Public Art Review issue 10 - 1994 (spring/summer)

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PublicArtReview

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: DENNIS A D A M S , PEGGY DIGGS, M A R Y JANE JACOB, STREET P A I N T I N G , REVIEWS, LISTINGS, & M O R E

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a p r o j e c t of

FORECAST Public Artworks

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COMPOSITION* *

R T INT o!

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A n n o u n c i n g

ACTION Mel Chin. "i\i\i>bt Wrap" l.ciris. "Cod eivr chcmiie" \Lrf1...1 J

a listing of more than 400 artists experienced in working in the public arena.

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THE GUILD REGISTER of Public Art,

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The ninth edition of THE GUILD (out in March 1994) will help our 8,000 users in the architectural community find artists who create everything from site-specific sculpture to large murals.

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JULY 25-29, 1 994 a multi-disciplinary, hands-on workshop program d e v o t e d t o activist, humanist P u b l i c Art

If you are an artist who has completed a public art commission over $10,000, call us about a free listing in THE GUILD REGISTER of Public Art. «

1 - 8 0 0 - 9 6 9 - 1 5 5 6 The S o u r c e b o o k o f Artists: Architect's Edition

Participants Include: Mel Chin, Topher Delaney, W e n d y Ewald, Suzanne Lacy, Joe Lewis, Judy Moonelis, Arlene Raven, John Roloff, Rachel Rosenthal, with additional guest For further

information

speakers please

contact:

A N D E R S O N R A N C H ARTS CENTER

P O Box 5 5 9 8 , Snowmass Village, C O 8 1 6 1 5 voice: 30 3 / 9 2 3 . 3 1 8 1 fax: 3 0 3 / 9 2 3 .3 8 7 1

Published by THE GUILD 228 State St., Madison, WI 53703

THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF ARTISTS' ORGANIZATIONS The 9th NAAO Conference will be held April 2 8 — M a y 1, 1 9 9 4 in Miami, FL & The conference will provide a forum to explore cultural balance and equity, working conditions in the field, community-based work, and survival ® A series of smaller working meetings will be held the two days prior to the conference and will include an artists' task force and meeting opportunities for other special interest groups.

For registration information: NAAO, 918 F STREET, NW/SUITE611, WASHINGTON, DC 20004 OR CALL (202) 347-6350.

National Call for Artists

B LI C RT

T h e P h i l a d e l p h i a O f f i c e of Arts & Culture and T h e P h i l a d e l p h i a International Airport a n n o u n c e a $ 1 5 0 , 0 0 0 public art c o m p e t i t i o n .

T h i s c o m p e t i t i o n is o p e n to all visual a n d s o u n d artists, particularly t h o s e that work in v i d e o , light, film, and photography. Proposals u s i n g imagery and/or t h e m e s specifically related to P h i l a d e l p h i a are strongly encouraged.

The deadline for submissions is May 2, 1994, 5:00pm.

For a detailed prospectus call 2 1 5 / 6 8 6 - 8 6 8 4 , or write to: Barbara Russell, P h i l a d e l p h i a Percent for Art P r o g r a m , O f f i c e o f Arts & Culture, 1 6 5 0 A r c h St., 19th F l o o r Philadelphia, P A 1 9 1 0 3

CONTENTS FEATURES

HERE & GONE: Temporary Public Art O n F e b r u a r y 25, C h r i s t o finally o b t a i n e d p e r m i s s i o n to p r o c e e d with his " W r a p p e d R e i c h s t a g " p r o j e c t , 2 3 y e a r s a f t e r initially p r o p o s i n g it to the G e r m a n g o v e r n m e n t . D e s p i t e the fact that C h r i s t o h a s f i n a n c e d this multimillion-dollar project h i m s e l f — h e accepts no grants or sponsors— the w o r k will be d i s p l a y e d f o r a m e r e t w o w e e k s !

T r a n s i t o r y p u b l i c art, f r o m sited installations to p e r f o r m a n c e e v e n t s , is a s u b j e c t m u c h too b r o a d and d e e p to t h o r o u g h l y c o v e r in o n e m a g a z i n e .

O u r goal with this issue o \ PAR is to shed s o m e light o n the m a n y f a c e t s of p u b l i c art that briefly exist o u t s i d e the i n s t i t u t i o n a l i z e d , c o m m e r c i a l ized, o r c o m m o d i f i e d w o r l d of art.

P u b l i c art that is f l e e t i n g raises m a n y critical issues i n c l u d i n g : the i m p o r t a n t role of c o n t e x t f o r m a n y artists c r e a t i n g s i t e - s p e c i f i c w o r k s ; the d i m e n s i o n of t i m e and its i n f l u e n c e on artists a n d a u d i e n c e s ; the i m p o r t a n c e of m e m o r y and d o c u m e n t a t i o n in p r e s e r v i n g o r i n t e r p r e t i n g shortlived w o r k s ; the n e e d to a c c o m o d a t e a variety of a u d i e n c e r e s p o n s e s ; a n d the n e e d f o r m o r e critics to b r i d g e the l a n g u a g e and cultural b a r r i e r s that limit a c c e s s i b i l i t y to m u c h of c o n t e m p o r a r y p u b l i c art. M o r e o v e r , d u e to its e p h e m e r a l nature, the s u c c e s s of t e m p o r a r y p u b l i c art m u s t o f t e n be m e a s u r e d u s i n g s e c o n d - or t h i r d - g e n e r a t i o n i n f o r m a t i o n . P e r h a p s o n l y t i m e will d e t e r m i n e the u l t i m a t e v a l u e of t h e s e e f f o r t s .

I w o u l d s u b m i t that t e m p o r a r y p u b l i c art h a s a g r e a t e r i m p a c t than its p e r m a n e n t c o u n t e r p a r t . A r t w o r k s seen on a daily basis c a n b e c o m e invisible or m e a n i n g l e s s o v e r t i m e , w h e r e a s i m a g e s or e v e n t s that c o m e a n d g o c a n be e t c h e d in o u r m e m o r i e s a n d h a v e a l o n g - l a s t i n g e f f e c t .

T e m p o r a r y w o r k s — u s u a l l y p r o d u c e d with a relatively small b u d g e t — a l l o w artists of m a n y d i f f e r e n t d i s c i p l i n e s t r e m e n d o u s f r e e d o m to e x p e r i m e n t . W i t h less " f e a r of r e j e c t i o n " i n v o l v e d than p e r m a n e n t w o r k s , and no long-term maintenance worries, temporary projects promote a broader a w a r e n e s s and a p p r e c i a t i o n of art as an integral part of the e n v i r o n m e n t .

A n d w h i l e c o n t r o v e r s y is s o m e t i m e s a f a c t o r , if y o u d o n ' t like it, it'll b e g o n e s o o n . If y o u do like it, y o u c o u l d — i n s o m e c a s e s — e x t e n d its stay, or s u p p o r t m o r e e f f o r t s of a s i m i l a r n a t u r e . A n d if y o u ' r e p l a n n i n g to build s o m e t h i n g p e r m a n e n t , testing the w a t e r s with t e m p o r a r y p r o j e c t s can b r i n g to the s u r f a c e m a n y of the i s s u e s a n d c o n c e r n s that m a y exist at a site or in a c o m m u n i t y .

I t ' s t i m e that m o r e f u n d e r s and c o m m u n i t y d e v e l o p e r s c o n s i d e r the m a n y b e n e f i t s of t e m p o r a r y p u b l i c a r t — a s c o u n t l e s s artists h a v e — a n d lend their s u p p o r t . It m a y m a k e s e n s e , g i v e n t o d a y ' s e c o n o m y and the results of p r o j e c t s s u c h as Titled Arc, to f o r g o p e r m a n e n t w o r k s , at least f o r the m o m e n t , in f a v o r of s h o r t - t e r m i n s t a l l a t i o n s and e v e n t s .

In the final a n a l y s i s , life is t e n u o u s . L e t ' s revel in the here and n o w , before it's here and gone.

—Jack Becker

Cover: Christo and his drawing for Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1993. (photo: Wolfgang Volz) © Christo

Project

For

PublicArtReview M a n a g i n g Editor: Bruce N. Wright Project M a n a g e r and Editorial Advisor: Jack Becker C o p y Editor: Judy Arginteanu Art Director, Design and Production: Shannon Brady Advertising Representatives: Kobi C o n a w a y & Jack Becker Editorial Advisory Board: A m a n d a Degener, Regina Flanagan, Patrice Clark Koelsch, Cathey Billian. Barbara Grygutis. Kinji Akagawa, Cheryl Miller. Fuller Cowles, Christine Podas-Larson.

Mariann Johnson, Gordon T h o m a s , Jerry Machalek, and Julie Marckel.

Everybody's Art

by Patricia C. Phillips Signatures in the Public Sphere

by Karin Giusti A Dialog With Mary Jane Jacob

by Nicholas Drake The Private is Public: Peggy Diggs and the System

by Patricia C. Phillips A Conversation With Dennis Adams

by Anna Novakov Lives on the Line: The Nature of Performance

by J. Otis Powell!

A Brief History of Performance Art

by Robyn Brentano Art in Your Own Front Yard

by Colleen Sheehy Govt. Approved Package: Christo to Wrap Reichstag

by Andrea Couture Street Painting: Profile of a 400-Year-0!d Tradition

by Cynthia Abramson

18 20 21 22 24 30

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PUBLIC ARTICLES Rising Above Our Garbage-Two Views

by Mickey Gustin and Deborah Karasov SOS! Update by Robert Schultz

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LISTINGS Updates, Opportunities, Publications, and Events Edited by Jack Becker

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© \994 Public Art Review (ISSN: 1040-21 l x ) i s published semi-annually

by F O R E C A S T Public Artworks, 2324 University A v e n u e West, Suite 102. Saint Paul. Minnesota U S A 5 5 1 1 4 Tel. (612) 641-1128. Annual subscription dues are U S $12 for U S A . $16 for C a n a d a , and $21 for foreign. Public Art Review is not responsible for unsolicited material.

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WORTHY OF NOTICE by Regina Flanagan

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REVIEWS Rafala Green's Gateway by Roy McBride 34 Transitory Gardens, Uprooted Lives by Carolyn Erler ....36 Orte: A Place for Public Art by Lilian Friedberg 37

T h a n k s to Steven Durland and Robyn Brentano for their assistance.

F O R E C A S T Board of Directors: Cheryl Kartes, Vicki Moore. Garth Rockcastle, Kit Wilson, T a - C o u m b a Aiken, Laura Migliorino, Ellen Messer-Davidow, Jan Heidinger, Tobi Tanzer, Susan Scofield

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DEPARTMENTS

Support for Public Art Review c o m e s f r o m the National E n d o w m e n t for the Arts, the McKnight Foundation, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, and Horncrest Foundation. Additional f u n d i n g for F O R E C A S T is provided by the C o w l e s Media Foundation; General Mills Foundation; James R. T h o r p e Foundation; Jerome Foundation; Honeywell Foundation; Center for Arts Criticism; Marbrook Foundation; Arts & E c o n o m i c Development Fund of the City of St. Paul; advertisers, subscribers and supporters of F O R E C A S T . T h a n k s to volunteers Ellen Valde, Jane Hopkins, Sara Solum, Ellen Petty, and Diann Parrot.

Published by F O R E C A S T Public Artworks M a n a g i n g Director: Paula Justich

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PUBLIC ART REVIEW SPRING/SUMMER

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Everybodys

Long-term Supporters of Temporary Public Art b y

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P h i l l i p s

Long-term support for temporary art may sound like an oxymoron, but organizations around the nation are engaged in this very endeavor. In Chicago, New York, Minnesota, and Northern California, groups have been providing a framework for this essential, yet ephemeral art form.

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he myriad organizations that have emerged in the past 20 years to support and stimulate public art generally fall into two categories, both indispensable to each other. Throughout the nation there are city, state, and federal percent-for-art initiatives which designate a part of a construction budget for the acquisition or production of public art. There also are many other agencies, working more autonomously, that have enabled the successful distribution of permanent public art. The other group of organizations, frequently receiving both public and private funding, has accepted an alternative role in contemporary public art. These vital, agile organizations provide opportunities for artists to create temporary work in cities, communities, and other urban spaces. While the landscape of permanent works provides people with a repository of visions reflecting the changing conditions of public life, temporary work functions in a field of speculation that may identify how the unpredictable branches of reality might grow.

Over the years, I have been an enthusiastic advocate for temporary projects because the lessons provided and the issues raised are valuable for artists and arts agencies, not to mention the communities and constituencies that may serve as the site, subject, and audience of the art. While all arts organizations are always at risk—vigilance, vision, and perseverance are the name of the game—the agencies that encourage ephemeral work always seem a little more fragile— perhaps more vulnerable when arts funding is on the decline. After all, skeptics may ask why the money used to support a program or project that is willfully short-lived cannot be used to produce a lasting project—isn't this a more sound investment? And philosophically,

isn't permanent work a more essential engagement of a site and commitment to a community?

There is a place and a need for both enduring and ephemeral public art so that stability and speculation, practice and theory, enduring values and more topical issues can ensure that public art does not become too platitudinous or inscrutable to the audiences it once set out to reach. The point is not to identify and consolidate a "public art audience" as if it were one step removed from a museum audience, but to encourage a range of public art practices that engage different audiences—for different durations and situations. The relation of "public" and "audience" remains a puzzling question; by looking more critically at the dynamics and contrasts of enduring and ephemeral projects, we may begin to understand how a new conception of audience functions as the critical idea of public art in the late 20th century.

Activating Culture In 1983, Sculpture Chicago was formed to bring the practice and production of art normally encountered in the haven of the museum or gallery into the streets. The organization began by sponsoring biennial juried exhibitions for emerging artists to create their work for public view. Assembled at a single outdoor site, "Public View" was a focused, centralized initiative—not so dramatically different from the conditions of the gallery or museum. In the late 1980s more

LEFT: Tibor Kalman and Scott Stowell, EVERYBODY (detail), 1993, 158 West 42nd St. NY, black and "taxi" yellow paint on plywood, with chairs, sponsored by Creative Time, (photo: Maggie Hopp) TOP: Marina Alvarez and Ellen Spiro, (In)Visible Women, still from 26-minute video focusing on the "heroic and positive" response of Latina women to the AIDS crisis. Produced by Jonathan Lee, sponsored by Creative Time, 1991. (photo: Ellen Spiro)

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recognized artists including Vito Acconci, Judith Shea, and Richard Sen a were invited to Chicago to create works on the Equitable Plaza, a busy center-city site. With the exception of Acconci's "Floor Clock" (a wry look at time and space as the rotating hands of a clock periodically swept participants off the plaza benches), which was resited at another plaza, all of Sculpture Chicago's summer projects were temporary.

A decade after its thoughtful, if cautious, beginnings, the organization radically departed from its previous conception and practice of ephemeral public art. Independent curator Mary Jane Jacob, expanding on the innovations she began in Charleston, SC with "Places with a Past: New Site-Specific Art in Charleston" (1991), constructed a decentralized, process-oriented temporary public art program called "Culture in Action." Eight artists and artist teams developed projects based on a particular conception of community. Whether community was identified as the women of the city, people with AIDS, residents of a housing project, employees at a factory, or teenagers in a particular neighborhood, many "Culture in Action" artists worked in contexts far from the city center, producing work that was possibly consumable, alterable, educational, or "eventful."

Critics, artists, curators, and arts administrators have been discussing—even arguing about—"Culture in Action" since its inception.

Even before the ephemeral projects concluded or disappeared, skeptics were asking, "Where's the art?" The complex nature of its realization has only fanned the flames of controversy.

This radical project left few assumptions about public art, perception, distribution, and the roles of artists—and curators—unchallenged. Whether it can serve as a blueprint for other cities and communities remains to be seen. Can such powerful, often unruly ideas flourish at other sites without the vision and tenacity of the originator?

Sculpture Chicago's "Culture in Action" did confirm the response temporary public work can generate in communities, cities, and the art world. The project raised significant questions and issues that have re-energized a dialog on public art that had become laggard and listless. While the best permanent work stimulates discourse about the past and present of cities, temporary work encourages and empowers us to imagine how the future can develop, our roles in its formation, and the kind of partnership it will have with the past.

dynamic agent in the city.

In its 20th year. Creative Time is a brilliant, maverick organization with staying power. Sponsoring a daunting range of annual projects (many of which address risky and disturbing subjects), it has balanced the rhythm of annual programs—like "Art in the Anchorage" which invites collaborative groups of artists to produce environmental and / or performance works in the dark, dank vaults of the Brooklyn Bridge—with special, often timely, events. Whether sponsoring a public poem by Karen Finley on the Lower East Side, an evolving, ambitious installation by Martha Fleming and Lyne La Pointe in the Battery Maritime Building, or a recent series of performances by women about health care called "Body Politics," Creative Time has sustained one of the most spirited, experimental forums for public art as temporary presentation.

In spite of the planning and resources required to orchestrate so many different projects, the organization's work is characterized by energy, urgency, and vision. Art functions as an instrument to study the structures and circulation of the civic body. In summer 1993, Creative Time organized the "42nd Street Art Project," which brought artists to one of the most tawdry sections of the street (between Eighth Avenue and Times Square) to install ephemeral projects. Jenny Holzer used the dormant surfaces of old theater marquees to present disquieting aphorisms from her "Truisms" and "Survival" series. Liz Dillerand Ric Scofidio's "Soft Sell" projected huge, red lips through the doors of the Rialto Theater. The sounds of seductive phrases at this sealed entrance offered frustrating refrains of unsatisfied arousal.

Other artists used abandoned storefronts, security gates, and the sidewalks. With remarkable resonance, these temporary projects recalled the history of this anxious urban site.

LEFT: David Hall and Laurie Van Wieren, Implement, 20-minute pyrotechnic performance with the B-Specifics and Savage Aural Hotbed, September 12,1993, Loring Park, Minneapolis. One of FORECAST'S Public Art Affairs projects, (photo: courtesy the artist) BELOW: Fernando Botero, Torso (Man), 1992, bronze, 153" x 98" x 65", part of Public Art Fund's Botero in New York exhibition on Park Avenue at 57th St., September 7 - November 14,1994. (photo: John Maggiotto)

Institutional Flexibility Two organizations in New York City have devotedly enabled artists to make temporary work in the city while continually adjusting their objectives and agendas. The Public Art Fund officially began in 1977, an offspring of cultural organizations that emerged in the early 1970s to bring art into the urban environment. The Fund secured many sites for temporary projects, primarily sculptures and murals.

These activities have continued for almost two decades: In fall 1993 a procession of Fernando Botero's gargantuan bronze sculptures were installed along Park Avenue from 54th to 61st streets. And a plaza that marks the southern edge of Central Park (now named Doris C. Freedman Plaza in memory of the visionary founder of the Public Art Fund) has hosted projects by Jenny Holzer, Alan Sonfist, Mark di Suvero, Alice Aycock, and many others over the years.

But the Public Art Fund has continued to broaden its agenda. In an appropriationist initiative in the 1980s, the Public Art Fund negotiated with Spectracolor Signboard to provide opportunities for a changing roster of artists to design 20-second spots for its huge sign in Times Square. Over six years, many artists created "Messages to the Public" about political and social events. These artist interludes appeared in the midst of advertising for banks, home furnishings, and every other imaginable "Big Apple" enticement. The project provided a rare opportunity to consider the kinship of advertising and activism.

One of the most recent projects has commissioned five artists to develop garden proposals for selected city sites. "Urban Paradise: Gardens in the City" begins this spring with an exhibition of proposals at the PaineWebber Gallery, with the expectation that some of the gardens will be realized.Whether the mutable character of an urban garden—its inherent theatricality—constitutes a temporary project that is reinvented each spring, the Public Art Fund has never strayed far from its founding premises—a mission that enables art to be a

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Interactive Opportunities While the Public Art Fund and Creative Time have set their sights on the city, other organizations support temporary projects in a regional context. Based in St. Paul, Minn., Forecast Public Artworks was founded 15 years ago. Its two major programs are "Public Art Affairs" and this publication, the semi-annual Public Art Review. The former provides funding for Minnesota artists to create public events, performances, or installations throughout the state. Accepting the complex processes involved in the production of public art, the grants can be used to support research and development or to realize a particular, temporary project. At a time of such critical and programmatic change in public art, the availability of money to conduct research is important—but all too rare. Like the annual Hirsch Farm Project, an interdisciplinary forum dealing with public art and communities based in Hillsboro, Wis., and funded by Howard Hirsch and organized each year by Mitchell Kane, Forecast's "R & D Stipends" provide invaluable opportunities for artists to speculate and experiment. Recent "R & D " recipients will use their awards in a variety of ways. Alberto Justiniano will work on an interactive play that concerns the alarming drop-out rate among Hispanic high school students. Erik Roth will prepare an ecological inventory of two Minnesota sites. Negotiating the natural and human histories of Cedar Lake and Bluff Creek in Minneapolis, his research may provide data for new forms of interpretive paths.

Public Art Works, based in San Rafael, Calif., has as its mission to "engage the public in consideration of the relationship between art, place, and the community." Through interactive opportunities for artists and communities, educational programs, and temporary exhibitions that enable artists to engage the mission's tripartite relationships, the organization has sustained a vital forum in the region for over a decade. While the organization does support permanent works (there is no other public art program in Marin County), the "Temporary Works Program" has offered a flexible instrument to consider public art issues.

In 1991 a section of old, virtually unused railroad tracks became the site of investigation for four artists and artist groups to consider the dramatic decline of this once-vital circulation system in Marin County. In 1992, Public Art Works began "Art-in-Print," which commissions artists to create printed matter that is distributed to a general audience. Temporary projects can allow artists to be activist, topical, and timely. Planned ephemerality can also test and challenge systems of access and distribution—proposing new conceptions of audience participation—where most permanent work cannot.

While there are numerous examples of annual festivals/events that have a visual arts dimension, many are unremarkable forms of entertainment. A notable exception is Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Festival, which reliably includes a public art program with an agenda far more ambitious than the placement of pleasing amenities. The organizers embrace this annual event as a unique opportunity to PUBLIC ART REVIEW SPRING/SUMMER

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support temporary public art work that is fundamentally connected to the historical, cultural, and environmental character of the city.

The 1993 festival's "Sculpture at the Point" exhibition included outdoor installations by Dennis Adams, Bob Bingham, Suzanne Lacy, and Donald Lipski. None of the projects represented the usual "lite" fare for a summer festival. Suzanne Lacy created an installation on domestic violence. Before the project, Lacy, who has worked with many communities and groups, collaborated with the staff and survivors of the W o m e n ' s Center and Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh.

Her project, "Underground," was organized around a long spine of railroad tracks laid in a bucolic park setting. The tracks recalled the industrial history of the city, as well as a metaphorical path to freedom and opportunity—the image of the train as part of the nation's frontier mythology, or Harriet T u b m a n ' s Underground Railroad that created a circuit of safe havens for slaves on their way north to freedom.

Along the tracks were rusted, crumpled, junk cars. If the tracks were a passage to hope and help, the cars contained the ghastly stories and statistics of domestic abuse. But the final car along the route, filled with suitcases and stories of escape, offered a vision—if not the vehicle—of hope for battered women.

The terminus of the tracks was a telephone booth with an interactive line, where participants could learn where to get help or leave their own messages and meditations. Like the phone booth, "Underground" had its own endpoint. As a temporary work it focused unerringly on a profound social problem. For a short time, the artist used the harrowing private stories of abused women to create a participatory public environment.

Whether "Underground" could have ever been installed or succeeded as a permanent work anywhere is uncertain. But I have less doubt that the image and meaning of her work is seared into many souls who saw and experienced its powerful—and ephemeral— presence. I suspect that, like Lacy's project, there are many brief interludes of public art that leave a direct and lasting effect.

In a magnificent inversion of more conventional public art assumptions (if there is a plaza there can be art; public art goes "here" and not "there"), the 1994 Three Rivers Festival will organize a series of temporary public art projects for city plazas entitled "Sculpture in the Plaza." The experimental objectives of this summer program will be brought directly to the city, leaving its former park-like context for more urban investigations.

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Temporary public work remains a promising laboratory to orchestrate the controls and variables that, every now and then, lead to new findings. Of course, there need to be critics, theorists, arts organizers and administrators, curators, and artists who will creatively and consciously interpret the significant results of ephemeral work.

Without these and many other initiatives and organizations public art could easily become too much about the fine-tuning of theories, assumptions, and procedures. The organizations that enable artists to work within the freedom and limitations of a short-lived situation are an essential form of long-term research.

Patricia C. Phillips is an independent critic and chair of the art department at the State University of New York, New Paltz.

Konstantine Bokov, Reclamation Project, installed April, 1989. found objects, assembled under the Brooklyn Bridge, (photo: Tuen Voeten)

Signatures in the Public Sphere Temporary Public Art, New York, Summer/Fall 1993 b y

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his review looks at temporary public art projects and how they embody new currents in public art, as it continually defines its position in the public sphere. Here, the "public" is more specifically the general public of New York City in 1993, a bustling and vibrant community made ever more diverse by the influx of immigrants from all over the world.

