Public Art Review issue 39 - 2008 (fall/winter) by forecastpublicart

RiblicApfReview issue 3 9 • fall/winter 2 0 0 8

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These artists are all members of the Public Artist Forum. For more information, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/publicartistforum

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art glass installations

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PUblicArlReview issue 3 9 • fall/winter 2 0 0 8 • volume 2 0 • number 1

FEATURES

From Cow Town to Our Town: Is Public Art Part ot the American Dream? CYNTHIA NIKITIN

Finding the There There: Strategies for Defining the Non-Place with Public Art and Urban Design R O N A L D LEE F L E M I N G

Who Are We? Where Do We Sit? Reflections on Public Art on the New American Frontier T O D D B R E S S I and M E R I D I T H M c K I N L E Y

{n V -

*•

. 1

•> i

37 Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes M A S O N RIDDLE

15 Foreword M A S O N RIDDLE

Excerpts from Exurbia JON S P A Y D E

PUBLIC

PROGRAM

Public i Be part of it

calgary.ca/publicart

CALGA

PliblicArfReview issue 3 9 • fall/winter 2 0 0 8 • volume 2 0 • number 1

BETWEEN URBAN AND RURAL

DEPARTMENTS

Artist Page: Suburban Art Zone by Bill Amundson

On the Fringe The past, present, and future of public art in the suburbs are represented in this trio of topics. Stimulating, inspiring, and provoking, each sheds new light on the art of place-making. 44

skillfully thought-

Le Chat Noir and the Spectacle of Public Art B R U C E N. W R I G H T

Urban Forest - Integrative Thinking: Public Art a s t h e Environment JAMES W I N E S

Interview w i t h Richard Florida M A S O N RIDDLE

Featured State: Colorado The pioneering spirit lives on in the Rocky Mountains and the mile-high city. From urban to suburban to rural, Colorado — where the sky's the limit — is making the most of public art. K Y L E M a c M I L L A N and L E A N N E G O E B E L

From the Home Front JON S P A Y D E

Conference Reports S A R A H GAY and P O R T E R A R N E I L L

Book Reviews M A S O N R I D D L E , joni m palmer, J O S E P H HART, A N N A M U E S S I G , JANE D U R R E L L , JULIE C A N I G L I A , and M A E S W O N

Recent Publications

News

Recent Projects

Last Page PAR is pleased

to give the last word to a subverter

of suburban

standards.

FRITZ HAEG

www.ForecastPublicArt.org

ON THE COVER Matthew Moore, Rotations: Moore Estates 2, 2006. For this work, the artist created a one-third scale replica of the layout of the first planned community being built on his family's farmland outside Phoenix, Arizona. The homes were planted in sorghum and the roads in black-bearded wheat. Photo courtesy Lisa Sette Gallery and the artist. C O R R E C T I O N from Issue 38 In the Featured State article on Philadelphia, the following photographers, whose work appeared courtesy of the Fairmount Park Art Association (FPAA), should be credited: Robert Indiana's LOVE (c. 1976) by Gary McKinnis © 1992; Mark di Suvero's Iroquois (1983-1999) by Gregory Benson © 2007: Diane Pieri's Manavunk Stoops (2006) by Wayne Cozzolino © 2006. Additionally, in the same article it was stated that the FPAA wiil eventually site around sixteen approved NewLand'Marks projects around Philadelphia. While there were sixteen proposals commissioned for the program, it is anticipated that six will be built.

RiblicArfReview Forecasting Public Art

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B E T W E E N U R B A N A N D R U R A L issue 39 • fall/winter 2 0 0 8 • vol. 2 0 / no. 1

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MASON RIDDLE

FOREWORD

CREATIVE S P R A W L Noted architect and former artist James Wines explores the Public art and the suburbs is not the non sequitur it at concept of mediated space through a description of Beijing's first might seem. Nor is all of suburbia the aesthetic wasteland New World Plaza, a project led by his studio, SITE. His proabout which finger-wagging cultural critics pontificate. With vocative conclusion: "A truly public presence is best achieved more than half the population of the United States living in when it becomes difficult to discern where one art form begins the suburbs in the twenty-first century—a numbing thought and the other ends." to many urbanites—there must be more to suburbia's gravitaWith a fresh eye, Walker Art Center curator and design tional pull than cul-de-sac roadways, indistinctively designed director Andrew Blauvelt explores the importance of SITE'S homes, metastasizing retail centers corralled by asphalt, gas1970s public art projects: interventions that manipulated the and time-sucking commutes, and the occasional agriculfacades of BEST Products catalogue showrooms to an extreme tural or pastoral remnant in the form of nursery property or and serve as a different paradigm for public art. groomed trails. My own essay explores the impact of Worlds Away: New But what is it? Suburban Landscapes, an exhibition curated by Blauvelt, as a As suburbs mature—communities like Shaker Heights, call to arms for public artists to work in the suburbs. It might Ohio, are more than a century old—and begin to amass their again be time for artists to don the mantle of the avant-garde own history and as new ones burst frantically into existence in and provoke and define new approaches and ways of thinking the form of sprawl, the precise nature and culture of suburbia that can translate to and elevate the is increasingly the focus of critical discuscultural vitality of the suburbs. sion by academics, urban planners, and IT M I G H T A G A I N BE T I M E Bruce N. Wright provides poetic conenvironmentalists. Conspicuously lacking text in an essay that invokes the nineteenthfrom the debate, excepting relatively few FOR ARTISTS TO D O N century Parisian suburb of Montmartre as examples, are public artists and their art. proof that art and suburbs can co-exist. If public artists, traditionally, make work THE M A N T L E OF THE A V A N T And in my interview with Richard that "decorates" a site, evokes the cultural GARDE A N D PROVOKE A N D Florida, the reader will learn about this history of a community, or memorializes a urban theorist's new book, Who's Your particular event or activity, why are pubDEFINE N E W APPROACHES City?, and what he believes to be the main lic artists so seldom working in suburbia? challenges facing suburbs. Will a develIs it because the context does not have A N D WAYS OF T H I N K I N G oping "creative class" embrace ideas of sufficient panache to attract the artist? Or public art? is it because there is neither an organized THAT C A N ... ELEVATE THE The health of the world seems to be process nor the money to develop public in precarious if not abysmal shape, whethart programs? Or, further still, is it because CULTURAL VITALITY er we look at it economically, politically, suburbanites simply are disinterested in OF THE SUBURBS. or environmentally. In the face of these aesthetic enhancements to their environglobal conditions, the issue of the imporment and uninformed about the cultural tance of public art in the suburbs perhaps seems shallow if benefits that public art can infuse into their communities? Or. not inconsequential. On the contrary, art heals wounds, fosters at the most fundamental level, is there no history, no sense of understanding, and propels humanity into the future. This is place on which to build? why the loss of art, whether the museum treasures stolen in These are the issues and questions that the contributing the fall of Baghdad or the paintings and sculpture stolen by writers to Public Art Review Issue 39, "Between Urban and the Nazis in World War II or the looting of Greek temples, is Rural," have attempted to flesh out and answer. Addressing tragic and enervating. the topic from a range of viewpoints, these writers have given The world outlook is indeed grim, but with the election this little-explored frontier a framework, ways of addressing of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth president of the United the subject. States, there is a glimmer, if not an explosion, of hope in the Todd Bressi and Meridith McKinley articulate the changhearts and minds of people not only in this country but around ing profile of the American suburb, and the rise of public art the world. If history is indeed a guide, artists have promoted within it, as designers and developers increasingly embrace and participated actively in change. There is no reason why New Urbanism. public art cannot be a growing, meaningful force in promoting Ronald Lee Fleming addresses the notion of placemakfuture cultural understanding. And the suburbs should be part ing and asks if it is possible for public art to infuse meaning of this. into the auto-oriented strip development of the suburbs; he includes an informed set of questions that can guide suburban dwellers and officials to find meaning in their communities. Taking a more visceral approach, Cynthia Nikitin argues that placefulness, a bedrock notion in much public art, is seldom a suburban value, in part because in most suburbs, the "fact of living is cleaved from the act of living."

MASON RIDDLE is a writer, critic, and educator based in Saint Paul. Minnesota who writes on the visual arts, architecture, and design. She has contributed to ArtForum. Metropolis, Architectural Record, and Sculpture Magazine, among others. She is the guest editor of this issue o/Public Art Review.

PLAYFUL PABLUM Arts boosters wish all public art projects inspired as many w a r m and fuzzy feelings as the effort underway in M t . Clemens, [ M i c h i g a n , a Detroit suburb]. Using a mix o f mostly private funds, the Art Center in M a c o m b County has decorated the redeveloped d o w n t o w n w i t h sculptures o f a tall glass tower, a 24-foot-high chair, and [Apple of My Eye,] a sculpture o f a chubby old m a n playing checkers w i t h a girl.... [Janice] Trimpe, w h o m a d e Apple of My Eye, said residents are so attached t o her sculpture they knit socks for the characters. - From Joel Kurth, "Civic Art Gives Some a Headache," Detroit News, January 2, 2001

AGAINST ANTI-PUBLIC T h e e x p e r i m e n t a l p h o t o g r a p h e r / l i t t o r a l artist T h e Right R e v e r e n d J a m e s W. Bailey is p l e a s e d to (re)introduce T e m p o r a r y Anti-Public Art Project (TA-PAP™). TA-PAP™ is a Littoral Art Project that a t t e m p t s to reposition f o u n d objects a s t e m p o r a r y sculptural creations in a n e n v i r o n m e n t that is e x t r e m e l y hostile to t h e public.... TA-PAP™ intentionally b y p a s s e s t h e conventional public art context a n d practice of a r t i s t - c r e a t e d / g o v e r n m e n t - s a n c t i o n e d collaboratively a p p r o v e d t a x p a y e r financed public art.... TA-PAP™ e n c o u r a g e s v i e w e r s to risk their c o m f o r t a b l e public art viewing patterns by s t e p p i n g into hostile a e s t h e t i c terrain.... P h a s e 1 of TA-PAP™ is d e s i g n e d , p l a n n e d a n d e n g i n e e r e d to c r e a t e a n d m a n i f e s t art in t h e hositle a n d b l e a k anti-public n o n - a e s t h e t i c s u b u r b a n r e a l m of N o r t h e r n Virginia. - From the blog "Temporary Anti-Public Art Project" by James. W. Bailey of Reston, Virginia. http://temporaryantipublicartproject.biogspot.com

SIGNS OF OUR TIME For the 2 0 0 4 edition o f his o u t d o o r exhibition series Art Grandeur Nature, in the La Courneuve park in the Paris suburb o f Seine-Saint-Denis, curator M o r t o n Sailing invited Austrian-born, New York-based artist/designer Stefan S a g m e i s t e r t o adorn five billboards erected in the park. Sagmeister chose t o incorporate both place and t i m e into the images. Flying to Tucson, he allowed h i m s e l f six days t o create five photographs displaying the w o r d s "Trying / t o look / good / limits / my life," each w o r d or phrase sculpted at a different site using f o u n d materials. "Trying t o look good limits my life" is one o f the sentences, taken f r o m his diary, that Sagmeister explores and re-explores using various unconventional graphic means under the series title Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far.

For several thousand years, western civilization has been trying to separate the spirits o f the rural from the gods o f the urban. Both o f these worlds gained their significance through dependency on strong visual symbols. Now, over the past half century, a new, overlapping sphere has come to represent the dominant lifestyle—suburbia. Neither rural nor urban, suburbia struggles to form a unique spatial identity through the use o f visual iconic means.

- From Suburban Identity of Place Manifest Through Public Art, by Randy M. Olson, 2007 (excerpted from an unpublished article)

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EXCERPTS

FROM EXURBIA Collected

by JON SPAYDE

LOCATION, LOCATION... O n c e d i s m i s s e d as c u l t u r a l w a s t e l a n d s , T w i n C i t i e s s u b u r b s are e m b r a c i n g art as t h e y m a t u r e . T h r o u g h o u t t h e m e t r o area, s u b u r b s are c o m m i s s i o n i n g s c u l p t u r e s a n d o t h e r public art t o m a r k h i s t o r i c o c c a s i o n s , add character and c h a r m t o parks and public spaces, cap r e d e v e l o p m e n t p r o g r a m s , a n d bolster their identities.... T h e p u s h t o i n c l u d e art c o m e s f r o m a v a r i e t y o f d i r e c t i o n s . B u r n s v i l l e a n d St. L o u i s Park d e v e l o p e d t h e i r p r o g r a m s in r e s p o n s e t o s u r v e y s t h a t i n d i c a t e d s t r o n g s u p p o r t f o r arts p r o g r a m s . Elected o f f i c i a l s r e f l e c t t h a t e n t h u s i a s m .

INFLATED H O U S I N G M A R K E T

" T h e i m p o r t a n t t h i n g is t h a t t h e City C o u n c i l really w a n t s us t o be t h i n k i n g a b o u t h o w

R i d g e f i e l d [ C o n n e c t i c u t ] is a s o m e w h a t c o n s e r v a t i v e

w e c a n i n c o r p o r a t e p u b l i c a r t i n t o city p r o j e c t s a n d p r i v a t e d e v e l o p m e n t s as w e l l , " s a i d

s u b u r b o f N e w Y o r k City, b u t h a s a v e r y a c t i v e a r t s

T o m H a r m e n i n g , St. L o u i s P a r k ' s c o m m u n i t y - d e v e l o p m e n t d i r e c t o r . L a n d s c a p e a r c h i t e c t

c o m m u n i t y . T h e t o w n is c e l e b r a t i n g its t h r e e -

G e o f f M a r t i n , w h o drafted the design m a n u a l for Burnsville's 250-acre " H e a r t o f the

h u n d r e d t h a n n i v e r s a r y t h i s year a n d its M a i n S t r e e t

C i t y " r e d e v e l o p m e n t , c i t e d t h e " h u g e s u p p o r t " f o r p u b l i c a r t in B u r n s v i l l e . E f f o r t s are

is f a m e d f o r l a r g e , w e l l - k e p t , h i s t o r i c h o u s e s a n d a

afoot to include everything f r o m traditional plaza sculptures t o f u n c t i o n a l artâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;creatively

q u a i n t , o l d - f a s h i o n e d yet b u s t l i n g d o w n t o w n . . . . T h e

d e s i g n e d b i c y c l e racks, m a n h o l e c o v e r s , b u s s h e l t e r s , a n d e v e n i n f r a s t r u c t u r e c h a n g e s

A l d r i c h M u s e u m has displayed many.... i n t e r e s t i n g

like c r e a t i v e w a y s o f t r e a t i n g s t o r m w a t e r .

w o r k s as p a r t o f t h e M a i n S t r e e t S c u l p t u r e P r o j e c t , s o m e o f w h i c h were controversial. There have been

- From Mary Abbe, "Public Art Finding a H o m e in the Suburbs," Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 10, 2003 [ABOVE: Andrea Myklebust's Allegory of Excelsior (detail) in St. Louis Park.)

a giant, slightly grotesque baby reaching o u t t o w a r d t h e sidewalk clad only in a g i a n t diaper, a set o f large blow-up M c M a n s i o n s p o p u l a t i n g the lawn, and the re-creation o f the n u m b e r o f livestock a family o f four eats i n o n e year. M a n y o t h e r w o r k s w e r e m e t w i t h at b e s t e n t h u s i a s m or, at w o r s t , p u z z l e m e n t . T h e o n e d e f i n i n g t h r e a d o f t h e c o n t r o v e r s i a l w o r k s has been v a n d a l i s m . T h e giant baby b r o u g h t d o z e n s o f letters t o t h e l o c a l n e w s p a p e r , a n d s h o r t l y after, v a n d a l s s e t it o n fire. T h e b l o w - u p M c M a n s i o n s a l s o d r e w t h e ire o f s o m e d i s a p p r o v i n g , vocal t o w n s f o l k a n d they were brutally slashed one night. Both works were restored and re-installed after a brief absence. - From "Public Art," by Jane Davila, on the blog "Ragged Cloth Cafe." http://raggedclothcafe.c0m/2008/03/31/ public-art-by-jane-davila

CELL FOR CELL CALLS PARK A N D RIDE F u n k y art i n s t a l l a t i o n s h a v e b e e n u n v e i l e d at D a n d e n o n g ' s T h o m a s Street car p a r k .

Cell Phone Booth is my somewhat cynical reaction to the proliferation and overuse of the cell phone.

