — including his wife, his son and a business associate — were aware of, and facilitated, the abuse. In November Mr. Marsh was arrested on felony charges of sexual assault of a child and sexual performance by a child. If convicted, he could serve up to 20 years in prison.
Mr. Marsh’s defense lawyers, Paul Nugent and Heather Peterson, of Houston, say that although their client is now legally incapacitated because of a series of strokes he suffered in late 2011, he will fight the charges “as vigorously as his declining health permits.”
Although the allegations are shocking in a town where Mr. Marsh is generally admired, many residents said they were not surprised. According to George Whittenburg, a lawyer in Amarillo, rumors about Mr. Marsh’s indiscretions have circulated for years, “probably as long as the Cadillac Ranch has been standing,” he said.
Mr. Whittenburg represented two teenagers who sued Mr. Marsh for attempted sexual assault in 1996 and 2004. Those suits were settled out of court, and Mr. Marsh admitted no wrongdoing. “I had several other boys who also wanted to sue, but they chose to settle with Mr. Marsh for money and agree to confidentiality,” Mr. Whittenburg said.
Mr. Buzbee said that Mr. Marsh had never been successfully sued or prosecuted “because he’s been able to pull enough strings in Amarillo to keep himself out of trouble.”
“He’s gotten a lot of people to pretend that nothing was happening, just like Jerry Sandusky did at Penn State,” Mr. Buzbee added.
Across Amarillo, residents are left to wrestle with what the lawsuits mean for Mr. Marsh’s imprint on their city. His supporters believe the teenage plaintiffs have banded together with an aggressive out-of-town lawyer to get at Mr. Marsh’s money. “Keep the pitchfork away until all the facts come out,” wrote one commenter on The Globe News’s Web site. Another wrote: “Now every idiot in town is going to claim allegations against Marsh. The greed for money just keeps on coming.”
“Listen, I’ll be the first to tell you that I admire Stanley and what he has done for this town,” said Jeff Blackburn, an Amarillo lawyer, who founded the Innocence Project of Texas and who, like Mr. Marsh, is a descendant of one of Amarillo’s first pioneer families. “I can tell you this town is better off for having had him in it for as long as it has. Yes, we’ve heard rumors, but they’ve always remained rumors. If it turns out they are true, then we’ll do the right thing.”
And although the vast majority of snaps on show have been taken with a Hasselblad, since 2008 participants have also been able to submit photos taken with other large- and medium-format cameras.
The snaps are all on show at the gallery space inside the Elite Photography Organization in Huangpu district.
The competition constitutes 11 categories for entries: architectural, editorial, fashion/beauty, fine art, general, landscapes and nature, portraiture, products, up and coming, wedding/social, and wildlife. The theme of the 2012 competition was the simple word, "Evoke."
French photographer Denis Rouvre's two works hung by the gallery entrance instantly grab visitors' attention. With a black background, these half-length portraits capture every detail of their male subjects in light and shadow that evoke an oil painting. As a long-time fan of the Hasselblad, Rouvre is a renowned portraitist whose recent awards include third prize in the Portrait Single category at the 2012 World Press Photo for the series Tsunami Survivors, taken in quake-hit Japan in 2011.
This year, Danish photographer Ken Hermann won the "general" category for City Surfers, a series depicting people involved in parkour and other free-running sports. "I took the images using a Hasselblad H2 and studio lighting to freeze the subjects and to make them stand out from their surroundings," he said in an introduction to the show.
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