Think of the "public sphere" as an immense gray matter, where ideas flow in a phantasmagoric parade. You can think of the public sphere as an adventure in channel surfing with a TV remote control.

Ideas flash by, vying for attention and the chance to impart their value.* Enter temporary public art, with its media compatibility and its special status that allows it to express viewpoints of current concern because it is "only temporary." We find that it operates very well in the public sphere. In this light, it is easy to see how the temporary public art projects in New York this season are offering myriad visual ideas and viewpoints that hold their own. adding to the debate in the public domain via the public, who experience the work in person and through the media.

And as sure as heat rises, the best projects seemed to rise to the top of each exhibition venue. In the outdoor installation events from summer/fall 1993, there was especially lively participation. The raucous and ready installations at some sites approached the campiness of junkyard sculpture ghettoes because of the crowded mass of

projects. Yet certain works were to emerge from the site like a tree growing in Brooklyn, or in this case. Long Island City.

Socrates Park Installations Such was the case this past year at Socrates Park, Long Island City, a site much beloved by sculptors. Installations were so numerous that it seemed as though one could barely move. This park, founded in 1986 through the efforts of sculptor Mark di Suvero, reflects an austere beauty intimately known to the tool-using variety of sculptors. It is set on the banks of the East River, and even though the view of the city and Roosevelt Island hint at modernity, there is a primitiveness of fire and steel that heightens o n e ' s senses. T w o pieces at this site were particularly engaging in their temporalityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;they were built to disintegrateâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;as well as their materiality.

There was first a huge, outwardly unappealing shelter clinging to a tree and overhanging the East River. The work of artist Bozidar Kemperle, it looked like a giant excretion and was designed to decompose over time. You could enter this monstrous cocoon, and feel the floors shift underfoot. Yet its primitive construction still offered a sense of comfort.

Another poetic piece was a project by artist Simon Lee, an offering of 3-foot stacks of unfired bricks, atop an 8-foot-high steel table.

Although elegantly simple and minimalist, the project carried the notion of diametrical opposition to the usual presuppositions about bricks as a solid foundation, since the sculpture is designed to decompose over time. Indeed, a pile of dust on the ground testified

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that it had already begun to do so.

The diversity and sheer number of participants in this show made it an event unto itself this season, so much so that the nature of a season overview meant it was hard to do justice to all the artists. Yet the show itself indicated some subtextual reasons for such a vigorous participation in temporary projects this year.

of San Francisco, sponsored by "Dancing in the Streets," an internationally recognized producer of performances in public spaces. Over 200 spectators at the performance looked on while the life cycle of the butterfly, a metaphor for human development and transformation, unfolded for 70 minutes through six sites and stages of the performance in the abandoned garden.

Certain after-images remain, like the picture of Sheila Lopez's embryonic state in "The Egg," part two of the performance, drifting weightlessly in the sculpture prop, a water-filled plexiglass tank on legs.

In this fantastic diversion from real time, the sponsors carry out their mission to gain more recognition for the performing arts as a public art forum as well as to use real-life settings as formats to display their programs. Roosevelt Island is a gold mine of spaces to explore and expand upon.

Sculpture Center at Roosevelt Island For the past few years, temporary public art venues have been worked by artists as an option to gain access to an audience outside the usual gallery and museum formats. Established as well as emerging artists participated heavily in this type of program this season, maybe in part because of the lackluster performance of established art institutions in New York. Many institutions and galleries postponed orcurtailed their regular business, or shut down altogether. While most art institutions were forced to restructure their priorities, the 66-year-old Sculpture Center of New York, with much courage and bravado, christened a new public access project. "Sculpture Center at Roosevelt Island" is the new addition, in partnership with the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp. To understand their particular site, one must imagine a self-contained island of concrete, a habitat whose sole purpose is to run smoothly for the 8,000odd residents that live there.

In fact, life on Roosevelt Island is sublime, with violent crime almost non-existent. Yet it has the official and only "Main Street, New York."

Introduced into this environment were six projects placed around an extraordinary urban space using a huge cavernous area beneath the roadway to Roosevelt Island, extending out to a large plaza, above which was the main transit depot and Motorgate inside an eight-story atrium.

One particularly successful project was a massive 40-foot diameter of 105 stripped bicycles, each hovering above a place designed for it in the concrete Sheila Lopez (in tank), Joanna Haigood, The Egg, part bicycle rack below. The piece by Lisa two of a performance on Roosevelt Island, NY, 1993.

Hein, "The Last Roundup," looked Performed by Zaccho Dance Theatre, produced by like a giant halo or maybe a crown of Dancing in the Streets (water-filled tank created by thorns, representing the good intenReiko Goto), (photo: Charles Wemple) tions as well as the failures of urban planners. Ephemeral and lacy on one hand, yet like a thistle of barbed wire, the installation is multi valenced.

Another well suited sculpture looks like a giant steel spore under the Motorgate. Closer investigation reveals small slits in its armor to allow posting guard from inside. Yet the pod is open, and viewers can investigate the inner chambers.

The work was well received and a second exhibition is already planned for next season with new projects.

From the perspective of a city planner, temporary is good. Ask Alyce Russo, an MIT graduate in city planning and construction management and the chief overseer of Roosevelt Island Operating Corp.'s art projects, both permanent and temporary. Russo is committed to progressive programming on the island and questions why capital planning couldn't include commissioning, say, an opera or another type of interdisciplinary event. As she sees it, rotating projects give people a reason to come back to the island and view it as a place that's vibrant and always changing.

An animation of this desire was the site-specific "Cho-Mu (Butterfly Dreams)," a performance installation by choreographer Joanna Haigood and visual artist Reiko Goto for the South Garden on Roosevelt Island. This was presented by the Zaccho Dance Theatre

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Ward's Island Another island host in last season's temporary public art exhibitions was Ward's Island home to the Manhattan Psychiatric Center. The exhibition, sponsored by the Organization of Independent Artists, was one of the largest, with over 50 participants, and was open to the 1,500 employees and 900 residents of the psychiatric center.

Wending your way through the many installations, you were inevitably drawn off the beaten track to find relief from the institutional monotony of the grounds, only to happen on a couple of the most engaging pieces of the exhibition.

One piece was an outpost sectioned off at the very edge of the property, festooned with a choice collection of found objects, high-heeled shoes, elaborately arranged tin boxes in small section areas, visually catalogued and almost fetishistically groomed with the care of a bonsai gardener. An aerial vie w of a battlefield made from plastic toy soldiers was a clue that this installation (not on the artists' directory list) was a glimpse from the inner circle of residents of the psychiatric center. Although this was one of the best installations I had seen al I summer, the artist refuses to acknowledge the work.

The other piece slightly off the exhibition route was a single golden tree in a forest. Artist Beth Haggart had very meticulously gilded the tree so that you could see it even for the forest surrounding it. The piece became a mecca for those who knew about it and a transcendental medium for those seeking spiritual uplift.

Long Island University Show While Ward Island manifests an institutional air, the Long Island University campus gave off a utilitarian feel. In one of the most epic pieces this season, artist Eve Sussman captured this purposefulness by exploring the ideas of form and function in a 24-foot windpowered water wheel. The piece boldly claimed for its production two buildings and the 6-foot-wide alley between them. Enclosures at each end allowed a pool of water to form in the alley.

The pieces were exquisitely sited, an arrangement stemming from a careful consideration of the sensitivities of all the sculptors. Small wonder, then, that the curator of the installations turned out to be Marion Griffiths, the director of the Sculpture Center of New York, who had her hands full earlier in the summer piloting the new "Sculpture on Roosevelt Island." She has shown herself to be tireless in her commitment to energizing sculpture as a medium.

Robert Ressler, In Search of "The New World, "1992, New York, wood, steel, tar, 12'6" x 32" x 64", in cooperation with the NYC Dept. of Transportation, (photo: Steven Hans Lindner)

Metro Tech and the 42nd Street Art Project The Metro Tech Art Works program, organized by the Public Art Fund, is installed in the Metro Tech Center in Brooklyn. This is a site that is self-composed and designed to answer all its own needs. Yet the projects incorporated into this site add to the environment there.

An introspective piece by Stephen Rueckert consisted of a 4-foothigh, 7-foot by 7-foot chambered box displaying sculpted mechanical and electronic components. It proved to be very engaging and was endlessly fascinating to the community.

The 42nd Street Art Project, unlike the aforementioned venues, was less an addition to the community and more a total reclamation project. This high-profile, heavily packaged temporary multimedia public project was sponsored by The 42nd Street Development Corp. and Creative Time, Inc. Twelve projects were installed in a largely abandoned area near Times Square, an area that used to be New Y o r k ' s seamiest entertainment district and now awaits redevelopment.

Artists Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel incorporated their installations into the historic Selwyn Theatre, empty now and awaiting its next incarnation. In "Mimesis," one gets a sense of the past lifetime of this theatre, as step-by-step shoeprints in the floor take you f r o m the ticket window, through the glass doorway into a seemingly neverending mirrored facade. Vintage clothes hanging in rows on each side accompany the shoeprints.

Jenny Holzer's "Truisms and Survival" series is genuinely at home installed along the multitude of abandoned theatre marquees. Especially poignant are aphorisms like "Murder Has Its Sexual Side."

Yet the seminal piece in this group of work was a giant billboard on the street level on Times Square proclaiming: E V E R Y B O D Y !

Chairs affixed to the billboard seemed to be used by a good general sampling of N e w Y o r k ' s "everybody." The piece by Tibor Kalman and Scott Stowell helps reclaim this coiner as a crossroads of the world, (see photo, p. 4) "Absolut Bokov," Robert Ressler and Jude Schwerderwein Another reclamation project this summer/fall season was "Absolut Bokov." Konstantine B o k o v ' s work represents another category of temporary projects in the public arena. He initiates most of his projects, rather than waiting for funding or a go-ahead f r o m an outside source. He does not permanently alter spaces. Rather, he embellishes them with found elements that become elaborately reworked projects in his studio.

His reclamation projects have been in abandoned and empty spaces under the Brooklyn Bridge or South Seaport, on the walkway of the George Washington Bridge and the streets of Soho, Fort Lee. NJ, and Far Rockaway, Long Island. His subject varies, yet is always recognizable as he carefully reworks recycled elements into site installations or into the portable pieces with which he adorns the streets.

Ownership is not an issue, as he sees himself collaborating with the public. He feels that if his works disappear, it is because they are liked.

If they are removed or destroyed, their usefulness to the public has ended.

In fact, Bokov, who came to these shores f r o m Russia in 1975, has caught the attention of collectors, and it is rumored that his works can

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significant attention in the temporary public arena this season was Jude Schwerderwein, whose psycho-drama comic strip piece was an instant collectible. A poster measuring about 2 feet by I foot, it was published in Cover magazine this fall. Printed matter has a way of posing questions of authenticity and even authorship which are not issues for the squeamish when debating public art.

Yet as the formats for reaching the public expand, issues of public vs. private art disintegrate and the issue becomes "accessibility"— who can access these formats, who can receive. In Schwerderwein's piece, subject matter is a personal chronology of victories and defeats of the "REAL C O M I C S " hero, all personal, painful, and public.

As media access channels open up a major shift in public art may well be its inclusion of the private realm. Subjects not originally meant for public art in the public plaza will begin to find their way to this very public by other means. This does not necessarily mean that the work will be overtly political, even while politics are very public.

Lisa Hein, Last Roundup/Planner's Folly, 1993,105 stripped bicycles suspended above existing bike rack, 40' diameter, as part of Sculpture Center's Sculpture Center at Roosevelt Island, NY. (photo: the artist)

be found in collections that would surprise the connoisseur. All the same, his popularity with the public is evident in the "Find the Bokov" contest announced in the New York Daily News last season. That newspaper sponsored a contest to locate one of his portable masks installed somewhere in Soho.

But the artist himself works in public to make it clear that "art is for the people" and it is a matter of principle to him. Although some of his work is politically motivated, he resists sponsorship because he feels that no matter who sponsors him, he will eventually have to pay the piper. Bokov has an improvisational element in his work and feels that organized project formats amount to an erasure of his signature.

Robert Ressler, like Bokov, insists on his own agenda and prefers to find his own format. Ressler specializes in artist-initiated temporary installations. To Ressler, the most important thing is connecting with the general public, and the greatest place for individual freedom is temporary outdoor works. His summer/fall show at Wave Hill, a Bronx horticultural and environmental study center with lavish grounds on the banks of the Hudson, was a culmination of a number of his projects in New York City.

Two recurring motifs in this exhibition are a giant armadillo and a giant female dog. The dog is a familiar signature piece of Ressler's— many will recognize it from a previous site in New York City. The work is handsomely crafted from fallen trees and is large and generous in spirit.

Another individual who produced a signature piece that invited

Promotional Copy Another fascinating public access project this season was "Promotional Copy." A New York election night party at the Guggenheim Museum Soho and the Dia Center for the Arts celebrated the first "Yellow Pages of the International Arts Community." The raucous event, organized by Robin Kahn, visual artist and editor of "Promotional Copy," was reminiscent of '60s happenings, closing down Mercer Street the evening of its presentation. Scheduled and impromptu performances were given by artists, writers, and musicians as the "Yellow Pages" went on sale at the Guggenheim Museum, while the Dia Center for the Arts showed artist videos.

The yellow pages directory was an "inclusive" project of promotional (conceptual) pieces of over 200 artists under directory assistance. Titles ranged from "Astroturf' to "Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z." It was the brainstorm of Kahn, printed in an edition of 3,000 and distributed commercially, and it carries a clear and unambiguous message: ANTI-COPYRIGHT. The public can access this project through the publisher, Mimi Somerby, at (718) 330-0464. The book is meant to be copied by the general public without fear of copyright infringement suits. Its authorship is meant to be accessible and user-friendly.

•••

Clearly, this season abounded in temporary public art projects in New York City. The energy and diversity of the art could only be matched by the ever-changing flux of the city' s denizens and even of the restless lively spirit of the city itself.

Karin Giusti is an artist active in the field of temporary and permanent public projects, and frequently writes about art theory and public art. * The concept of "public sphere" in this survey, as in so many essays, books, and articles redefining public art lately, comes from The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere by Jurgen Habermas, a German philosopher and social theoretician. Oddly enough, this text was only recently translated and made widely available in the United States.

Prologue: Public Art as Free Speech Why so many academicians, critics and artists are all interested in Habermas' text on public art is that it examines issues at the very epicenter of the field, issues like delineating between public and private in a democratic society. The text elucidates why it is so important to have an uncensored debate and a free flow of information in order to keep a healthy democracy.

So it is no small wonder that this work has proved to be a vital dissertation for an artistic community struggling against governmental attempts in the 1980s and '90s to lay down the rules for artistic endeavor. When debate is stifled, especially for the visual arts, and artistic productions are prevented from appearing in public

museums, plazas and hence in newspapers, on TV, in literary and trade publications, there is a serious tampering with the flow of information natural to a working democratic state of affairs.

There needs to be a free flow of ideas in an ongoing debate which operates in a neutral zone, not overly influenced by governmental dictates, nor by the privatized. In this domain, ideas can be bandied about at a rapid pace so that out of it comes a general consensus where the public has made up its mind.

Editor's note: The next issue ot PAR will address this growing controversy freedom of artistic expression in the public realm.

surrounding

David Hammons, America Street, 1991, from Places with a Past, Charleston, SC. (photo: John McWilliams)

Making Art Happen

A Dialog With Mary Jane Jacob b y

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ditor's Note: Mary Jane Jacob is an independent curator noted for her work on the national and international contemporary art scene. In the 1980s Jacob staged some of the first retrospectives and surveys of key artists during her tenure as chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and later of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, arranging shows for Dieter Roth, Gordon Matta-Clark, and John Baldessari, among many others. In 1989 she assembled a major sur\'ey of American art from the 1980s, "A Forest of Signs: Art in the Crisis of Representation. " In 1991, Ms. Jacob was curator of the Spoleto Festival USA 's 15th anniversary exhibition, "Places with a Past: New Site-Specific A rt in Charleston, " the largest visual arts project ever undertaken by the Festival in America or at its home base in Italy. A.? program director for Sculpture Chicago, Jacob conceived and directed "Culture in Action: New Public Art in Chicago," summer 1993. Artist Nicholas Drake interviewed Jacob about her experience in organizing the "Places with a Past" show for the Spoleto Festival, Charleston, and her thoughts on the changing nature of public art today.

Nicholas Drake: Now that several years have passed since "Places with a Past," and you have had time to reflect upon the public art process, what impressions linger?

Mary Jane Jacob: One of the main issues has to do with the approach. None of the artists who were brought into Charleston were flippant about their work and how they approached the place. Now that I have worked on "Culture in Action" in Chicago, which involved artists working hand-in-hand with people in the community over a two-year period, it does make the earlier approach seem very quick.

1 now think that the process can work in several ways. The stewardship and dialog out of which projects develop is really critical.

This exists on a staff level, the people involved in administering or curating each project, and the others who help in carrying it out. I think that it also must work on the level that you played, for example, in Charleston: those key individuals who represent the local, as well as the artistic community.

These people, who can come into developmental discussions involving both artists and non-artists, are the ones that can find relevance in having artists become "cultural workers" on their turf, even though it's not always where the artists themselves live. I don't think that you can solve the problem or ensure that you're making a significant work for a place by solely selecting people who are fulltime residents of that place.

Drake: You mean it's a symbiotic relationship?

Jacob: It not only has to be symbiotic, but stimulating and active. I don't think that you can do these kinds of projects in isolation. We don't necessarily see our own environments most clearly, so there is some value in having the so-called outsider present another view, which might be questioning, which might be enlightening, which might simply be different. The determining factor is not necessarily whether one lives there or not, but exactly how such projects are undertaken.

There are those who criticize these kinds of site exhibitions, without ever having been involved in them themselves. They claim that the artists are just "parachuting" in. Whether good or bad. doing "Places with a Past" in Charleston, though not the first exhibition of its kind, did seem to bring some US attention to site-specific work.

We now seem to have a lot more of these shows. "Places with a Past" seems to have taken place at a chronologically pivotal position, which

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Ann Hamilton, Indigo Blue, 1991, from Places with a Past, Charleston, SC. (photo: John McWilliams)

has led to some snowballing. Most important is the value of this process; the depth of involvement of a place and the reconceptualization of resources to support that artistic inquiry, along with the development of a work, is very different from the usual way that we organize exhibitions from inside a museum.

Site exhibitions then, shouldn't be allowed to disappear because some people believe it's exploitive for artists to go to other cities, parachuting in to work, or because it was the hot thing last year and now we should move on to the next; it's not a style. It's a very interesting approach. But in order to make that approach work, we must recognize that neither the artist nor the curator hold all the answers, and that there needs to be continued flexibility and questioning, that lead to both conceptual ideas and institutional means to carry that out.

Drake: This understanding of yours must have developed between the Charleston exhibition and the work that you just did in Chicago?

Jacob: Take, for instance, David H a m m o n s ' piece, which was much celebrated for its relevance to the black ghetto, and for David's hands-on approach. This hands-on approach lasted for only a few weeks. That was one of the few pieces where there was really people contact. There might have been some in the others, in terms of research, but then the actual implementation was object-focused.

D a v i d ' s work stayed people-focused, but it was frustrating. The more he got into it, the more time he needed, but we had an opening deadline to meet.

So I think that when you get into an approach that involves people that there needs to be a lot of time for those relationships. It might have been radical in 1990 and 1991 to have had artists spending up to a few months of time cumulatively in Charleston, coming back on sequen-

tial trips. But for these kinds of projects, you need even more.

In the Chicago project, artists either lived here or were commuter residents here for two years. Mark Dion came every week for a year.

After coming for a few research trips, he then taught a weekly class, from September '92 through June of '93, to the kids who became his collaborators. Finally, he moved here and worked with them all summer long.

How long you spend and w h o ' s allowed to work where is an important issue. This redefinition of how the artist operates, and how the institution conceives itself is quite critical.

I have come in contact with several organizations under the auspices of a festival or as a new program, which aspire to do a site exhibition and I either hear about them or get asked to be part of a jury that's going to pick X number of artists, who are then going to identify and work with their community or their site; I might be proven wrong, but I think it's a problem to pick an artist and then set them off on their own to solve the community contact issue.

...there needs to be continued flexibility and questioning..."

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I think that it can be as problematic when, as in an earlier era of public art, after the architect poorly designed a building or made an inhuman plaza, the artist was brought in to fix the situation with a sculpture that made the place habitable and friendly.

We learned that artists and architects, as well as the landscape architects, should all be part of a planning phase together. Well, the same thing happens in terms of collaborative thinking within communities.

Drake: How have these earlier experiences, both in "Places with a Past" and in "Culture in Action, " influenced your upcoming projects?

Jacob: I ' m currently developing a special centennial program for the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. There I will invite artists to work

wilhin communities in a more actual, problem-solving way, of which art is only one related outcome. As organizers of the project, the Three Rivers Arts Festival know from the start that it's going to take the resources of the Festival, along with the Carnegie Institute, CarnegieMellon University (which has an Art in Context program that sends students out into the community), and other cultural and non-cultural institutions in the city to work as partners with the artists. On the other hand, I recently left a project in Santa Fe where the need for such infrastructure was not understood, nor was there an appreciation for the integral role that Native American, Hispanic, and Latin-American artists need to play in an exhibition for and in that place. To me, such an exhibition can only profit from becoming a part of a place rather than being an imported, "great art" show.

Now that art has moved out of the studio into a site-specific public forum, we are working with a whole host of other issues that go way beyond the aesthetic, yet affect it. If "Places with a Past" was about artists working with site, it was not just the physical aspects of the locations in which the work was placed. More than that, "Places" was about using site as conceptual space. The artists wanted to make work that had a relationship to history and place.

They wanted location and idea to interact in terms of the meaning of the work, while at the same time resolving formal considerations.

And once we start looking for meaning outside just personal expression, we see how much the context of site has to offer. With the artist moving outside the studio, we understand the practice of making art not to be a single individual heroic autocratic act, as in the case of painting, but as a vehicle of collaboration and change and ideas.

The level to which that was brought in Chicago was greatly advanced over the Charleston experience in terms of non-artists' participation. Pittsburgh could go even further, perhaps to the point

where the artist takes on the role of one of many equal voices addressing the issues of a place and collaborating on finding a solution, working as a cultural thinker and task force team member.

Collaboration may not be the method by which the artists make the art component of the project; their art will, however, undoubtedly grow out of the experience of sharing and working on a local problem.

For the Pittsburgh project, the departure from conventional art may not be so much in pursuing an expanded definition of art where, say, a candy bar could be art. Rather, it will be an attempt to make a place for the artist as a contributor to society as well as a maker of art. It will try to show that the artist may play a role as creative problem-solver in revamping the educational system, instituting public policy, dealing with the problems of the aged, within a multidisciplinary, decision-making team in which, up until now, the artist has been totally absent. What the Pittsburgh project aims to experiment with is whether an artist can have a role in society and in shaping society in ways other than just as an object-maker.

Why are artists never put on public policy committees? Why are artists always the decorators of public space?

I think the kind of ideas that the artists were grappling with in Charleston or Chicago, and that so many others are grappling with today as conceptual artists commenting on society, could translate to actual situations. But we remain stuck with the image of the artist as one who makes, rather than one who conceives and imagines. So the conceptual territory begun with "Places with a Past" is vast; it was very seminal in terms of its effects on the Chicago project; and will contribute to the work I do in Pittsburgh in ' 9 6 and beyond.

"Why are artists never put on public policy committees?'

Nicholas Drake is a critic and artist working in Charleston, SC.

Mary Jane Jacob, with Inigo Manglano-Ovalle (left) and Simon Grennan, during a discussion group, as part of Culture in Action, Chicago, December, 1992. (photo: Marc PoKempner)

The Private IS

Public

Peggy Diggs & the System mum security prison. Both women had been abused by their partners.

One was, in fact, originally charged and sentenced for a murder that her husband had committed. (The artist reports that the woman has now been exonerated and released from prison.) Not only were their stories of family violence disturbing tableaux of the psychic and domestic landscapes of abusive behavior, they confirmed that there was a significant overlooked and largely silent audience with which the artist wanted to communicate. b

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n inversion is under way. The historical configuration and spatial delineation of the public and private spheres have been dramatically revised in our lifetimes. The dedicated public places of cities and communities—the plazas, squares, and other enclosed and open spaces—have become increasingly private, often fastidiously supervised sites. At the same time, the private d o m a i n — typically the spaces of domesticity—has been irrevocably influenced by the public environment of media and communications technology.

Domesticity was once a sanctuary; it is now another space and subject of public discourse. This paradigmatic and paradoxical shift has complicated the idea of, the place for, and the policies that enable public art. While permanent works will and should prevail in cities, some of the most conceptually challenging public art today is being initiated by individuals in what was once understood as the most private of contexts and circumstances.