R e v i t a l i s i n g C e n t r a l D a n d e n o n g Place m a n a g e r j e n n y P e m b e r t o n - W e b b s a i d t h e car p a r k

I made Cell Phone Booth attractive by painting

w a s a n i d e a l b a c k d r o p f o r a r t w o r k . " T h e c a r p a r k is o n e o f t h e b u s i e s t in c e n t r a l D a n d e n o n g

it bright red and filling it with gleaming glass

w i t h m o r e t h a n 2 , 0 0 0 visitors each week," she said. Ms. P e m b e r t o n - W e b b said four artists

tiles. The glass tiles actually contain ugly and

h a d c o m b i n e d t o c r e a t e a r t w o r k s a i m e d at e n c o u r a g i n g c a r p a r k u s e r s t o t h i n k d i f f e r e n t l y

somewhat intimidating faces staring in at you.

a b o u t p u b l i c s p a c e s i n D a n d e n o n g . She s a i d t h e p r o j e c t i n c l u d e d t h e w o r k o f i n t e r n a t i o n a l l y r e n o w n e d p r o j e c t i o n a r t i s t Ian d e G r u c h y , e m e r g i n g p u b l i c a r t i s t s C l a r e M c C r a c k e n a n d H e l e n Pollard, a n d local artist Ashley N o l a n . " T h r e e t e m p o r a r y art projects, w h i c h take their i n s p i r a t i o n f r o m s u b u r b i a , w i l l be o n d i s p l a y t h r o u g h o u t July," M s . P e m b e r t o n - W e b b s a i d .

There is no place to sit and be comfortable as there is in a real phone booth. Openings between the bars prevent any feeling of privacy inside the

"These include an eight-storey-high p r o j e c t i o n o n the side o f the D e p a r t m e n t o f H u m a n

booth. Cell Phone Booth is intended to feel like a

Services b u i l d i n g ( a b o v e left], a i g 7 0 s - i n s p i r e d t r a n s f o r m a t i o n o f t h e T h o m a s S t r e e t l i f t

jail once you are inside.

[ a b o v e r i g h t ] , a n d a r t w o r k in t h e s t a i r w e l l o f t h e car p a r k . " - From Dandenong (Australia) Leader, Sept. 1, 2008. Dandenong is a suburb of Melbourne.

- T e x t by Ed Francis for his sculpture in the suburban Arlington Heights, Illinois, train station.

James Wines and company broke down barriers in the 'burbs, literally.

iiiriT"'f7iayiiii i

BEST Inside/Outside Building, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1984. Photo courtesy SITE, New York.

ecificit ANDREW BLAUVELT

he predicament of public art in the 1970s

was adroitly summarized by James Wines when he decried the proliferation of what

he termed "plop art" and rhetorically asked, "1 don't mind if they keep building those boring glass boxes, but why do they always deposit that turd in the plaza when they leave?" It wasn't the particular quality of the art that Wines objected to as much as the assumption that simply installing "private art" in public spaces would automatically enhance the environment or the lives of people traversing it. Wines's comments were, of course, spoken in a particular historical moment: one defined by the widespread introduction of abstract works of modern art in public spaces (if a plaza on private property can be considered public) and by the growing influence of an earth art movement that stressed the issue of site-specificity. The nature of such "plop art" (plucked from the artist's studio or gallery and placed on a plaza) paralleled the abstract spatial simplicity of the architecture it was meant to adorn. It served as an organic figure against an orthogonal ground—but lacked both specific content and a relationship to its larger context. This problem, however, was particular to the introduction of the urban pedestrian plaza—an "empty" space whose "activation" demanded rudimentary landscaping and a water feature or an occasional sculpture. Wines, a co-founder of SITE (Sculpture in the Environment), had been practicing a different kind of public art since the 1970s, one situated not on empty, windswept city plazas but rather in car-filled suburban parking lots. Commissioned by Sydney and Frances Lewis, owners of the BEST Products retail chain and renowned art patrons, SITE performed a unique integration of art and architecture by manipulating the facades of the company's catalogue showrooms in suburban strip malls: A crumbled fagade of cascading bricks adorned one store; another featured an entry notched into the building's blank brick fagade that rolled away when the store was opened; another sported a rainforest-like terrarium storefront with water-washed glass walls and planted with tropical trees; another spilled bicycles and other real consumer goods on

EACH CREATION W A S GUARANTEED TO STAND O U T FROM ITS S U R R O U N D I N G S , REFUSING TO FORMALLY BLEND IN display inside the store beyond the storefront glass to the outside, transformed into ghostly, gray, cast objects. These are but a few examples of SITE's interventions for more than a dozen BEST showrooms across the United States from 1972 to 1984. SITE's showrooms, created decades before today's branded retail environments such as Niketown or Prada's Epicenter stores, were not specifically intended to enhance sales or generate publicity, although they might have accomplished both. Rather, the impetus for the projects was the Lewises' interest in adopting the "one percent for art" model, whereby a small percentage of a building's construction cost, for example, would be reserved for the purchase of artworks. As a privately funded enterprise, SITE's BEST showrooms offered a different paradigm

ABOVE: BEST Hislesl ) Rainforest Showroom, Hialeah, Florida, 1979. RIGHT: BEST Peeling Project, Richmond, Virginia, 1972.

for "public art." More importantly, given the suburban location of these showrooms, SITE was among the first to not simply document but artistically intervene in the commercial strip, explore the emergent consumer retail culture that would beget today's big-box store, and understand the pivotal role of the automobile rather than the pedestrian in framing how people would encounter such art. While Denise Scott Brown, Steven Izenour, and Robert Venturi had famously decoded the exaggerated environment of the city strip of Las Vegas by mining its symbolic potential, SITE viewed its generic cousin, the suburban commercial strip, as a place plagued by repetitious monotony but nevertheless offering an untapped opportunity. Working with the raw material of this banal suburban landscape, SITE focused on the constituent elements of the environment: the parking lot, the sign, and store. Their strategies essentially fused the store and the sign, creating a version of Venturi's "decorated shed" (a generic box that relies on the sign to convey its purpose) and "ugly duck" (the building whose form represents its purpose). By manipulating the fagade of the store, they underscored its importance as a communicative surface—not as a giant sign for the business, but a place of engagement, the literal threshold separating prospective buyers and public spectators. The BEST showroom designs were anything but generic, Each creation was guaranteed to stand out from its surroundings, refusing to formally blend in (a refreshing rebuke to today's incessant calls for so-called architectural contextualization), while referencing the suburban environment around it.

In architectural theory each site is said to possess certain unique traits (geographic, cultural, or social conditions, for instance) that can guide the architect, but suburban locations are perceived differently. Viewed emerging from a tabula rasa because of its instantaneous newness (e.g., subdivisions "spring up" or "pop up") and interchangeable nature (e.g., every place looks the same), suburbia is reduced to a kind of non-site or non-place. If suburbia is traditionally perceived as a kind of generic non-site, a place that could be anywhere and thus intrinsically lacking site specificity, then what does this condition portend for suburban public art? For SITE, the answer was to re-contextualize the constituent elements of this new environment: The ubiquitous automatic sliding-glass doors are displaced from the building and planted freestanding in the parking lot; the parking-lot pavement is altered into a continuous surface that undulates up and over the store to form the roof; the brick storefront is peeled away to expose its own role as an architectural veneer. But like other forms of modern art, SITE's designs required some autonomy or separation from their immediate surroundings. Thus, the showrooms were freestanding structures or, in the parlance of suburbia, outparcels. As such, SITE could preserve the simple boxlike structure of the storeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a decision that looks like a default condition to us today because the unadorned big-box store is the norm. In essence, they exchanged the granite plaza of the Seagrams Building for the asphalt jungle, or the plinth for the parking lot. As autonomous structures, these BEST showrooms avoided the mansard roofscape that developers had by then begun to deploy in suburban malls as an attempt to unify the disparate collection of businesses lining the commercial strip. The BEST showrooms mark an important historical moment in suburban architectural history, even if seen as only an anomaly in suburban retailing. They also emphasize changes to suburban shopping environments over the decades. For instance, the catalogue showroom concept itself was a transitional form of suburban retail, bridging the gap between the traditional department store and today's big-box superstore. It is this kind of historical perspective that perhaps holds the greatest potential for public art in suburbia. If suburbia is viewed as placeless, then this understanding has its roots in the idea that the site is without history and therefore lacks identity, like a person without a past. Is it any wonder that most suburbs are busy rebranding themselvesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;revitalizing the remnants of an old downtown, and thus reclaiming a past, or when none exists simply inventing a new one? A typical postwar suburb now has more than 50 years of history behind it. That history contains myriad stories and events, some good and some bad, some old and some new. As such, these non-sites await recuperation and new contextualization. To explicate this history does not mean it has to be cloaked in an ersatz architectural form, depicted in yet another mural project, or grafted onto the next decorative streetscape initiative. The public art recipes developed for urban conditions do not automatically transfer to suburban spaces. SITE'S BEST showrooms demonstrate that creating an encounter with art in public spaces does not require "plop art" or its contemporary equivalents but rather more rigorous thinking inside the box and around the parking lot. ANDREW BLAUVELT, who grew up in a suburb, is director and curator of design at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and editor of Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2008], a reader on suburban aesthetics published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same title.

^ ÂŁ | s

From Cow Town to

Our Town: Is Public Art Part of the American Dream? CYNTHIA NIKITIN 0

"...Gone now were the old neighborhoods, small towns, farms; now they were citizens of the suburbs, the sprawls of homes that told them nothing about who they were, what they were expected to do... When they grew up there would be hell to pay." • Peter Schjeldahl, "Suburbs Circa 1 9 4 6 - 5 0 , " Since

1964:

In the minds of many, suburbia has come to epitomize and proclaim the virtues of placeless-ness—where one can comfortably exist without the baggage either of history or context. By default, context, or placefulness, is not often considered a suburban value. Carved out of prime agricultural lands and greenfields, suburban residential communities were conceived of as a thing apart—apart from the city, from people of differing socioeconomic classes, and from the eyes of prying neighbors. The suburbs, built originally and continually by private interests, were designed primarily as a place to sleep. Art, culture, work, and fine dining—that's what cities are for. The only references made to what existed before their colonization of the countryside resides in the names bestowed by developers to the one-way arterials (Spring Bottom Way), culde-sacs (Piney Grove Court), and subdivisions (Adams Mill Apartments, The Residences at Steven's Valley) that proliferate in places like Baltimore County, Maryland. The commissioning of public art is often a quest for and an act of creating placefulness by a community. Much of the public art created today relies on a sense of placefulness, history, and context to guarantee its relevance. Not only site-specific work, but also work commissioned for placement in a wide range of public settings, relies to a large extent upon on the interpretation, celebration, beautification, or remediation of its surroundings. Public art often strives to express or reflect what we value as a community. It often raises the questions of what

New and Selected

Poems

(New York: Sun, 1 978).

we want to communicate about ourselves to others, and who " w e " are anyway. The suburbs (at least post-World War II), in contrast, are more about "what's good for me and my kids." People move to the suburbs because the schools are supposedly better, the air is supposedly cleaner, and the property taxes are often lower than in nearby urban centers. Given such a self-serving and arguably mundane agenda, acts of group selfreflection and exploration, presumably, are rare occurrences. Lacking these prime motivational causes, public art has little if any place in suburban life. In traditional suburbs, where zoning and land use regulations effectively cleaved the fact of living (sleeping, eating, mowing) from anything remotely related to the act of living (shopping, volunteering, voting, going to school or church), another question arises: How could public art have a relevant role to play? In these sidewalk-less, cul-de-sac asphalt seas, where the only communal activity takes place in the mall or in a strip commercial shopping center located along a six-lane arterial, and where no one in their right mind would venture to go on foot, when is there a time or place for meaningful interaction or shared cultural expression? It wasn't always this way. The first garden and streetcar suburbs built before the war, like Shaker Heights, Ohio, often employed iconic symbols—art in public places, if you will—in the forms of statuary in the center of gateway roundabouts, stately stone gatehouses, clock towers, fences, and architecture.

Many also were built around the notion of shared public space. The organizing feature of Radburn, a garden suburb in the borough of Fairlawn, New Jersey, is a huge linear park, with bike routes, walking paths, a swimming pool, and barbeque and picnic areas. Its planners, Clarence Stein, Henry Wright, and landscape architect Marjorie Sewell Cautley, designed Radburn so that every home borders, or is less than a one-block walk from, a beautiful park where children may play unsupervised. The resultant blurring of boundaries and even of property lines continues to instill a true activist sense of community in many of its residents. Conversely, most modern-day suburbs are conceived of and, accordingly, built as single-purpose residential enclaves surrounded or linked by sports fields and "open" spaceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;most of which are accessible only by car due to the discontinuous street network and designed for the sole purpose of foiling cutthrough traffic by commuters seeking relief from congested arterials that girdle these communities. For example, many children who live in a typical contemporary South Florida gated subdivision play in their own backyards, primarily to keep away from their neighbors' cars, but also because there is no shared public realm and no communal space save for a clubhouse or recreation center. The streets themselves remain wholly the domain of the automobile. As public space is lost in the suburbs, so too is the notion of a shared public realm. And without a shared public realm,

public art cannot exist. New trends in suburban greenfield development, however, are in evidence. First, there is the urbanizing suburban town center. Private developers, often in cooperation with a transit agency (as in transit-oriented development) or the mayor's office, are promoting mixed-use residential and commercial development as infill along arterial roadways. Likewise, aging, vacant 1960s shopping centers are being redeveloped with apartments and civic buildings/entities (branch libraries, mini city halls, etc.). Second, there are the highly touted New Urbanist communities like the Flats in Memphis; Abacoa, Seaside, and Celebration, all in Florida; and Stapleton outside of Denver. Even New Urbanist communities, however, are privately developed, as are the latest efforts at re-creating a more sanitary version of an urban core in new town centers. While these communities advertise housing built in close proximity to a walkable commercial center, the center is walkable but little else is. The economics of these developments tend to dictate social and economic homogeneity among residents, and only those who are able to pay market rate for a home are accommodated. In these scenarios, a developer might commission a work of public art as a selling point, to appeal to a culturally astute clientele, or to distinguish their project from the one going up across the street. Given the lack of a shared public realm and publicly owned space in many suburban developments, the traditional

funding triggers for public art are completely lacking in most suburbs. There are few municipally owned facilities that could provide for a percent-for-art project, nor would most residents permit such a thing (suburbanites are known for their "not in my backyard" stands, or NIMBYism). Schools, which are often the only publicly funded institutions to be found in the 'burbs, rarely have a percent-for-art program in place. Consequently, private funding for public art is perhaps the only viable alternative. Fountains at the guardhouse or in front of the Town Center shops, clock towers, or a privately sited and commissioned work, are all that might win approval from a homeowners association, and then only if the residents don't have to pay for it. Another consideration, even a red flag, to a private developer or homeowners association is content. Whole genres of public art are immediately off the table, if not completely out of the question. For example, works that explore gender or identity politics probably have no place in the suburbs; nor does art that challenges corporate America, American foreign policy, or that exposes the fact of displacement or exclusion of underserved populations. A case in point is the South Suburban (Colorado) Public Art Committee (SSPAC). The SSPAC recommends and selects artists for playgrounds, nature centers, swimming pools, recreation centers, and other types of park facilities across six towns and three counties in the lands south of Denver, including Littleton, Centennial, Columbine Valley, Castlewood, Lone Tree, and Sheridan. The SSPAC states that it "assures reflection of community values and culture to residents and visitors" and seeks to "protect the public's health, safety, and welfare in regards to placed art." Furthermore, "the materials displayed in the recreation facilities must be suitable for viewing by District patrons of all ages. Therefore, the SSPAC and the South Suburban Board of Directors reserves the right to ensure that art displays are balanced and appropriate." Safety, appropriateness, and community values—the suburban ideals—are what guide the art selection process. However, Teresa Cope, the communications director of the region's recreation district, points out that "public art has created a different kind of conversation inside of recreation centers and it brings out the community." Exhibiting the works of Colorado artists in gallery spaces built inside of recreation centers is one way of bringing artists and their suburban audiences together. Another challenge facing public art in suburban environments is the question of when and how public processes, consensus building, and community building play out in the suburbs. Other than social events, amateur theatrical productions, or school-centered activities, consensus only seems to matter when it comes to ensuring the safety and security of residents: Creating drug-free zone initiatives, neighborhood watch groups, security patrols, paying for a staffed gatehouse, or initiating a safe routes to school plan—it's all for the greater good for my kids and me. The notion of collective expression and action for political or social reasons is, arguably, anathema to the typical stranger/danger-fearing soccer mom. In spite of these perceived challenges, public processes, consensus building, and the meaningful and purposed integration of public art into suburbia are quite possible and fairly easy to achieve in a suburban context. It starts at the very early stages of the planning process, when the developer, city staff, elected officials, and representatives from existing civic and cultural organizations work together to generate a shared vision for what this New Urbanist/new town center can be—not only to people who live there, but to the larger city/ community/region. Such a process should aim to build consensus around a shared vision of the future of a place and the

people who will inhabit it, as well as an exploration of how public art can contribute to this vision. In considering how to engage suburban developers vis-avis public art, a public art committee might begin by seeking precedents—such as reaching out to developers who have previously commissioned works of public art in urban settings— to encourage these developers to continue the practice in their suburban projects. Another avenue to explore is to convince developers to incorporate public art as part of their package of offerings to a market segment making the new town center/ leisure center lifestyle choice, who might be looking to relocate to a place with amenities that are above and beyond the typical spa, fitness club, and on-site conference center. But what can public art actually do for a suburban community? Public art can begin to create a mental shift. It can help a community begin to redefine and reimagine the notion of shared space, shared values, and collective common interests. It can be a means for reclaiming and regaining a stake in a shared public realm. Most importantly, public art can encourage shared responsibility and stewardship within a community and help its members connect to a larger shared history and to each other. CYNTHIA NIKITIN is an advocate for placemaking as an approach to city planning and urban design. As a manager of more than 200 projects during her 17 years with Project for Public Spaces. Inc., she has striven to serve as a compelling voice in support of more livable towns and cities nation-wide.

