Remarks from the Fray:
I suppose much American public art does avoid difficult subject matter, but since much public art is financed by a "Percent for Art" policy, and since contemporary American society is still beset by divisive "identity politics," most city councils are reluctant to approve of controversial art of any kind.
But I don't know why public art built for pleasure isn't sufficient. Think, for example, of the fine sculptures of Calder, Chagall, DuBuffet, Miro, Oldenburg, and Moore.
Petrovich mentions Chicago's "Cloud Gate" and New York's as being merely for pleasure. But in today's fractured urban communities, I think both installations did a fine job of bringing together the various peoples of a community as well as instilling civic pride.
Finally, sculptures can be expensive. So I think the author does his topic a disservice by limiting himself to sculptures, despite his assertion that sculpture is better equipped than other kinds of art to "address the kinds of problems we share as a community." For art that performs that function, I think we can look instead to cheaper forms of publicly funded art, like murals and Poetry in Motion (poems in subway cars). And let's not forget various forms of guerrilla art, like graffiti, street theater, and public poetry readings.
--MaryAnn
(To reply, click here.)
Most of the time, American public sculpture didactically screams a few tone-deaf notes: "We can afford sculpture!" "We are soooo refined!" "We are willing to offend all the barbarians!" "Our artist is smarter than you!"
This so-called art generally lacks the expression of the refined skill of the artisan and the aesthetic appeal familiar from the classics, as well as the message and community function of the older public art.
We still honor individuals - but we do it differently; inscriptions, for example, persist. The rare examples of public art that honors people tend to do so through inscription, not depiction. We don't associate ourselves with these individuals - Adm. Nelson stands on his plinth in part to highlight his eternal membership in the community of Britain - they are proud of him, proud that he is one of them - but tombstones, including the lists at the vietnam memorial, put distance between the name and the community - we mourn the absence rather than celebrate the belonging.
As for ideals, like Winged Victory or Justice, or Mercy, we are no longer willing to claim their discomfiting presence in our midst. That would give too much potential credit to our internal foes. Some installations suggest that these luminaries have fled the community altogether, as the artist pretends to be, to represent, and to speak for, outsiders who are protesting the decadent community formed by his foes - and so his sculpture is meant to be ugly and offend, a great raised finger facing the people he believes drove away glory and greatness.
In short, sometimes the ruin brought on public spaces by the artist (like that wall from the slide show) is intentional, not a bad shot at beauty, but truly meant to offend, put there by people who believe they are better than the community, and not really part of it.
Beauty is often meant to be whimsy or sarcasm, and is often temporary... but one must acknowledge that it occasionally crops up in unexpected installations.
Why would we not be better returning to a somewhat more hagiographic style, in which we praise and honor through heroic depiction, people and virtues we desire, rather than filling our gaze and focus with (and spending our money on) things that are ugly, abhorrent, the product of self-righteous imagined superiority by those who think they are our betters?
--BenK
(To reply, click here.)
While home for two weeks on leave from military service I walked hand-in-hand with the woman who I loved through The Gates in Central Park which for a number of reasons will remain a high point in my own miserable moment in this world. Andy Warhol told us, "In the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes." A true American Andy exhibited unwarranted optimism. At least Christo and Jean-Claude gave us an hour together in a world-famous crowd and we did not even have to make a stand for or against anything more than the simple pleasures of walking hand-in-hand through the park on a sunny afternoon.
I also walked (alone) through Trafalger Square in 2003 enroute to the National Gallery on the afternoon following seeing Accidental Death of an Anarchist at the Donmar Warehouse and glanced at Admiral Nelson but was much too early to see the newer target for pigeon-powered-patina Alison Lapper Pregnant.
Any public sculpture which says, 'see, I'm not a dictator' is refreshing but those which do not overstay their welcome are easily the most enjoyable and memorable. Carry on.
--wmccomninel
(To reply, click here.)
It is misleading to discuss the enlightened use of public spaces as a "sculpture" problem. The issue is how to enhance our enjoyment of public spaces gracefully. One of my favorite public spaces is the courtyard of Louisiana Museum north of Copenhagen. It is a delightful cluster of Calder stabiles/mobiles overlooking the Oresund between Denmark and Sweden. Half the kick is that it is a kind of permanent visual dessert for the museum's dining terrace. Parks full of trees planted by thoughtful individuals for a specific memorial purpose are equally commendable. In my hometown Philadelphia the retrieval of slum brownfields on behalf of community vegetable gardens beats Richard Serra's steel gymnastics every time. Modernism's by now longstanding farce of a failure to equate quirky innovations with High Civilization has been superseded by canny designs to save our public spaces from utter devastation. As long as the Cultural Deep Thinkers believe that more Bilbao Effects is the answer to our bleak public spaces, we will have to dodge intellectual Tilted Arcs in our efforts to enhance daily life with simple pleasures. Koons' Puppy love of flowers needs to return to an earth that has dramatically deteriorated all over the globe throughout the century of Modernism's esthetic malarkey. Marcel Duchamp's urinalysis turns out to be a dumb joke. Flowers are smarter.
--hazardweimar
(To reply, click here.)
(9/27)
Click here to read a slide-show essay about public sculpture.