While there has not been a groundswell of artists who have engaged the radicality of these transformations—the blurring of public and pri vate domains—a small, significant group is accepting these changed conditions in order to actively question the form and space of public art, the role of the artist, the nature and longevity of the creative production, and the methods and strategies of distribution and access.

From the Streets to the Kitchen In the past few years, artist Peggy Diggs has tested the spatial parameters by making private stories public information. She has accepted existing, even banal, forms of distribution to "publicize" some of the unspeakable atrocities of the domestic environment.

The "Domestic Violence Milk Carton Project" (1992), sponsored

by Creative T i m e in New York City, is one of Diggs' most powerful, subversive orchestrations of social, political, and psychological research, the serendipitous intersection of art and non-art forms of communication and distribution. How does an activist public artist arrive at a knowledgeable, empathetic understanding of complex social and political issues? If art can affect consciousness, what is the best w a y — a n d situation—for it to occur? And if the artist is committed to reaching a public that may not be the most eager recipient of a r t — a n d perhaps the message itself—how should the artist proceed with her creative process? If a constituency of the public does not go to the place where art is normally seen, how can an artist get her art to them?

Research for the Domestic Violence Milk Carton Project included extensive conversations with two women in a Rhode Island maxi-

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Clearly, the institutional structures of private art and the environment of civic spaces did not provide appropriate strategies or outlets to reach this isolated, exiled community of women, many of whom quietly suffer the indignities and injuries of repeated assaults. For Diggs, the challenge was how to get public art to the site of most abusive relationships—the home. Encouraged by the abused women she met to seek alternatives, Diggs selected grocery stores and supermarkets as the initial distribution point. The refrigerator and the kitchen table were the intended destination. The vehicle she chose was the half-gallon milk carton. Milk may be the most ubiquitous, recurring item on family shopping lists. Ironically, its wholesome image frequently symbolizes a healthy, happy secure household.

Diggs designed four prototypes for the containers. Each represented, in different degrees of directness, violence in the home. She approached large dairies in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area. Tuscan Dairy, in Union, NJ, selected one prototype—perhaps the artist's most subtle image—and agreed to produce and distribute a limited edition of these special cartons. In January 1992,1.5 million milk cartons with Diggs' design were sold in stores in the region.

While the methods of dissemination marked a significant moment in public art practice, the artist (or any of us) can only speculate on the effect of this far-reaching, short-lived project. Clearly, most of Diggs' cartons ended up in landfills. But what are the intangible implications of this project? There is, of course, the chance that the artist's design and question "When you disagree at home does it always get out of hand?" went unnoticed in many households.

But it is more likely that her powerful message was seen—that the public vision of private misery was deeply felt. Perhaps while pouring a glass of milk late at night or drinking a cup of coffee one morning a serendipitous moment of recognition or awareness occurred. Perhaps Diggs' sensitive but aggressively invasive project relayed to those most silenced and victimized by abusive behavior that their own excruciating private ordeals were a phenomenon of public proportions—that each w o m a n ' s haunting experiences were shared by a community of women who might support each other.

From Classroom to Billboard Diggs' extended conversations with abused women, w o m e n ' s groups, and social agencies helped her to develop a scope and scale for the Milk Carton Project. In a recent series of projects in high schools in northwestern Massachusetts, students were the clients, collaborators, and critics in an activist, public art process. In three different communities, Diggs worked with students, primarily through their scheduled art classes, to identify problems and issues important

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LEFT: Peggy Diggs, Memorial, 1991, 35 1/2" x 29" x 3 . (photo: Ralph Lieberman)

to them. After this initial stage of deliberations, the process moved to a more programmatic level. The student clients became collaborators, as well as arbiters of the artist's visual proposals.

In each situation questions were raised: What form should the art take? Where should it be seen? Were there components that could be scattered throughout the community? What makes visual images communicative and memorable? I wonder what the lasting effect is of having an artist in a school, raising these questions with teenagers while challenging and empowering them to discover their own answers?

The high school projects demonstrate that the only formula the artist applied was a thoughtful, prolonged inquiry into the nature of community—the relationship of the individual impressions and the public life of a school or city. Hoosac Valley High School students found that their biggest concern was a lack of frank, open discussion with adults in the community—parents, teachers, clergy. To span this conversational gulf between generations, a billboard was developed for a conspicuous site. An incisive, non-confrontational observation ("It would help if you would listen") was accompanied by a photograph of students with a superimposed scattering of subjects of particular relevance: drugs, drinking and sex, parental pressure.

Two other high schools chose forms of communication that could be dispersed throughout their communities. In Pittsfield, a bulk-mail postcard about teenagers' shrinking opportunities as the city's industrial and commercial base deteriorated was sent to 15,000 households. At Drury High School, students chose to attack driving and drinking at critical sites of the problem—local bars and taverns, as well as fast-food restaurants where teenagers gathered. Paper drink coasters were designed for bars in the area; table cards were placed in Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, and other franchises.

Through Diggs' projects students not only confirmed their ability to identify and confront difficult issues in their own lives and communities, they also began to see the power of their own actions in the formation of new, positive visions of public life.

"Public" is not a passive, fixed idea; it must be continually invented and constructed. Public life assumes many forms; these groups of high school students began to shape an urgent, impassioned conception of "public" in their schools and cities.

Recently, Diggs has started a project in another setting with a very different constituency. As part of an exhibition at the Wadsworth Atheneum, in Hartford, Conn., Diggs has been interviewing older, mostly single, women about the consequences of street crime, urban

TOP: Peggy Diggs, Domestic (photo: Ralph Lieberman)

Violence Milkcarton

Project, 1991.

BELOW: Peggy Diggs (left), in the spring of 1993, working with small group of students at Drury High School, North Adams, MA. (photo: Sue Good)

gangs, and drug use in Hartford. Many of these women feel deeply betrayed. They have reached a stage of life with concomitant expectations of relaxation, freedom, and mobility, only to discover that they feel unsafe in their neighborhoods. Some feel imprisoned in their own homes by these grim circumstances.

Diggs cites the mid-1980s, a time when she lived in Madrid, as when her shift from the studio to the public sphere took place. As an American abroad in an unfamiliar culture, she encountered the liberties and limitations of an outsider. Perhaps she also learned to make do with the existing context. Diggs remains a sensitive, resourceful scavenger collecting the stories of members of the public that are often unacknowledged. She takes these fragile tales, refused lives, and uses them to stimulate work that extends beyond the personal narrative to a public program. Still, her most aggressive poaching occurs within the existing systems of commerce and communication— stores, schools, the postal system—that she uses to transpose private experiences into a compelling conception of public life.

Patricia C. Phillips is an independent critic and chair of the art department at the State University of New York, New Paltz.

PUBLIC ART REVIEW SPRING/SUMMER

1994 1 3

TEMPORARY CONNECTIONS

A Conversation With Dennis Adams i

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ditor's Note: Dennis Adams, aNew Yorkartist who specializes in exploring the ephemeral nature of art, has produced numerous temporary installations in several European and American cities. Critic and art historian Anna Novakov interviewed Adams— currently busy with international commissions—in a rare moment at his studio.

Anna Novakov: I would like to begin this discussion by asking you to reflect on a comment that you made several years ago about your bus shelters in New York. You stated that they were intended as "anemic display apparatuses that short-circuited the information they housed."

Dennis Adams: I imagine "anemic" was a reference to Duchamp's "Anemic Cinema." I was probably thinking of a failed spectacle—a fault line between the architecture of display and the information displayed. I've been preoccupied with this for several years.

The bus shelters operated in a more general sense. While they roughly addressed the neighborhoods in which they were sited, they could have been placed in relation to other bus stops along the given

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transit route. T h e system of transw e interact, and by extension, h o w portation allowed them to hook d o w e locate those fragile moup with the city at large. A s such, ments of c o n n e c t i o n ? It is at this they w e r e less r a t i o n a l — m o r e limit that I h a v e tried to situate m y connected to the psychology of p r a c t i c e — a l w a y s with the underNew York as a paranoid field of standing that these m o m e n t s are intersections.

Krzysztof e p h e m e r a l . T h a t is w h y m y W o d i c z k o recently pointed out to p r o j e c t s are t e m p o r a r y . S p e a k me that my hus shelters were places curtly, efficiently and d i s a p p e a r ! that the p a s s e n g e r returned to by N o v a k o v : Is not your avoidance the circumstance of c o m m u t i n g — of the term "community " also an and that, as a result, they set up the avoidance of naming your viewer? possibility of an on-going dialog. Dennis Adams, Reservoir, (detail of interior) 1992, installation at Musee d'art It seems that the anonymity of your T h e implications of a rerun are Contemporain de Montreal, Place-des-arts metro station, Blvd de Mainson Neuve audience adds to a sense of esfascinating, but for me, the shel- Ouest and rue Jeanne-Mance, 86" x 173 3/4" x 76 1/2", aluminum, glass mirror, trangement within the urban miplexiglas, duratrans, fluorescent light, 2 drinking fountains, (photo: Denis Farley) ters were always m o r e about the lieu. f r e e d o m of leaving—that m o m e n t of waiting where anticipation A d a m s : It's a good question. Practitioners of mass c o m m u n i c a t i o n , brings on a euphoria of ideas. for the most part, d i s a v o w the contradictions within the " p u b l i c N o v a k o v : Architecture by nature is static and immobile. Your work, b o d y . " T h e y target one audience, real or imagined, of c o n s e n s u s . I by injecting itself within this setting, acts as a disruption which, think it's problematic to take this model and apply it to critical perhaps momentarily, alleviates some of the sense of alienation that practice. It a s s u m e s that f o r m s of c o m m u n i c a t i o n are transparent surrounds it. How do you feel the concept of these "anemic display vehicles. B e y o n d the scope of the message, I want to mutate the given apparatuses " has been transformed or mutated in the context of your c h a n n e l s of address. This d e m a n d s m o r e than a b o d y count in terms recent projects in Europe? of reception. So I would have to say that my work speaks to s o m e kind A d a m s : M y new projects, which for the most part have taken place of enlightened audience, one that is f r e e to suspend j u d g m e n t and in Europe, are m o r e surgical than those early bus shelters. T h e y have enter into a dialog with the work. But m a k e no mistake, I ' m not touched more directly on the social implications of the sites in which speaking about an audience indoctrinated into the l a n g u a g e of a r t — they were situated. L o o k i n g back on this transference f r o m an that is nothing m o r e than a highly e v o l v e d f o r m of blindness. Of American to a European context, it was probably only natural that my course, in the end, I a c k n o w l e d g e the Utopian strands running through work would tighten up. A s an outsider, it is difficult to take the s a m e my position. T h e "enlightened v i e w e r " just might be a little piece of liberties. There is the fear of misreading the situation, so perhaps a fiction. more determined approach is inevitable.

N o v a k o v : Do you think that it is possible to make effective permanent N o v a k o v : What do you think the role of the artist is within the urban public art? setting ? In particular, how do you feel that living in New York or in A d a m s : I side with the t e m p o r a r y . A work that p r o g r a m s its o w n European cities such as Berlin has influenced the nature of your art? d i s a p p e a r a n c e refuses to be taken by the s y m b o l i c erosion that is the A d a m s : At this point in my life, I travel about half of the year working fate of m o n u m e n t s . on projects, so N e w York has b e c o m e a place that I c o m e h o m e to N o v a k o v : Perhaps what you are doing is rejecting the possibility of recuperate. In terms of my work, it d o e s n ' t really matter where I live attaching a particular interpretation to your work. The nature of the a n y m o r e . Logistically, central Europe would be perfect. temporary installation necessitates a "quick read " and relies heavily New York was very important in the early formation of my work on the work's ability to impact memory to allow for a significant and I still need a good dose of it f r o m time to time. It's that collision residual experience. of s w a r m i n g bodies, c o m p e t i n g architectures and advertisements that A d a m s : M a y b e this distinction b e t w e e n the " p e r m a n e n t " and the d e v o u r any "sense of place" or meeting ground. Nothing in N e w York " t e m p o r a r y " is being applied too simplistically. W h e n I speak of the c o m e s together. For me, it's analogous to the unruly f o r m a t i o n of t e m p o r a r y , I ' m thinking about an e f f e c t — t h e specific time f r a m e in ideas. Most of the cities in G e r m a n y , for e x a m p l e , with the great which the " t r a n s p l a n t e d " resists being absorbed into the s y m b o l i c exception of Berlin, are finished cities—every square foot of "public network of its surroundings. But on the other side, there are those s p a c e " is manicured. There are no l e f t o v e r s — n o spoils of war in m o n u m e n t s , buildings, or public places that live b e y o n d the s y m b o l i c which to ground your thinking. T h e " R e c o n s t r u c t i o n " [after World f r a m e s that inform their m e a n i n g . At that fragile m o m e n t , before they W a r II] turned out to be the greatest instrument of urban cruelty. Even are razed or captured by the heritage industry, they share the a m b i v a a great, turbulent city like Paris is problematic. At the center it is lence of the transplanted. nothing more than a sprawling m u s e u m — a series of tourist specN o v a k o v : Do you see yourself as occupying the position of guide 01 tacles connected by the aura of scale. beacon that will enlighten the spectator by directing their gaze ana N o v a k o v : What do you perceive as the essential differences between provoking them to become self-consciously reflective? working in Europe and working in the United States, and ultimately A d a m s : T h e w o r d s " g u i d e " or " b e a c o n " seem a bit heavy. T h e y smell does your role as the outsider or visitor influence or even determine of religion. I d o n ' t want to preach. But I w o u l d accept " p r o v o c a t i o n " the nature of your work? as a legitimate preoccupation. It is true that my work attempts to A d a m s : Tribalism is the e m e r g trigger a s e l f - c o n s c i o u s n e s s that ing ideology on n u m e r o u s fronts is f r e e to question. In a w a y , I try LEFT: Dennis Adams, Squatter's View, 1993, Dordrecht, Holland, 320 x 288.5 x 35 cm, in the post-Cold W a r Era, both aluminum, plexiglas, fluorescent light, cibatrans. (photo: courtesy the artist) to mirror my o w n doubt about here and in Europe. As a result, the situations I address.

BELOW: Dennis Adams, Terminus II. 1990, installation in Hoorn, Holland, 300 x 4850 x the " o u t s i d e r " or " s t r a n g e r " pro75 cm, 12 found bus shelters, Duratrans. (photo: courtesy the artist) vides a simplistic counter-narraA n n a N o v a k o v , P h D , is assistive to the m y t h o l o g i z i n g of tant p r o f e s s o r of art history, " c o m m u n i t y " that is at the center theory a n d criticism at the S a n of this thrust. W h y is this term so F r a n c i s c o Art Institute. S h e often a blind for intolerance? W h y writes f r e q u e n t l y on art in pubis it so often c h a m p i o n e d by the lic places for national a n d inone w h o cloaks his prejudices in ternational p u b l i c a t i o n s . the lie of the " c o m m u n i t y mand a t e " ? For me, the question is to what degree are w e all alienated f r o m the e n v i r o n m e n t s in which

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Laurie Anderson, Handphone Table, 1978, wood, electronics, tape. Sound is passed through the listener's elbows to the ears. A version of this workâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;for one listenerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;was installed at the Center for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, as part of Beyond the Frame: Performance and the Object. (photo: courtesy the artist)

lives on the Line The Nature of Performance

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becomes private memories. Betty Carter brought her being and experience to the stage that day and put her life on the line; she was present in every note I heard, I feel that I got to know her that day.

Public art from private spaces can enhance the quality of life and inspire even dormant hearts.

Beyond the performances of improvising musicians there is another level of privacy that has found its way to theaters, stages and even the streets of our common abodes. It is the work of performance artists who mine the cavities of their lives for autobiographic material that become the substance of art presented in the public eye. These images released into the air often challenge convention, tradition, and decorum, because they testify to lives lived in mendacity and the prices we pay to survive.

They represent the towering models of unpainted steel left too long in the elements, and lawns and gardens that have been manicured until they no longer regenerate themselves.

t's like a passionate weekend love affair that set both hearts aflame, but never had a chance. Afterwards you felt that somehow your life had been forever changed, though the experience was as ephemeral as a dream. You remember how their body felt, the fragrance in their hair, the words they whispered in your ear and the color of your fear. You know it happened because it left an indelible stamp on your senses, then it was over, gone like notes played on a jazz hom.

Performance is like that, it happens and then it's gone, never to be experienced the same way again. But does the ephemeral quality of performance make it any less valid as public art?

Does the fact that you can't go back make it any less a fixture on your mind? More than likely it happened in a publicly supported facility, and it was made possible with public funding; it's public art.

More space and resources are needed for We commonly think of the objects in sculpthis new architecture in our lives, because the ture gardens and on university campuses that structures that we have been forced to live in don't accommodate all of us. We confuse the reach toward abstract ideals as public art, but value of public art with the function of propawe seldom view performances of original works ganda and assume that because we support it in theaters and concert halls in that light. We with public funds that it must reflect our annually document the seasons of the year with collective values. Those on the cutting edges parades, rituals, decorations and festivals that Betty Carter, in performance (photo: Richard Laird, of who we are have only limited access to echo what we value and revereâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;are these not courtesy Arts Midwest) resources, so we are more likely to reinforce ephemeral displays of public art? Like the who we've been than who we have become or fireworks exploding in the Fourth of July night, are becoming. It's a cycle of denial. But there are lives on the line, not performances can awaken the imagination and stir the heart. merely the lives of the artists groping for survival, but the lives of us Years ago, when I lived in Kansas City, I had the experience of all, because it is still true that every expression of humanity is a part seeing and hearing jazz vocalist Betty Carter in concert in the park.

The event was free and accessible to anyone who could find it. It was of our identity.

the first time that I heard her sing, but the experience of seeing the wide-mouthed, golden-voiced, in-charge performer left some indelible impressions on me. Nothing, not even buying her records and CDs in subsequent years could match the magic of seeing her for the first time.

Ephemeral as that concert was, I still have strong images some 16 years later, though there is no memorial in that park where the concert happened, and besides, I don't live in Kansas City anymore. The images sculpted within are the images we carry with us: Public art

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As long as funding is connected to taste and control we deprive ourselves of creative approaches that could reinvigorate our lives. We are all the public, we all need the same access to the same resources so that we can have the same opportunities to effect change in our society. There is space already for the annual celebrations that we cling to for stability, but there is not enough space for the dynamic influences that hold the promise of possibilities. An aesthetic rooted in true democracy, originality, and free forms of expression, instead of academic and often tired reproductions of the same over-amplified

i

A Brief History of Performance Art

Raphael Montanez Ortiz, Piano Destruction Concert Ritual, originally performed in 1967 at Studio International, NY, recreated and updated as You Can't Make an Omlette Without Breaking Some Eggs, performed at the Center for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, as part of Beyond the Frame: Performance and the Object, on February 10,1994. (photo: courtesy the artist)

realities could save us all from injustice, and deliver us from deadon-arrival art.

To value the ephemeral is to respect the passage of time, and to acknowledge the dynamic quality of real lives. Much of what is presented in today's performance art reflects life as it actually is.

We can learn from those models and see some undiscovered territories in ourselves through them. If we, as a culture, can open our minds (and resources) to more public displays of private realities we could grow to appreciate each other more.

There are artists who are laying their lives on the line for this art, and new sense is being made in the process. It is new sense that could save us, fresh perspectives that could open our eyes to how we might survive in the new millennium together. We have had enough of art for art's sake, it's time for art for life's sake. We need change.

The changes that we need are not to be found in some bizarre new language from another planet, but in the integration of voices that have been suppressed and relegated to the margins of the public arena: The unheard cries for help, the unseen images of truth, the untold stories of who, what, where, when, and how we arrived here. The irony is that we pretend to be open and inclusive while we systematically block out huge sources of new insight by limiting access to those unlike ourselves. The reality of our future together is, if we don't change, it won't change. We hold our promise in the palms of our hands.

J. Otis Powell! is a poet, philosopher, curator, performer, and cultural commentator. He works with The Loft, The Southern Theatre, Intermedia Arts, and writes for Colors.

By nature, performance art resists definition. Because it draws from all the traditional artsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;painting, sculpture, theater, dance, music, poetry, and cinemaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;performance art's expressive means are virtually unlimited.

In a strict sense, performance art is an interdisciplinary art form in which the primary focus is the artist's acts or the artistic process itself, rather than on an object, like a painting or sculpture. Artists have used performance to overturn the conventions of established art and art institutions, and to develop new ideas and approaches to the making of art. Performance has also served in recent decades as a vehicle for social and political criticism, particularly for artists of color, women, and gay and lesbian artists. In this regard, performance has become a positive source of personal and community empowerment.

The roots of performance art can be traced to the avant-garde experiments of the Futurists, Dadaists, Constructivists, and Surrealists in the early part of the 20th century. The term "performance art" appeared around 1970 to describe the performance work of Conceptual, Body, and Feminist artists that was emerging at the time. It also was used retrospectively to refer to happenings, Fluxus, and other performance events from the 1960s.

Performance art today, influenced by new communications technologies, mass media, and popular entertainment, is responding to social conditions and political issues such as AIDS, violence against women, sexual preference, cultural politics, and censorship of the arts, and has grown to encompass a wide variety of forms, processes, and subjects.

Some common elements of performance art: It blurs the boundary between art and life, either by incorporating everyday experience and behavior into a performance, or by expanding the definition of art to include everyday activity. It's interactive, breaking down the barrier between artist and spectator, frequently turning audience members into participants. It shifts the focus of art from the creation of an object to the creative process itself, which means that intuition, spontaneity, and risk are intentional artistic strategies. It resists the commodification and institutionalization of art. It is interdisciplinary and collaborative, involving the use of various media and disciplines such as film and video, dance, poetry, music, narrative, and the body. It uses the principle of collage, juxtaposing incongruous, seemingly unrelated images. It may occur in a theater, museum or gallery, but is often site-specific, taking advantage of the attributes of a particular space or environment. It includes "found" objects and materials. It may be inter-cultural, a result of collaborations among artists of different cultures or an expression of individual artists' hybrid identities. It confronts social norms and prejudices, often through outrageous and humorous attacks on stereotypical thinking.

Performance art has been, and continues to be a powerful catalyst in the history of 20th century art, not only through its anti-Establishment stance, but because it has consistently introduced new concepts and methods for the creation of art. It also forms a bridge between art and life, offering artists and audiences a way to reach new understandings about themselves and the social and political frameworks in which they live. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; R o b y n Brentano Robyn Bretano is one of the organizers of "Outside the Frame: Performance and the Object," an exhibition on view at the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art through May 1 (see Listings, p. 43).

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Art in Your Own Front Yard Seasonal Public Art in the Vernacular Landscape b

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e ' d promised the kids we would visit Santa at "the house with all the lights." That was Clarence Weidert's place, a two-story wood frame house on the edge of the Seward neighborhood in Minneapolis, where he plays Santa for thousands of kids and parents each holiday season, handing out a candy cane or other treat to each one. The stage for his performance is a house ablaze with countless lights and a yard outfitted with a holiday tableau: a choir of boys singing on the roof of the front porch; a row of storybook girls dancing along the side yard; an illuminated creche scene; and a New England-style steepled church, to name a few.

But this year when we arrived, the house was dark. The yard was only full of snow. No cars lined the street, no people stood along the sidewalk ooh-ing and aah-ing at the spectacle. It felt like a death, an emptiness where something alive and vibrant had been, a place that brought people together outside the crowds of shopping malls. The kids started crying.

I wondered what the dark house meant. I had interviewed Clarence Weidert several years earlier for my dissertation research on yard art.

I hoped he wasn't sick or that some kind of trouble had befallen the family. The house ablaze had spoken of health, vigor, and community spirit. The dark house diminished our experience of the neighborhood and the season.

As we headed back home, I remembered another house not too far from ours that I had already seen in full glory. This one featured little hoi iday scenes with animated figures in the many picture windows on upper and lower floors. As we approached the house, the traffic was backed up a block away. We parked and joined the onlookers, picking out each character and wondering how the owners had done this. Just then, the largest limousine ever—stretch and double-decker—slowly drove by, followed by a full-sized tour bus. Now here was a response to public art that many artists would envy, tour buses and all.

These Minneapolis sites are but two examples of significant American practices in public art. But this is public art in the language of the vernacular, located in ordinary landscapes. These seasonal displays represent the activities and the aesthetics of primarily working- and middle-class people, created by them for public audiences. Their practices are ones that many cognoscenti working in the formal arena of public buildings, grant programs, and art schools often overlook at best, deride and trivialize at worst. Yet a tour

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through the landscape of vernacular public art can enlarge and enrich our notions about public art in general. Further, these expressions can provide important models for projects by artists who truly want to engage audiences, not just instruct them about what kind of art is good for them.