Jeanne Dueber's cast-iron tree guards on Louisville, Kentucky's historic Main Street, 1994.

Catherine Widgery, dome of steel cutouts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2002. Part of Trail olDreams, Trail ol Shosls project.

Ronald Lee Fleming, Dennis Sparling, and William P. Reimann, electrically animated American glockenspiel, Radnor Township, Pennsylvania, 1999.

-Place with Public Art and Urban Design RONALD LEE FLEMING

When Gertrude Stein made her now-famous remark, "There is no there there," she was referring to Oakland, where her family had grown rich. As a collector and an aesthete, she probably looked down her solid Roman nose at this young |

city as it was in the early twentieth century, and the charge may have had some merit then. But today, Oakland's history can in fact be seen in features like Jack

London's favorite waterfront saloon, deco-tiled commercial buildings in the

downtown, and wooden Victorian cottages in the neighborhoods. There is a differentiated city substance there, where one can hang memories and support

ยง

a sense of place.

Stein's remark has come to be associated with suburban and fringe development since World War II, which has disfigured, with a banal sameness, the edge of almost every city and town in the country. How can public art and enlightened urban policy transform the non-places that one moves through on the way to the airport? Of course there are a few exceptions where new development either supports the old or is curtailed altogether. In some of these places, like Boulder, Colorado, and Cooperstown, New York, public policies (or rich landowners) have managed to crimp the strip and sustain identifiable green boundaries. In others, like Santa Fe, New Mexico, or Santa Barbara, California, early civic leadership defined a particular style that is now associated with new development.

Just as landscape architects like lan McHarg used overlay analysis several decades ago to determine where growth should occur and where natural features should be saved, so we can build up a mental landscape of the cultural meaning of any locale to determine its significance for the people who will use it or even just drive through it. Last year, in my book The Art of Placemaking, I analyzed this process using the term "environmental profiling." It is a method of examining how the physical design constraints and opportunities of any site, its cultural history and orientation, and its design capabilities to direct, connect, and animate, serve as a potential framework for decision making. These markers help define and profile the metaphors that the public will find acceptable and they challenge the artist to be creative within a set of real-world constraints. Unless you respect us, they say, you won't be working here.

In spite of these exceptions, the larger question remains how to add meaning to the auto-oriented strip development that configures the road though suburbia in an increasBeyond daily funcingly suburban nation. tions, meaning can be Can it be done with found in folklore and public art, street graphhistory. Even if the ics, and roadside urban land was a scraped and design? Can we sustain bulldozed blank space public meaning in the Carl Cheng, Hn Tool, 1986. The second of ten environmental works commissioned by the City of Santa Monica, only a dozen years non-places that tourCalifornia. When pulled along the beach it leaves a 12-foot-wide imprint of the city of Los Angeles as seen from ago, there can still be ists don't visit? Here, above. Due to budget constraints it is only rolled twice a year. myths and stories that the building fabric is are associated with it. cheaply made, and building technologies and economies of Geology and folklore transform and transcend what appears scale allow structures that don't reflect a sense of regional to be that blank space or that banal new development. Thus, identity. Here, the building components have ignored the speprofiling can be rich even when the ground is bare or the buildcifics of climate, local materials, artisanry, and construction ings trite. traditions that might respect scale and reinforce character. So Perhaps the greatest challenge is to find artists with the it is a cheap and ugly non-place that we are concerned about, humility to learn from the site—to work with the municipality and millions of Americans live in such environments. and/or the arts councils and commissions and public works de-

My answer, after much of a lifetime of looking both at the special and the ordinary, is that yes, we can do something. There are some principles of analysis that can elicit meaning—for the act of living in an environment, no matter how banal, no matter how homogenized, no matter how frankly tacky in the eyes of an artistic elite, is full of meaning. It is a matter of finding and celebrating that meaning. Actions can be taken, in fact and in deed. And they are being taken by the people who live there, who can render the nondescript as significant, indeed pregnant with meaning. The artist can play a key imaginative role in harvesting this meaning. In the standardized housing tracts of Levittown on Long Island, successive waves of private homeowners transformed the landscape by planting bushes and making additions to their dwellings. Eventually, the standard box disappeared in a mass of shrubbery and the disparity of home renovation. Similarly, the public realm adjacent to these transformed private dwellings can be retrofitted and reimagined, for the very actions of daily life that are all around us form the language that can be ritualized and celebrated. The act of taking the bus to school, of irrigating a garden or taking a drink of water, the changing ownership of stores, processes like conducting electricity from a public power substation, or the presence of a firehouse dog have all inspired public art. Such art takes the functions of daily life and celebrates them, often with sly humor and irony.

partments to do this environmental profiling. Such artists are willing to listen rather than bring in a preconceived solution— something they have always wanted to do or something they have dusted off, a maquette that is part of the established body of their "oeuvre." There is creativity in constraint, in recognizing the right of the community to bring its meanings forward. Working with these contours of meaning can be a challenge for an artist with a big ego—and let's face it, a big ego is often necessary just to prevail as an artist and to justify the amount of energy that it takes to do public work. So this is a very real challenge, but the rewards can be great. The implementation may go a lot more smoothly if the community feels that the artist is addressing something that they have defined as the operative metaphor. This doesn't mean that the artist can't find a new or innovative way to solve a problem, but there is community bedrock to start from, and that can make all the difference for a successful project. By working on a project that has community meaning, there is sometimes the opportunity to work at a larger scale and as part of a larger team effort. This is because the very act of securing a broader agreement with the community opens up the possibilities of doing larger scale work such as a parkway, water treatment center, public playground, or plaza. This is an opportunity for work that is not "plopped" or assigned to a spot while the engineers, landscape designers, and architects get on with

Laurie Lindquist, Nisbet Road Pedestrian Bridge in Phoenix, Arizona, 1998. a larger project. It is an opportunity for fascinated with craft and the skill needed W H A T IS NEEDED IS A N art that is actually integrated into a larger to execute details, because they are often design rather than "coordinated," which blue collar themselves. ENLIGHTENED ARTIST might mean being assigned a space. This What is needed is an enlightened can also mean adding an arts dimension CONSTITUENCY W H O C A N artist constituency who can move beyond to a variety of elements, which might not signature works of ego to serve a restive SERVE A RESTIVE PUBLIC have been part of the artist's original brief. public that wants more meaning embedOnce that opportunity exists, it is ded in the infrastructure of the banal THAT W A N T S MORE often a greater challenge for the artist sites where they live. People want to exbecause it may mean working at a larger perience well-crafted elements that often M E A N I N G E M B E D D E D IN scale, or in scale with other urban design require a team of artisans as well as the elementsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;which might lessen the scale conceptualizing artist. This is not the coTHE INFRASTRUCTURE OF of the individual artist's contribution, terie of city sophisticates who value abmaking it less heroic but more effective THE B A N A L SITES W H E R E straction and the shock of the new. as part of a larger conception. It can mean Banal places are often full of very THEY LIVE. learning to read drawings. I have watched average people, but the issue is not to talented artists struggle with this, and patronize them with exaggerations of the with the inevitable compromises and revisions that are part "ugly and ordinary" as the architects and theorists Venturi and of the daily lot of the other design team members who may Scott did with their Guild House, the old-age housing project be more accustomed to collaboration and less secretive about in Philadelphia with its giant golden TV antennae, a paean to their creative process. oldsters huddled around the television. Rather, the mission of In the lifetime of public meetings I have attended, I detect an effective request for proposals, which might include some a hunger for solutions to the problem of meaningâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;solutions version of the environmental profiling concept outlined briefly that are accessible to the average person who will read an hisabove, is to recognize that there are questions about the place toric marker or an article in the local media about the cultural that public artists can use to identify what has real value for geography of place. The requests for proposals for public art the people who live there. and urban design projects are full of inquiries about site information. Miraculously, because of the increased interest in RONALD LEE FLEMING, FA I CP, pioneered Main Street historic preservation, there are craftsmen with the skill to work projects in the 1970s and later championed the concept of in the public realm, and there can be transferability of these placemaking to recover the narrative of cities with elements skills to sites that are not historic but need touchable elements of public art, urban design, and interpretation. His writings on that inspire respect. People in modest neighborhoods are often these subjects support his work as an advocate and educator.

Questions to find a place's meaning RONALD LEE F L E M I N G

To identify what has real value for people living in the suburbs, it is useful to ask a set of questions that can help find meaning in a place— even in communities that feel they are marginal, nondescript, or recent pasteboard suburban creations. Here is a provisional and tentative list of questions that could help artists lay some claim to the contours of meanings under the banal surface. Orientation in Time and Space • Is there a settlement story in communities too new to have historical markers, or an historical society that tells a story of the community and its efforts to improve itself? A rundown community full of recent immigrants, for example, may take great pride in its National Merit scholars or its folk dancing troupes. • Is there a book that is readily accessible that identifies the history of the material culture of the community or the different communities its residents have come from? • Does the community have a good isometric map that can make urban design connections that have not yet been realized, or even relate to local geography that could be the basis for some design celebration? • Is there an oral history center that links the stories of neighborhoods and places to the community? Is the oral history (often at the library) connected to any other institution, like an arts commission or planning office, that could mine this work? Definition of Community Through Urban Design Strategy • Is there any green beltway system around the city or town that protects its physical identity? Is there coordination with other governmental bodies, in the county for example, that would conserve these physical definitions of space between settlement and countryside? Is there a way that the artists can celebrate this physical delineation? • Are there recognizable physical connections through the community that can provide the basis for a trail system that artists and artisans could help design? • Is there a gateway strategy for the community, and is this expressed in orientation in transit stops, bus stations, and/or at the airport? No matter the physical quality of the community, all of these elements offer opportunities for the artist. • Are there design elements in these public facilities that acknowledge and support the history and cultural fabric of the place? For example, in the Syracuse airport there could be street furniture that celebrates the work of former resident Gustav Stickley, such as chairs in his arts and crafts style.

Engagement with the Arts • Is there an arts council or public arts commission that is engaged in the physical enhancement with the city through grant programs that support artists' work on street furniture and urban design elements such as public lighting and bus stops? • Is there an artists-in-residence program that connects to a public works or parks department, or planning office? A new town in Scotland used this strategy to transform almost every element of the public infrastructure—from poetry in the bus stops, to underpasses with concrete murals, to hippos in the wading pools. • Is there a percent-for-public-art program in city-funded projects or private commercial development over a certain scale? • Is there a public arts master plan for the community, and are artists involved in the planning process for that master plan as well as in the execution of projects? Enhancement Opportunities for Artists and Artisans • Has the city initiated comprehensive efforts that give it greater place definition? Examples might include a formal tree planting scheme to define the city, a corridor of daffodils at its entry ways, the creation of billboard-free zones, or public sculpture at key nodes. • Is there a signage program that identifies principle cultural attractions in the community and links them together? Could artisans do this? • Is there a policy to upgrade the quality of facades, street signage, or corporate franchise design in the community? Is there a policy of defining blatant corporate branding as part of alleged signage—thereby reducing it? Some of the most auto-oriented California communities have some of the strongest franchise design regulations. Is there a role artists can play in upgrading these facilities? Creative lighting and landscape elements may be opportunities. Cultural Linkage • Has the community attempted to connect its self-defined attractions to other communities with similar conditions? For example, there is a group of "mural towns" that has combined efforts to encourage joint tourism. Some of these towns have very limited physical attractions and yet the mural energy brings them together. • Is there a linkage strategy that can connect physically boring places in the same regional area by building on food festivals, sporting events, auto shows, storytelling competitions, or barge trips that would encourage artists to celebrate them even though the communities lack the traditional asset of physical charm? By exploring these questions, artists can help redefine the meaning of a site no matter how boring it may appear. But we must analyze, listen, and often find the special imagination that is provoked by constraint.

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Who Are We? ere Do We Sit? Reflections on Public Art on the New American Frontier TODD BRESSI a n d MERIDITH McKINLEY

Robin Brailsford, Double Play, 2007, Bacchus Park, Frisco, Texas. Commissioned by the City of Frisco, Texas.

he archetypal notion of a suburb

is that it is a place apart from the central

city but part of it—a place that offers a healthful, w h o l e s o m e respite from the city, w h i l e

providing easy access to the e c o n o m i c and cultural advantages of the nearby urban scene. Today, however, the m i x of places one finds in the sprawling precincts outside the central city is far more complex. Yesterday's bedroom c o m m u n i t y is tomorrow's New Urbanist town center. Historic streetcar corridors are n o w dense zones of transit-oriented development. Mixed-use redevelopment is on the horizon in office parks and shopping strips. T h e suburbs we've c o m e to know are by no means m o n o l i t h i c or static—they surprise always in terms of their development patterns, landscape, and culture. And they are constantly evolving. Everywhere, suburban leaders are rethinking their locales as places that offer diverse opportunities for living, working, and leisure—including arts and culture. Assets like repertory companies, orchestras, and even public art programs are regarded by suburbs as critical c o m p o n e n t s of the infrastructure n o w required to be viable places for " l i v e , work, and play."

So it is no surprise that public art programs are gaining an increasingly strong foothold in the suburbs. Suburban communities are turning to public art as a means to craft their identities as unique places and to project these identities to the broader world. Often, absent other means of building good public places, suburbs look to public art as a means of solving urban design problems. Consequently, both public art program coordinators and public artists have been thrust into the forefront of these community issues, sometimes quite unexpectedly, and are being asked to take a leadership role in addressing them. We have worked as public art planners in suburbs of all types, and have found that these communities constantly challenge us to rethink our expectations of what public art can contribute to the visual environment. Certain questions, however, always come to the fore: Can public art reflect contemporary life in a way that helps people feel more connected to their community? Can vital artworks be created within a concept of the public realm in a community that is only emerging—one that is not clear about itself conceptually or culturally, nor clear in terms of when or how the public art project will be built? Is it possible to encourage artistic independence and excellence, while simultaneously creating artworks that have intrinsic meaning to places where they are located? As public art programs in the suburbs evolve and mature, in what ways do they innovate and break new ground artistically? The following case studies provide an opportunity to reflect on these questions and examine a range of issues faced by three very different communities: Frisco, Texas, growing rapid-fire on the fringes of Dallas; Arlington, Virginia, a streetcar suburb turned edge-city, turned exemplar of transit-oriented development; and Reston, Virginia, a carefully designed community with a master plan that includes the revival and expansion of a former commitment to anchoring its important places with public artworks.

Frisco, Texas Frisco is a Texas boomtown twice over. It was incorporated a century ago when the railroad pushed through on its way from St. Louis to San Francisco. Now, subsumed into the orbit of suburban Dallas, it is growing at a staggering rate: From about 6.000 people in 1990 to more than 100,000 now, with an expected build-out capacity for 280,000. According to Forbes, it is the seventh fastest growing suburb in the United States. Via Partnership prepared a public art plan for Frisco six years ago, not long after the city passed a percent-for-art ordinance as a means of enhancing its burgeoning public works program. When we asked people what they thought public art could accomplish for the community, they said that artworks could help create a sense of identity. Frisco is growing so fast that it is still coming to grips with what its identity actually is. Consequently, the public art program's role has been to stimulate a conversation about what Frisco is becoming, rather than to project a settled image. Before Frisco's public art program was launched, developers commissioned public artworks that examined the identity of the city—mostly bronze representational sculptures depicting life on the Texas prairie and in the old railroad town itself. In essence, the artists reached back into Frisco's history and drew on generalized themes and iconography that few people had experienced, but everyone could understand. This approach remains popular, but does not always address the city's complexities or the desire many people had for commissioning challenging artworks. Slowly, as a result of community conversations that began during the master planning process and continue with every commissioned public art project, Frisco is finding new ways to explore its identity through art. Works like The Thin Red Line at Fire Station No. 5 by Mario Echevarria and Chris Mclntire and What We Do by Stephen Farley celebrate Frisco's civic institutions by depicting the people who work hard to serve and

protect the city, or the people they are serving. Other artworks, such as Eliseo Garcia's Texas Splendor and Robin Brailsford's Field of Play, depict contemporary images of people at play. These artworks tell the story of Frisco as it is today, and move away from traditional sculpture towards media and/or approaches better suited to integrating artworks into public architecture and spaces. Other public art projects are exploring the nature of the new places the community is building to define its civic future. Larry Kirkland's Golden Goal and Frisco Flyer adorn Frisco's soccer complex (where the FC Dallas professional soccer team plays) with color, light, and playful forms; Jim Bowman's glass sculpture Celebration marks the entrance to the Frisco Conference Center. These projects, which are neither literal nor narrative, have become landmarks for places that are characteristic of and essential to the success of the suburban edge city.