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Remarks from the Fray:
I suppose much American public art does avoid difficult subject matter, but since much public art is financed by a "Percent for Art" policy, and since contemporary American society is still beset by divisive "identity politics," most city councils are reluctant to approve of controversial art of any kind.
But I don't know why public art built for pleasure isn't sufficient. Think, for example, of the fine sculptures of Calder, Chagall, DuBuffet, Miro, Oldenburg, and Moore.
Petrovich mentions Chicago's "Cloud Gate" and New York's as being merely for pleasure. But in today's fractured urban communities, I think both installations did a fine job of bringing together the various peoples of a community as well as instilling civic pride.
Finally, sculptures can be expensive. So I think the author does his topic a disservice by limiting himself to sculptures, despite his assertion that sculpture is better equipped than other kinds of art to "address the kinds of problems we share as a community." For art that performs that function, I think we can look instead to cheaper forms of publicly funded art, like murals and Poetry in Motion (poems in subway cars). And let's not forget various forms of guerrilla art, like graffiti, street theater, and public poetry readings.
--MaryAnn
(To reply, click here.)
Most of the time, American public sculpture didactically screams a few tone-deaf notes: "We can afford sculpture!" "We are soooo refined!" "We are willing to offend all the barbarians!" "Our artist is smarter than you!"
This so-called art generally lacks the expression of the refined skill of the artisan and the aesthetic appeal familiar from the classics, as well as the message and community function of the older public art.
We still honor individuals - but we do it differently; inscriptions, for example, persist. The rare examples of public art that honors people tend to do so through inscription, not depiction. We don't associate ourselves with these individuals - Adm. Nelson stands on his plinth in part to highlight his eternal membership in the community of Britain - they are proud of him, proud that he is one of them - but tombstones, including the lists at the vietnam memorial, put distance between the name and the community - we mourn the absence rather than celebrate the belonging.
As for ideals, like Winged Victory or Justice, or Mercy, we are no longer willing to claim their discomfiting presence in our midst. That would give too much potential credit to our internal foes. Some installations suggest that these luminaries have fled the community altogether, as the artist pretends to be, to represent, and to speak for, outsiders who are protesting the decadent community formed by his foes - and so his sculpture is meant to be ugly and offend, a great raised finger facing the people he believes drove away glory and greatness.
In short, sometimes the ruin brought on public spaces by the artist (like that wall from the slide show) is intentional, not a bad shot at beauty, but truly meant to offend, put there by people who believe they are better than the community, and not really part of it.
Beauty is often meant to be whimsy or sarcasm, and is often temporary... but one must acknowledge that it occasionally crops up in unexpected installations.
Why would we not be better returning to a somewhat more hagiographic style, in which we praise and honor through heroic depiction, people and virtues we desire, rather than filling our gaze and focus with (and spending our money on) things that are ugly, abhorrent, the product of self-righteous imagined superiority by those who think they are our betters?
--BenK
(To reply, click here.)
While home for two weeks on leave from military service I walked hand-in-hand with the woman who I loved through The Gates in Central Park which for a number of reasons will remain a high point in my own miserable moment in this world. Andy Warhol told us, "In the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes." A true American Andy exhibited unwarranted optimism. At least Christo and Jean-Claude gave us an hour together in a world-famous crowd and we did not even have to make a stand for or against anything more than the simple pleasures of walking hand-in-hand through the park on a sunny afternoon.
I also walked (alone) through Trafalger Square in 2003 enroute to the National Gallery on the afternoon following seeing Accidental Death of an Anarchist at the Donmar Warehouse and glanced at Admiral Nelson but was much too early to see the newer target for pigeon-powered-patina Alison Lapper Pregnant.
Any public sculpture which says, 'see, I'm not a dictator' is refreshing but those which do not overstay their welcome are easily the most enjoyable and memorable. Carry on.
--wmccomninel
(To reply, click here.)
It is misleading to discuss the enlightened use of public spaces as a "sculpture" problem. The issue is how to enhance our enjoyment of public spaces gracefully. One of my favorite public spaces is the courtyard of Louisiana Museum north of Copenhagen. It is a delightful cluster of Calder stabiles/mobiles overlooking the Oresund between Denmark and Sweden. Half the kick is that it is a kind of permanent visual dessert for the museum's dining terrace. Parks full of trees planted by thoughtful individuals for a specific memorial purpose are equally commendable. In my hometown Philadelphia the retrieval of slum brownfields on behalf of community vegetable gardens beats Richard Serra's steel gymnastics every time. Modernism's by now longstanding farce of a failure to equate quirky innovations with High Civilization has been superseded by canny designs to save our public spaces from utter devastation. As long as the Cultural Deep Thinkers believe that more Bilbao Effects is the answer to our bleak public spaces, we will have to dodge intellectual Tilted Arcs in our efforts to enhance daily life with simple pleasures. Koons' Puppy love of flowers needs to return to an earth that has dramatically deteriorated all over the globe throughout the century of Modernism's esthetic malarkey. Marcel Duchamp's urinalysis turns out to be a dumb joke. Flowers are smarter.
--hazardweimar
(To reply, click here.)
(9/27)