The language of vernacular public art rests on intersections between nature and culture, time and place. Rather than being inviolate and enduring works of art, as is c o m m o n with institutional projects, vernacular art pieces are characterized by seasonal cycles. The natural landscape of the yard and garden (admittedly, this is cultivated nature, not wilderness), provides the cues for artifactual responses. As the annual cycle proceeds, Americans follow by marking seasons and celebrating holidays on their home grounds. The house and yard become sites for a series of installation pieces that make place expressive of time. The pink flamingos and wishing wells of summer give way to Halloween harvest figures, then to Christmas lights, followed by Valentine hearts in picture windows, Easter wreaths on the front door, and so on. These assemblage environments are usually constructed on the private property of home ownership.

How can they properly be called "public" art? 1 We commonly think of public art as sited on public property— places supported by tax dollars—such as public parks or public institutions. When we do extend the label to art on private property, we might allow sculpture located on the grounds or plazas of corporate buildings, where both company insiders and outsiders can view them. For the most part, however, we consciously separate public and private life—and landscapes—defining the public realm as the arena of work, business, and commerce and private life as the domestic scene, the private home, and the residential neighborhood.

A closer examination of the role of the home, especially the role of its front space and yard, reveals that its part in a public discourse is actually deeply ingrained in American culture and landscapes.

The American home has participated in a public discourse at least since before the Civil War. Andrew Jackson Downing, a landscape architected, theorist, and writer in the mid-1800s, had an enormous impact on the look of the American landscape and the ideas and values associated with it. Through his magazine, The Horticulturalist and his other publications, he helped promote the notion that a home presents a public image of its owner and proper upkeep and adornment of the home grounds was a democratic duty. 2 Downing's ideas were promulgated by such followers as Frank J.

community. The imagery of the vernacular is unabashedly popular— Scott, who wrote about home grounds in the late 19th century, when a mix-and-match approach that presents a postmodern melange of cities and suburbs were exploding. 3 T o Downing, Scott, and many narratives, religious and secular traditions, eras and styles (Victorian others, the home participated in and contributed to community life. and colonial), in a similar way to the American highway strip. Most These ideas underpinned the American built environment, giving Americans, after all, have rarely loved the language of minimalism. residential landscapes their characteristic style—houses built back Even the stark form of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, from the street, framed by front yards and foundation gardens.

DC, works so powerfully because it is personalized by the names of According to these principles, houses were to remain open to view, individuals and by the addition of the real artifacts brought by its with front yards merging to create a public area, similar to public many visitors, for memories are made from specific details. parks, another landscape feature that developed simultaneously with Process and community involvement are big concerns in public art the suburb in the United States. today, and vernacular varieties make those central features. An entire In this context, artifacts added to the cultivated landscape of the Christmas display is usually built over many years. Accretion front yard articulate its roles as a public area—still private property becomes an important part of the process, and visitors notice what has but visually oriented to the community. Sculpture in that space— been added each year. The installation process becomes a family and some store-bought, some homemade—extends the more private neighborhood process. Clarence Weidert, for instance, usually starts display of the home interior into the outdoor landscape. installing his Christmas lights in October to be ready by ThanksgivMost of what goes into assembling seasonal display is permanent ing. His family and friends help out and contribute new parts. One stuff that gets assembled (and added to) each year, bought at local friend, an ex-fireman, installs the lights on the roof. Once every piece hardware or garden stores or at discount stores, or constructed in the is in place and every light lit, many holiday art makers participate in home workshop: strings of electric lights, plywood cut-out Santas, a kind of performance art. Playing Santa, as Weidert does, homeowners plastic soldiers, or light-up religious figures for the manger scene. create a vernacular theater and invite visiSome elements of seasonal displays are ephemtors to participate. In Los Angeles, Fredricka eral, like the annual flowers that have to be Goldstein and her teenage daughters, build planted each year. Christmas wreaths on front an elaborate Halloween scene each year on doors or garlands wrapped around porch pillars her front porch or in her yard. Then they all match the perishable Christmas tree displayed dress up in costumes and perform roles out in the picture window. Some people make snow of horror movies. One year, Fredricka or ice constructions that last until the next thaw, dressed as Dracula and lay in a homemade some mimicking the techniques of the St. Paul coffin on the porch, while organ music Winter Carnival Ice Palace on a miniature scale. played and smoke from dry ice spookily Mike Schack, of Grand Rapids, Minn., built an drifted by. Her daughters, costumed apeight-foot cross in his front yard one Christmas propriately, gave out treats to those who season from ice blocks frozen in cake pans. He dared come closer. spotlighted the cross using a light with a rotatCommunity input is aning gel, a sight that attracted a stream of visitors. other hallmark of public art today. If you The next year he built a miniature version of the were looking for public art that involved local Catholic church out of blocks of ice, with the community, you could hardly do better the help of friends who froze water in milk than one south Philadelphia neighborhood, cartons. Once constructed, Schack filled the where 40 families work together every interior with dolls to represent parishioners. year on the local Christmas display. In a Coverage in the local paper brought hundreds tradition that has lasted over 50 years, of visitors back that year. these Italian families string lights from one Halloween ranks just behind Christmas as row house to the next, arching over the the inspiration for the most elaborate vernacustreet. The display itself expresses the tight lar pieces. Many folks create front-yard tableaux bond of the neighborhood, to frighten and amuse trick-or-treaters, neighits construction perpetuates bors, and other passersby. Pumpkin-headed Harvest figure made by a neighbor, for Kaitlin the cooperation such an enharvest figures, made from old clothes stuffed Harvey, age 4, of south Minneapolis, 1986. deavor requires. with straw or newspaper, sit on hay bales or lawn (both photos: Coleen Sheehy) Neighborhood projects chairs. Jack Santino, a folklorist at Bowling Green are c o m m o n phenomena, University in Ohio, has written about how these disLEFT: Clarence Weidert's holiday installation in s o m e t i m e s s p u r r e d by plays bring natural elements from the country, (pumpthe Seward neighborhood, Minneapolis, 1986. friendly competition, other kins, straw, corn stalks, etc.) to urban areas and remind times by conscious efforts people of relationships with natural cycles. 4 The custo improve the community. Another such extravaganza fills a northtomary jack o'lanterns, left to rot in the yard or garden after Halloweast Minneapolis neighborhood, where almost all residents of one een night, are vivid reminders of the harvest and the natural cycle of block create "Santa Claus Lane" with lights each year. 5 Elaborate birth, ripening, and decay. holiday displays are often the work of retired people and seniors.

It is probably no accident that our biggest efforts to employ culture Their activities reassert their contributions to and connections with in the yard come at times when the natural world goes dormant: at their communities.

Halloween, just before it turns nasty in November, and in December, This holiday season, the whole nation thought a bit more conjust before it turns even nastier in January. By the time Easter rolls sciously about the boons and limits of holiday lighting, given the around, artifactual displays tone down to more modest elements—a national coverage of the controversy in Little Rock, Ark. Jennings door wreath or plastic eggs hung on a bush. Cultural additions become and Mitzi Osborne lit their home and the neighborhood with 3 million less important as we anticipate full-blown spring. Then we just have lights on a 600-foot-long display, prompting protests from neighbors, to rake back the leaves to let the crocuses and tulips pop up. who considered the display a nuisance. Osborne declared. "This is my What of the aesthetics of these public art pieces? The vernacular gift to the city and to the world." A judge ruled that the Osbornes could artist embraces the store-bought, but often views individual mass6 produced items as raw material, adapting objects to his or her turn on their display, following some guidelines.

As the Little Rock case demonstrates, art has always had an uneasy particular site and sensibility: The aesthetic resides in the assemblage status in this democracy, and vernacular forms are not immune from as a whole, not in any one piece. This is an aesthetic of plenitude and controversy. While the institutional art world argues First Amendingenuity and humor, but one that also expresses commitment and ment rights over the work of Robert Mapplethorpe or Andres Serrano, generosity. The large-scale displays speak of abundant stuff and abundant work. But this also is work for self-satisfaction and for the continued on p. 36 PUBLIC ART REVIEW

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Government

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TOP: Roland Specker, President of the Wrapped Reichstag Project (left), and Prof. Dr. Rita Suessmuth, President of the German Bundestag (Parliment), talking with Christo during a dinner at the home of Renate and Roland Specker, in Berlin, on Jan. 7 , 1 9 9 3 . (photo: Wolfgang Volz) © Christo

"But why is everything so political?!"—Christo.

C < f " T " 1 h e conservative party of Chancellor [Helmut] Kohl is in power only because they have 79 members from smal 1 parties 1. working with them. But of this coalition group, 70 are for the project, only nine are against," counts Christo, warming up to the numbers, the possibilities, the intrigues. It sounds like a scene out of "The War Room," the revealing documentary made from deep in the bowels of the Clinton presidential campaign. He's talking about his 23-year campaign to wrap the Reichstag building in Berlin, a structure fraught with history and politics.

"That coalition is very volatile. Nobody really knows where they stand since they were also with the Social Democrats when they were in power. The Social Democrats are very popular now. They are coming up and very possibly might win the election in October and form a government. So the coalition parties try to float, to stay in the middle, be very free, and not always be associated with the Christian Democrat Union (the conservatives) so if the opposition socialists have a parliamentary victory. . . " "Which shows a lot of inner c o n v i c t i o n , " s n e e r s Jeanne-Claude, Christo's wife and collaborator, interrupting only momentarily. Christo is on a roll.

"The conservatives can only stop the wrapping of the Reichstag if they insist this faction votes with them. Now this is the scenario," he leans forward, his eyes gleaming mischievously behind those famous "engineer" frames dominating his impish face, as characteristic as his blue jeans and safari jacket. "How much does Mr. Kohl want to muscle and maybe break up the coalition?" his animated voice suddenly softens and sounds whispery, even conspiratorial. "If the inflammation becomes so strong, if the Free Democratic Party (the liberals) stay with us. the wrapping of the Reichstag will bring down the German government." He laughs.

"We will break the coalition! Now does Mr. Kohl want to go through this?"

LEFT: Wrapped Reichstag, Project For Berlin (detail), 1993, pencil, charcoal, pastel, crayon, photograph by Wolfgang Volz, technical data and tape. Private collection, Berlin, (photo: Wolfgang Volz) © Christo

to the end against Mr. Kohl. That we have these 70 votes staying in line for the project, and really resisting against Kohl's pressure campaign . . . this is very exciting. But I will know more next week what will happen."

It is January 28, 1994—23 years since Christo first proposed "Wrapped Reichstag: Project for Berlin." There's been a whole lot of wrapping going on since, but never the Reichstag. Time after time it has been turned down: in 1977. In 1981. In 1987. This is it.

This is the last chance Christo has to do the deed. In 1995 the muchmodified plans of British architect.

Sir Norman Foster, to remodel the Reichstag will begin. The renovation, so the building can house the parliament of a united Germany, will accompany the trek of the federal bureaucracy from Bonn to a sprawling new seat of government buildings in Berlin. The new government complex will take up 30 blocks and fill in the open landscape that has surrounded the Christo Reichstag throughout its history, a strangely metaphysical space—at a cost of $9 billion. The Reichstag's price tag alone is $400 million and mounting. "The inside is entirely covered with asbestos," Jeanne-Claude laughs with a raspy smoker's throat. There's a lot under the surface here, an emotional rationale that could account for their 'sink-your-teethand-don't-let-go' tenacity all these years.

This massive construction project is scheduled to get under way in spring 1995. "After that I don't want to do anything there." Christo says firmly. "I want to wrap my Reichstag, which I know, in this very open space." Period. He is adamant about it. To complete the Reichstag wrapping for two weeks in 1995, just before construction begins, he needs an absolute minimum of 14 months.

Almost lovingly, Jeanne-Claude shows a sample of the wrapping material—it looks and feels like a piece of medieval knight-in-armor underwear—they selected after hanging large sections of competing fabric in 70-foot by 30-foot sections on the facade of a German castle.

As with all their projects, the Reichstag project is completely financed by the sale of Christo's sketches and studies of the project to private collectors, dealers and museums throughout the world. Not

The most unreliable, unbalanced

human beings in the world

are politicians!

"Or does he want to conserve his power for such a subject o r . . . , " Jeanne-Claude picks up his chain of thought, a balletic duet they appear to have perfected over their intimate years together since 1958. " . . . Or will he need to keep his power for sending troops to Bosnia and more important issues?"

"When I fly next Monday to Germany I will go see my dear friend from the Free Democratic Party," says Christo. "The general secretary of the party is a young politician. Dr. Werner Hoyer, who in 1976 was a student at Berkeley and saw "Running Fence," and is solidly

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counting the money they have invested in the Reichstag project through the years, they estimate it will cost them f r o m $5 million to $7 million to complete the work. They have spent more: the " U m brellas" project in Japan and the U.S. cost $26 million.

At the moment all their attention is fixed on Tuesday, Feb. 1, when they will learn whether the conservatives under Kohl will oppose the project as a bloc.

• • •

For the past three years Christo and Jeanne-Claude, along with project managers Wolfgang and Sylvia Volz and a team of supporters have done an enormous amount of work to bring a very intricate permit process to this point. The German parliament has jurisdiction over the Reichstag. That means the Reichstag really is owned by 80 million Germans, represented by the 662 deputies who sit in the Bundestag. They need a majority to win. That may sound prohibitive, but they've won the cooperation of more complicated bureaucracies.

Consider that the Japan side alone of the "Umbrellas" project—the blue ones—required leasing land from 459 rice farmers, three counties, one state, and the central government of Tokyo, to put up 1,340 umbrellas over an area 12 miles long by one-and-a-half miles wide. But that was then; this is now.

The president of the Bundestag, Professor Dr. Rita Suessmuth is a major and obviously valuable supporter, who has advised the Christos on strategy and charted their course through the labyrinth of German politics, as well as consolidated a good number of parliamentary votes in their favor. Christo has a majority in the internal Parliament division, the Praesidium. There is also a kind of steering committee of the parliament, the Aelterstenrat, which consists of 30 senior deputies of the parliament from all parties, including the five Praesidium members.

They meet with typical German precision at p.m. every Thursday the full Plaenum (or lower House) of the Budestag is in session. It is here that the Reichstag project could be decided. H o w e v e r , the Aelterstenrat never votes no; it's either yes, or the matter is passed on to the full Plaenum, a very public session with reporters and television cameras in the galleries bringing their discussion to the eyes and ears of world opinion.

The Reichstag project has been on the agenda of the Aelterstenrat's Thursday meetings since last November. Each time it has been postponed. Finally, Peter Struck, leader of the opposition socialist faction and a project supporter, asked that a decision be made on Jan. 20. Which sent Christo and his team into a final mad dash of frantic lobbying, 15 minutes, half an hour, an hour, whatever a deputy's schedule would allow. When Christo left Berlin last week, he had 273 votes. T o n i g h t ' s telephone call raises it to 285. They need another45.

T w o days before the Jan. 20 deadline, the conservatives called a special meeting; the rumor in the press was that Chancellor Kohl would come out against the Reichstag wrapping. Five minutes beforehand, the meeting was abruptly canceled—apparently, they still had not made up their minds. However, this upset many Christo supporters, and that afternoon they began circulating a petition in the Bundestag requesting that the Reichstag project be decided by the full parliament, in which case nothing could stop the vote. It would be the first time in the history of the world that the destiny of a work of art was determined by a parliament.

Meanwhile Peter Struck again asked that the Reichstag project be decided Feb. 3, or put before the full Bundestag. So by Tuesday, Feb. 1, a decision is to be made. Chancellor Kohl is flying in from Washington, DC that morning to attend. For his part, Christo is flying to Bonn from New York on Sunday.

Chancellor Kohl is a long-time and very vocal opponent of the project. He has not responded to Christo's letter of four months ago requesting a meeting; nor have his three closest deputies, his kitchencabinet of sorts. "Which is grossly impolite," says Jeanne-Claude. " D o n ' t mention that," says Christo.

"I will mention anything I please," she replies with feminist, but good-natured autonomy. She smiles. He smiles, resigned.

According to a recent newspaper report, Kohl said he was not

against Christo, the artist. On the contrary, he respected his art, but he could not accept that the Reichstag should become a work of art.

Christo seems to be looking forward to next Tuesday's debate. " I ' m very flattered that the chancellor of Germany, one of the most powerful nations in the world is involved in such a passionate discussion of our art project," he laughs. The big question is whether Kohl will call for party discipline, in which case Christo has no chance. Kohl already has mounted a very strong intimidation campaign. but he is in something of a bind. Each time he talks about it or strongarms, he makes the project that much more significant and increases its chances of passage by his very engagement. It puts wrapping the Reichstag in the same league as abortion or moving the seat of government to Berlin—issues on which party members are free to vote their conscience. Yet they can't do so when it comes to public art?

Just a few days earlier Wolfgang Schauble, Kohl's closest parliamentary ally, made a speech in Berlin to a very influential audience.

Speaking of the Reichstag, he said: " W e Germans possess hardly any symbols which can, with similar force, with similar drama, make German history of the last 150 years come alive. We should treat them with more care. . . . State symbols, symbols in general, should unite; they should bring people together. Wrapping the Reichstag would not unite, it would not bring together; it would polarize. T o o many people would not be able to understand or accept it. We already have sufficient things which separate us Germans from one another, too few things that bring us together. And we should not try to leave out too many citizens along the roadside who would not be able to understand or follow such an enterprise. It is something the cultural sections of our newspapers should not mock. For these reasons, I am, although an admirer of Christo's work, against wrapping the Reichstag." " W e have been waiting for Godot."

Jeanne-Claude sounds sad and tired all of a sudden. Christo is out of the room taking a call from Bonn. "On the Thursdays that the Aelterstenrat has been meeting in Bonn since Nov. 11, it has been 'next T h u r s d a y . . . next Thursday . . . next Thursday!!!' It has become a joke in our family and now with our collaborators. Next Thursday I ' m afraid that the news we will hear on the phone Feb. 3 will be 'next Thursday.' " Does Christo share her pessimism?

"Oh no! Christo is extremely optimistic. My mother has very well defined the two of us. She asks me, 'Are you optimistic, my sweetheart? And I say, 'No, mother, I am not, I am very pessimistic, and I am worried, and I don't sleep.' Then she asks, 'What about Christo?' 'Oh! Christo is very optimistic!' I tell her. 'Well, my sweetheart,' she says, 'What I always told you, darling, is that Christo is so much more intelligent than you. It will be the same result, but in the meantime, he is happy.' " "We cannot be pessimistic," says Christo, returning to the room.

"Of course we are optimistic, but we are nervous because we feel like we're in a poker game. But we will know more in exactly seven days." "It is worth calling me the evening of Feb. 3. If I am crying . . . " Jeanne-Claude's voice trails off.

It would be the first time

in the history of the world

that the destiny of a work

of art was determined by a parliament.

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• • •

What is with this Reichstag—built in the late 19th century, burnt in 1933, almost destroyed in 1945, restored in the 1960s, about to be overhauled in the 1990s—that can arouse so much controversy? It looks innocuous enough, your basic blend of antiquity, the Renaissance and Baroque, like many government buildings anywhere. By American standards it's not even very large. Moreover, it was shunted off well away from the city center of 1894, a place of parade grounds, circus tents, and prisons, which is why it ended up in West Berlin, in fact.

The Reichstag was denounced from the start by its monarchist

opponents as a "talking shop." The Weimar Republicans saw it as the epitome of everything they had overcome and wanted to conceal Paul Wallot's architecture in a veneer of functional design. The Nazis hated it so much they held their meetings in the opera house across the street, and may have set it afire in 1933, a deliberate ruse to declare a state of emergency and arrest thousands of their opponents.

Yet this despised piece of real estate was fiercely fought over in 1945, and cost the lives of an estimated 2,000 Soviet troops before one victorious soldier could raise the Red Flag, in an event caught in that famous photograph of Yevgenii Chaldei. Thousands of Germans demonstrated for freedom before it and the damaged dome of its plenary hall in the 1950s, also the decade when there was a broad consensus for tearing it down. (Instead, it was restored in the 1960s and its interior gutted.) Hundreds of thousands of ecstatic Germans gathered in front of it early on the morning of Oct. 3, 1990, to celebrate German unification. The Reichstag will begin yet another resurrection in 1995—wrapped or not—with a new look scheduled for completion by the year 2000, and continue on into the 21st century.

Clearly, this "talking shop" of a parliament building matters. The Reichstag has weathered the vagaries and violence of German politics throughout the 20th century, which just might account for Christo's 23-year obsession, for he, too, has been seasoned by German politics. He and Jeanne-Claude can cite chapter and verse of Reichstag history in impressive detail, for they proceed like an expeditionary force charting new territory when they enter into a new project. By the time "Running Fence" was completed in California, Jeanne-Claude was something of a minor authority on the artificial insemination of cows and milk pasteurization, research she had done in order to talk with the farmers of Sonoma and Marin counties.

Remember, Jeanne-Claude is the daughter of a French general, Le General de Guillebon, and of noble birth; and Christo . . .

Christo Javacheff was born in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, in 1935 to a well-off family that lost everything after World War II. As a child he drew constantly, an interest noticed by his mother and nurtured by private tutor from the age of six. His father was a scientist; his mother, general secretary of the Fine Arts Academy in Sofia, which he attended until 1956. The Javacheff home welcomed artists and writers, but that peaceful and privileged life was destroyed by war and the new regime that followed.

Christo attended art school during the height of Stalinism; a 1949 photograph of his art class has a prominent Soviet Star hanging on the wall in the background. "It was terribly frightening to see the culture and how much it was massacred by Stalinism . . . it was worthless to stay in Bulgaria," he recalls. "There was a depression, a terrible nonexistence, a poverty of creativity." It wasn't easy, but in 1956 he obtained a visa to Czechoslovakia, where he had family, to study art in Prague. From Prague he escaped, with only the pen in his pocket, to Vienna. It was January 1957, three months after the Hungarian revolution, when hundreds of thousands of people managed to cross the border.

Christo spent a semester in Vienna studying art. just long enough to finalize his refugee documents to go to Geneva, then on to Paris, to him the center of art and culture. It was all done for art. In Paris he was a penniless Bulgarian artist in exile, doing traditional portraiture to survive; and caught the attention of the hairdresser of a certain Countess de Guillebon.

Given his history, does Christo have an emotional rationale for the Reichstag project? "Of course." he answers. It is startling to see his gesturing vivacity and flashing-eyed excitement, talking, talking, talking, now so strangely subdued. "I am so excited that I can create so much TOP TO BOTTOM: turmoil in the German psyche," he Wrapped Coast (detail), Little Bay, Australia, 1969,1 million sq. ft. of fabric, 35 miles of rope, 85 ft. explains, "all about an art experience. wide by 1 1/2 miles long. Displayed Oct. 2 8 , 1 9 6 9 - Jan. 6,1970. (photo: Harry Shunk) © Christo How the people are resisting the art experience. How they are mired up in Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado, 1970-72.1,250 feet long x 365 feet high, 200,000 square feet of nylon the art e x p e r i e n c e . . . Of course, that is polyamide fabric, 110,000 pounds of steel cables. Displayed Aug. 10 - 11,1972 (removed due to something that would attract a lot of excessive winds), (photo: Harry Shunk) © Christo passion, could turn in all kinds of directions, arouse all kinds of emotions; Running Fence (detail), Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972-76,18 feet high, 2 4 1 / 2 miles. and can mirror in someway the GerDisplayed Sept. 1 0 - 2 4 , 1 9 7 6 . (photo: Jeanne-Claude Christo) © Christo man angst and soul, and the feelings of The Pont-Neul Wrapped, Paris, 1975-85,444,000 square feet of woven polyamide fabric, 36,300 feet of rope. Displayed Sept. 22 - Oct. 7,1985. (photo: Wolfgang Volz) © Christo

G e r m a n s right now. There are some nasty right-wing ideas around and all of that is a very, very, very tricky thing," he emphasizes. "And, of course, it would he very exciting. 1 would be there. I don't like to go through witnessing all that angst, b u t . . ."

Hhmmmm . . .

At yet another point: "It's very important to understand that the project is a work of art," he states firmly. "It is not a cultural offense.

It is not a construction site. It is a work of art." "And nothing else," Jeanne-Claude punctuates just as firmly.

Hhmmmm . . .

In one of Christo's exhibition catalogs, Wieland Schmied writes: " W h e n Christo wraps the Reichstag—for however short a time—he will be putting a finger into a deep wound."* "That is the greatness of the project," Christo responds. "Like spokes in a wheel, there are all kinds of interpretations—and they are all legitimate." " Y o u ' re asking something we are not really capable of answering because we are not G e r m a n , " Jeanne-Claude continues sweetly, very sweetly.

T o cite another analogy: Christo decided to wrap the Pont-Neuf in Paris, and no other bridge, because of its deep roots in French cultural history. So, too, he says he selected the Reichstag because of its "very strong political symbolism and historical and dramatic dimension."

Then it all comes tumbling out, demonstrating just how politically savvy this artist, who professes to dislike politics and despise politicians, really is himself.