These artworks, all commissioned over the past few years, raise questions that can only be answered as time goes on: Will a public art collection created over such a short period of time continue to have relevance to Frisco as it grows and evolves? Can the city reach beyond its focus on projects that interpret its character and, instead, cultivate a collection that reflects innovative approaches by artists working in the public realm?

Reston, Virginia

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Reston, Virginia, is a visionary kind of place. For nearly five decades, its villages, open spaces, and town center have 34 been built by many hands according to seven principles that were set down by its founder, Robert Simon, including several that speak to providing residents with access to arts and culture as part of their everyday lives. Reston's longstanding traditions of thoughtful urban design and open-space planning have resulted in a landscape s

and building pattern that stand out dramatically from those of its Fairfax County neighbors. Moreover, Reston's unincorporated status has resulted in a proud tradition of creating civic organizations to manage many of its needs. Currently, we are helping Reston create a public art master plan whose goal is to inspire the community to commission artworks that rival its planning, urban design, and civic accomplishments. As in Frisco, concerns about identity are in the forefront. Despite the fact that Reston has a distinctive visual character and a strong framework of community institutions, its visual and political identity have become the central issues in our approach. For example, we were urged to consider a range of artistdesigned gateways—iconic markers at the entries to Reston and its various neighborhoods—as a means of giving clear visual expression to its identity. Usually, we are reluctant to commit public art resources to such projects, and in Reston, after mapping everyone's suggestions and studying those locations, we concluded they were not optimal places for displaying sculpture or creating landscape projects. Instead, we pursued and deepened conversations about Reston's long-held values and traditions and helped the community imagine how artists could give visual expression to Reston's history and identity. Those conversations elicited key opportunities. In Reston's earliest days, for example, sculptor Gonzalo Fonseca worked side-by-side with architects William Conklin and James Rossant to create a series of playful sculptures (1965) in and around a village center—sculptures that have been animated by generations of children to this day. That effort inspired the belief that Reston should create new places anchored by playful artworks—artworks that could be fresh and inventive, yet firmly grounded in important aspects of the community's history.

OPPOSITE PAGE: Larry Kirkland, Bolton Boil (left, in motion) and Frisco Flyer (right), 2006, Pizza Hut Park, Frisco, Texas. Commissioned by the City of Frisco, Texas. ABOVE: Gonzalo Fonseca, marker at the entrance of The Underpass, 1965, Lake Anne, Reston. RIGHT: Gonzalo Fonseca, The Sun Boat, 1965, Lake Anne Village Center, Reston, Virginia. In the background is James Rossant's The Lookout, 1965.

Reston's history of environmental management is one of its most strongly held values; its open spaces include ponds, streams, woodlands, and meadows that have been guarded carefully as preserves. Environmental artworks seemed to be a perfect means of exploring this value, but the community was reluctant to commission artworks that would disturb sensitive lands. Speaking with environmental leaders, we explored how artists could address such important issues as water quality, invasive species, and soil degradation in a collaborative manner. Consequently, an environmental artist residency will be an important recommendation in Reston's public art plan. The fact that Reston is not incorporated has resulted in a unique planning mechanism that could serve as a model for established urban programs. In Reston. the civic organizations, developers, and government agencies that build and manage its public landscapeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;from parks to pools, from urban streets to village centersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;will be charged with developing their own plans for art projects. New community entities consisting of a nonprofit organization with a public art committee and a full-time staff member will provide supplemental funding and professional support towards realizing the community's public art vision. ^ | s I "I s

Reston's plan is in the process of being adopted and the first few art projects are getting started. We will know our effort has been successful if the artworks continue to help Reston explore its complex identity, reach beyond simple landmark gestures, work collaboratively with artists to create significant artworks that evoke the community's embedded wisdom, and reflect the stories people tell about themselves there.

Arlington, Virginia Quite often, conversations about public art in the suburbs become subsumed by people's broader concerns about the design of their communities. What can we do about cluttered commercial corridors? Why are there so few good gathering places, no places to sit. and no shade in the places we have? Why is the design of parks and transit facilities so utilitarian? Inevitably, public art is seen as a means of solving these problems, saddling artists with challenges they cannot address on their own or with projects that don't provide great artistic opportunities. On the other hand, public art programs can't ignore broader design issues. In our planning, we constantly argue that great artworks require thoughtful integration into their sites. Moreover, linking public art commissions to broader planning strategies can be a means of generating resources and support for art. especially in fast-growing suburbs that are investing heavily in infrastructure and private development. Arlington County, Virginia, where we consult with both the county and private clients, is tackling this challenge headon. Arlington's public art program is known for its commitment to integrating artworks into county infrastructure, the public realm, and private development. Director Angela A. Adams is a forceful advocate for improving the design quality of everything the county builds, which creates the best opportunities and cultural environment for artists. Arlington's master plan, approved in 2004, enables the public art program to consolidate public and private art funds and allocate them to artist-designed improvements in the public realm. One of Arlington's biggest challenges is a lack of design leadership. There is no definitive voice for the design of Arlington's public realm. Responsibility for design guidelines, projects, and approvals is split among four agencies as well as business improvement districts, none of which takes a com-

â&#x20AC;˘

prehensive view. The public art program has become not only the visioning mechanism but also the instigator of design strategies in important pedestrian, transit, and riparian corridors identified as focal areas in the public art master plan. The program is spearheading its first urban infrastructure project: a half-mile-long streetscape that will link two iconic, historic featuresâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the Iwo Jima Memorial and the Key Bridge. It will also anchor the revitalization of Rosslyn, a redeveloping "edge city." The streetscape, designed by Los Angeles artist Cliff Garten, features monumental light sculptures at key gateways and intersections, pedestrian lighting, and seating. Another key challenge in the city's public art program is time. Time frames for public and private investment are unpredictable, which makes planning, design, fabrication, funding, and contracting for such projects more complicated. Garten's Corridor of Light, for example, will piggyback on the construction of several private development and county infrastructure projects that stretch over several years. This necessitates that the project be planned for incremental implementation, in any area at any time. Even as Garten was developing his conceptual proposal for Lynn Street, the first phase location for the project changed from a county bridge location to a private development site two blocks away. Elsewhere in the county, we have been preparing a concept plan for a multiphase, decade-long private development. County leaders have asked us to consider how the project's artworks will relate to transit upgrades and adjacent private development that will occur within 10 to 20 years. Everyone would like the art to be part of a seamless, pedestrian-oriented urban fabric, but the variables of county priorities and the pace of private development make that notion daunting: What if an artwork is commissioned for a place where the vision will change? Will the public be willing to wait a decade for art that will enhance an important public space?

Cliff Garten, rendering for Corridor oltight, 2008, Arlington, Virginia.

What we find most intriguing about Frisco, Reston, Arlington, and the other suburbs in which we work is that citizens there are looking at public art not only to address their identity and character, but also to reinvent the ways they build their public realm and how they think about themselves as cultural entities. The implications of this process are far reachingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;involving the way public art is funded and commissioned, the role of the artist in the community, and how art programs dovetail with planning and capital project management. We are addressing these questions, eagerly and with open minds, in nearly every project we undertake. Potentially, this process will evolve as a dialogue. Clearly, these suburbs and others will generate new paradigms for how public art programs shape our public spaces and our communities. We hope, in the long run, this investigation will make room for more suburban public art programs that foster innovation and break new artistic ground.

TODD W. BRESSI is an urban designer based in Philadelphia. He provides design, planning and project management services to public agencies, non-profits and private developers that are working with public art. MERIDITH C. McKINLEY is a partner in St. Louis-based Via Partnership. She brings significant expertise in strategic planning, fundraising, budgeting, and community engagement to Via's many public art planning projects.

Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes MASON RIDDLE

It is as if a gong had sounded. In one choreographed pounce, a phalanx of academics, cultural critics, journalists, architects, urban designers, and environmentalists cast their collective intellect upon suburbia, heralding it as the new stomping ground for critical engagement. Books. Publications. Symposia. Even freeway drive-bys. Andâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the ultimate lifestyle confirmationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a recent issue of Dwell magazine titled "Suburbs with Attitude." Could suburbia, home to more than half of all Americans, also be the new It in the world of art and design? Sure. But it what?

I Angela Strassheim, Untitled (McOonalil's), 2004.

That's one question answered visually and aesthetically in the exhibition Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes, mounted by Minneapolis's Walker Art Center in early 2008 and currently on view at the Heinz Architectural Center, Carnegie Museum of Art, through January 18, 2009. Noteworthy is that the Walker, an internationally recognized cultural institution that has used the term globalism to define its curatorial path for a decade, would organize a show so local, lending even more gravitas to the suburbs as topical, even in the more rarefied art world. (Presciently, a 1980 issue of Design Quarterly, under the editorial eye of then-Walker design curator Mildred Friedman, was entitled Suburbs.) In the Worlds Away exhibition catalogue preface, Walker design director and curator Andrew Blauvelt writes, "The inability to situate a suburban aesthetics or to develop a language and theory to assess suburban forms as anything but an aberrant urbanism is clearly one of the hurdles in constructing a more objective and less judgmental approach." The exhibition and catalogue go a long way in opening up this dialogue and provoking riskier, more enlightened commentary about art and the suburbs. Worlds Away is billed as the first major museum exhibition to examine the art and architecture of the contemporary American suburb. Certainly, no other has taken on the challenge at such an ambitious scale. Co-curated by Blauvelt (see his article on page 18) and Tracy Myers, curator of architecture at the Carnegie Museum of Art's Heinz Architectural Center, the show features more than 75 worksâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;paintings, prints, photographs, video, sculpture, and architectural modelsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;by more than 30 artists, designers, and architects. The sprawl of the

Toronto-based Lateral Architecture explores "the flattened experience of space" in exurban areas with provocative results by altering the relationships between architectural program, parking lot, and landscape, and New York's LTL Architects rearrange the suburb's stubborn horizontality by introducing vertical sections in their New Suburbanism project. Worlds Away is contextually undergirded by several historic projects. Images and video of SITE'S controversial but inspired 1970s Parking Lot Showrooms for BEST Products, Inc. (see article on page 18), a joy to revisit, stand out as an early attempt to create places of engagement rather than stand-alone art objects. Other explorations on display include documentary photographs such as Dan Graham's 1960s color images of the suburbs, Ed Ruscha's early 1990s black-and-white aerial photographs of sprawling parking lots, and Chris Faust's early 1990s black-and-white images of the edge between pastoral lands and suburban development. Casting a more critical, if not disdainful eye on the suburbs are photographs by Angela Strassheim, Larry Sultan, Gregory Crewdson, and Greg Stimac; their heightened color and deadpan theatricality may raise the temperature of the suburban experience but they also showcase its perceived perils. Particularly illustrative is Angela Strassheim's Untitled (Elsa), a chromogenic print in saturated colors and dramatic light that depicts a handsome brunette woman, dressed only in a deep pink silk kimono, standing in front of a gigantic, manicured suburban home. Gazing past the camera into the distance, she wears a look of someone who has just achieved enlightenment. Worlds Away also proves that suburbia can inspire the beautiful and the decorative, if not always in a traditional

work could have been a curatorial nightmare, but Blauvelt and Myers commendably disciplined the diverse media and aesthetic approaches into three neat but overlapping sections that identify major themes, myths, and realities of suburban life: the residential tract home; the retail zone (strip mall, shopping center, and big-box store); and car culture. Within these larger categories, the visually eclectic and intellectually expansive works address sociocultural and ethnicity issues faced by increasingly diverse suburbs. Examples include mixed media installations such as Manufactured Sites: Tijuana, Mexico, by the San Diego-based Estudio Teddy Cruz, whose work addresses migrating border populations and their needs such as manufactured housing. Minneapolis-based Coen+Partners' crisp, stylish 3-D animation titled Mayo Plan #1: Reinventing a Midwestern Suburb maps out the sociopolitical development issues faced in their Rochester, Minnesota, residential subdivision project, Mayo Woodlands, when the firm transformed a previous, predictable engineered solution to a more land-based one.

sense. Sarah McKenzie's oil-on-canvas paintings of house construction are memorable, as are Chris Ballantyne's acrylic-onpanel paintings of development homes. Benjamin Edwards' painting Immersion is a visual tour de force, synthesizing signs and symbols of contemporary society with regard to suburban architecture, technology, and branded experiences. Jessica Smith's digitally printed banners are an ironic wink at how the mundane trash day or highway cloverleaf design can be subject matter for decorative textiles. Catherine Opie's small platinum prints of elevated highways are elegant abstract studies of light and form. The accompanying exhibition catalogue by the same name (Walker Art Center, 2008; softcover, 336 pages; $34.95) is an immeasurable wealth of information. Not only is most of the work in the show documented, but the various essays provide a depth and range of intellectual inquiry. The list of writers is impressive, including New York Times columnist David Brooks, Malcolm Gladwell of the New Yorker, and a bountiful list of academics, intellectuals, and practitioners in the fields

LEFT: Chris Faust, J M j s , Men Prairie, UN, 1990. ABOVE: Benjamin Edwards, Immersion, 2004. BELOW: Chris Ballantyne, Untitled (MMons), 2004.

g f •§ | s t. I | i s r s | | | | 1 M | | s

of cultural studies, architecture, and design. John Archer's essay, "Suburban Aesthetics Is Not an Oxymoron," which gives a meaningful historic context to the suburbs and argues that they are not necessarily cultural dead zones and need to be addressed as such, is worth the price of the book alone. Beatriz Colomina, a professor of architecture at Princeton University, conducts a conversation with early suburban investigators Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown and discovers that the authors of the seminal book Learning from Las Vegas are disheartened by the "Disneyfication" of the casino town and are repelled by McMansions. The media's perception of the suburbs is also explored. The catalogue's "Lexicon of Suburban Neologisms" is humorous and indispensable. Edifice Rex? Nerdistan? Garage Mahal? Who the heck knew? Conspicuously absent from the percolating discussion about suburbia are public artists. Concomitantly, it should be noted that, with a few important exceptions, Worlds Away features art about the suburbs, not art made for the suburbs, as in works of public art. But the featured thinkers and artists make a viable case that public artists and designers should be included in the process of making the suburbs more culturally informed places. While many public artists may not want to embrace a venture perceived as lacking in urban sophistication or artworld recognition, their very presence will provoke needed discussion if not concrete results. Stefanie Nagorka, with her sculptural interventions in big-box stores such as Home Depot, and Mathew Moore, with his large-scale landscape interventions recalling earth art of the 1960s and 1970s, might be the likeliest candidates, minus the irony in their work. In his Worlds Away essay "Learning from Sprawl," Robert Bruegmann, a professor of architecture, art history, and urban

planning, writes, "We have had generations of high-minded, cultured individuals attacking the middle- and working-class suburbs for their middle-brow banality. But, now, after so much avant-garde searching for the furthest aesthetic horizon of antibourgeois outrage, it may be the moment when artists and designers can finally turn back to reexamine the very thing that was always the greatest horror of the avant-garde: the everyday middle-class world." Of course, a little skepticism is always good, but will contemporary artists be able to create public art in the suburbs without a negative, openly ironic, or condescending voice? When thinking about the role public artists might play in the suburbs, this term, avant-garde, comes to mind, a term originally used to describe the foremost part of an army advancing into battle—the vanguard. Born of Fourier philosophy and other modes of nineteenth-century thought, the term was soon applied to artists who worked innovatively in advance of the majority. It was the avant-garde—the artists,

ABOVE: Matthew Moore, Rotations: Single Family Residence #5,2003-2004.

RIGHT: Stefanie Nagorka, Wayne, N12002\\m the Aisle Mo Project, 2002.

writers, musicians, and architectsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;that would lay the course, opening the theoretical and practical pathways for a new cultural proposition or political terrain for society to follow. One method for overcoming artists' "antibourgeois outrage" is suggested by the work of Charles Landry, noted author and authority on creativity and city futures. Landry suggests that great places are intrinsically connected to the cultural and historical fabric of community. They must be developed organically and grow from within. Great places are a matter not only of capitalism but also personalities. City making is an art, not a formula. If Landry is right, who better than artists to suss out and develop the suburban personality to create a great place? What does it take for artists to leap from making compelling work about the suburbs, as in Worlds Away, to making compelling work in the suburbs? Money? Civic sensitivity and awareness? Discourse? As suburbs mature, their histories deepen, even if their architecture too often suggests poorly designed stage sets. Nevertheless, who better than the artists to enter the battle, to grapple with problems both superficial and embedded, and find aesthetic solutions? MASON RIDDLE is a writer, critic, and educator based in Saint Paul, Minnesota who writes on the visual arts, architecture, and design. She has contributed to ArtForum, Metropolis, Architectural Record, and Sculpture Magazine, among others. She is the guest editor of this issue o/Public Art Review.

