The towering Unconditional Surrender sculpture in Sarasota’s Bayfront Park makes some visitors stop in awe, seeing romance, history, and the joy of peace captured in one frozen kiss. Others turn away, calling it kitsch, too large, and a glorification of a moment that wasn’t truly consensual.

Either way, it cannot be argued that Art evokes emotion, which was the original inscription. This subject was painted two times on the same piece of sidewalk. The first time, the weather and wear and tear from a fruit tree cause the painting to degrade rapidly. Another Sarasota Int’l Chalk Festival, Dennis Pannullo, felt that he really wanted to paint this piece… originally intended a simple pictorial exposition then evolved into an “all inclusive acknowledgment of the Sarasota community with a black Amish, a MAGA man, two lesbians, of diverse body types with contrasting reactions but all holding hands”.