"Of course the Reichstag has certainly always been very political," he says. "I chose it for that reason, because I want to incorporate all of European history, my life too . . . because I came to the West because of the Cold War, because there was the division of the world into two parts. I escaped from the Eastern Bloc to the West. If there had not been a division of the world, I would not be here. I probably would be in Bulgaria. And, of course, all that was part of my initial inspiration. Perhaps if I had been born in Nebraska, the Reichstag wouldn't mean anything."

He continues: " C o m i n g from Eastern Europe where German politics was the principal maker of 20th century history of Europe and also of the world. All the miserableness, all the glory, the drama of the world was done by the Germans in the early 20th century with the First World War, and the Second World War, and that still shapes our existence today." " W h e n the Cold War divisions collapsed, we were confronted with the Shakespearean soul of human beings—that this is the real humanity. Finally, after the end of the Cold War, the world is confronted with its humanity. And in some way the Germans now are with themselves."

• • •

It is Feb. 3 and Jeanne-Claude is definitely not crying. On the contrary, the Aelterstenrat at its Thursday 1p.m. meeting decided that the wrapping of the Reichstag will be debated and acted upon at a roll call vote of the full parliament on Thursday, Feb. 24 at 9 a.m. Bonn time. Christo will get to see German angst from a gallery seat; the Reichstag project will be no footnote in Cold War history.

How will Christo and his team do it? The usual way: getting a foot in the door, maybe through a go-between like their powerful supporter, Bundestag President Suessmuth. Every deputy also has received a personal letter asking for a meeting.

There are three main arguments: First there is the aesthetics argument. They flash a handsome coffee-table book speedily published by Prestel in Munich last June, presenting not only Christo's drawings and plans for the Reichstag, but his urban projects of the last 30 years. It includes a speech of Dr. Suessmuth for the opening of the exhibition, "Christo in Berlin" earlier in the year, attended by many fellow members of the Bundestag and government ministers. In fact, both the exhibition and the book were her idea. Christo argues that

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"Today the Reichstag is in the books of politics, in the books of history, but when it is wrapped, it will be in the books of art. And I cannot believe," he continues, "that any German politician or citizen would be ashamed to see his national monument (be) part of the history of art."

Next, the economics argument, very persuasive because the wrapping will cost the Germans nary a single Deutschemark, and why the project has the backing of the Berlin bureau of tourism and chamber of commerce. It's estimated that if only 500,000 visitors come to see the wrapped Reichstag, Berlin will make about $300 million in the two weeks the project is extant.

And millions of people will come, Christo can say with good authority. He cites the 3,250,000 visitors who ventured 120 miles northeast of Los Angeles, over a period of 18 days, to see his yellow umbrellas, and brought along $30 million in additional revenues to an obscure California county. The figures come f r o m the county's own research. "That's why they passed a resolution thanking us," Jeanne-Claude says, smiling. "And with the Reichstag w e ' r e not talking about Bakersfield (Calif.), where only truck drivers go.

W e ' r e talking about Berlin!"

The third argument is environmental. Everything used in the project is recycled back to its original manufacturer, including all the hardware, fabric, steel, rope, and aluminum, to be reused for their original industrial, construction, agricultural purposes. Nothing is wasted.

If there's a fist on the table and a "But you haven't thought of . . ." it usually relates to two issues. Wrapping the Reichstag will not please all Germans; about 20 per cent will be critical. "But what politician can ask for more if 80 percent approve?!"

Christo's eyebrows almost reach to his hairline at so preposterous a notion. " . . . If they had only been elected with 80 percent," chimes in JeanneClaude with a satisfied smile. Yet, this fear of division strongly persists, particularly in these hard times.

The second critique is hardly unique to Germany: Politicians are jerks, and if these incapable office holders, on top of everything else, decide to wrap the Reichstag—they are out of their minds, found out for who they really are, and won't get re-elected.

This latest round of lobbying—two to three times a month, from March to November (1993) from 6 or 7 o'clock in the morning, the flights from New York to Bonn and back—has taken their toll. "No way will I ever step foot in Bonn again in my entire life," JeanneClaude pledges. "No thanks. Enough. It is too disgusting for me."

"They always say artists are unreliable," Christo says. "Do you really think that?!!" He just about explodes. "The most unreliable, unbalanced human beings in the world are politicians! Their nerves break every morning opening the newspaper and listening to the television with what's being said about them! You cannot believe it unless you are confronted." Clearly Christo has been confronted a lot lately.

Jeanne-Claude will not be in Bonn for the lobbying finale; Christo will. "We have to be fair to the work of a r t . . . and it is absolutely necessary. I take it with humor," he says, "Not only now, but for 22 years we go to the German politicians. This project is unavoidably linked with politics. There will be no project if we don't go through that."

"We have at this moment millions of Germans thinking how awful the Reichstag will look wrapped; or millions of Germans thinking how beautiful the Reichstag will look"—"And it doesn't even exist yet," interjects Jeanne-Claude. "That participatory public," he continues smoothly, "is really the chemistry of the project. They are really the makers of the project."

But, Germany is a representative democracy after all, and those 662 deputies in the Bundestag represent 80 million of their countrymen. Though that is really too simplistic a view because the biggest

change over the past years has been accumulating support in the press, in turn galvanizing public opinion as well as reflecting the public mood. Needless to say, this influences the way the deputies vote and how the government makes policy. The yellow press, conservative and with millions of readers, has come out in favor of the Reichstag wrapping too. Petitions circulate, one of 70,000 names, probably double that now . . . they've stopped counting.

Ultimately the issue may resolve itself along one of two lines taken by two experienced politicians. In 1981 Walter von Dohnany. the mayor of Hamburg, told the artist: "There is one thing you don't understand with your Reichstag project. In front of the man who has a wooden leg, you do not say the word 'wood.' " A few years earlier, the celebrated Willy Brandt, once mayor of Berlin, once chancellor of West Germany, said that wrapping the Reichstag would demonstrate the civility and the maturity of a German nation that can confront itself and its history.

They have abandoned projects before, including one that had finally been approved. But "the projects are alive, because they have something. They become bigger than ourselves," Christo sums up.

And, if they fail? What then ?

"The failure of each project is like a cold shower over my ego."

Christo admits. His work is so very public, so very exposed—"We are against the wall all the time," he says, sounding weary. "Of course, 1 will not be happy," he continues, with a kind of forced energy to his tone. "Imagine if the Plaenum turns me down after 23 years." He clears his throat . . . then summons again that forced energy, "but that keeps us marvelously alert." He perks up. then talks casually of other projects in the works: the gates project for Central

TOP:77ie Umbrellas, Japan-U.S.A. (California site), 1984-91.3,100 umbrellas; 1,340 blue umbrellas in Japan, 1,760 yellow umbrellas in California. Displayed Sept. 19 - Oct. 7 , 1 9 9 1 . (photo: Wolfgang Volz) © Christo LEFT: Christo and Jeanne-Claude in Berlin, in front of the Reichstag, (photo: Wolfgang Volz) © Christo

Park, New York City, along 27 miles of footpaths in this Manhattan oasis; the "Over the River" project for the western United States, "a project we are very excited about, extremely excited about." It doesn't ring true though. It's the Reichstag that is on Christo's mind.

"If they turn us down, it's over. We will remember that we failed."

• • •

Feb. 25. 4:35 a.m. New York time: " W E WON!!!!" screams a triumphant Christo in a telephone call from Bonn just one-and-a-half minutes after the roll call vote—292 for; 223 against.

Andrea M. Couture, a New York-based journalist, writes frequently about art and culture. She is the former managing editor of The Journal of Art and was on the staff of the Whitney M u s e u m of American Art. * Christo: The Reichstag and Urban Projects, catalog essay "Eight Aspects and a Summary." by Weiland Schmied. 1993, p. 12, reprinted from Christo: Project for Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin. (London: Annely Juda Fine Art), 1977.

PUBLIC ART REVIEW

SPRING/SUMMER

199413

Street Painting: Tripping the Light Fantastic Profile of a 400-year-old tradition by

Cynthia

Abramson

treet painting is possibly the oldest recorded form of tempo' rary public art to be practiced in the West. The first known pavement muralists were the disabled war veterans and beggars of 16th century Italy, who eked out a living from the coins that appreciative passersby tossed on their religious paintings.

Their endless reproductions of the Madonna, with which they covered the streets of Italian cities, earned them the name madonnari.

Early madonnari, or street painters, were inspired by the masters of the timeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Raphael, Michelangelo, and Julio Romano. Today, the masterworks of the 16th century continue to pervade the work of street painters throughout the Western world. This enduring popularity, claims master madonnaro painter Kurt Wenner, is due to the role Italian art has played historically: "[It] was always meant to teach, to entertain," he says, "fit's] a real public sort of art." 1 Street painting, as it is practiced today, is as much a performance art as a visual one, where the process of painting is the more important and the finished product the lesser. The painting actually exists in this respect to record the experience of having painted. 2 Spectators are essential, both to witness the act of creation and to patronize the artist while the work is underway. The completion of the painting marks the end of the artistic process and the public's participation in this process, as well as the beginning of the work's eventual destruction.

The Nuovi Madonnari-. City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks The most recent generation of madonnari began turning up on the streets of Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States and began turning those streets into canvas 20 years ago. These nuovi madonnari are struggling artists, art students, and even professionals

PUBLIC ART REVIEW SPRING/SUMMER

199413

who have turned to pavement painting as a means of surviving through their art, financing a fine arts education, or simply seeing the world.

In many cities, being a street painter can include repeated arrest as well as commissions for private clients. Hani Shihada, a professionally trained artist who began painting pavements nine years ago to earn money for art school, has been arrested 11 times; his cases were dismissed each time. This, he says, even occurred while he was working on a 40-foot by 30-foot pastel piece entitled "Three Muses," commissioned for and featured in the Mike Nichols film Regarding Henry. Fortunately, things have taken a turn for the better: "Now, the police know me," says Shihada. "Some even give me money."

One reason street painting is an arrestable offense in many cities is that most muralists do not obtain the necessary permit. Even then, however, other obstacles exist. Permit holders in New York City, for example, are not allowed to engage in commercial activity, which includes passing the hat and soliciting contributionsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the primary source of income for most madonnari. To avoid trouble, many street painters work at night, when they are shielded by tourists, theatergoers, and other passersby.

In the never-ending battle against the elements, another occupational hazard facing the madonnari, sidewalk muralists in many European cities lay plastic covers over their paintings at night, hoping to continue their work the next day. In the United States, painters spray their artworks with polyurethane, which can provide protection from the weather for up to two years (even oil pastel can last six months or more).

Another major obstacle is the price of pastels, which can cost $ 1 or more a stick.

An average mural, many of which rival canvas paintings in image complexity and style, can c o n s u m e 200 sticks and all an artist's profits. To save money, many nuovi madonnari make their

31VmS Sfl a o i H3XOH VHV FIRST AMERICAN' TITLE INSURANT

TOP LEFT: Libby Smith at work during the I Madonnari Santa Barbara, CA, 1992. (photo: Macduff Everton)

Festival,

MIDDLE LEFT: Crowds gather in front of the Old Santa Barbara Mission for the / Madonnari Festival, 1992. (photo: Jesse Alexander) BOTTOM LEFT: Street painting by architects Tim Steele, Tom Meaney, and friends, with cylindrical mirror installed, at the I Madonnari Festival, 1992. (photo: Nell Campbell) ABOVE: Stuart Brandt (right) and assistant completing work during the I Madonnari Festival, 1992. (photo: Nell Campbell)

own pastels, using beeswax, glue, soap, pigment or powdered tempera, which are sun- and wind-resistant, slightly water-repellent, and afford the artists a wider assortment of color than is currently available f r o m commercial sources.

Street Painting Festivals Each August, in the village of Grazie di Curtatone in northern Italy, considered the birthplace of madonnari painting, pavement artists f r o m all over the world gather for the International Street Painting Festival. Racing to complete their chalk drawings during the 24 hours of this competition, the painters work at night under huge spotlights.

They cover the piazza of the Church of the Madonna della Grazia with drawings where, centuries before, the first madonnari fulfilled commissions for the religious penitents, which were then given to the Church as gifts for prayers answered. Like the 16th century spectators, visitors to this festival throw down thousands of dollars in coins by their favorite paintings. At the end of the competition, the madonnari divide up the money.

No comparable festival had ever been held in North America until 1987 when, after attending the festival in Grazie di Curtatone, Kathy Koury decided to import this tradition to Santa Barbara, Calif The California festival was held as a Memorial Day fundraising event for the Children's Creative Project, an arts education program of the Santa Barbara County Education Office founded in 1974 to provide money to pay artists-in-residence for elementary schools.

Now in its seventh year, the Santa Barbara I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival attracts tens of thousands of visitors, and 200 amateur and professional artists and their sponsors to the 20,000square-foot plaza at the base of the Old Santa Barbara Mission.

Sponsors, who purchase squares of pavement ranging in price from $75 for a 4-foot by 6-foot piece to $450 for a swath measuring 12 feet by 12 feet, have included major corporations as well as local businesses, political candidates, non-profit organizations, and even families. The three-day festival also features an Italian market with freshly prepared food and live entertainment.

Executive director Koury thinks the event has helped people develop an interest in art and sees it as the beginning of a possible circuit for street painters as well. Since 1987, she has helped launch more than half a dozen I Madonnari festivals all over the United States, including San Luis Obispo, Long Beach, and San Rafael, Calif.; Montgomery, Ala.; Naples, Fla.; and Cleveland, Ohio. The Cleveland festival in turn has sparked a dozen more such events in communities throughout northeastern Ohio.

Recent street painting festivals in the United States have benefited arts-in-education programs, shelters for abused women, and scholarship programs for art students. Nearly all include live music and performance, food and dancing, and are designed as affordable, family-oriented celebrations. The madonnari festivals encourage everyone to become sidewalk painters, including children, families, graphic designers, illustrators, architects, and fine artists. Training workshops are held to instruct artists and laypeople alike in the techniques of pastel-making, stenciling, image enlargement and drawing on asphalt.

The festivals also encourage communities to come together to explore their collective artistic talents and resources, to create environments where children are free to discover the street, and to celebrate and rediscover their downtowns and city centers.

Street painting festivals could also prove significant to the survival of the nuovi madonnari and the art of street painting itself. These festivals promote wider recognition and acceptance of the work, media, and lifestyles of pavement artists. They bring large and, above all, appreciative audiences directly to the artists, and create a forum for the exchange of information and ideas among artists and between artists and the public. In addition, festivals provide a creative environment free from police intervention, painting surfaces that are wellsealed and prepared, free chalk and supplies, and honoraria for participating master madonnari.

A Growing Trend The surprising number of Italian street painting festivals springing up all across North America marks the emergence of a new circuit for pavement muralists and other kinds of street artists, suggests their effectiveness as fundraising tools for non-profits and arts organizations, and represents a proven way of introducing a virtually limitless audience to the visual arts. And as long as there are passersby with coins to spare, this public art form will continue to be a part of city life as well, continually drawing us to the sunny side of the street.

Cynthia A b r a m s o n is a public art and amenity planner with Project for Public Spaces, Inc. in New York.

Notes: 1. Kurt Wenner, National Geographic Explorer (television show), "Masterpieces in Chalk," aired Feb. 8, 1987.

2. The Children's Creative Project, producers of the Santa Barbara, Calif. / Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival, a program of the Santa Barbara County Education Office.

TOP RIGHT: Mollie O'Connor, The Flood Comes to Cedarfest (detail), lor Cedarfest 1993 (during the children's parade of fishes), Minneapolis, 100 feet in diameter, (photo: the artist) BOTTOM RIGHT: The I Madonnari Festival, 1992. (photo: Jesse Alexander) BELOW: Elise McConnell, completing work during the I Madonnari Festival, 1992. (photo: Nell Campbell)

PUBLIC ART REVIEW SPRING/SUMMER

199413

Street Painting Opportunities The following street painting festivals will be held during 1994.

Interested artists should call the individuals at the numbers below for applications and information regarding honorariums, entrance requirements, etc.

Fullerton, Cfl. Street Scene Festival, April 23 and 24. Benefits the CSU Fullerton student scholarship program in the arts and on-going gallery projects. California State Arts Alliance. Contact Pat Ford (714) 773-3256 or Steve Rose (714) 871 -3638.

San Luis Obispo, CA., April 30 and May 1, and Santa Barbara, CA., Memorial Day Weekend, May 28-30.1 Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival. For both festivals, contact Kathy Koury (805) 8973144. The festival benefits the Children's Creative Project, an arts education program of the Santa Barbara County Education Office.

Montgomery, AL. Flimp Festival, May 6 and 7. Call Tara Sartorius at the Montgomery Museum of Art (204) 244-5700.

Naples, FL. Via Colori Italian Street Painting Festival, May 7 and 8.

Benefits a shelter for abused women. Contact Sam Piatt (813) 775-3862.

San Rafael, Marin County, Cfl. Giovanni dell'Arte Italian Street Painting Festival, June 11 and 12. To benefit a Youth-in-Arts Program. Contact Terese Redinger at (415) 457-4878.

Toronto, Ontario. The Circle Ball Fair, August 5-14. The Fair is looking for six international street painters. Call Rick Armstrong (416) 487-7679.

Cleveland, OH. September 24 and 25. Contact Robin Vanlear at the Cleveland Museum of Art (216) 421-7340.

Long Beach (Belmont Shore), Cfl. Strada di Pitture Festival, held in early October. Contact Sue Ahrend (310) 434-3066, between 3 - 5 p.m.

Compiled by Cynthia Abramson,

Rafala Green, model for Phillips Gateway project, 1992, designed for the southwest corner of Franklin and Chicago, Minneapolis, (photo: Petronella Ytsma)

Rafala Green s Gateway b y

R o y

M

c

B

r i d

e

I

n August 1992, residents of the Phillips neighborhood in South Minneapolis met to review design proposals from five artists for the installation of a new plaza in Peavey Park. They enthusiastically endorsed the proposal from artist Rafala Green, who proposed the creation of five mosaic pathways leading to the plaza, symbolizing the five cultural paths of the people living in Phillips—Native, African, Latino, Asian and European. An arched gateway over the paths would invite visitors to sit on free-form structures of poured concrete, inspired by Antonio Gaudi, a 19th century Spanish artist and architect. Children from the Phillips neighborhood would be invited to create the mosaic pathways out of designs rooted in their respective cultural traditions. Teenagers from the five cultures would design mosaics to be embedded in the free-form benches, with adult mentor/artists guiding the creation.

T h e N e i g h b o r h o o d G a t e w a y s Project, sponsored by the Minneapolis Park Board and the Minneapolis Arts Commission, was established to bring gateway installations to all 17 Minneapolis neighborhoods. Four inner-city neighborhoods—Elliot Park, Longfellow, Powderhorn, and Phillips—were selected for the first round of funding. At the first meeting of the Arts Commission in fall 1992, panelists rejected Rafala G r e e n ' s project, the Phillips neighborhood choice.

Phillips residents were dismayed. Although

PUBLIC ART REVIEW SPRING/SUMMER

they understood the Arts C o m m i s s i o n ' s concerns that Green's vision exceeded the project budget, they continued to lobby for its acceptance and pledged to see the project completed. Inspired by the neighborhood's powerful commitment to G r e e n ' s vision, the Arts Commission eventually embraced the project and agreed to see it through.

Minneapolis, the city of lakes, is also a city of parks. Over 100 years ago, Charles Loring, who made his fortune in milling, proposed that the city fathers set aside land for parks in the growing city. Loring did not want Minneapolis to become like many cities "back east," overdeveloped, with all the best land reserved for the wealthy. Thanks to his foresight, Minneapolis residents now enjoy full public access to the entire circumference of all lakes within the Minneapolis city limits.

However, even in Loring's time, most of what is now the inner city of Minneapolis was already developed. Therefore most inner city parks, including Peavey Park in Phillips, were developed on cleared land donated to the park system by private owners.

Peavey Park is unique, however, because it is probably the only public park in the country situated where a liquor store once stood.

For 10 years many residents tried to close Snyder's Liquor Store, but it took the 1992 opening of an elementary school on one side of the park and a crisis at the Detoxification Center, located one block away on the other side of the park, to bring a coalition together to get Snyder's closed. Neighborhood resi-

199413

dents literally danced in the streets when the store finally closed in the spring of 1992.

The liquor store's old parking lot was chosen as the site for the Phillips Gateway project. The southwest corner of Franklin and Chicago avenues is a natural gathering place and has been the site of political rallies, Pow-wows and recently a backdrop for the American Indian Movement and Peacemaker Center's six new tee-pees, painted by artist Fred Armell and associates. These precedents make G r e e n ' s project part of an ongoing movement of outstanding cultural and public art projects taking place in the Phillips neighborhood; others include Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre's May Day Parade, the two Art Stops (neighborhood safe spots for children) at 12th Avenue and Lake Street and 11th and Franklin avenues created by neighborhood teens and other artists, and a mosaic mural on a nearby school.

In spring 1993 the Phillips Neighborhood Gateway Project began. The original proposal had several classes of students from the nearby Four Winds School designing symbols from the five cultures for use in the plaza walkways. However, the Four Winds staff wanted all 700 of their students to participate.

After revising the plan and raising additional funds, five mentors spent four months with 700 children in a residency that produced a truly amazing collection of student work.

The childrens' designs were displayed for months on a wooden fence surrounding the construction site. C o m m u n i t y volunteers

helped mount the show, covering the work with plastic donated by 3M, which is based in the Twin Cities. Volunteers carried on a 24hour vigil when some of the exhibit was vandalized. Later, members of the 18th Avenue Neighborhood Block Club repaired the damaged artwork.

While the work was being conducted at Four Winds, gateway artists secured a workshop space for creating the benches in Applebaum's, a vacant supermarket on the south end of the Phillips neighborhood and recruited youth workers from the five cultures.

Betsy Sohn, project coordinator, says she's stopped telling people that she's helping put benches in Peavey Park and now calls them "concrete sculptured seating platforms." Weighing in at an average of 20 tons, the scale of this project is hard to imagine. The old Applebaum's Supermarket was transformedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the walls lined with drawings and designs, floors covered with work in progress, tiles broken and sorted, rocks being sorted on one side of the parking lot and on the other, concrete being poured and finished. Talking with several of the young people involved made clear the significance of the work and the appreciation these young people felt for what they were learning. They uniformly expressed appreciation for the advanced training and mentoring they received coming into the project.

As one put it, "We learned how to put our thoughts into art." Many of the youth have worked with Marilyn Lindstrom, initiator of the Neighborhood Safe Art Spot, and see this project as continuing the mission to provide "a safe place to do art."

Green wanted community involvement, and there is no better way to get the community involved than by involving its children. One mother describes the experience as "beyond involvement, it is youth development!" A community organizer describes the project as "helping put a jewel in the crown of Franklin Avenue."

In fall 1993 the Greek Orthodox Church, new owners of Applebaum's, notified Green that the project must vacate the supermarket space. The church had found a tenant ready to move in as soon as renovations could be completed. The city said they had no equipment capable of moving 20-ton sculptures, but one cool autumn morning found a city work crew with cranes and flatbed trailers in the old Applebaum's parking lot. After a full day's effort, city workers successfully moved the project into storage.

Discouraged but undeterred. Green began looking for a new workspace and funding. At the same time, she began another youth involvement project, the WinteF Mural Project, with African-American mentor Anna Stanley. This residency is being conducted at Phillip's other school, Hans Christian Andersen Open School. When winter weather required that the artwork from Four Winds be removed from its outdoor gallery, students from Andersen and many of the youth workers began designing new panels on the theme of "The Way We See It." These will be mounted and dedicated in spring 1994.

The evolution of the project and the growth of the youth artists are fully evident in these beautiful panels.

The search for a new workshop site is looking good, and the Phillips Neighborhood Gateway Project work has started again this March. The Phillips Neighborhood Revitalization Project Steering Committee has approved a proposal to fund the completion of the project, but still must get the Arts Commission's final approval.

Already 3,000 volunteers and many in-kind contributions from an incredible variety of neighborhood businesses have made the struggle to complete this project seem possible.

All the Gateway projects have had modest cost overruns (up to a third, according to the Minneapolis Arts Commission) but none have created the frustration, excitement, and community involvement of the Phillip's project.

Rafala Green is a visionary. Mother of seven and now a grandmother, she sees her work as relating to children and their education.

"It's easy to live in the past as an artist," she said. "Working with youth keeps me in the p r e s e n t . . . Helps me put my two cents in before I go."

Youth installing temporary display of painted panels at the future site of Rafala Green's Phillips Gateway project, 1994. (photo: Petronella Ytsma)

Youth workers and resident volunteers with Rafala Green (third from right) taking a break prior to moving a concrete seating platform, (photo: Petronella Ytsma)

Roy McBride has been involved in public art works for over 25 years. Now he's starting to understand.