Celebrating 22 Years of Rublic Art in Kansas Oity

IP* Jun Kaneko Water Plaza

Chris Doyle The Moons

Kansas City, Missouri

w Wopo Holup The River

Municipal Art Commission

Alice Aycock Strange Attractor for Kansas City

Ellen Driscoll Pro Patna Mori

www.kcmo.org/cimo.nsf/web/art

ARTS & S C I E N C E C O U N C I L

704.333.2ASC BUILDING A MEMORABLE CITY

CHARLOTTE, MECKLENBURG COUNTY, NC + PRIVATE PARTNERS

www.ArtsAndScience.org

Kessler Studios, Inc. Stained Glass & Mosaics 273 East Broadway St loveland, OH 45140-3121 513-683-7500 www.kessterstudios.com

"The JourneyPeru State College. Peru Nebraska

SUBURBAN ART ZONE by Bill Amundson

(next p a g e )

Bill Amundson is a Denver-based artist and a self-proclaimed "Suburban Regionalist." Amundson's work is devoted to "capturing and celebrating the true American landscape rather than the idealized version so often pictured in the art of our time." His work reflects an

I interest in this contemporary landscape, particularly as reflected through such distinct American staples as the subdivision, the chain 1

restaurant, retail franchises, interstate travel, and for Public Art Review - art run amok in the 'burbs. See more at www.amundart.com.

LlriNSI I(,,enniu BERNERV;

ON THE FRINGE //////////////^^^^^

Le Chat Noir and the Spectacle of Public Art B R U C E N. W R I G H T

Montmartre, a suburb of Paris in the nineteenth century, was a hotbed of artistic creativity, a cauldron for inventive new artistic expressions. Not only was it frequented by many of the leading artists of the time, it also nurtured a form of public artâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; the street spectacle as artistic production. "The radical artists and intellectuals who came of age in the late 1870s and early 1880s...recreated a new version of bohemian culture, closely affiliated with the cafes and cabarets of the Left Bank and Montmartre," writes Mary Gluck in her book Popular Bohemia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005). "It was within the carnivalesque world of artistic cabarets and literary cafes that the persona of the modern decadent was first conceived as a new embodiment of the culture of modernity." Unlike American or British urban centers of the late nineteenth century, Paris's suburbs were largely rural settings of open fields and quiet villages. Despite the overcrowding, disease, and class conflict found in central Paris, the bourgeois and upper classes of French society preferred the city to the suburbs, pushing industry and its workers toward the periphery. Suburbanization, then, from a French perspective, was almost entirely left to the working- or lower-middle-class society. Baron Haussmann's famous renovations of the city's streets (and introduction of the "Grand Boulevards") in the 1850s through the 1870s forced many of the working class to the suburbs and pushed the artistic community to the periphery as well, first to the northern border of the old city boundaries

along Boulevard de Clichy and Boulevard Rochechouart (centering around Place Pigalle and, nearby, where the risque nightclub Moulin Rouge later took up residence), and then into Montmartre proper. Artists from this era took up new subjects for their paintings and prints, as the squalid surroundings and hardscrabble lives of the working poor became a cause celebre, providing ready material for their art. Moreover, this in-transition setting stoked experimentation with new forms of expression (dada theater, processions that today would be called "happenings," and street theater or "spectacles" can be traced to these activities). A prima locus of the street spectacle around 1882 to 1885 was Le Chat Noir, a cabaret of particular note for its allure to artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Riviere, Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen, Adolphe Willette, and poets and writers such as Emile Zola, Victor Hugo, and others. Indeed, Le Chat Noir's proprietor, Rodolphe Salis, encouraged public display, and regularly participated in parades that wended their way through the streets of Montmartre to "gather up" the evening's patrons as Salis dramatically opened his club with a flourish. Salis was a master of promotion, commissioning the most creative of the artists to design posters and pamphlets that carried the cabaret's unique blend of art and politics. A key mechanism of Chat Noir's promotion was a weekly publication by the same name that provided additional real estate for artistic production to its composers, poets, and graphic artists. The April 8, 1882, issue of Le Chat Noir, in typical P.T. Barnum fashion, declared: T h e C h a t N o i r is t h e m o s t e x t r a o r d i n a r y c a b a r e t in t h e w o r l d . You rub shoulders

with

the most

famous

men

Paris,

meeting there with foreigners from every corner of the globe. Victor Hugo, E m i l e Zola, Barbey d'Aurevilly, the inseparable Mr. B r i s s o n , a n d t h e a u s t e r e G a m b e t t a t a l k b u d d y - t o - b u d d y with Messrs. Gaston Vassy and Gustave Rothschild. People h u r r y in, p e o p l e c r o w d in. It's t h e g r e a t e s t s u c c e s s o f t h e age! C o m e on in!! C o m e on in!!1

LEFT: Henri Riviere, George Auriol, and Narcisse Lebeau at the Chat Noir, c. 1885-9D. RIGHT: Fernand Fau (French, 1858-1919), Solemn Cortege of the Chat Noir lining to Explore the

Regions ot the Sooth, 1892 (reproduced in Le Mat Noir on July 30,1892), pen and ink, blue crayon, and pencil.

v//////////////////////////^^^^

^ ^

ON THE FRINGE //////////////m^^^^

L'ancien

i>r:ssis

Chat

HENKI

The question of why Montmartre became the focus for this "suburban" art was addressed time and again by the associated artists through their art. They were tweaking the nose of the established academies of art, literature, and theater of Paris, the center of "culture" and "respectability." These artists sat on the butte of Montmartre looking down (literally and figuratively) on the Parisian art scene.

Noir

Salis attracted these particular artists because they felt outside the establishment art world, and he paid them. They were given free reign to express whatever they liked—and, of course, the power of money to attract (patronage) has always swayed artists. Salis was the consummate promoter, and he grabbed the opportunity to attract bourgeois clientele with money to spend and a need to "slum" or rub shoulders with creative types, a trend that was in full swing in Paris by the 1880s. Montmartre and Chat Noir (the first cabaret of its kind in Montmartre 2 ) saw the next wave and cashed in. Today, this "suburb" is an enclave of urbane sophistication, and a highly desirable urban bit of real estate that not even the moneyed bourgeois of Toulouse-Lautrec's crowd could afford. 3 Would a Chat Noir succeed in today's suburb? No and yes. No, because in today's dispersed (U.S.) suburban landscape, nearly everything must be reached by automobile, while the cultural landscape reflects the suburban mentality of most TV shows (very few shows today are "urban" since the unapologetically New Yorkish Seinfeld went off the air), and the notion of coalescing around an aesthetic movement would be more likely to take the form of a YouTube rush. No, because the only connection to Paris would be the iiber-icon Paris Hilton and protests would be directed at fasliionistas and their sidekick athletes-as-accessories. No, because the past is not the present nor the future and things do not repeat in exactly the same way twice. But yes, because the true suburb of today is homogenized mass media and the "branded" experience, and this is exactly what Salis accomplished with Chat Noir in a nineteenth-century way. He created a subculture for expression, not so unlike YouTube or Facebook. We need only look at the Beijing 2008 Olympics to see how a homogenized identity or sense of place has played out across continents and cultures.

mritntt:

Henri Riviere, LMien Chat Noir, 1885 (phnto-relief illustration for Le Chat Noir June 13,1885).

Sometimes, Salis would select a theme for the evening's entertainment, dressing the part in costume, commissioning songs and art to accompany the procession with the promise of more inside his establishment. (As further affront to the established academy, Salis dressed his waiters in the "academic" attire of professors, calling a backroom hall reserved for elite customers the "Institute.") Many of the Chat Noir artists ascribed to a sensibility, the self-labeled fumisme (practical jokers), a form of protest art characterized by skepticism and a macabre sense of humor sprinkled with abundant scatological references. (Not all Chat Noir pageants were political; many were simply meant as celebrations.) The fumisme were not unlike the public art demonstrations in the late twentieth century—like antiwar protests, the Burning Man events, or, more recently, the May Day parades put on by the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater in Minneapolis—that today attain less political, radical, or absurdist tendencies.

BRUCE N. WRIGHT. AIA, editor of the international design journal Fabric Architecture, and a former editor of Public Art Review, is an architect, writer, editor, and design historian. His book Peter Seitz: Designing A Life, was recently published by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design/Walker Art Center. NOTES 1

The Spirit of Montmartre:

Cabarets.

Humor, and the Avante-Garde,

1H75-1905,

edited

by Phillip Dennis Cate and Mary Shaw (New Brunswick, NJ: Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum/Rutgers, 1996), 26. Les Incoher6nts, first organized by artist Jules LGvy but "directed" by poet Emile Goudeau, operated in various cafGs and cabarets from 1878 to 18ai along the same lines and introduced the concept of artists, composers, and writers performing impromptu or rehearsed routines. The concept would be similar in nature lo today's fringe festivals. Goudeau became Salis' first manager of the Chat Noir cabaret when it opened in 1881. so the nature of the two groups was logically similar. 1

Montmartre was annexed to Paris proper as the eighteenth Arrondissement (district) by Haussmann in 1869, but remained largely undeveloped for decades after.

''/////// ON THE FRINGE //////////////^^^^^

Urban Forest Integrative Thinking: Public Art ^ the Environment JAMES WINES

A successful work of public art today should not be treated as an object sitting in the environment; rather, it should be interpreted as the environment. From this perspective, art can have an integrative role in the urban/suburban context. It can absorb its communicative content from the surroundings. It can invert, transform, comment on, and question the meaning of all those ubiquitous design conventions associated with architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. This calls for a new kind of "ambient sensibility" on the part of the artist—meaning a much more inclusive concept of public art. - J a m e s Wines, from De-architecture, Rizzoli International, 1987 T = 48

I think it is generally known in art circles that I am not public art's friendliest advocate. In point, I left my early (and thankfully short) sculpture career and the practice of plunking down objects in front of buildings during the late 1960s. As a spin-off of this critical change, I expressed my views in several essays where I coined two rather facetious references—"plop art" and "turd in the plaza"—to describe such installation conventions. Since then, these phrases seem to have become an intrinsic part of the lexicon of public art evaluation. They also contributed to my decision to become more involved with architecture and, in 1987, to write a history and theory book on the fusion of the arts, entitled De-architecture. In this publication I noted that "architecture is reflexively viewed by the majority of people as a natural presence in the public domain. Buildings don't need a defensive rationale to explain their existence. All other art forms—sculpture, commemorative monuments, wall murals, and decorative artifacts—usually appear as uncomfortable intrusions in the cityscape. They only qualify as 'public' because of some arbitrary decision to put them outdoors in the first place. If architecture is endowed with a truly meaningful content from the beginning, it can become public art in its own right." Later, expanding this idea, my text went on to explain, "Public art, architecture, landscape, and urban space can only become fully integrated when their academic definitions have been challenged, their distinctions as separate entities have been discarded, and it finally becomes difficult to determine where one art form begins and the other ends." My professional studio, SITE, was founded in 1970, and we have sustained a belief in these integrative principles ever since. While most of our work can be classified as architecture, we have always tried to fuse buildings with art and the adjacent environment. In opposition to the (still prevailing) modernist and constructivist bias in design, we proposed a narrative and contextual vision for the building arts. Our approach grew out

of an observation that wall surfaces, interiors, landscapes, and public spaces can absorb and reflect a broad range of social and psychological information. We saw people's subliminal and cultural relationships to their surroundings as sources of ideas that could be used to question and change many twentieth-century design conventions. For example, rather than treat architecture as an exercise in form, space, and structure, SITE shifted the emphasis to idea, attitude, and context. This meant that, in some cases, we used buildings themselves as a subject matter for art. Most of our work is still based on these initial premises and continues to include various forms of architectural commentary. Recently, SITE has become more involved with architecture and public space as a reflection of cultural context—especially since our studio works almost exclusively abroad. This absorption process includes the question of how streets, plazas, parks, and gardens can function as means of mediation between disparate neighborhoods within the city and as sources of outreach to the suburbs. A few months ago, SITE, in collaboration with a team of Chinese and Canadian associates, got an exceptional opportunity to explore this concept of integrative public art. In March 2008, our group entered and won an international competition for the design of New World Plaza in Beijing. These team members, in addition to my SITE office, included landscape architects Li Wang and Marc Halle (WaHa Studio in Toronto), plus artist Ronghui Li and architect Yang Yang. All of the Chinese participants are originally from, or still live in, Beijing. The competition was sponsored by one of China's largest development corporations—New World China Land Limited— and coordinated by Di magazine, a leading Chinese design review. The directives were described as part of the company's search for an environmentally responsible public space that would also propose a new strategy for expanding the number and quality of parks, plazas, and gardens throughout the People's Republic. This goal included a recommendation for each competitor to develop ideas that might be used as a means of aesthetic mediation between Beijing's burgeoning new real estate development and its rapacious impact on the city's older residential neighborhoods and the increasingly encroached-upon suburbs. With this regard, the competition prospectus seems to acknowledge that Beijing has become the Asian archetype for a familiar urban carnivore—like the United States' Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, and Detroit—where rapid growth patterns have eliminated community identity, destroyed historic regions, and exacerbated the cancerous growth of bland consistency.

New World Plaza offers an expanded definition of public art as a free-

flowing and integrative matrix for environmental experiences.

W/////////////////////^^^^

The site of the New World competition confronts Chongwenmen Street, an eight-lane commercial boulevard located in the downtown section. As a consequence of two decades of urbanism favoring the increased use of privately owned cars, Beijing has invested most of its civic resources into widening streets, facilitating traffic flow, decimating older neighborhoods, and reducing the amount of outdoor zoning for pedestrian activities and access to green space. The actual area designated for a design solution occupies an open territory between a 15and a 5-story office/retail complex, with the widest dimension facing west on the main boulevard. The space reduces in width as it extends westward under a pedestrian bridge (connecting the two shopping centers), crosses Lianzi Xiang Street, and concludes in a long narrow access to a series of smaller shops. Focusing on the configuration of the New World site, our team immediately noticed that the designated area for public space was roughly shaped like a growing tree, with a crown of branches. We also felt that it could be seen as a river, fragmenting into many tributaries, or viewed as the human body enclosure for a spine and vein structure. At the same time, we took into account that the competition brief encouraged participants to develop an idea that might serve as

"Urban forest" paving scheme for Beijing, April 2008, in a sketch from the SITE team (with Li Wang, Marc Halle, Ronghui Li, and Yang Yang). the potential paradigm for a new set of relationships between buildings and street, hardscape and landscape, technology and ecology, function and recreation. As mentioned earlier, the prospectus also suggested that competitors take a fresh look at models of mediation, which could then be used to bridge the gaps between new and old neighborhoods. In sorting through New World's rather ambitious wish list, we decided to concentrate on frames of reference that seemed most likely to fuse into a cohesive vision. The range of sources included Buddhist, Confucian, and Zen philosophy. Yin/Yang symbolism, Chinese landscape painting, the Yangtze River, ecological processes, and the human cardiovascular system. Confucian and Buddhist descriptions of the Eastern philosophical "middle way" as a means of reconciling extremes coincided with all of the "bridging" ideas we instinctively felt should be associated with the New World space. These include the notion of two opposing forces in permanent conflict, which must then be balanced at the center.

^ ^

ON THE FRINGE /////////////^^ From the earliest phases of the New World Plaza design process, our team focused on the issue of trying to create an iconic Chinese presence in a cityscape that has become increasingly dominated by Western planning strategies. In particular, we had to deal with basic differences in philosophical legacies. In the East, this referred to inner harmony, benevolence, and meditation, plus a belief in the fusion of man with nature; while in the West, this meant externalized values, aggression, individualism, and a view that nature exists for man's convenience. Also, in deference to the currently increasing global concern for ecological responsibility, sustainable cities, and energy conservation, the ancient Chinese respect for the garden as an earthly microcosm of rewards to be found in Paradise made sense as a conceptual point of departure for the "big idea."

^ | | s ° T i 50

These integrative intentions also opened up a gnawing problem that has plagued the relationship between architecture and landscape ever since the nascent days of Modernist design. It is an issue I last discussed in an essay I wrote for the book Contemporary Public Space: Un-volumetric Architecture (Skira 2006), which included an assortment of views on public space, compiled by Italian architect Aldo Aymonino. In this text, I criticized the peculiar resistance of architects toward the inclusion of landscape and proposed the need for the design world to address "a number of intriguing issues concerning the relevance of the formalist opposition and the inclination of so many architects to marginalize the green movement." I went on to comment, "It is a rule of thumb in environmental circles that one tree means four people can breath; so based on this health argument alone, it raises questions concerning why plants and trees in architecture are reduced to the status of mere decor, or eliminated altogether as superfluous intrusions. Part of the answer goes back to the earliest origins of Cubism and Constructivism, when the notion of architecture as a work of abstract sculpture became synonymous with good taste in design. Ironically, these stylistic references are usually dismissed by the current art world as hopelessly old-fashioned—especially when resurrected as Henry Moore, Max Bill, or Jean Arp-like organic form in the work of contemporary sculptors—while architects enthusiastically embrace these same influences as a source of cutting-edge emancipation." In this regard, there is something strangely retro in the propensity of architecture to continuously troll the past for stylistic sources, resist the worldwide pressure for "environmental thinking," and avoid the creative integration of landscape with buildings. Taking into account that the entire city plan of Beijing (since the twelfth century) has been based on a rigorous grid, our team's initial inclination to de-rigidify the New World site became the basis of our design approach. It also coincided perfectly with the tree-branch/river tributaries/cardiovascular system imagery, which was our first instinctive reaction to the site configuration. This notion suggested a relaxed attitude toward the designated paving surfaces, making it possible for them to metamorphose out of the conventional city grid and fragment into casual, ribbon-like patterns, reminiscent of Chinese calligraphy and landscape painting. While intentionally ambiguous, this dematerialized arterial imagery became the nature-oriented and culturally referenced source of our plaza plan. Physically, the idea of New World Plaza is to transform the widest part of the area (facing Chongwenmen Street) into a major pedestrian plaza, surrounded by a forest of trees. This theme—with constantly morphing variations—is proposed to

occupy the entire length of the site. Cast-in-place arteries of concrete cover the walking surfaces, with the purpose of using the vein-like iconography as an intrinsic part of the paving surfaces. This fluid network is then used to circumscribe a series of irregularly shaped spaces for planting zones, water features, seating areas, earth mounds, and a variety of paving materials. Both the east and west corridors are covered with dense forests of trees and ground cover. In view of the relentless overpaving of this part of the city, the purpose is to create the drama of a totally unexpected inversion of situation—a mid-city woodland—while also providing shade sanctuaries and adequate open space for recreational activities and outdoor cafes. From this perspective, New World Plaza is intended as the physical and psychological opposite of New York's Central Park, which is, essentially, a civically endorsed, territorially circumscribed, and heroically outsized version of a potted plant. It is a great park, but designed for an earlier (and non-globalized) era. As the main plaza narrows in width, passing under the north/south pedestrian bridge, its horizontal surfaces gradually evolve into a large mounded configuration. This raised area, proposed as a web-like structure in concrete with glass and landscape infill, shelters an arcade of small shops and restaurants. One of the principle innovations of our team's concept is this gradual transformation of a horizontal public space into a mountain-like building, which then returns to a ground-level walking surface after bridging over Lianzi Xiang Street. At the highest elevation, where the raised volume passes under the pedestrian bridge, an escalator provides access from the top of the mound to the bridge, thereby connecting two distinct shopping zones. At the west end of the site, this part of the pedestrian artery gradually decreases in height and width, concluding with a tree-shaded avenue for smaller shops and restaurants. This urban forest vision for the New World Plaza provides Beijing with a source of visual and functional variety, a choice of elevations for people-watching, and supplemental architectural enclosures for commercial enterprises. As a site-specific feature, the landscape palette is selected from a historically favored list of regional trees and ground cover. This choice recognizes the seasonal character of Beijing through its classically consistent use of ginkgo, persimmon, poplar, and savin trees. From an environmental perspective, the presence of a massive number of trees in a compressed location is expected to have a decidedly beneficial effect on air quality in the Chongwenmen region. The "forest floor" paving areas and walkways will be built from permeable materials. Rainwater will be salvaged by catchments at ground level or situated on surrounding rooftops, with cistern storage under elevated sections of the plaza. In addition, photovoltaic panels are planned to generate electricity for adjacent buildings and pedestrian areas. As a special communication feature, this solar power source will fuel virtual portals for ecological information nodes, located throughout the public spaces. Park lighting will be provided by L.E.D. forests of street lamps, in the form of randomly distributed, vertical clusters of tall poles, illuminated from top to bottom like glowing trees. New World Plaza offers an expanded definition of public art as a free-flowing and integrative matrix for environmental experiences—from social forums to forested enclaves, from sylvan ponds to catchment basins, from recessed gardens to mounded enclosures. Inside/outside relationships are treated as simultaneous events and all of the physical/functional/ aesthetic elements reinforce the notion of contextual fusion. The main iconographic features are appropriate for other parts

Beijing - Extension of URBAN FOREST planning approach

-g | | :

of the city and can be programmed to engage surrounding territories as part of a wider visual field. As a general approach, the urban forest is comfortably applicable to new commercial developments, historic neighborhoods, suburban communities, and even sparsely populated rural townships. In theory, this web-like configurationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;if repeated frequently enough throughout Beijing and its environsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;could eventually become a major source of regional identity, especially when extended to local streetscapes and viewed from the air on incoming flights. In summary, the tree/river/vein/calligraphy-based sources establish a universal and site-specific imagery, expressed vertically and horizontally, physically and symbolically, experientially and ecologically. From the perspective of public art for suburbia, the basic principles of the Beijing urban forest reinforce an observation I voiced at the beginning of this article: A truly public presence is best achieved when it becomes difficult to discern where one art form begins and the other ends. As a conceptual premise, this may sound a little too esoteric, perhaps too much like art-world jargon, for Main Street, USA. But the opposite is true, This fusion idea proposes that every community has a core identity, a distinctive character embodying a subliminal sense of place, regional landscape, recognizable topography, cultural legacy, local signs and symbols, and a "psychology of situation," reflecting people's collective unconscious. It then becomes the obligation of the artist or architect to extract ideas from this menu and develop "art as a collective phenomenon"â&#x20AC;&#x201D;as op-

Perspective sketch of the integrative approach for Beijing, April 2008.

posed to the imposition of some category of hermetic installation plopped down in a local park, plaza, or parking lot. Our urban forest team recognizes that such modest interventions, if realized, can only serve as Band-Aid cures for an urban development situation in China where major surgery is required. On the other hand, this inch-by-inch quality of progress may be the fundamental ingredient for any integrative philosophy and evidence that it has become a successful means of mediation between urban and suburban environments. The main challenge for the artist/architect is to create a socially and culturally resonant environment. This new ambience should include an ecologically responsible choice of materials and construction processes; but its final iconic validity grows out of its capacity to absorb and reflect community identity. Clearly, if the new millennium is going to be credited as the Age of Information and Ecology, it must also be seen as an Age of the Public Domain. J A M E S W I N E S is the founder of SITE (which stands for Sculpture in the Environment), an internationally known architecture and environmental arts organization chartered in New York City in 1970. His creative work over the past decade has been focused on green buildings and public spaces.

ON THE FRINGE

Interview with Richard Florida MASON RIDDLE

///////////////^^^^^ In spite of a demanding publicity tour for the publication of his new book, Who's Your City? (Basic Books, 2008), Richard Florida, the prolific author, public speaker, American urban theorist, and director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto, carved out time to give an exclusive interview on the still unchartered terrain of public art and the suburbs. Florida, the author of the acclaimed The Rise of the Creative Class (Basic Books, 2003), clearly understands the importance, to any community, of creative thinkers and cultural workers, whether they are urban planners, architects, chefs, or artists.

RIDDLE: Tell us a little bit about your new book, Who's Your City? FLORIDA: In Who's Your City?, I make an argument about the importance of place in the global economy and how it is creating a spiky world. Where we choose to live is the single most important decision we make. It has a profound impact on the jobs we have access to, our career path, our social networks, family and lifestyle choices, the wealth we accumulate, and, ultimately, our overall happiness. Also, in the book, we provide the first-ever rankings of cities by life stage, rating the best places for singles, young families, and empty nesters. As a result of these new ideas and data, Who's Your City? can be an essential guide for the more than 40 million Americans who move each year on how to choose where they live and what those choices mean for their lives, personal happiness, and the larger community.

As a context, most public art in this country is found in urban areas, or in public parks in small towns. Could you please comment on the general function and importance of public art? Public art plays two roles in a community: It helps to create an authentic sense of place and serves as a tool for revitalization. Quality of place is one of the defining issues of the creative economy. Places that are aesthetically pleasing help to attract innovative, creative talent. The arts can also help play a role in revitalization. Investment in the arts (galleries, public arts, common spaces, etc.) provides public leaders with a viable alternative to the large capital investments such as stadiums, convention centers, and so on.

In researching your books, including The Rise of the Creative Class and Who's Your City?, what have you learned about public art, if a n y t h i n g â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whether it is found in an urban, suburban, or even rural environment? A community's aesthetics are extremely important; public art can play an important role in a community's overall appeal. Our research indicates that the higher people rate the beauty of their community, the higher their overall level of community satisfaction. Human beings crave physical beauty. We look for it in so many of the things that surround us, and especially in the communities and places we live.

To be compelling, does public art need to be about place making? Does it need to be thoroughly integrated into its architectural and/or community context? Absolutely. Creative workers need and want to live in authentic communities. Public art that is tied intrinsically to its community will help to create a sense place that is unique and appealing to creative workers. Public art can also help highlight a community's soul, history, and uniqueness. An authentic place offers to us characteristics by which we can define ourselves, and a physical and figurative space in which to live. Public art helps to place a connection between the authentic identity around us and the place we live.

Do suburbanites face different challenges than urbanites when embarking on a public art program with regard to process, financing, and aesthetics? Suburbs, like urban areas, face some of the same challengesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; creating a sustainable, safe, and authentic community that is appealing to the creative class. In terms of process and financing, the challenges will be different from community to community. As I explain in Who's Your City?, each creative worker is looking for a unique community; some want to live in the urban core while others find the suburbs appealing. Stakeholders and leaders in various geographic and demographic regions must work together to make each community within that region the best it can be. Perhaps the use of public art throughout an entire region (the urban core and suburbs) can help create a unified feel and sense of cohesiveness.

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What does a work of public art need to accomplish when sited in the suburbs in order to be compelling?

I It needs to be authentic. It needs to represent the people who live in the community. Art, especially public art, helps to give a community an identity. The art has to be consistent with the vitality and soul of the community.

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Sky's the Limit N COLORADO Kyle MacMillan & Leanne Goebel

Ron English, Abraham Ohama, 2008, Andenken Gallery, Denver. English, a New York-based pop artist, staged a nationwide tour of his portrait of Abraham Lincoln merged with Barack Obama. The tour travelled from New York to Boston, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle, ending in Denver in time for the Democratic National Convention. tres birds workshop, Wheels clHope, August 25-28,2008, Andenken Gallery, Denver. This Boulder-based collective built their project from reclaimed bicycle wheels, aircraft cable, relective glass micro-bleeds, and steel pipe. Photo courtesy tres birds workshop.

FEATURED STATE With

its stunning

mountain

terrain and storied past,

serves as the gateway to the American

West, marking

Colorado the

juncture

between the Great Plains, the Southwest, and the West. The natural beauty of the state makes the place a magnet for skiers and other outdoor

enthusiasts. And public art enthusiasts can find

plenty to stimulate

their imaginations

The natural

as well.

beauty that draws tens of thousands of visitors to

the state also convinces them to settle there. The population growing,

and with it, suburban

development.

and public artists and administrators with the rapid pace of

Coloradoan

critic and arts journalist,

communities

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; are struggling

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

to keep up

growth.

In this issue, fifth-generation freelance

Civic authorities

Leanne Goebel,

provides a tour of

through the lens of public art, while Kyle

Colorado MacMillan,

the fine-arts critic for the Denver Post, gives a glimpse of the state of mile-high

public art in Denver.

FEATURED STATE

A Mile High and Ever Deeper: Denver's Burgeoning Public Art Scene KYLE MacMILLAN

Lawrence Argent's 40-foot-tall blue bear. Tatsuo Miyajima's four-story LED installation. Bernar Venet's 33-foot-tall torqued steel abstraction. Denver doesn't have the largest or the oldest public art program in the country, but a wave of major civic projects in the past five years has significantly boosted the city's holdings and triggered increased national attention. This expanding public collection, which has reached nearly 300 works, is an integral facet of a fast-growing art scene that has been fueled by a handful of major museum projects. To cite just a few: In 2006, the Denver Art Museum unveiled a $ 1 1 0 million addition, a radically angled, jutting design by Daniel Libeskind; the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver opened its first permanent home last year; and a third project, the Clyfford Still Museum, which will house more than 90 percent of the famed abstract-expressionist's output, is in the planning stages. The international media coverage generated by these projects has thrust Denver into the spotlight and generated a heightened focus on its public art. One of Denver's most important and, it must be said, controversial public sculptures was erected in Februaryâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;16 years after its commission. The 32-foot-tall fiberglass piece, titled Mustang, is the fitting culmination of the long and productive career of New Mexican artist Luis Jimenez, who died trying to complete it. The long-delayed work was completed under the supervision of his family and installed where he wanted it: on a prominent knoll along the entrance road to Denver International Airport. The gleaming blue sculpture, with illuminated, jewel-like red eyes, brings movement and energy to its fanciful yet anatomically accurate depiction of a horse rearing. It generated widespread public comment, much of it negative, includ-

Public Art @ the DNC

ing some vituperative letters to the editor in local newspapers. But art experts have been virtually universal in their praise, including Betsy Broun, director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., who told the Denver Post, "Everybody feels that, from concept to scale, it's certainly one of the most thrilling of all of Luis Jimenez's works." The next major project in the works is a $1.2 million outdoor piece by New York artist Dennis Oppenheim, who has focused increasingly on public art in recent years. It was commissioned in December 2006 for the plaza of Denver's $378 million Justice Center, which is under construction. To accommodate engineering protocols, handicapped access, and changing architectural needs, his design has undergone several transformations but is nearly ready for fabrication by La Paloma Fine Arts in Los Angeles. Oppenheim has conceived what he calls a "light chamber," which refers not to physical illumination but to the enlightenment required of judges and juries as they make their weighty decisions. In its current form, the work is in the structure of a flower, with giant petals formed from a lattice of hundreds of thin, tinted acrylic rods. The free-standing petals, which will stretch as high as 40 feet, form walls that create a space that can be entered and occupied. "This is one of the features of sculpture that morphs into architecture," Oppenheim explains "It's no longer something you look at as much as something you physically experience by entering." Denver launched its public art program in 1988, and it took a more structured form in 1991 with the passage of an ordinance mandating that 1 percent of the budget for all public projects of $1 million or more be set aside for art. Since

Politics and parties weren't the only things happening during the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. Art was very much part of the topsy-turvy mix of activities that drew an estimated 50,000 people in August and gained the city one of its largest blasts of national attention ever. A concentrated period of about 10 days before and during the convention brought a parade of art-world notables to Denver, including Paul Miller, a.k.a. DJ Spooky; MacArthur "genius grant" winner Ann Hamilton; and Los Angeles bad boy Shepard Fairey. Besides executing their own projects, they mixed with each other and the local art community at openings, forums, and other gatherings, creating an exciting, unusually charged time. Much of the activity took part under the auspices of "Dialog: City," a nine-day series of site-specific events sponsored by the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs and spearheaded by director and curator Seth Coldenberg. These ranged from Minsuk Cho's Air Forest, a sublime inflatable sculpture in City Park, to Krzysztof Wodiczko's Veteran Vehicle Project, with the words of area home-

Minsuk Cho,Airfares!, August 26-29,2008, City Park. Denver.

less veterans projected onto buildings around the city.

FEATURED STATE

_ | % | | 1

then, the city has spent more than $26 million on art, acquiring nearly 175 pieces, including some that have been donated. While many were created by artists with little widespread name recognition, some are major examples by such widely known figures as Jonathan Borofsky, Fernando Botero, Edward Ruscha, and Donald Lipski. Denver's public-art program first grabbed national attention in 1995, with the opening of the city's new international airport. The city spent S7.5 million on art for the facility, making it, at that time, one of the biggest single public art projects in the world. In conjunction with the Democratic National Convention, for which Denver served as host, the Office of Cultural Affairs took on another ambitious project: Dialog:City: An Event Converging Art, Democracy and Digital Media. Created by Seth Goldenberg and Liz Newton, the innovative nine-day program consisted of interactive, multimedia works by such international artists as Minsuk Cho, R. Luke Dubois, Ann Hamilton,

S g = g <t

and Krzysztof Wodiczko. These offerings ranged from Daniel Peltz's karaoke convention centers to Wodiczko's Veteran Vehicle Project, which used projections to tell the stories of Denver's homeless veterans.

1 S | 1 i

Although operating on a smaller scale, some of the suburban communities surrounding Denver have public art programs as well. Among the biggest and most established is Aurora's, an eastern suburb with a population of about 310.000. The city began its 1-percent-for-art program in 1993 but did not begin

1 s

ABOVE: Luis Jimenez, Mustang, cast fiberglass, 2008, Denver International Airport, BELOW: Dennis Oppenheim, Light Chamber, to be completed in 2010, Denver Justice Center.

Other projects took place outside of any official purview. Providing an underground, Los Angeles feel was the Manifest Hope Gallery [pictured on pages 56 and 57], a temporary space split be|

tween the Andenken Gallery and a nearby warehouse. Organized

in conjunction with MoveOn.org, it presented pro-Barack Obama

works by 125 local and national participants, from blue-chip names

to skateboard artists. A 25- by 8o-foot rooftop sculpture, created

ÂŁ

by tres birds workshop of Boulder using 180 bike wheels, spelled

out the word "hope" and became an icon of the convention.