PUBLIC ART REVIEW

SPRING/SUMMER

199413

BOOK REVIEW

"Transitory Gardens, Uprooted Lives"

Transitory Gardens, Uprooted Lives

Reviewed

by

Carolyn

Erler

In an earlier Yale Press publication, Dominance and Affection by Yi-Fu Tuan, the psychological roots of m a n ' s need to dominate nature and the human "other" are examined. Power, says Tuan, is the ability to overcome resistance.* The resplendent gardens of Louis XIV, Shah Jahan. and the Vatican are noted as efforts to control nature to the point of rendering it nearly static. The playful endeavor to trim, design, and dwarf nature has throughout history been accepted as a sport of kings. In a sense, the tradition lingers on. It lingers on or there would be no punch to the spectacle of a modern-day pauper's garden. The well-composed photo of a homeless man's postage stamp garden arouses moral reassurance in viewers that the homeless man is not so much unlike Louis the XIV, Shah Jahan. or, as well-to-do Americans themselves.

Transitory Gardens, Uprooted Lives (Yale University Press) is a new publication by landscape designer/Yale lecturer Diana Balmori, and photographer/Cooper Union School of Art professor Margaret Morton.

One hundred forty handsome black-and-white photos, text by Balmori. and provocative interviews with the gardeners themselves are intended to allow the plight of the homeless and the accomplishments of a few gifted homeless individuals to emerge without ideological clutter. The introduction states that the book is meant to stand as "historical record" of persons and places, many of which have already passed out of existence. Skirting problematic labels such as "folk," "naive," and "primitive" art, Balmori and Morton allow the gardeners to be heard through their own voices; the mechanisms of dehumanization at work in so many books are studiously avoided here.

In her commentary, Balmori points out the common challenges facing professional landscape designers and residents of homeless communities such as "Bushville" on New York's Lower East Side. "The interplay of open and semi-enclosed, garden-courtyard and house, natural and artificial, bugbane and inflatable palm tree establishes a transition between spaces often sought by accomplished garden designers," she writes. Homeless gardener Guineo is praised for his inventive use of seasonal materials "to reinforce the essential transitory nature" of his space on a vacant lot. Due to the shortage of building supplies, he must rebuild and rearrange his quarters to suit changing seasonal conditions. The resilience of individuals such as Guineo, whose homes are bulldozed by the city every few months, is a recurring theme of the book.

Such resilience stands out against assumptions that gardening satisfies an innate human need to render nature's moods static, dependent upon human device, and above

from page 23 homeowners argue over Christmas spectacles, yard signs, homemade sculptures, and even what kind of lawn is "permitted." When it's out there in public, others can critique it, love it, hate it, and vandalize it, all problems for homeowners as much as f o r o t h e r f o r m s of public art.

Clarence Weidert knows that well. When I called his home after the holidays to find out why there had been no lights this year, his wife, Lenore, told me that her husband was disheartened after thieves stole a small church a friend had made for the yard. He was tired of putting up with the thieves and vandals.

Yet how diminished our landscape would be if, for whatever reason, all these lights went dark. I suspect we all would have a harder time making it through the dark, long nights of deep winterâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;nights unpunctuated by strings of lights along rooftops or around trees, or bursts of brilliance in all-out extravaganzas of holiday generosity. It might well be worth spreading the grant money around to support these vernacular artists or, at the least, recognizing their vital contributions to our landscapes and our yearly cycles.

Colleen Sheehy is Director of Education at the Weisman Art PUBLIC ART REVIEW SPRING/SUMMER

199413

all, permanent. The revelation offered by this book seems to be that all humans, even homeless ones, harbor this fantasy.

Milk cartons, bread trays, pallets, shopping carts, broken dolls, and stuffed animals are the materials most commonly found in these homeless individuals' gardens. Living things normally associated with gardens such as plants and animals are in scarce supply.

The homeless gardener has to scavenge materials from the refuse of consumer society; he/she is not a consumer him/herself. In the art and architecture of geographically isolated indigenous peoples, the same gathering of local materials for multifarious uses is well-documented. In New York City, it is social, not geographical, elements that force people into the role of urban gatherers. Given theirambiguous social status, it's not surprising that the creations of artistically gifted homeless individuals eerily echo the aesthetics of the dominant group.

Readers alert to the nuances of form as well as content may find it disturbing that proceeds from Transitory Gardens, Uprooted Lives apparently will not be used to help the communities whose yards it focuses on, or that the homeless gardeners were likely not guests at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Lowinsky Gallery, and N.A.M.E. Gallery openings for Ms. Morton's photographs.

As historical record. Transitory Gardens, Uprooted Lives is objective, polished, cut from its roots in the gritty daily world. In this new volume from Yale, aesthetics, historical record, and academic exploitation all rub shoulders in a way that will surely not ignite controversy in the halls of higher learning.

The ironic juxtapositions of form against content must be detected, i.e. "read," by you, the consumer.

Carolyn Erler is an artist and writer living in St. Paul. Her essays on environmental art and folk art have appeared in Artpaper and Iris: A Journal About Women. * Tuan, Yi-Fu. Dominance and Affection, (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1984), p. 168.

Museum at the University of Minnesota. For her dissertation on American yard art, she did fieldwork in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and California.

Notes: 1. Landscape analyst J.B. Jackson has done much to promote the recognition of vernacular landscape traditions. In an early essay, "Ghosts at the Door," he writes about the values associated with the American front yard. See Landscape (Autumn 1951 ): 3-9, and Discovering the Vernacular Landscape (New Haven: Yale, 1984), also by Jackson.

2. In addition to The Horticulturalist, see Andrew Jackson Downing, The Architecture of Country Houses (New York: Dover Publications, 1969; repr. D. Appleton & Co., 1850).

3. Frank Jessup Scott, Victorian Gardens: The Art of Beautifying the Suburban Home Grounds (Watkins Glen, NY: American Life Books. 1982; repr. D. Appleton & Co., 1870).

4. Jack Santino, "Halloween in America: Contemporary Customs and Performance," Western Folklore XLIII, l(January 1983): 1-20.

5. Britt Robson, "Santa Claus Lane," City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Dec. 22, 1993, p.6.

6. "Family hits holiday lights after winning court order," Star Tribune, Minneapolis/St.Paul, Dec. 15, 1993, p. 14A.

MAGAZINE REVIEW

"ORTE"-A Place for Public Art by

L i l i a n

twHa fflrnuTTa.iinnun.Ti.t KHMEunainiBEnilj

m..[ •

F r i e d h e r g

The title of this German public arts review reads Orte, "Places," and already its creators have drawn a fine line between the docility we have come to expect from contemporary gallery art and the politically volatile potential presented by public art. In Germany, where the historical landscape is littered with war debris, where the memory of genocide haunts the collective consciousness, places can carry more political and artistic clout than faces.

"Places" is vaguely reminiscent of the feminist koan "Es gibt keinen Ort, nirgends"—"There is no place, nowhere," coined by East German author Christa Wolf in her book Kein Ort, Nirgendwo. No place left unmarred by the memory of crusades and crucifixions, of persecution, execution and annihilation.

In Germany, where place names replaced family names in wartime and in peace, there is no place to run and no place to hide. So place takes precedence over people as the primary focus of art in Germany.

Orte documents—unwittingly—this crucial difference between public art here and there: The European artist is more concerned with consecrating places than with promoting public participation in and support of the arts. The hands of public artists paraded between the pages of Orte are not tied to the task of healing shattered communities. They are free to explore the possibilities of preserving the memory of communities displaced and desecrated by centuries of conflict—on location.

Public art in Germany has consistently adhered to the belief that the purpose of art is to sustain memory, and Orte contributes significantly to that end by tracing the personal/ political odysseys of European artists who have marked humanity and history with mementos of creative genius strategically placed on street c o r n e r s and m a r k e t p l a c e s in Stalingrad, W a r s a w , Budapest, Prague, Dresden, Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin, even as far as Tel Aviv.

"Forgive," David Ben-Gurion once said of the Holocaust, "but never forget." Michael Levin's lavishly illustrated, six-page documentation of public art in Israel (Orte, Oct. 1992) is testimony to Orte's commitment to memory. Seasoned with a generous sprinkling of black-and-white photographs and topped with an impressive set of full-color glossies, the essay has the effect of a panorama shot reflecting art in modern-day Israel.

But Orte is not content with pretty pictures: Just 20 pages away, reporters dissect the corpse of anti-Semitic sentiments in the context of the current controversy over plans to erect a Holocaust memorial in Berlin. Orte does not turn its back on history; it becomes one with it.

In a critical essay discussing the relationship between public art and architectural planning, memory is—more obliquely— again the pivotal point. Author Benedikt Loderer stresses that the current debate is the consequence of the 20th century modernist trend toward separation of art and architecture. He urges us to recall that art and architecture were once one. Not until we severed art from architecture and began injecting, by way of compensation, mega-doses of art into the cracks and crevasses that remained when the architects left the drafting table did the issue become relevant.

His is a plea to return to the intellectual posture that assumes aesthetics is as integral a consideration in architectural planning as sanitary facilities. Prerequisite to this endeavor, he says, is the presence of good architects in our midst, architects who are themselves artists at heart.

Walter Grasskamp. in "Das Schweigen der Sirenen" (The Silence of Sirens) another essay in the same issue, pays tribute to sculptor Olaf Metzel's provocative pieces, which preserve the public memory of a civil war that continues to rage and rip apart the superficially reunified country. He is rigorous in his refusal to let his folk forget: Stammheim (where members of the RAF were murdered in their cells); Hafenstrasse (where demonstrators were forcibly detained and contained by armed police officers); Wackersdorf (site of a nuclear power plant where protesters were bombarded with tear gas in the midst of a peaceful assembly). Metzel makes his mark on these places—places much of the German citizenry would prefertoerase from memory.

Intentionally hideous heaps of cement and steel stand as glaring reminders of the discrepancies between the political ideals and realities of western democracy.

M e t z e l ' s most controversial piece, "13.4.81" (April 13,1981) is boldly depicted on Orte's cover, a curious entanglement of red. white and blue steel posts capped by a grocery store shopping cart plastered against the backdrop of a blown-up city map. Its impact escapes the American eye: It could be any city, any place, anywhere in the world.

but it isn't. It is Berlin at the corner of Kufiirstendamm, (a historical landmark/shopping m e c c a / p r o m e n a d e of a f f l u e n c e ) and Joachimsthalerstrasse. It is the site of perpetual conflict between warring factions in an intellectual battle that threatens to erupt in a tragic climax as east and west converge now in the once and future capital. The steel structures stacked haphazardly to create the towering monstrosity are not figments of the artists' imagination: To the German eye, their symbolic significance is readily apparent—they are barricades used by police to contain even the most peaceful protesters when their cause cuts to the quick of established political thought.

We don't have to know exactly what transpired here on April 13, 1981. But Metzel's monument provides anyone with even a cursory knowledge of contemporary German history enough symbolic information to let the viewer imagine the rest of the story.

In the final analysis, Orte isn't all that much different from its American counterparts: It subscribes to the expectations, demands and desires of its readership. It lists upcoming grants, prizes, and competitions. It offers a brief summary of national exhibitions and events.

What is conspicuously absent in Orte is the advertising. There are 92 pages of public arts review and only two pages of advertising. An eight-page color spread, high-quality paper and reproduction, in-depth, well-written analyses and no advertising? One has to wonder how they do it.

The answer to this question certainly cannot be sought in the context of a simple review. It is significant, though, because what is clear about Orte is that it has extricated itself from the funding dilemma and thereby freed itself and its audiences for the exploration of the real issues at stake in public art. Hardly a word concerning percent-for-art programs. Vague references to the politics of marketing art and making it palatable to the purchasing public suffice as catalysts for discussions that, presumably, will occur outside the pages of Orte.

Orte's primary concern is memory, not money. It offers a refreshing shift in focus from the lugubrious haggling overdollars and dimes that seems to dominate the public arts forum in the United States. Orte creates a space in which form, content and political dissent converge to transcend the undue constraints placed on its American counterparts by the public art bureaucracy. If we could ever figure out how they do it, not only would our publications take on a new shimmer, but places like Wounded Knee.

Kent State, East Los Angeles, Daly Plaza and the like might be returned to their rightful place on the horizon of our own historical consciousness.

Lilian Friedberg is a writer, performer, and social activist. Her work has appeared in Percussive Notes, Lesbian Contradiction, Schlangenbrut, and she has performed in Berlin, Amsterdam, Africa, and Minneapolis.

Editor's note: Sadly, Orte has just informed us that they have stopped publishing due to economic problems. For back issues write: Orte.

Redaktion, Langenstrabe 2, D-2800, Bremen 1.

PUBLIC ART REVIEW

SPRING/SUMMER

199413

WORTHY OF NOTICE A column devoted to exploring what publican practitioners, administrators, critics, historians, curators, and advocates are looking at, reading, and thinking about.

Correspondence is welcome. by

R e g i n a

F l a n a g a n

New Art M u s e u m s as Form and Forum; T h e W e x n e r Center for the Visual Arts and The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum

Tofurtherconsiderthesequestions, I found it helpful to examine the history of the art museum as a built form; the design intentions of architects Eisenman and Gehry; and the objectives of these museums.

The idea that works of art could be publicly displayed in a special building is no more than 200 years old, according to Witold Rybczynski, in Looking Around—A Journey Through Architecture. Private art museums and collections like the Vatican and the Louvre began to open their doors to the public only at the end of the 18th century; in America, art museums arrived about 100 years later.

As the public museums of the 19th century represented a new use, one might have ex-

the building and to provide a serene and noble setting for the experience of art.

The next phase in the evolution of the art museum began in the 1930s, with the advent of modernism. Emphasis was placed on flexibility; there were no individual galleries.

Instead, movable walls allowed curators to rearrange the spaces as needed. A straightforward entrance lobby replaced the grand foyer, and natural light illuminated the space through ingeniously contrived skylights.

What is at the heart of these buildings was not a commemoration of culture, but the visitor's experience of the art. These are neither palaces nor temples, but exquisitely crafted containers where one is led directly to the art, without fuss and fanfare. 3

The first buildings designed especially for exhibiting art, including the British Museum in London, the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, and the New Hermitage in St. Petersburg, were built between 1810 and 1840. The most prominent space was usually a large twostory entry rotunda, atrium, or hall for the display of sculptural works, and the design plan typically included two floors: a ground floor with rooms for furniture, pottery, and textiles, and an upper floor with skylit painting galleries. The architectural style was usually classical, to connote the civic function of

claimed the design of the Wexner Museum was meant to undermine the type and form of the museum. After Eisenman's presentation, Gwathmey spoke from the audience, stating his perception that Eisenman creates design problems in order to solve them, however brilliantly. Steven Izenour, f r o m Robert Venturi'sfirm, later suggested that Eisenman should spend 10 years designing exhibitions for the Wexner, as Venturi has for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in order to understand the relationship between art and space.

A visit to the Wexner Center for the Visual Arts at Ohio State University in Columbus shortly after its opening in 1989 caused me to consider several compelling questions about the nature of the relaModernist ideas continue to intionship between the design of art form the design and function of museums and how art may be premost new art museums displaying sented. The autocratic and provocacontemporary work, including the tive design of the W e x n e r ' s interior Wexner Center and the Weisman spaces, in particular, begged the Museum. question: Could new building forms As part of the grand-opening inspire new forms of art? Would the celebrations for the Weisman Mugallery spaces provide a stimulus seum, the University of Minnesota calling for a unique response? Or sponsored a symposium in Decemmore likely, would the W e x n e r ' s ber 1993 entitled "New Art Museunusual gallery dimensions, oddly ums: Revis(ion)ing Architecture, placed columns, and textured floors Art and Culture." Peter Eisenman of wood and stone, impede curaand Frank Gehry, as well as Robert tors' and artists' efforts? The agG w a t h m e y , who recently comp l e t e d t h e a d d i t i o n to t h e gressive building designed by Peter Guggenheim Museum, and Robert Eisenman definitely was not inVenturi, who designed the new tended to be a "blank canvas" for the Seattle Art Museum and an addidisplay of art. tion to London's National Gallery, The new Frederick R. Weisman presented their views.

Art Museum at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis by archiE i s e n m a n , the c o n s u m m a t e tect Frank Gehry, dedicated in Notheorist, claimed that his challenge vember 1993, offers a different parawhile designing the Wexner Cendigm. While the m u s e u m ' s stainter was to rethink the display of art. less steel facade is exuberantly sculp- Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, 1993, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Because Eisenman believes architural, the 47,000-square-foot inte- (photo: courtesy Weisman Art Museum) tecture has an equal place next to rior features gallery spaces with the art, he maintained the building should not be in the background. While the usual large movable, white walls. But Gehry's pected architects to invent a brand-new type painter's role may be to challenge the strucsculptural sensibility is apparent inside the of building, such as the Victorian railway ture of society, Eisenman did not think it was building as well. A series of subtly curving station, which had no precedent in architecthe role of architecture to challenge painting. tural history. Alternately, it might have been light wells and angular trusses diffuse dayHe further claimed that art and architecture possible to modify a traditional building type light into the galleries below, bathing the are not meant to be comfortable, and the to suit the new function. But neither happaintings in soft light. museum might be a place to understand the pened. 1 The pragmatic way in which art colIs a dialectic between the built form of an confrontational aspects of these disciplines. lections were fitted into whatever large buildart museum and the work shown inside desirEisenman expressed the hope that subseings happened to be handy suggests that the able, or should an art museum be a "blank quent art installations at the Wexner might museum was not considered an important can vas," a neutral background for the display challenge the architecture. civic institution. It was a storehouse of the of art? Historically and culturally, the art past and had not yet acquired the public museum has never been a "blank canvas," In conclusion, Eisenman stated that archirole—and the public image—that we associbut has always had social intentions; only tecture does not solve social problems, but 2 ate with the museum today. since the 1930s has it appeared to be a neutral that form can change social programs. He environment.

Artists working in the realm of public art have generally been expected to affect or respond to architecture and the built environment. Many artists have found creating work for this context, with all of its parameters, more stimulating than producing work for museum or gallery settings. Could responding to the architectural environments of challenging new art museums like the Wexner Art Center or the Weisman Art Museum encourage new approaches to creating and displaying art?

PUBLIC ART REVIEW SPRING/SUMMER

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Frank Gehry, whose sensibility has been

linked in architectural summaries and exhibitions with the postmodernism of Venturi and the deconstruction of Eisenman, is unique because his work crosses many boundaries and draws from many sources. In fact, Gehry renounces efforts made to link his work with specific architectural movements. Speaking during the symposium at the University of Minnesota, Gehry stated that art and architecture are essentially the same. Both have their moments of truth, with judgments to be made about shape, color, and content; the differences are primarily technical.

From G e h r y ' s perspective, the architecture of an art museum should defer to, and support, art. He remarked that artist Daniel Buren and critic Benjamin Buchloh disagreed with him on this point, stating they would not want to show art in a "deferential" building.

Instead, Buren and Buchloh issued a call for less neutral museum architecture. Gehry responded with his belief that the artwork, not the space in which it is shown, should be confrontational.

Gehry has acknowledged that he receives stimulus from artists, and they have helped to shape his vision. He has long-standing friendships with Claes Oldenburg, Chuck Arnoldi.

Ed Moses, and Ron Davis, among others.

One of the inaugural exhibitions of the Weisman Museum, "The Architect's Eye," features artists who have inspired him, as well as works from G e h r y ' s personal collection. Painter Ron Davis, whose studio Gehry designed in 1970-72, has commented that he perceives G e h r y ' s buildings as sculpture and Gehry, a frustrated sculptor.

While G e h r y ' s straightforward design for the Weisman galleries has received accolades, the building's facade and deportment on the staid University of Minnesota campus mall has spawned debate. Writing in Architecture Minnesota, critic Robert Gerloff has remarked that G e h r y ' s design is weak in three areas particularly important to many architects today: planning, community, and environmental integrity. 4 He criticizes the building for "turning its back on the campus, literally facing a blank, featureless brick wall toward the mall, and orienting its main facade toward the Mississippi River. However striking this facade may be. as an isolated form it does nothing for the campus structure. . . . Architects back in the early 1960s defined architecture as "functional sculpture." Form, not planning, was important. . . . [The Weisman Museum] is purely the heroic vision of an individual artist. It's a romantic work that stands aloof and isolated from the university community, both physically and spiritually."

However, Gerloff found the interior of the museum unexpectedly subtle and functional.

"Paintings, not architectural g y m n a s t i c s dominate the m u s e u m ' s interior. . . . T o answer the most important question of all, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum will be a wonderful place to study art."

While the WexnerCenter and the Weisman Museum both serve university communities, they have slightly d i f f e r e n t o b j e c t i v e s .

Whether these buildings are successful may

be evaluated by looking at each institution's mission, and how the architecture expresses and advances the institution's stated intentions.

The 109,000-square-foot Wexner Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary arts center with programs in the visual, performing and media arts. In particular, the center is, according to its mission statement, "dedicated to the commissioning of new works, and a creative residency program . . . supporting artists and the creative process by offering an environment for creation, experimentation, and critical evaluation." Equally important to the center is "presenting the works of artists exploring current and future directions of aesthetic endeavor that would otherwise not be seen in the region."

The primary mission of the W e i s m a n Museum is "to educate students about art and to make the visual arts an important part of their everyday experience." The museum

Maya Lin, Groundswell, 1993, tempered safety glass, permanent installation, Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. (photo: Kevin Fitzsimmons)

presents and interprets works of art, and provides a repository for the university's 13,000-piece permanent collection, including a significant collection of American art from the first half of the 20th century. The museum also has an active touring program to rural communities primarily in the Upper Midwest.

From most indications, the new buildings seem direct expressions of each institution's mission. The W e x n e r Center's emphasis on the presentation of innovative and challenging new work is congruent with the cuttingedge architecture of its building, and the Weisman M u s e u m ' s eclectic focus is probably best served by a building that attracts attention, but provides an "exquisitely crafted container" for the display of art.

However, since the Wexner Center has been open since 1989, we can investigate how the architecture has affected subsequent exhibitions. Eisenman may have solved the problems he felt were relevant to the design of the Wexner Center, but has his architectural solution continued to constructively in-

fluence exhibitions?

A recent e x a m p l e that c o n f r o n t s the building's design is a permanent installation by architect/sculptor Maya Lin, completed in October 1993. Observing the existing sites around the exterior, Lin discovered "residual spaces" that were unplanned and unused, yet highly visible. She created "Groundswell," an environmental work that connects three such spaces, which are adjacent to each other yet span three levels of the building and vary in shape and size. Lin created a landscape of 50 tons of recycled, crumbled shards of safety glass. " S o m e of the areas look like a (Japanese sand) garden, while others are much more like ocean waves or pools of water," says Lin. The resulting sculpture poses a curving, otherworldly juxtaposition to the linear architecture of the building, and gives a cohesive vision to its multilevel plan. 5 The Wexner C e n t e r ' s design has come to provide a form and forum for the creation of innovative works of art. The building may have an aggressive presence, but it provides a stimulus for artists. Has the design of the W e x n e r Center caused new art forms to emerge? The attention of the art world is currently focused on work dealing with issues other than conceptual aesthetic responses to architectural spaces. Whether the W e x n e r Center is a paradigm for a new kind of art museum or is merely an anomaly is also uncertain. There are currently no similar building designs to compare.

T h e f l a m b o y a n t a r c h i t e c t u r e of t h e Weisman M u s e u m has immediately attracted the attention and the imagination of the public, who, it is hoped, will visit the historical and contemporary collections displayed inside. Whether future exhibitions will match the dynamism and innovation of the building's exterior fagade remains to be seen.

For further reading, see: The Architecture of Frank Gehry, (New York, NY: Rizzoli Books, 1986). Peter Arnell & Ted Bickford, Editors. A Center for the Visual Arts-The Ohio State University Competition, (New York, NY: Rizzoli Books, 1984): critical essays by Rafael Moneo & Anthony Vidler, Wexner Center for the Visual Arts: The Ohio State University, (New York. NY: Rizzoli Books, 1989): and the October 1989 issue of Progressive Architecture featuring the work of Peter Eisenman.

Regina Flanagan is a photographer and art administrator living in Saint Paul, Minnesota, who frequently writes about public art and design issues.

Notes: 1. Witold Rybczynski, "Art Inside the Walls." Looking Aroundâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;A Journey Through Architecture, (New York, NY: Penguin Books. 1992). p. 129.

2. Rybczynski. p. 130.

3. Rybczynski. p. 136.

4. "Postcard Perfectâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;The University of Minnesota" s new Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum sparks controversy and delight," by Robert Gerloff. Architecture Minnesota, (January/February 1994). p. 20-25.

5. "Maya Lin, Groundswell, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio" by Kate Hensler. Sculpture, (January/February 1994), p.38.

PUBLIC ART REVIEW

SPRING/SUMMER

199413

PUBLIC ARTICLES

"Rising Above Our Ganbage"Two Views A public art symposium addressing the multilayered problems of garbage in this country.