Text was also the focus of two other temporary public art

pieces. Robert Indiana showed a new sculptural variation of his

famous pop rendering of the word Love, using Hope in its place.

The Brooklyn-based duo of Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese

focused on the word Democracy, transforming it into a 3- by 15-foot

ice sculpture outside the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver

ÂŁ

[same project pictured in St. Paul, Minnesota on page 68].

vention and provided a sense of the broad-ranging boundaries of

public art today.-Kyle MacMillan

These varied offerings gave an added dimension to the conKrzysztof Wodiczko, Veteran Vehicle Project, August 22-26,2008,1414 Grant Street in Denver.

FEATURED STATE commissioning in earnest until 1997. It has since acquired 177 pieces at a cost of $2.7 million. Many pieces by Colorado artists are represented, including Unglued, a whimsically oversized broken chair by Christopher Weed of Colorado Springs; Dawn Ring, a massive yet graceful steel abstraction by Carl Reed of Woodland Park; and Dawn Fountain, a spiraling stainless-steel fountain by Rafe Ropek of Berthoud. Deana Miller, Aurora's public art program manager, said the city sees art as way to revitalize the community and improve its sometimes negative image. "It helps the community love where they are and love where they live and also helps people outside the community to appreciate Aurora a little bit more," she says.

Christopher Weed, Unslueil, powder-coated steel, 2007, East End Arts District, Aurora.

In addition to area municipal governments, the Regional Transportation District (RTD) has incorporated public art into its development of an ever-growing light-rail system across Denver's metropolitan area. Art is installed on station structures and adjoining points of access, such as tunnels and bridges. "It gives each of our stations a unique identity," explains Brenda Tierney, manager of RTD's Art-n-Transit Program, "and

Highlights from Greater Denver

A c c o n c i S t u d i o (Vito A c c o n c i , Luis Vera, Jenny Schrider, Lisa A l b i n ) , D I R T W A L L ( 1 9 9 1 - 1 9 9 2 ) , earth, glass, g a l v a n i z e d steel. N a t i o n a l l y s i g n i f i c a n t p u b l i c p r o j e c t s in Denver are n o t restricted t o t h e city's core. T h i s u n u s u a l w o r k was c o m m i s s i o n e d by t h e s u b u r b a n Arvada Center for t h e Arts a n d H u m a n i t i e s , o n e o f t h e m e t r o p o l i t a n area's largest arts facilities. It c o n s i s t s o f a glass-encased e a r t h wall t h a t begins o n t h e exterior a n d snakes t h r o u g h t h e b u i l d i n g ' s interior, a l m o s t d i s a p p e a r i n g a n d t h e n r e a s s e r t i n g itself. It stretches a t o t a l o f 352 feet a n d b e c o m e s o n e w i t h t h e c e n t e r ' s architecture.

H e r b e r t Bayer, A R T I C U L A T E D W A L L (1985), p r e f a b r i c a t e d c o n c r e t e , 85 feet h i g h . Bauhaus artist a n d d e s i g n e r H e r b e r t Bayer, w h o lived in A s p e n for nearly 30 years, is a m o n g t h e b e s t - k n o w n artists a s s o c i a t e d w i t h C o l o r a d o . T h e tallest o f his p u b l i c s c u l p t u r e s , this u n d u l a t i n g , s t a i r - s t e p p e d w o r k s t a n d s as an a t t e n t i o n - g r a b b i n g m i d J o n a t h a n Borofsky, D A N C E R S ( 2 0 0 3 ) , steel i n n e r s t r u c t u r e a n d fiberglass

t o w n l a n d m a r k a l o n g Interstate 25. " T h i s is

exterior, 6 0 feet tall. M i x e d o p i n i o n s c o n t i n u e t o s w i r l a r o u n d t h i s piece,

o n e o f his b i g i d e a s â&#x20AC;&#x201D; t h a t t w e n t i e t h - and,

w h i c h is s i t u a t e d in a p r i m e l o c a t i o n o u t s i d e t h e Denver P e r f o r m i n g A r t s

o f c o u r s e , today, t w e n t y - f i r s t - c e n t u r y people

C o m p l e x a l o n g Speer B o u l e v a r d , a m a j o r artery i n t o d o w n t o w n . T h e t w o

are n o t p e d e s t r i a n s , so they see all these

b l a n d l y e l o n g a t e d , s e m i - a b s t r a c t e d figures ( s i m i l a r t o Borofsky's Walk-

t h i n g s f r o m a m o v i n g vehicle. T h a t ' s w h a t

i n g M a n in M u n i c h ) , e n g a g e d in an i n f o r m a l dance, are o f t e n derisively

he had in m i n d as early as t h e 1 9 2 0 s , " says

called G u m b y d o l l s o r aliens. I m p r e s s i v e l y large scale b u t o f f e r i n g little

G w e n C h a n z i t , c u r a t o r o f t h e Denver A r t

t h a t is s c u l p t u r a l l y i n n o v a t i v e or c o m p e l l i n g , they c o m e o f f as i n n o c u o u s

M u s e u m ' s H e r b e r t Bayer C o l l e c t i o n a n d

a n d little m o r e .

Archive, w h i c h i n c l u d e s t h i s piece.

FEATURED STATE makes it a little more of a special place. So often, public transit is just 'stop here, stop there,' and nothing makes it unique. It's nice to have our passengers have an enjoyable place to wait for the bus or train." To date, RTD has 34 works in its collection, commissioned at a cost of $1,735 million. Among them is Seven Sisters, a series of playful, figural abstractions, which reach 24 feet in height. The work was created by David Griggs, a Denver artist who has completed public projects in cities ranging from Anchorage, Alaska, to Washington, D.C.

| J

From an RTD light-rail platform to a suburban street median to the opera house, art is becoming increasingly integrated into the lives of Denver area residents. And with more than 50,000 attendees at the Democratic National Convention and the attention that came with it, the city's already growing national public-art profile couldn't help but get a big boost.

| I

KYLE MacMILLAN has been the art critic for the Denver Post since 2000. He has also written for ArtForum and ArtNews.

David Griggs, Seven Sisters, 2002, Pepsi Center/Elitch Gardens station, Denver.

Lawrence A r g e n t , I SEE W H A T Y O U M E A N ( 2 0 0 5 ) , m o l d e d polym e r c o n c r e t e o n a steel f r a m e , 4 0 feet tall. Part o f $ 2 . 4 m i l l i o n in art c o m m i s s i o n e d for t h e 2 0 0 4 e x p a n s i o n o f t h e C o l o r a d o Conv e n t i o n Center, it is h a n d s d o w n Denver's m o s t p o p u l a r p u b l i c s c u l p t u r e . T h e w o r k sits near t h e complex's m a i n entrance. The h u m o r o u s , well-executed idea w o r k s s i m p l y and directly. T h e 4 , 0 0 0 interlocking triangles on t h e faceted surface o f t h e c o m p u t e r - d e s i g n e d piece give t h e b r u i n a subtle, c o n t e m p o r a r y flair.

Tatsuo M i y a j i m a , E N G I ( 2 0 0 6 ) , LED n u m b e r s m o u n t e d in 8 0 c i r c u l a r m i r r o r s spread across a f o u r - s t o r y a t r i u m . Because t h e 2 0 0 6 a d d i t i o n t o t h e Denver A r t M u s e u m was partially f u n d e d w i t h a p u b l i c b o n d issue, t h e city's i - p e r c e n t - f o r - a r t o r d i n a n c e a p p l i e d . T h e r e s u l t i n g w o r k , w h i c h Sol LeWitt, IRREGULAR F O R M ( 2 0 0 4 ) , 36 by 7 0 feet. A n a m o r p h o u s ,

was created by Japan's r e p r e s e n t a t i v e at t h e 1 9 9 9 Venice Biennale, r a n k s

a b s t r a c t shape, c o m p o s e d o f r o u g h - h e w n , dark-gray slate, is set in relief

a m o n g D e n v e r ' s m o s t d a r i n g p u b l i c art p r o j e c t s . Successfully m e l d i n g

against a black, s e g m e n t e d g r a n i t e wall o n t h e o u t s i d e o f t h e A l f r e d A.

art a n d a r c h i t e c t u r e , it c o n s i s t s o f c o n s t a n t l y c h a n g i n g LED n u m b e r s set

Arraj U.S. C o u r t h o u s e . T h e m a s s i v e w o r k is so u n a s s u m i n g t h a t m o s t

i n t o circular panels d o t t i n g t h e walls o f a r c h i t e c t D a n i e l L i b e s k i n d ' s diz-

p e o p l e pass by w i t h o u t r e a l i z i n g it is there. I n d e e d , it ranks a m o n g t h e

zyingly a n g l e d e n t r a n c e a t r i u m . O n v i e w o u t s i d e t h e m u s e u m are large-

city's least k n o w n p u b l i c w o r k s , even t h o u g h it is a m o n g t h e m o s t strik-

scale w o r k s by such artists as C o o s j e van B r u g g e n a n d Claes O l d e n b u r g ,

ing, w i t h its q u i e t elegance and s u b t l e interplay o f texture, f o r m a n d color.

Edgar H e a p o f Birds, a n d Beverly Pepper.

FEATURED STATE

Art Takes Root in Greater Colorado LEANNE GOEBEL

Artist Ken Lindstrom wanted to create a temporary public art piece—16 plastic spirals to honor 16 years of Art Walk, an annual event showcasing the visual and performing arts in Salida, Colorado. But when Lindstrom contacted the city planning office, he learned he couldn't erect art on city property without a public art committee review, a process that might take a year or two. Frustrated with the bureaucracy, Lindstrom found a sidewalk on property owned by the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT). He called the department and asked for permission to install some "pipe hoops over the sidewalk." "I didn't call it a sculpture because I knew if they thought it was art that it would be controversial," Lindstrom says. "CDOT gave me permission. Their only requirement was that the pipe hoops be four feet off the highway and not interfere with traffic." He titled his work What Goes Around, Comes Around, a fitting theme for public art in rural and suburban Colorado, which struggles for support, understanding, and funding, yet somehow manages to find a way to exist and enrich the lives of those living in rural communities around the state.

According to Jil Rosentrater, director since 2006 of the state's Art in Public Places Program (AIPP), there are over 40 organized public art programs around Colorado, half located in the urban corridor of the Front Range and the suburbs of Denver, the other half dispersed around the state. The Colorado General Assembly adopted its public art program in 1977, allocating 1 percent of new or renovated statefunded capital construction to public art. In 31 years, more than 400 works have been commissioned or placed in state buildings for the enjoyment of Colorado citizens. In 1985, Loveland, a city on the Eastern Plains near the base of Rocky Mountain National Park, was the first municipality to adopt a public art program, followed in 1987 by Denver and Longmont (northeast of Boulder). Coincidentally (or not), both Loveland and Longmont have grown by about 11 percent between 2000 and 2003. The decade prior saw both cities grow by more than 30 percent. From 1991 until 2000, Colorado as a whole was one of the fastest-growing states in the country. During this time, several cities adopted public art programs under the statewide funding mechanism: Aurora (a city adjacent to Denver with a population approaching 300,000), Fort Collins (home to Colorado State University, a city with a population of 125,000), Grand Junction (the largest urban area on the Western Slope, with a population of 44,000), Greeley (home to the University of Northern Colorado, with a population of 83,000), and Englewood (a suburb south of Denver with a population of just under 33,000). Today, Loveland is home to a public art collection that includes 282 works valued at more than $6 million dollars and was awarded the 2008 Governor's Art Award, which recognizes a city or town that effectively employs the arts to enhance the quality of life and economic vitality of its community. Susan Ison, the director of cultural services for Loveland, believes it was serendipity that sparked the town's public art success. In 1972, Bob Zimmerman, formerly of General Motors, started a foundry that came to be known as Art Castings. The foundry drew sculptors to Loveland. In 1984, five sculptors— George Lundeen, Dan Ostermiller, George Walbye, Fritz White, and Hollis Williford—joined representatives of the city of Loveland, the chamber of commerce, and a few interested citizens to start Sculpture in the Park, a juried art show. Fifty local artists participated in that first show; 2,000 people attended, and they ABOVE: Ken Lindstrom, Whsi Goes Around, Comes Around, 2008, along Highway 291 in Salida. purchased $50,000 worth of sculpture. This year, Sculpture in the Park is celebrating 25 years and is the largest outdoor juried BELOW: Fritz White, Out at the Mystic Pest, 1991, Benson Park Sculpture Garden, Loveland. sculpture show in the country, with sales over $1 million.

FEATURED STATE

In 1985, the city adopted a public art program and created Benson Sculpture Park, which is home to more than 123 works of art. One of the works Ison enjoys year-round is Trigon, by Mary Bates-Neubauer, at Southwest Fourteenth Street and California Avenue, a monumental, slender stainless steel pyramid topped with a fan of organic cutout shapes. "It's elegant when it ices up in the winter or when the sun shines on it," she says. Loveland is also home to the 26-acre Chapungu Sculpture Park, a partnership between Chapungu and the metropolitan district of Centerra. The park is home to 82 stone sculptures made by the Shona people of Zimbabwe. Two separate incidences of vandalism, however, threaten the future of the park. On May 30, 2008, vandals destroyed two sculptures, one irreplaceable because the artist is no longer living. "It is very discouraging and disheartening," says Marcy Mushore, one of the owners of Chapungu. "We are baffled as to why anyone would want to do this." The loss to the collection is valued at $ 1 2 4 , 0 0 0 , and the owners are considering whether to remain in Loveland or move their collection elsewhere. Mushore acknowledges, "It is just a few making it difficult for many." As for Ison, her advice to other communities trying to develop a public art program: "Find out what the community values are and get them all involved. If you don't have community buy-in you're beating your head against the wall."

The state AIPP program was beating its head against the wall from 2 0 0 0 to 2006. Due to an economic downturn and stringent tax and expenditure limitations that restricted growth of general fund income to no more than 6 percent over the previous year, all capital expenditures were suspended. Since 2006, however, when the state restored capital funding, there have been 16 public art projects with total funding of $3.2 million. The largest of these is the Anschutz Medical Campus near Aurora, which involves seven artists and $1.2 million of art. Thomas Sayre's The Big Picture will tie the two large campuses together, creating a relationship with the environment. Two 14-foot spheres, one of cast concrete and the other of stainless steel, will anchor outdoor rooms. In contrast, Kendra Fleischman's Origin is a life-size bronze figure pushing and pulling from what appears to be a cocoon, and Michael Clapper's C-23, a large-scale take on the X and Y chromosomes, will provide a sense of human scale. On a much smaller scale, towns like Delta in western Colorado work with limited budgets and no AIPP funding. In Delta, the city council budgets a portion of citywide capital expenditures for murals and sculpture. In the past few years, that amount has been $ 1 0 , 0 0 0 for each program. The money is used to maintain existing murals and sculpture and to create new works of public art. A separate task force made up of community members oversees each project. Delta has 13 murals and 22 sculptures in its collection.

I{ ! I

1 1 I 1 5

LEFT: Mary Bates-Neubauer, Trigon, 1990, Loveland. RIGHT: Lameck Bonjesi, Chapungu Landing, 2002, Chapungu Sculpture Park, Loveland.

FEATURED STATE

Delta is also home to a nontraditional form of public art known as the Council Tree Pow Wow. In 1995, for the first time in 100 years, the three Ute tribesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Northern Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, and Southern Uteâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;came together across the river from the original 200-year-old council tree, the historic gathering place for the Utes. The now annual powwow offers programs for adults and children, and everyone is invited to learn the Ute Bear Dance. North of Delta, the City of Grand Junction is another thriving public art community. In 1990, the city formed a Commission on Arts and Culture, and in 1997 adopted a percent-for-art program. Prior to that, a few came together to benefit many. In 1984, a group of local artists led by Dave Davis started Art on the Corner, installing sculpture downtown on a temporary basis. The program was launched during another economic downturn in the state. Downtown Grand Junction was struggling to survive, and the artists thought this might be a way to build excitement. Artists were offered a stipend and work was put on display for a year. By 1989, the program had grown so large that it was taken over by the Downtown Development Authority, which pushed for a permanent collection and encouraged businesses to purchase works of art and donate them to the city. Art on the Corner is a model program that has spread to more than a dozen communities throughout Colorado. Every week, Allison Sarmo, the program's cultural arts coordinator, gets calls from around the country about the program. Art on the Corner now includes more than 100 sculptures and is visited by more than 300,000 people each year. More than 380,000 visitors are expected to come to Colorado in 2012 to see Over the River, a proposed project by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The artists will horizontally suspend 5.9 miles of silvery fabric panels high above the Arkansas River along a 40-mile stretch between Salida and Canon City. The project, if approved, could bring $195 million in economic impact to the state. Support for the project continues to grow, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude are working with the federal Bureau of Land Management to get an environmental impact review process under way. But according to Salida artist Ken Lindstrom, "Many who live in the canyon are dead set against it." Lindstrom, however, is a supporter. "To me, that would be the most beautiful thing to happen in Colorado." LEFT: Thomas Sayre, Untitled, to be installed spring 2009, Anschutz Medical Campus. RIGHT: Kendra Fleischman, Origin, 2008, Anschutz Medical Campus. BELOW: Michael Clapper, C-23,2008, Anschutz Medical Campus.