San Francisco and Palo Alto: Jan. 27, 28, 29, 1994 b y

M i c k e y

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"Artists should enter at the greatest point of conflict and tension"—Mierle Laderman Ukeles.

Is it possible to see our public works projects become the cathedrals of our age? Co-chair of the symposium "Rising Above Our Garbage," Pallas Lombardi, raised this and other questions about how to gain a voice in making public works public, about how to thaw the proprietary freeze of regulators who could become, with the collaboration of creative individuals, the Medicis of environmental design. She asked if the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) could become the leveraging agent to provide a link between governments and artists in shaping the environment into innovative symbols of our surb y

D e b o r a h

K a r a s o v

"Landscape," was a word missing from the conference "Rising Above Our Garbage," although it was implied many times, reinforcing my sense that we need a broader frame of reference when we conceive of public works reclamation projects. In other words, they should be viewed as cultural interventions within a dynamic, evolving landscape.

Twenty years ago artist Robert Smithson offered one approach to the dynamic landscape in his description of the muddy slough inundating a pond in New York's Central Park. They should be dredged out, Smithson wrote. "This maintenance operation could be treated in terms of art, as a 'mud extraction sculpture.' A documentary . . . would turn the maintenance into a physical dialectic. The mud could be deposited on a site in the city that needs 'fill.' The transportation of mud would be followed from point of extraction to point of deposition." This entire process, Smithson argued, had the beginnings of a landscape dialectic.

From this perspective, the mere act of wetland restoration, or any other rudimentary reclamation venture, is not making the most of the critical role of the artist. In Smithson's words, it is the difference between an artist pretending to save the landscape and one who is trying to make a concrete dialectic between nature and people.

The critical artist's project could become a site-specific statement about nature and cul-

PUBLIC ART REVIEW SPRING/SUMMER

vival.

Ron Jensen, who worked with artists on the redesign of a Phoenix, Ariz., waste management facility, said there has been some change in the way engineers in his field approach public works projects, but there needs to be more free thinking. He believes it is necessary to move away from single-function facilities toward those which are both functional and cultural—for the community, not despite the community. Across the board, communication was seen as a critical element, as were good examples of successful projects and time to build respect and understanding. Working with community groups and city councils was imperative because of the fear such facilities engender in those who live close to them.

The Danehy Park Project in Cambridge, Mass., began its transformation from clay pit to landfill in 1946. Its evolution from a playground for rats to one for kids was slow, taking nearly 20 years, from 1971 to 1990. In the late 1980s Mierle Laderman Ukeles (the generous, witty artist-in-residence at the New York City Department of Sanitation), was selected to help rethink the design and use of the site. She had the good fortune to work with city people who were open to her involvement and to an artist-directed transformation of the park. One of her major contributions was in making this "sacred mound," as she saw it, into an accessible place, "our place" for the community that had lived with

its smells and smoke for so long.

Many other projects were shared at the symposium. In all of them the same spirit of cooperation and invention was reflected by the artists and their project partners: city engineers, solid waste managers, politicians, architects, critics, botanists, bioengineers, and environmental industry leaders. For one thing, they discovered that the artists involved in public works projects and environmental problems were no ignoramuses. They talked hydraulics, drainage systems, sustainable development, fascines, and hyperaccumulators.

Even as the celebration of collaborative projects continued over three days, a sense of caution remained. Such collaborations require people with a sustained—and sustaining—vision. Many still don't understand the contribution artists can make to the environment and fewer stil 1 are likely spokespersons for this collaboration. Given these tenuous circumstances, artists will have to continue to take the initiative to develop ideas and create partnerships like those highlighted at the symposium. It was obvious too, that artists must continue to take the lead in working with communities, to give them new communal places: quiet, contemplative open space, the new "cathedrals" that reconnect with the land.

ture—not an ecology "out there," but one in which we are participants. Mierle Laderman Ukeles seemed to lead the way with her aim of creating "levels of transparency" in a site, expressing the workings of the landfill, for example, rather than smoothing it over.

Laderman Ukeles suggested more critical possibilities, though, when she said that artists should enter at the greatest point of conflict and tension. Her remark is reminiscent of Smithson's belief that the artist cannot turn his or her back on the contradictions that inhabit our landscapes. Such contradictions exist on all levels of human activity, be they social, political, or natural. These two statements imply much more than just artistically solving a public works problem artistically.

They force us to ask: How do we express these contradictions?

tended. Still, we require less celebration of our good intentions and more experimental projects that open up our thinking and match the temporal magnitude of landscape change.

Public works projects also call into question our notion of collaboration, a process that is often taken for granted and seldom illustrates new ways of thinking. At the conference, I saw many signs of tension among artists, engineers, and politicians. However, by embracing these tensions (which are part of the dialectic), the design process could become an extraordinary laboratory.

The point is not that artists should become ecologists. Rather, the challenge is to forge a partnership among artists, landscape architects, and scientists so that, together, they can produce new forms that draw on the strengths of each discipline.

"Rising Above Our Garbage" was one of the more interesting conferences I have at-

199413

Mickey Gustin is the Arts Planner with the Community Redevelopment Agency, City of Los Angeles.

Deborah Karasov is director of the Landscape Studies Center, College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Minnesota, and editor of The Once and Future Park (Princeton Architectural Press, 1993).

Participating artists at the symposium included Mel Chin, Linnea Glatt, Jo Hanson.

Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison, Nancy Holt, Laurie Lundquist, Michael Oppenheimer, Christy Rupp, Michael Singer, Buster Simpson. Symposium co-chairs were Peter Richards, Pallas Lombardi, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles. Also in attendance were Bert Kubli (NEA); Jock Reynolds, now at the Phillips Academy in Andover; Ron Jensen, director of Public Works, Phoenix; Robbin Sotir, soil bioengineer with specialization on landfill sites; Emily Lloyd, commissioner, New York City Department of Sanitation; Eugene Wingerter, executive director and CEO, Environmental Industry Associations, publisher of Waste Age; Joe Haworth, information officer, Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts; John Ruston, Environmental Defense Fund; and William Rathje, archaeologist and director, The Garbage Project, University of Arizona.

PUBLIC ARTICLES

SOS! Update Post-installation care and maintenance of public art. b y

R o b e r t

S c h u I t z

Lately, serious-looking volunteers have been roaming your state in search of artwork.

They are part of an ambitious national effort to locate, document, and assess the condition of every publicly accessible sculpture in the country.

Save Outdoor Sculpture! (SOS!) officially began in 1989 as a collaboration between the National Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Property (NIC) and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American Art (NMAA). Basically, each state hired a project coordinator responsible for training volunteers eager to canvass their neighborhoods, towns, and rural areas to locate public sculptures, gather pertinent information and report their findings to a national database.

A r i z o n a ' s coordinator is D a w n - S t a r r Crowther. Crowther hopes to instill a sense of ownership in public sculpture so that people continue to be aware of the importance of long-term artwork conservation. "Educating communities about the necessity for proper

Coming

Next

Issue: Fall/Winter

maintenance and conservation is the critically important issue that's arisen out of this project," she states earnestly.

When the SOS! project began, "about 300" was the best guess of how many public sculptures existed throughout Arizona. The actual number may reach 600. As the reports come in, there are some interesting findings. For example, very few Arizona sculptures have been created by female artists. Also, contrasting monuments to Geronimo's surrender—one completed in 1934, the other in 1988, by Chiricahua Apache artist Allan Houser—illustrate a marked change in attitude toward Native American history. And volunteers have reported well-intentioned but misguided attempts at "conservation." Overall, Crowther reports, "The majority of sculptures we've found would benefit from treatment, with perhaps one in five needing immediate attention."

The Arizona SOS! project concluded with the "Care and Maintenance of Outdoor Sculpture" conference held in Scottsdale. The organizers' goal was to educate the general public and civic institutions on the importance of proper maintenance of public sculpture. Keynote speaker David Montagna from the National Park Service discussed the components of a well-conceived conservation and maintenance program and how such a program helps to preserve America's cultural heritage. Rick Kneipper, chairman of

7 994

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WINDOWED ALTERNATIVE SPACES For a future article in Public Art Review, artist/curator Mariella Bisson needs i n f o r m a t i o n about exhibition programs o f f e r e d in windows; programs making use of storef r o n t s or d i s p l a y w i n d o w s , large or small. (No Galleries—the space itself must be a w i n d o w . ) Send i n f o r m a t i o n to:

Mariella Bisson ART FIRST 2 2 0 Water Street B r o o k l y n , N Y 11201

the City of Dallas' Adopt-a-Monument program, outlined their 5-year-old process that raises private funds to restore deteriorating outdoor sculpture.

National SOS! program director Susan Nichols expects the project to conclude in 1996. Among her remaining duties are finishing coordinator training, developing and distributing educational materials for school children and adults, and creating and distributing a brochure outlining strategies for fundraising, locating conservators and developing collections management systems.

She encourages interested citizens to "stay involved in sculpture maintenance and sustain the local momentum that w e ' v e built up."

As the volunteer effort winds down, emphasis is shifting to organizing the information into a usable format. With about 10 percent of the state inventories completed, some 6,000 reports have been collected and fed into the inventory of American Sculpture database housed at the N M A A . The museum plans to put the inventory catalog on the Internet computer system this fall. For now, the public can access the database by calling (202) 786-2384, or by visiting the N M A A in Washington, DC. Robert Schultz is visual arts supervisor for the city of Mesa, Arizona.

^ ^ g g S a g k w c B T h e National Assembly of Local Arts ^VVVPjfVL Agencies (NALAA); the only national organization specializing in up-to-date m training, facts, peer networking and maintaining a collective national voice for local arts agencies and arts at the . .. community level, is currently acceptM MemDersnip i n g applications for their 1994 Now Open! membership campaign.

Please call Perea Campbell at 202-371-2830, or write to: NALAA 927 15th Street N.W., 12th Floor Washington, D.C. 10005 Open to new members as well as renewing members

P U B L I C ART A F F A I R S 1992-93

Color Postcard

Earcie Allen Virginia Bradley Ernestine G a t e s & Judith W e s t e n d o r f David Hall & Laurie V a n W i e r e n Erki K a n n u s Donald Myhre

Catalog

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Kathryn N o b b e E l l e n Petty M a r j o r i e Pitz Jeffrey Rabkin Kent Scheer Sara Rothholz W e i n e r & Jancis Curiskis M a u r a Matula Williams

To Order, send $5.00 to FORECAST: Public Art Affairs 2324 University Ave. W., Suite 102 St. Paul. MN 55114 612/641-1128

PUBLIC ART REVIEW

SPRING/SUMMER

199413

LISTINGS Meanwhile, artist Clyde Lynds has been commissioned by the General Services Administration to create "America Song," a large-scale wall relief for the new Federal Office Building at Foley Square, adjacent to the African Burial Ground. Promoted as the "largest fiber-optic and concrete sculpture ever created," Lynds' project will begin construction later this year (see photo left). An exhibition of Lynds' work is touring the US this year, including The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio (April 6-June 12); and the Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, Kansas (August 15-October 15).

Armajani to Design Olympic Cauldron Artist Siah Armajani will design the Olympic cauldron, the monumental torch that will hold the Olympic flame during the 17 days of the 1996 Atlanta Centennial Olympic Games, according to Art in America (April, 1994). Armajani's cauldron will remain in Atlanta after the games are over as a permanent installation. Annette Carlozzi, visual arts producer for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games was quoted as saying: [Armajani] "works from a social philosophy that espouses unity and democracy which we felt was particularly appropriate to the Olympic Games." In 1980, Armajani created the environment "Reading House" for the Lake Placid Olympic Games.

Clyde Lynds, America Song, 1994, (model, depicting one of several light displays), final version: 33' x 20', fiber optic and concrete relief, (photo: courtesy the artist)

Ipdates, Recent •roiects, Conferences, Publications, Events, & Opportunities Of Special Interest African Burial Ground Saga Continues New York's Municipal Art Society is one of the organizations in The African Burial Ground Competition Coalition developing support for a memorial commemorating an 18th-century African burial ground that was discovered in lower Manhattan in 1991. An exhibition of ideas submitted for the site is currently on display through April 20 at the Society's Urban Center Galleries, 457 Madison Ave. According to Edward Kaufman, associate director of issues at the Society, the public is encouraged to review all the ideas submitted. Public debate to establish a final project—or a combination of projects—for the fiveacre site will continue for some time. Regardless of which projects get selected for the site or its surroundings, Kaufman says, "something should be done, and the feds should pay for it."

Melinda Hunt and Margot Lovejoy's "Just Outside the City," a site-specific installation sponsored by the Public Art Fund, was scheduled for display at New York's City Hall Park last year. However, issues raised by the adjacent African Burial Ground have placed the project in limbo. According to the ACLU Arts Censorship Project Newsletter, preparations hit a snag when members of an influential, non-governmental steering committee that advises the federal government on the historic project, disapproved of the artists' proposal. After the city decided not to grant permission for the installation, The Arts Censorship Project and the New York Civil Liberties Union took on the case, and are now representing Melinda Hunt in her efforts to reverse the decision.

PUBLIC ART REVIEW SPRING/SUMMER

Largest Bronzes in the East and the West In the fall of 1993, a 112-foot bronze Buddha, the world's largest, was dedicated. The sculpture, which is sited on Hong Kong's Lantau Island, took 10 years to complete. Ten thousand guests worldwide were invited to the dedication ceremony.

Meanwhile, in Dallas, Texas, plans are underway for a giant bronze rendering of a 19th century cattle drive, with 70 six-foot-high steers and three trail riders herding them up a ridge past a man-made limestone cliff one block from City Hall. The $9 million project, on a 4.2-acre plot in downtown, is expected to become a major tourist attraction. When the trail drive is completed, promoters of the project believe it will be the largest bronze sculpture in the world.

Remember the Alamo?

Chances are, if you have recent home movies taken at the Alamo, in San Antonio, Texas, Gene Elder is in them. Performance artist E l d e r c l a i m s ' i try to appear in as many home movies in front of the Alamo as I possibly can." His three-year-long performance piece has been documented by over 100 videos, mostly taken by tourists on vacation. In most cases, his presence goes unnoticed as a walk-by "extra" in the background. Sometimes he stops and admires the architecture of the Alamo, other times he smiles and moves on through. While his work is sometimes referred to as "bratty behavior," Elder is apparently after a more authentic exchange with the public.

Art Goes Video The City of Tampa Art in Public Places program recently began producing a new television series,/!/-/

Gone Public!, which gives an in-depth look at the world of public art. The show premiered in late December on City of Tampa Government Access Television (GATV). Produced and hosted by Art in Public Places C o o r d i n a t o r M a r i a n n e EgglerGerozissis, Art Gone Public! seeks to highlight the city's public art projects, and reveal the process of public art to the community in an educational and entertaining format.

Artist's Bridge Design Wins Citation The jury selecting Progressive Architecture'a 41st annual awards in January praised the V-mast bridge design by artist James Carpenter of New York as "a pretty spectacular piece of work" (see drawing below). The design would replace the 100-year-old Wabasha Street Bridge over the Mississsippi River in downtown St. Paul, Minn. "It's a very carefully conceived urban bridge, a fine piece of engineering that responds rather elegantly to the urban conditions," observed jurror William Mitchell. Carpenter, an acclaimed sculptor with signficant engineering experience, was chosen by the Wabasha Bridge Task Force through a process administered by Public Art Saint Paul, which has managed several major publicart projects on behalf of the city. The only problem: It's too expensive. On February 18, the Mayor and City Council dropped the V-mast design in favor of a less costly, girder-type alternate by Carpenter.

CAA Conference Draws Thousands to NY Over 4,000 artists, educators, critics, and administrators attended the 82nd annual College Art Association Conference, held in New York from February 16-19. Several sessions addressed the concerns of public artists and administrators. The questions of what constitutes audience, public art, and public space became the focus for the session "Public Art in the Public's Interest: Problems and Possibilities."

"The real question is of ownership," said New York artist Martina Gutierez during her talk "Public Art in the Era of Multiculturalism: Who is the Community and Who is the Artist?" "Multiculturalism has engendered new questions of ownership. Who is in control, and who gets credit for carrying out the [public art] projects?" Gutierez asked. During a session on "The Artistic Project Gone Awry," critic Harriet Senie challenged the crowd to consider a larger audience when proposing public art projects, and not to assume that local communities will interpret an artist's work as intended, especially when the work involves a controversial message. Citing several recent examples, she said: "It is [artists or administrators' ] responsibility to take into consideration the 'art gaze'—what people see when art is placed in the public realm."

Whiteread's "House" Sparks Debate Rachel Whiteread's concrete casting of the interior of a house—for which the exterior was later removed— on London's East End. sponsored by the public art trust Artangel, met with "fierce antagonism from the Cockney locals," according to David Cohen's review in Sculpture Magazine (March-April, '94).

Whiteread's sculpture, entitled "House," attracted graffiti, tabloid interviews, and a significant amount

James Carpenter's proposed V-mast bridge design, to replace the Wabasha Bridge over Navy Island and the Mississippi River, St. Paul, MN. (drawing: courtesy the artist)

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of heated debate. Before the work was demolished in January, as planned, Whiteread ironically received— almost simultaneously—England's lucrative Turner Prize and "the worst living artist" award ("organized by a publicity-hungry pop group"). As Dickens said: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."

Naurnan to Receive Wexner Prize On May 11, the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University will present the third annual Wexner Prize to artist Bruce Naurnan. The prize, consisting of a $50,000 award and a commemorative sculpture designed by artist Jim Dine, honors the work of an artist who has been consistently original, influential, and challenging to convention. Past recipients include director Peter Brook (1992), and composer John Cage and his long-time collaboratorchoreographer Merce Cunningham (1993). Naurnan's work is currently the subject of a major retrospective at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, organized by the Walker and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC. Obituaries Allan G. Odell, 90, co-founder of the Burma-Vita Co., introduced the famous Burma Shave roadside rhyming jingles. At one time there were 7,000 sets of Burma Shave signs in 45 states. According to his wife, Grace Odell, he kept a flashlight and a pencil and paper next to his bed to write down new ideas, which usually came to him in the middle of the night.

One of his favorite creations, now in the Smithsonian Institution's collection, first ran in 1933: "Within this vale; Of toil; And sin; Your head grows bald; But not your chin."

Donald Judd, 65, whose minimalist works helped redefine the direction of postwar sculpture, died Feb. 12 of lymphoma in New York City. Judd was best known for his cubic and rectangular works, with a thoughtful use of space, scale, and various construction materials. Much of his early work was displayed in galleries, while in his later years he concentrated on architecture and furniture designs.

Conferences & Meetings ART-21: Art Reaches Into the 21st Century, April 14-16, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Chicago. This national conference, sponsored by the NEA, explores "issues relating to art in the lives of Americans and to inform a federal vision for the arts through policy and planning initiatives." Convened by NEA Chair Jane Alexander, the conference is expected to draw 1,000 participants, including artists, arts organizations, institutions, educators, and patrons. Themes include: "The Artist in Society," "The Arts in Technology," "Expanding Resources for the Arts," and "Lifelong Learning Through the Arts." For registration information: Jasculca/Terman, 730 N. Franklin, Chicago, IL 60610; 1-800-233-1234 (ID: ART-21).

The Ninth National Association of Artists' Organizations (N AAO) Conference will be held April 2 8 May 1, in Miami, Fla. The conference will provide a forum to explore cultural balance and equity, working conditions in the field, community-based work, and survival. A series of smaller working meetings will be held two days prior to the conference and will include an artists' task force and meeting opportunities for other special interest groups. For registration information: NAAO, 918 F St., NW/Suite 611. Washington, DC 20004, or call (202) 347-6350.

Art Into Action: Public Art For People. July 25-29, at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass, CO. This multidisciplinary workshop devoted to activist, humanistic, public art includes a series of hands-on workshops and lectures that address art as a force for healing, consciousness-raising and community-building. Presenters include Arlene Raven, Rachel Rosenthal, Mel Chin, Joe Lewis, Suzanne Lacy, and others. For info: Anderson Ranch Arts Center, P.O. Box 5598, Snowmass Village, Colo. 81615; (303) 923-3181.

Sculpture '94 Biennial. August 17-21, at the Academy of Art College and Hotel Nikko, San Francisco, Calif. Over 1,000 artists, collectors, administrators, and curators will converge forthe International Sculpture Center (ISC) conference, the world's largest international meeting devoted to contemporary sculpture. In addition to panel discussions, seminars, and a trade fair (August 18-20), there will be public art tours and pre-conference technical workshops (August 1317). For registration forms and program information, contact Kelly Eigler at ISC, 1050 17th St. NW. Suite 250, Washington, DC 20036; (202)785-1 144.

Public Art: Realities, Theories & Issues (PARTI), October 27-30, at the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel, organized by the California/International Arts Foundation. PARTI is an international conference that brings together artists, administrators, and design professionals to discuss the complex and expanding role that artists and public art projects are playing in relation to a host of contemporary issues. Session topics and tours will focus on new directions in public art, including: "Humor and Irony in Public Art," "Critical Writing about Public Art," and "Film as Public Space." Call Paige Bruyn: (213) 244-6810.

Exhibitions & Events Extended through April 23. Fernand Leger: Ceramics, Tapestries, Mosaics, Sculpture, at the Marisa Del Re Gallery, 41 E. 57th St., NY 10022; (212) 6881843. The extension coincides with the final approval this month by the City of New York for the placement of Leger's monumental sculpture La Grande Fleur Qui Marche (The Great Walking Flower) at 57th Street and Park Avenue.

Through May 1. Outside the Frame: Performance and the Object. Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, 8501 Carnegie Ave.. Cleveland. Ohio. Presented in collaboration with the Cleveland Performance Art Festival, this exhibition and series of performances is the first major survey of the entire field of performance art in the United States. Included are interactive works, maquettes, costumes, puppets, and sets from historically recognized performances. A time line documents the history of performance art over the past century. A catalogue will be published later this year, available through the Center. The exhibition will travel to the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, NY in early 1995.(216)421-8671 (see side bar and photos, p. 20-21).

Through May 9. The City, Art and Architecture in Europe. Georges Pompidou Center, Paris. This exhibition attempts to review—from both the architect's and artist's point of view—the place of the artist in the city from the 19th century to the present. According to Genevieve Breerette's review in Le Monde (Feb. 10), the advent of the percent-for-art programs (first introduced in France in 1936) was not always a positive force. "One wishes that the art integrated better with the architecture, but instead the art was overwhelmed by the architecture. . .Public space has never been an easy place for the work of the avantgarde, and it still isn't...Alas, the future of the city depends not on all the difficulties it must cope with, but the fruitful relationship of architect and artist— without all the politics."

Through May 15. Hard Choices, an exhibition by Joyce Scott at Laumeier Sculpture Park. 12580 Rott Road, St. Louis, Mo. Scott's glass bead sculptures will be on display in the gallery (see photo), and an outdoor installation commissioned by Laumeier Sculpture Park, From Whence We Came?, will be installed within an arch window of the museum's north entry.

Through May 22. Waves of Influence, Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art/Snug Harbor Cultural Center, New York. This multimedia event celebrates Portugese culture, including an exhibition of contemporary and historic ceramic tile works, paintings.

Joyce Scott, Evolution, one of several beaded sculptures featured in Hard Choices exhibition at Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO. (photo; courtesy Laumeier Sculpture Park) prints, drawings, and architectural designs from Portugal. as well as educational events and a dance performance. Snug Harbor Cultural Center, 1000 Richmond Terrace. Staten Island. NY; (718) 4482500.

May 25-June 5. Inter-Act I. A massive. 24-acre artwork in a genre referred to as "land painting" will be created in Mount Pleasant, SC by Charleston-area artist Jerry Spenser during a 12-day period coinciding with Spoleto Festival USA. Call Jerry Spenser: (803) 886-6617.

April 14—July 1. Urban Paradise: Gardens in the City. Paine Webber Art Gallery, 1285 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY. This exhibition organized

by The Public Art Fund includes design proposals by nationally and internationally recognized artists for urban gardens in Brooklyn. Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx. In a unique collaboration with city agencies, community boards, ecological groups, and local activists, the Public Art Fund has commissioned these artists, teamed with landscape architects, to create 10 new gardens which explore the integration of art. nature, and the city. The gardens will be installed from fall 1994 through fall 1997. Participants include: Vito Acconci, Gilbert Boyer, Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel. Lorna Jordan. Justen Ladda. Alison Saar and Betye Saar. Garry Simmons. Haim Steinbach.

Gary Leonard Strang & Michael Roche, and Meg Webster. (212) 713-2885. (see article, p. 4-8) April 29-August 14. Botero in Chicago. This outdoor exhibition of 17 monumental bronze sculptures along Michigan Avenue will coincide with an exhibition of 100 Botero drawings at the Chicago Cultural Center (78 E. Washington St.). Coordinated by the city of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs, this tribute to Botero will include a bilingual educational program to foster a better understanding of the artwork. For more information call: (312) 346-3278. (see photo, p. 7) June I7-August 28. Stuart Nielsen. Nielsen will be featured in an exhibition of models and drawings at the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, including his current project for the University of Minnesota's

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Amundson Hall, home of the university's department of chemical engineering and materials science (to be completed in the spring of 1995). The exhibit documents the artist's development of this large-scale work over the course of the past two years. For info: Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, 333 E. River Road. Minneapolis, Minn. 55455; (612) 625-9678.

September 23-October 30. inSITE94, the first of a planned biennial exhibition of installation and sitespecific art, will take place in the San Diego/Tijuana region. The exhibition will locate new temporary artworks at more than 30 public spaces on both sides of the US-Mexico border. Coordinated by Installation Gallery in conjunction with the Museum of Contemporary Art. San Diego and the Centro Cultural Tijuana, inSITE94 includes projects sponsored by 37 of the region's non-profit arts organizations.

Among the artists are Dennis Oppenheim, John Outterbridge, Ming Mur-Ray, Anne Mudge, Chris Burden, Roberto Salas, and Buzz Spector. Installation Gallery, Box 2552, San Diego, Calif. 92112; (619)293-0145.

Dancing in the Streets, a New York organization presenting interdisciplinary performances in public settings, has announced their 1994 series of scheduled and planned events: "Dances for Wave Hill," with Ann Carlson, Steve Paxton, Anastasia Yaga and Reggie Wilson; "Bugs of New York," a series of four 'bug ballets' for Volkswagens and their owners, by Jennifer Schlosberg; "Who Killed Carmem?," by Patricia Hoffbauer; "Out of Season." by David Dorfman; "Breath of the Earth," by Sham Mosher (see photo, p. 46), Robert Mirabal and Adam Plack; and Merideth Monk at the Ruins on Roosevelt Island.

To confirm schedule of events, contact Dancing in the Streets, 131 Varick St., Rm 903, New York, NY 10013;(212)727-2535.

Art in the Urban Landscape, a new program of the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation and Capp Street Project, recently announced six artists or artist collaboratives who will create semi-permanent artwork in San Francisco this year. Participants include: DIWA (a coalition of Filipino-American artists), Connie Hatch, Alan Rath, Gay Outlaw, Margaret Cran/Jon Winet, and Rigo 94. For specific locations and more information, contact Capp Street Project, 525 Second St., San Francisco, Calif. (415) 4957101.

Books & Publications What Is Architecture? An Essay on Landscapes, Buildings, and Machines, by Paul Shepard. According to Shepard, "architecture is more that just buildings, but less than everything." His account of architecture is told through anecdotes and conversations involving a set of unlikely but plausible witnesses who testify about the current state of architecture.

(Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press, 1994).

The Guild 9; The Architect's Source of Artists and Artisans. In this ninth edition of The Guild, there are over 200 artists presented, including those working in architectural glass, ceramics, metals, murals, sculpture, and public art. In addition to practical information for artists and commissioning agencies, the directory includes the Guild Register of public art.

(Published by Kraus Sikes, Madison, Wise., 1994; 1 800-969-1556).

Richard Haas, Justice and the Prairie, 1994, acrylic on canvas, 9' x 23' one of two curved murals, Federal Building and Courthouse, Kansas City, KS (photo: Douglas Kahn, courtesy GSA) and others report on the proposals submitted by artists for PAF's "Urban Paradise: Gardens in the City" exhibition, a three-year installation of artist-designed gardens throughout New York. Also included are artists' essays and descriptions of each garden project.

(Published annually by Public Art Fund Inc., New York. NY; (212) 980-4575) Nonspectacle and the Limitations of Popular Opinion^ 1994), edited by Mitchell Kane, published by the Hirsch Farm Project as a document of their 1993 program. Participants included Rick Valicenti, Helen Molesworth, Sarah Seager, Jane Whicher, Pae White, Dennis Adams, and Anna Novakov (reviewed in PAR #9). To order, send $25 to the Hirsch Farm Project, 450 Skokie Blvd., Suite 703, Northbrook, IL 60062; (708) 480-2000.

Art in Other Places, by William Cleveland (1992).

Cleveland has assembled a number of accounts of artists working in the community, addressing social ills, or bringing creative solutions to everyday environments. Topics include: the elderly, prisons, people with disabilities, hospitals, and youth at risk. (Praeger Publishers, New York, 320 pp.; 1-800-225-5800) Fundraising; The Artist's Guide to Planning and Financing Work, edited by Susan Jones (1994). Covering everything from developing a strategy, budgeting, and making proposals, to approaching sponsors and obtaining in-kind sponsorship, the book also discusses the advantages of developing contacts and relationships which will help artists finance independent projects. (AN Publications, PO Box 23, Sunderland, England SR4 6DG) On the Ruins of Museums, by Douglas Crimp (1993).

Crimp, with photographer Louise Lawler, treats works of art not as autonomous objects to be interpreted, but as elements in a complex and shifting landscape that includes exhibitions, criticism, markets, and other institutional contexts. This book is a critique of the contemporary art museum, which Crimp and Lawler see as increasingly irrelevent to the work of today's artists. (Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 330 pp.,114 illustrations).

Artistic Freedom Under Attack, Volume 2 (1994).

Published by the People For the American Way, this report provides a nationwide snapshot of challenges to art and artists in 1992 and 1993. as well as an overview of the complex political, social, and cultural forces now fueling a host of local art controversies.

(People For the American Way,2000 M St. NW, Suite 400. Washington, DC 20036; (202) 467-4999) Live Art, edited by Robert Ayres and David Butler (1992). A dialog with people involved in performance art. this book not only discusses the philosophies behind it and its relationship to audience, but also gives advice and information on the practicalities: creating opportunities, putting a performance together, funding, promotion, etc. (AN Publications, PO Box 23, Sunderland, England SR4 6DG) Aqua Pura, by Tim Collins and Reiko Goto (1994).

The book—an exploration of the politics, poetry, science and environmental realities of San Francisco's water—and its companion, a permanent audio-visual installation at San Francisco's San Andreas Treatment Facility—are designed to serve the Water Department and its 300 Bay Area communities as a educational tool. Aqua Pura represents a departure from the traditional public art solutions, extending the artists' longstanding interests in water, nature, the environment, and citizenship. (Published by the San Francisco Art Commission and Water Department, 25 Van Ness Ave., Suite 240, San Francisco, Calif.

94102;(415)252-2590) Chicago Public Art Locations, a free map and guide to Chicago's distinguished public art collection, is available at the Visitor Information Booth in the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St. The new publication includes 136 artworks, from murals and sculptures to stained glass and photographs.

Recently Completed Projects ARTSMAG, a new on-line, interactive digest of articles culled from the alternative arts press, is edited

by Steven Durland, artist, writer, and editor of High Performance magazine. This on-line digest encourages comments from readers, who are then considered contributors to ARTSMAG. Steven Durland, RR 2, Box 383, Pittsboro, NC 27312; (919) 542-1096. Email can be sent to "highperf@tmn.com." PAR thanks ARTSMAG for including Suzanne Lacy's "Mapping the Terrain" {PAR #9) in their first "issue."

Creative Time Catalogue 1991-1992. This publication documents a wide variety of temporary public art projects sponsored by Creative Time Inc. Also available, 20 Years of Creative Time, a new booklet chronicling the history of the organization from 1974 to the present. Creative Time, 131 W. 24th St., New York, NY 10011; (212) 206-6674. (see article, p. 48).

The Power of Culture: Critical Essays in American History, edited by Richard Wightman Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears (1993). Fox and Lear show how "the interpretive upheavals of the '80s have transformed cultural history." Included is Casey Nelson Blake's essay "An Atmosphere of Effrontery; Richard Serra, Titled Arc, and the Crisis of Public Art." (University of Chicago Press, 5801 S. Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL 60637)

Public Art Issues. In the upcoming edition of the Public Art Fund's annual journal, critic Patricia Phillips

Public Lettering: Script, Power, and Culture, by Armando Petrucci (1993). This book reconstructs the

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history of public writing in the West, including inscriptions, graffiti, signs, graphics, and epitaphs and traces its social functions from the 11 th century through the modern period. (University of Chicago Press, 5801 S. Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL 60637)

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J u d i t h Baca, Danza Indigenas (Indigenous Dances), 1993, at the Baldwin Park Metrorail, for the Civic Center in Baldwin Park, CA. Commissioned by the Art for Rail Transit Program of the L.A. County

Jantje Visscher, Spring Source, 1990, acrylic gel medium and acrylic paint. 4' x 6', Centennial Building, State Capitol Complex, St. Paul, MN. (photo: courtesy D.M. F. Fine Art)

Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the design incorporates 400-foot floor designs for the train platform, a 25-foot high arch and benches. Baca is also working on the World Wall: A Vision of the Future Without Fear, a 210-foot mural in seven portable panels. Addressing issues of global importance— war, peace, cooperation, and spiritual growth—the World Wall is touring the globe, with artists from seven countries adding panels tocomplete the project.

After being displayed in Finland, Washington. DC, and Moscow, the World Wall will be exhibited in Mexico City.

Ed Carpenter, untitled, 1993, for the Federal Building, Oakland, CA. Rotunda art glass commissioned by the Art-in-Architecture Program, Public Buildings Service, General Services Administration (GS A).

Dale Eldred, Earth and Sky Garden, 1993, at the Collegeof Public Health, University ofSouth Florida, Tampa, FL. This site-generated work, commissioned with funds from Florida's Art in State Buildings Program, was initially scheduled for installation in August, 1993. Eldred (1933-93) died on July 26 as a result of injuries sustained in a studio accident on that date (see PAR #9 Listings). The installation was overseen by Roberta Lord, Eldred's widow, and assisted by Eldred's staff.

Richard Haas, Justice and the Prairie, 1994, Federal Building and Courthouse, Kansas City, KS. Mural commissioned by the Art-in-Architecture Program, Public Buildings Service, General Services Administration (GSA). (see photo p. 44) Suzanne Lacy, Auto: On the Edge of Time, a multisite installation of battered cars, used as metaphors for domestic violence. Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh, PA (May; see photo, p. 8), Bedford Hills Maximum Security Correctional Facility (August), abandoned gas station, Niagara Falls, under the auspices of Artpark (October), the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art (March-April), and in New York, under the auspices of the Public Art Fund (late 1994).

Andrew Leicester, G-Nome Project, 1993, for the Molecular Biology Building, Iowa State University.

Ames, I A. Consisting of several interior and exterior components, including a ceramic tile floor, ceramic wall reliefs, and sculpture.

Donald Lipski, Ball? Ball! Wall? Wall!, 1994, for Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO. The sculpture is an installation of 55 marine buoys, each five feet in diameter, arranged in a straight line 300 feet long, (see photo p. 46) Molly O'Connor, Sky Spiral, 1992, for the Uptown Business Association for the Uptown Art Fair, Minneapolis. Temporary fabric installation with street painting (60 feet in diameter).

Martin Puryear, Pavilion in the Trees, 1993, for Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, PA. Public amenity commissioned by the Fairmount Park Art Association and supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts. (60 feet long, rising to 24 feet above ground), (see photo this page) Frank Stella, The Town-Ho's Story, 1993, for the Federal Building, Chicago, IL. Sculpture commissioned by the Art-in-Architecture Program, Public Buildings Service, General Services Administration (GSA).

Jay Tschetter, The Pioneers of Light, 1993, for the Museum of Westward Expansion under the Gateway Arch National Monument, St. Louis, MO. Commissioned by the National Park Service, the brick mural is 60 feet long by 14 feet high, and features several famous 19th century photographers in a variety of contexts that highlight the history of U.S. expansion into the new frontier.

Jantje Visscher, Spring Source, 1990 (to be unvei led in 1994), for the Centennial Building, State Capitol, St. Paul, MN. Wall hanging commissioned through the Minnesota Percent for Art in Public Places Program. Cast fiberglass, acrylic gel medium and acrylic paint (4 feet by 6 feet), (see photo p. 44)

Opportunities & Competitions U.S. General Services Adminstration (GSA). Deadline: April 22. The Census Computer Facility in Bowie, MD, is seeking to commission an exterior artwork. $145,000 is available. For info: Art-ln-Architecture Program, Bowie Project, GSA, Public Buildings Service, 18th and F Streets, N W . R m 1300, Washington, DC 20405; (202) 501-1785.

Yellowstone National Park. Deadline: April 24.

The new Moran Program provides four-week residencies between June 6 and September 6. Studio and exhibit spaces are provided, plus a $500 stipend.

David Cowan, Park Ranger-Arts Program Director, P.O. Box 168, Yellowstone National Park, W Y 82190; (307) 344-2265.

Anderson Ranch Arts Center. Deadline: May 1 for studio residency applications. The program runs October I-April 30, 1995. and encourages the creative and personal growth of artists in an interactive studio atmosphere. For info: Anderson Ranch Arts Center, P.O. Box 5598, Snowmass, CO 81615; (303) 9233871.

La Quinta Sculpture Park. Deadline: May 15 Twelve artists will be selected for the first annual juried sculpture show in February, 1995. For info: La Quinta Sculpture Park, P.O. Box 1566, La Quinta. CA 92253; (619)564-6464.

The City of Manitou Springs Deadline: May 15 Outdoor juried sculpture show held July 8-10. For info: Fred Darpino or Dan Weeks, c/o Sculpture in Manitou, Box 206, Manitou Springs, CO 80829; (719) 685-4780.

Bellevue Arts Commission. Deadline: May 16. The 1994 Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition seeks entries.

Send SASE to Outdoor Sculpture, Bellevue Arts Commission, City of Bellevue, Dept. of Community Development, P.O. Box 90012, Bellevue, WA 98009.

Ohio Percent for Art Program. Deadline: June 1 for materials submission. The newly expanded Law Building at Ohio State University is seeking a clock tower design for the front of the new main entrance.

For complete application materials, contact: Ohio Arts Council, Percent for Art Program, OSULAW, 727 E. Main St., Columbus, OH 43205; (614) 4662613.

Minnesota Percent for Art in Public Places Registry. Deadline: June 15. For application forms, contact: Minnesota State Arts Board, 432 Summit Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102; (612) 297-2603 or 1-800-8MNARTS.

Philadelphia International Airport. Deadline: May 2. This $ 150,000 competition is open to all visual and sound artists, particulalry those that work in video, light, film, and photography. For a detailed prospectus, contact Barbara Russell, Philadelphia Percent for Art Program, Office of Arts & Culture, 1650 Arch St., 19th Fl„ Philadelphia, PA 19103; (215)686-8684.

33rd Annual Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. Deadline: May 2. Works in all media will be presented July 8-10. For info: Tracey Capes, Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, 35 McCaul St., Suite 201. Toronto, Ontario M5T 1V7, Canada; (416)408-2754.

Martin Puryear, Pavilion in the Trees, 1993, western red cedar, white oak, redwood, Lansdowne Glen, Horticulture Center, Philadelphia, PA (photo: Wayne Cozzolino, courtesy Fairmount Park Art Assn.)

Lee County Art in Public Places Airport Sculpture Competition. Deadline: May 14.

A maximum of $50,000 has been allocated for a sculpture outside the Federal Inspection Station and Commuter Addition to the Air Terminal at the Southwest Florida Regional Airport. For application materials, contact: Lee County Alliance of the Arts, 10091 McGregor Blvd. Fort Meyers, FL 33919; (813) 9392787.

Sustainable Design: Place, Knowledge and Action. Deadline: May 15 for publication in the fall.

Places, A Forum of Environmental Design, seeks articles that demonstrate how design projects can make sustainable design principles relevant to the broader public. Please submit case studies, profiles, innovative curricula, research projects, etc. to Places, 110 Higgins Hall, Pratt Institute School of Architecture, 200 Willoughby Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11205; (718) 399-6090.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART). Deadlines: several dates through June. DART seeks artists for a number of upcoming projects. For registration and application materials, send a 3" x 5" card to: Steve Chegwidden, DART Art and Design Program, P.O. Box 660163, Dallas, TX 75266; (214) 749-2508.

Laumeier Sculpture Park. Deadline: July 1. Proposals sought for outdoor environmental project celebrating Winter Solstice. December. 1994. For info: Curatorial Dept., Laumeier Sculpture Park, 12580 Rott Road, St. Louis, MO 63127.

Radford University Galleries. Deadline: August 1.

Annual Sculpture Purchase Competition seeks outdoor works for March-November, 1995. For prospectus. send SASE: Sculpture Purchase. Radford University Galleries, Box 6965, Radford, VA 24142.

The Chicago Cultural Center's Department of Cultural Affairs. No deadline given. $150,000 is available for public artwork to be installed at seven branch libraries. All artists are eligible, including those in slide registry. For info: Public Art Prrogram, Dept. of Cultural Affairs, 78 E. Washington St., Chicago, IL 60602; (312) 744-7487.

SoNo Arts Celebration Sculpture Race. No deadline given. Kinetic, outdoor works incorporating working wheels, legs, etc. are sought for event on August 5-7. For info: Sculpture Race Committee.

SoNo Arts Celebration, P.O. Box 600. Norwalk, C T 06856;(203)866-7916.

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for public art include subway headhouses. Awards: $500,000. Send S A S E for prospectus and deadline: Joan MacKieth, O f f i c e of Arts and Culture, 1650 Arch St., 19th floor, Philadelphia, PA 19103.

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. No deadline given. Over 70 artists have been selected for Metro Rail and Metrolink p r o j e c t . A d d i t i o n a l o p p o r t u n i t i e s are a v a i l a b l e throughout 1994. Contact: A - R - T at (213) 244-6408.

H.E.A.L. and the Southern California W o m e n ' s Caucus for Art are looking for artists working in the community who are using art as a tool for cultural democracy, community building, or ecological and social activism. To participate in exchanges, workshops, etc., contact: Suvan Geer, H.E.A.L., 12441 Mystic Lane, Santa Ana, CA 92705.

Donald Lipski, Ball? Ball! Wall? Wall!, 1994, 55 marine buoys, ea. 5' dia, 300' long, Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO. (photo: courtesy Laumeier Sculpture Park)

La Paix Sculpture Public Garden. No deadline given. Sculptors working in stone or metal to exhibit in beautiful English garden. Send slides, photos or video to Ida Jones, curator, 22 Richey Place, Trenton, NJ 08618. Questions: Dr. Ernest W. Schlieben, (609) 695-7879.

Freshwater Bay Sculpture Park. Nodeadline given.

Sculptors are invited to create hands-on installations in an ecological manner for the preservation of the environment f r o m April through October. Freshwater Bay Sculpture Park, P.O. Box 522, Alert Bay, B.C. V O N 1 AO, Canada.

T h e Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants. Deadline: ongoing. The foundation offers support for artists of merit w h o work in painting, sculpture, graphics, mixed media, and installation. One-year grants of $ 1 , 0 0 0 - 3 0 , 0 0 0 awarded throughout the year. Write for application: The Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Inc., 725 Park Ave., New York, NY 10021; (212)517-5400.

O p e n International Design Competition. No deadline given. All media. Competition will focus on collaborative efforts of architects, artists, and landscape designers to create a series of public space installations at several sites in Atlanta. Projects to be completed in time for 1996 Olympics. Winners will be invited to negotiate with the Corporation f o r O l y m pic Development for commissions. For information packet: AS A/Competition, P.O. Box 19861, Atlanta, G A 30325; (404) 723-7210.

Hirsch Farm Project. No deadline given. Artsbased think tank invites artists, writers, scientists, historians, and administrators to engage in dialogue and develop project proposals that bridge public art, environment, and community. Forum stresses development of new ideas rather than production of objects. The Hirsch Farm Project, 450 Skokie Blvd., Suite 703, Northbrook, IL 60062; (708) 480-2000.

N e w York Mills Art Retreat. No deadline given.

T w o - to eight-week residencies provide living and studio space plus $200 stipend in exchange for five hours per week of community arts participation. Call or write for further information: New York Mills Arts Retreat, RR 1, Box 217, New York Mills, MN 56567; (218) 385-3339. (eligibility: international) Healing T h r o u g h Art. No deadline given. $1,000 matching grants available for artist residencies in hospitals and healing centers. Write or call: Healing Through Art, P.O. Box 41 1, Wayland, MA 01788; (508) 358-5553.

Lookout Sculpture Park. No deadline given. Residencies available to artists submitting proposals to

PUBLIC ART REVIEW SPRING/SUMMER

create outdoor sculpture projects at sites in California and Pennsylvania. Artists who work with environmental media/issues preferred. Send slides, videos, proposals, letters of interest and SASE: Lookout Sculpture Parks, Rd. I, Box 102, Damascus, PA 18415; (717) 224-6300; or Susanne Wibroe, 1077 Lakeville St., Petaluma, CA 94952; (707) 762-6502.

The John Michael Kohler Arts Center. No deadline given. Two- and six-month residencies available in the industrial setting of the Kohler Company to develop installations, public commissions, and sculptural and functional work in vitreous china, cast iron, or enameled cast iron. John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 608 New York Ave., P.O. Box 489, Sheboygan, WI 53082; (414) 458-6144.

Creative Time, Inc. Deadline: ongoing. Creative Time is seeking artists' proposals for site-specific works for its City Wide series. Projects should address current issues; artists are encouraged to be experimental. Past budgets have ranged from $300 to $ 10,000. New proposals are reviewed every three to four months. Send S A S E to: Creative Time, 131 W. 24th St.. New York, NY 10011. (Professional artists only.)

The General Service Administration's (GSA) Artin-Architecture Program invites artists to enroll in a National Artist Slide Registry for public art commissions in federal buildings. Please send current labeled slides and resumes to: G S A , Art-in-Architecture Program, 18 & F Streets, N W , Room 1300, Washington, DC 20405; (202) 501-1256.

S c u l p t u r e S o u r c e , the International S c u l p t u r e C e n t e r ' s computerized visual registry and referral service, is accepting applications from artists (no deadline). This system refers hundreds of artists annually to a wide range of international arts professionals. For information and application: Sculpture Source, ISC, 1050 17th St. NW, Suite 250, Washington, DC 20036;(202)785-1144.

National Slide File: The National Museum of American Art's Inventory of American Sculpture is now open to the public. The sculpture database contains information on more than 50,000 American sculptures in public and private collections, including both indoor and outdoor works. Inventories are available through computer networks such as the Canadian Heritage Information Network, Research Libraries Information Network, and Internet. For information, or to request printouts, contact: Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture, Research and Scholars C e n t e r , N a t i o n a l M u s e u m of A m e r i c a n Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560; (202) 357-2941 for painting, (202) 786-2384 for sculpture.

Although Public Art Review makes every effort to verify the information contained in these listings, artists are advised to check deadlines and eligibility requirements before investing significant time or money.

Organizations or individuals who wish to list items in this section should send information to the editor, Public Art Review, 2324 University Ave. W â&#x20AC;&#x17E; Suite 102, St. Paul, MN 55114. Information should arrive

by September 1 and March 1 respectively for issues published in October and April. W e welcome blackand-white photos. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Compiled

and edited by Jack

Becker

Central Artery/Tunnel Project. No deadline given.

P e r m a n e n t and temporary public art are an essential component of this massive project as it rebuilds 1-90 and 1-93 in Boston. Permanent and temporary works will be incorporated. T o receive a complete package write to: Artery Arts Program Central Artery/Tunnel Project, One South Station, Boston, MA 02110.

Philadelphia Office of Arts & Culture/Foundation for Architecture. No deadline given. Entries in all media sought for public art competition to complement creation of c i t y ' s " A v e n u e of the Arts," 14 blocks of a major thoroughfare. Proposed sites

199413

Sham Mosher, during a Wave Hill performance of Breath otthe Earth, sponsored

by Dancing in the Streets, (photo: Tom Brazil)

T ^ i T H E

M I N N E S O T A

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ART

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CONGRATULATE

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Superior, Wl

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Lenore Rukavina For application

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432 Summit Avenue

Michaela

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Minneapolis, MN

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II field guide to developments in art in public places 2nd Art Calendar "Grabble" Awards More than $3,000 in awards plus FREE publication For Prospectus, Send SASE to "Crabbie" Prospectus, P.O. Box 320, Upper Fairmount, MD 21867

Public Art: Realities, Theories & Issues A public art conference at the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel October 27-30,1994 To receive registration information call 213-244-6810.

An u n m a t c h e d central resource for public arts coordinators, artists, architects, landscape architects, planners, developers, consultants, and educators. Includes: 'Artist contract and proposal guidelines •Public art policy ' P r e s e r v a t i o n issues •Procedures for implementing projects 'Listings of public art r e s o u r c e s " G o i n g Public is p u b l i s h e d by the Arts E x t e n s i o n Service in c o o p e r a t i o n with the Visual Arts Program of the National E n d o w m e n t for the Arts. S o f t b o u n d . illus., 303pp., $23.70. Call 4 1 3 - 5 4 5 - 2 3 6 0 to o r d e r .

Division of Continuing Education • University of Massachusetts at Amherst

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