LEANNE GOEBEL is a freelance critic and arts journalist and the recipient of the 2008 Creative Capital I Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. She is a fifth-generation Coloradoan. Email her at artsjournalist@mac.com.

PublicArfReview GRAND JUNCTION

COLORADO

Announcing

our

Spring/Summer Issue 40

'09

theme:

SUSTAINABILITY Our 20th anniversary

issue

will explore all aspects of this most pressing

topic!

Our Featured State will be

WASHINGTON: Visit Grand Junction, Colorado's Art on the Corner Downtown Sculpture Exhibit

reserve your

ad space by February 1, 2 0 0 9 /

Celebrating 2 3 years as one of the nation's longest-running Art on Main Street sidewalk exhibits More than 100 sculptures (ill downtown's premier dining, shopping, gallery, and entertainment district

Published twice annually, each issue is packed with thematic, in-depth coverage and dozens of new + innovative projects.

www.downtowngj.org/Art on the Corner (970) 245-9697 or (970) 254-3865

info@downtowngj.org

www.ForecastPublicArt.org

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FROM THE HOME FRONT jons The Twin Cities public art world has had a double dose of politics since springtime—first, there was a classic dustup over a municipal commission in Minneapolis, and then a certain elephant-themed national political confab came lumbering into Saint Paul, where artists were ready with responses that ranged from the polemical to the poetic. Other projects unfolded across a wide spectrum of locations, including an arboretum, city streets, a rock quarry, and, in time for this issue, two notably art-friendly suburbs.

POLITICS AS UNUSUAL The September gathering in St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center that anointed John McCain as the Republican Party nominee for president was an opportunity for a range of local and national artists to weigh in, speak out, and adorn the Twin Cities under the umbrella project "The UnConvention," sponsored by the Walker Art Center, Forecast Public Art, Intermedia Arts, and Northern Lights (www.theunconvention.com). Among the many works: New York public art mavens Creative Time brought artist Sharon Hayes to town to organize Revolutionary Love 2:1 Am Your Best Fantasy, a performance piece in which some 100 local participants read a text that, in her words, "exemplifies the intersection of history and the construction of the 'queer figure' in the political terrain." Hayes debuted the piece at the Democratic convention; another repeat performance was The State of Things 2003/2008 by Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese, in which the word democracy was sculpted in 900 pounds of ice and allowed to slowly melt in the autumn sun. Forecast continued its nomadic series Spontaneous Storefronts during the convention, with rear-screen projections in a pair of windows in downtown St. Paul. The Forecast F-30 Pedal Cloud—a four-wheeled art bike powered by 10 face-toface pedalers—showed up all over town, promoting 30 years of collaborations in the community. And Forecast grantee Nancy Ann Coyne completed her three-year effort to install public art in a Minneapolis skyway featuring gigantic, translucent photographic portraits of immigrants now calling the Twin Cities home, in a project entitled Speaking of Home. Co-presented with the Family Housing Fund and the University of Minnesota's Institute for Advanced Study, the project included a twoday forum on "Public Art and Democracy," the proceedings of which will appear in the next issue. Downtown Minneapolis was a focal point for participatory events. The plaza in front of Orchestra Hall was thrown open to artists and performers for the duration of the convention, and they entertained, celebrated, and critiqued nonstop. And the Liberty Parade, in which marchers and float designers were encouraged to reflect on and portray what liberty means to them, provided an upbeat alternative to the street protests targeting the RNC in St. Paul. A purely local protest flared in the media back in July, over Minneapolis city officials' plan to commission artists to design public drinking fountains for 10 sites around the city—to the tune of $ 5 0 , 0 0 0 apiece. The goal was to promote consumption

of city water instead of landfill-choking bottled water, and to encourage outlying communities to contract with the city for water. Negative responses ranged from no-tax-dollars-for-artsynonsense screeds to more measured criticism of the city for using water department funds for part of the project. Mayor R. T. Rybak fired back with an op-ed that defended public art as a crucial urban amenity, explained the earmarked nature of percent-for-art funds, and noted that the water department contribution was a minuscule fraction of its budget. He also pointed out that San Francisco plans to copy the artfountain scheme. Later the mayor unveiled the artists' designs, including Mayumi Amada's flower-shaped double fountain, a fountain by Seitu Jones with a basin shaped like a Mississippi River mussel shell, and a complex design by Gita Ghei, Sara Hanson, and Jan Louise Kusske that incorporates images of water as vapor, liquid, and ice, along with references to rock formations, glaciation, and flooding.

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Another headline-grabbing project with an aquatic theme came from the Walker Art Center. From September 11 to 13, the Walker staged Merce Cunningham's Ocean (1994) in a rock quarry near St. Cloud, Minnesota. The full 14-member Cunningham Dance Company joined 150 musicians from around the state, performing a score by Andrew Culver, with additional electronic music by David Tudor. Surrounded by the musicians at the bottom of the 100-foot quarry, the audience saw a dance spectacle that premiered at Lincoln Center 14 years

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TOP LEFT and TOP RIGHT: The liberty Parade along Minneapolis's Nicollet Mall on August 31,2008 (showing Procession tor the Future! mi the Missile Dick Chicks). TOP MIDDLE: Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese's The State ol Things on the Minnesota State Capitol grounds. BOTTOM LEFT: [veryday Poems lor City Sidewalk, showing a poem by Naomi Cohn.

FROM THE HOME FRONT ago and has been revived several times around the world—but never before in so dramatic an outdoor setting. After the show, visitors could drop into St. Cloud itself to examine the city's brand new public library building, with a swarming, slithering openwork metal-and-glass architectural installation by Lucy Slivinski, entitled Natural Rhythm. Twin Cities tree huggers made their way to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum between May 24 and October 12 to embrace the arboretum's Treeology exhibition. Besides offering biographies of notable trees on placards and via a cell phone audio tour and a tree-science lab, Treeology invited visitors along an "Art 'n' Trees Trail," lined with 18 arboreal artworks. Among them: Robyn Jensen's Tree of Luminous Surprises, a tree structure with solar-panel "leaves" that power little dioramas inside the "trunk" that explain the contributions trees make to our lives; Mary Carroll's kinetic sculpture reproducing a Twirling Maple Seed-, and Leaf Cradles, steel-framed and fabric-covered swings in the shape of oak leaves, by Marjorie Pitz. If trees symbolize the countryside, pavement says the city, and St. Paul municipal artist in residence Marcus Young helped make pavement even more expressive by conceiving and overseeing Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk with the help of Public Art St. Paul and the city's Department of Public Works. The project asked amateur and professional St. Paul poets to submit short poems to be embedded in new sections of sidewalk as part of the DPW's process of sidewalk repair. Some 2.000 works were submitted, and 20 winners were selected in May. Installation of the concrete poetry continued through mid-October, when the DPW's repair season ended; plans call for more poems to be set down on an ongoing basis. Street art of a different sort debuted in St. Paul's Hamline-Midway neighborhood on July 28 when the Department of Public Works installed 37 signs designed by artist Steven Woodward. The images in The Art of Traffic Calming were peaceful ones—a lotus flower, a mother and child, clover—intended to inspire, rather than require, drivers to slow down.

The city plans to study the impact of Woodward's work before deciding whether to make these "peace signs" permanent. In suburbia, public art showed both accomplishment and promise. "In St. Louis Park," says city manager Tom Harmening, "we like public art for the beauty and sense of place it brings, and the richness of dialogue it contributes to the community." The culture-conscious inner-ring Minneapolis suburb, already adorned with major works such as Andrea Myklebust's towering pedestal and statue Allegory of Excelsior, furthered its big art plans for two development zones. On west Thirty-Sixth

Street, benches, wall panels, and bollards by Marjorie Pitz are scheduled to be completed in late spring or early summer 2009, while at Thirty-Sixth and Wooddale, Randy Walker's The Dream Elevator will go up next fall. Also in the fall, requests will go out for public art proposals for the West End, a mixeduse "lifestyle center" development. Further from the urban core, the busy Minnetonka Art Center began a cooperative project, inked in March, that brings works from the center to indoor and outdoor spaces in the sprawling Ridgedale Center Mall.

GRANTEE UPDATE While locals and visiting Republicans enjoyed Nancy Ann Coyne's skyway images [see brochure on page 97], the work of Forecast's other 2008 grantees was visible too. Barbara Cummard continued her project Inside Out: Faces of Self. It began with workshops in which citizens—many of them marginalized people in institutional settings like prisons and halfway houses—made masks that expressed some aspect of their inner lives. Then Cummard put each mask on a felt-covered board next to an oval hole into which the mask-maker placed his or her own face. Cummard photographed the pair of "masks" and Photoshopped all the images—nearly 165 of them—into a single 20- by 6-foot panel. A poster made from the panel was exhibited in transit station kiosks around the city. Krista Kelley Walsh carried out her Mav-through-October Gratitude Guerrilla Action, in which first she, and then an increasing number of others, promenaded in the streets and parks of St. Paul carrying helium-filled balloons inscribed with the simple phrase "thank you" and offering them to passers by. Artist Dave Machacek and Northfield, Minnesota-based ArtOrg "rolled out" 1,000 Print Summer, in which Machacek traveled to a dozen summer fairs and art venues in Minnesota with a steamroller. He rolled it over paper and inked printing blocks made by kids and adults, creating prints—plus a heavy-duty performance spectacle. The amateur artists kept the prints, but Machacek kept the blocks to make one single, 40- by 60-foot print to mark the end of the project—and he's planning a mammoth installation as well. And Michael Sweere completed his recycled-object mosaic mural for the Carl W. Kroening Interpretive Center in the North Mississippi Regional Park straddling Minneapolis and Brooklyn Center. Minnesota. Sweere used broken coffee cups and salvaged wood, among other things, to create images of the natural inhabitants of the Upper Mississippi, from white-tailed deer and raccoons to blue herons and bald eagles. As far as we know, no elephants appear in the mural.

JON SPAYDE is a contributing

editor

to Public Art Review.

BOTTOM MIDDLE: Lucy Slivinski's Natural Rhythm at the St. Cloud Great River Regional Library. BOTTOM RIGHT: Marjorie Pitz's Leal Mies at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. TOP LEFT and RIGHT: Michael Sweere's mosaic and Barbara Cummard's poster project.

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CONFERENCE REPORT

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Public Art 360: Symposium f r o m Seven Perspectives Chapel Hill, North Carolina • April 11-12, 2008

The rolling springtime hills of North Carolina provided the perfect atmosphere for the first regional public art conference to be held in the Southeast in 20 years. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the country's oldest public university, welcomed over 200 attendees to Public Art 360, a one-and-a-half-day forum in which public art professionals, artists, architects and landscape architects, writers and editors, government officials, and community activists examined, in a very practical sense, what can be done to improve the ways public art understands and facilitates relationships with the disciplines so frequently required to realize public art projects in the urban realm. Janet Kagan, the energetic principal of the Percent for Art Collaborative, welcomed everyone and introduced the conference. The opening panel, which included the chief editors of Sculpture and Landscape Architecture magazines, as well as a public art administrator-become-blogger, set an energetic pace, examining "Why It's So Hard to Write about Public Art." The panelists juxtaposed slides with critiques, discussing critical writing, outreach or lack thereof—often focusing on the failures of writers and public art administrators to adequately support or inform the other. On Saturday, participants from both coasts and around the Southeast "engaged," as the organizers put it, "in 15 hours of sustained discussion about the intersections of public art and art, government, architecture, landscape architecture, private interests, and community." The topics were meaty. One morning session, for instance, set out to examine differences between "art" and "public art." Later sessions zeroed in on several memorable projects. Charlotte Cohen, regional fine arts manager for the General Services Administration in the New York area, presented some especially sensitive and evocative projects, notably a work created by Alan Michelson along the state's Canadian border. The artist's TwoRow II wampum belt design was maximized by the architect leveraging his glass curtain-wall budget to create a huge image that greets motorists. Other sessions included one hosted by Mara S. Giulianti, former mayor of Hollywood, Florida, who presented the city's stunning new public art park. Some of the strongest examples of large-scale artworks were presented by Margie DeBolt of Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects, LLP, who showed works by Larry Kirkland, Andrew Ginzel and Kristin Jones, Liz Mapelli, Alyson Shotz, and Jim Isermann, in projects ranging from hospitals to government centers and museums. DeBolt's images could provide teaching material for an early-training program in public art for architects, which might help broaden such enlightened practice. All the presentations were full of fantastic public artworks I'd not seen before, underlining the need for access, in one central place, to continually and collectively updated digital visual portfolios of the latest (and greatest) in public art. Perhaps this is a job for the Public Art Network; but if a small regional group can put together such a stellar short conference as Public Art 360, maybe one can also build this resource. In the meantime, Kagan reports several ongoing efforts stemming from Public Art 360, including published proceedings and a robust website (www.publicartcollaborative. org) based on the conference; a regional public art resource

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ABOVE: Participants are greeted by Carter Hubbard, artist and Public Art 360 volunteer coordinator (left), and Martha Shannon, executive director of the Orange County Arts Commission. BELOW: Larry Kirkland, In Our Hands (detail), 2007, Chapel Hill.

network; and a real-time online learning site through Second Life at UNC-Chapel Hill that will feature seminars, discussion groups, and other public art resources for the nation. SARAH GAY is the the Arts and Science County, N.C. She is Residential College, projects in Colorado

associate vice president of public art at Council (ASC) of Charlotte/Mecklenburg a graduate of the University of Michigan, and previously managed public art and Florida.

CONFERENCE REPORT

Americans for the Arts Annual Convention Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • June 20-22, 2008

It's uniquely fitting that Philadelphia, home of the nation's first percent-for-art ordinance and the epicenter of American independence and democracy, hosted this year's Americans for the Arts (AFTA) conference, "American Evolution: Arts in the New Civic Life." The conference, held in a different city each year, is literally crammed with opportunities to learn, network, and explore. With numerous simultaneously scheduled daily sessions related to AFTA's eight professional networks, the whirlwind schedule of panels, tours, and receptions is overwhelming— and far too wide-ranging to capture in one review. A few days of recuperation, however, allows the assimilation of remarkable amounts of overt and covert information. One of the themes that engaged this year's conferees is the question of best practices in the ever-evolving field of public art. It's an ongoing discussion that's been aired, among other places, on AFTA's Public Art Network (PAN) email list. At the conference, Lynn Basa of Basa Projects LLC created a panel/ salon discussion entitled "What Do Artists Want?" along with artist Jack Mackie, attorney Barbara Hoffman (of Covington & Burley, LLP), and myself. From the energetic dialogue during the panel, it became clear that, while many issues remain contentious, consensus exists around others ("Requests for Qualifications versus Requests for Proposals" topped the list: Artists are frustrated when asked to develop proposals prematurely and often for free, as entree into a competitive process). Basa, with others, incorporated some of the panel results into her living document offering best practices for fellow public artists and administrators [see update on page 86], All 1,400 conferees assembled en masse for daily lunches, where we were welcomed by Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter; heard wisdom about presidential campaigns from political strategist Donna Brazile; got caught up with AFTA's

LEFT: Orexel University graduate students in arts administration discuss career advancement at one of the Career 360 breakout groups at the 2008 Americans for the Arts convention in Philadelphia. RIGHT: Kulu Mele, a 40-year-old African dance and drum ensemble, perform at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, the site of the convention's opening night reception.

news and advocacy endeavors from President and CEO Bob Lynch; witnessed award presentations including the 2 0 0 8 Public Art Award, presented to Joan Adams Mondale (a.k.a., Joan of Art) [see page 85]; and saw the Public Art Year in Review, which highlighted 44 permanent and temporary public artworks (out of 180) from around the United States, selected by jurors Ted Landsmark, President of the Boston Architectural Center, and Jody Pinto, artist. The general conference keynote from Andrew Zolli of Z+ Partners offered some guidance in navigating current and growing data mazes. Through a humorous slide presentation, Zolli illustrated how increased affluence and product abundance has created a "tyranny of choice" and a resulting "law of crap," which includes everything from 87 varieties of bread in a supermarket aisle to 300 varieties of cellphones, to (tongue in cheek) specialized jeans that improve personal aesthetics by "making one butt-cheek higher than the other." Zolli explained our collective lack of training to see networks and recognize trends. He then showed how, by moving toward dimensional thinking, we can respond to increasing complexities by learning to perceive networks and recognize the manifestation of trends. These are just a few of the many cross-disciplinary experiences encountered in three days. In the end. I fittingly felt the elation of Rocky Balboa after he exuberantly ascended the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art—which, by the way, we all did at the closing reception Sunday night. Next year's AFTA conference on June 1 7 - 2 0 , 2009, titled " T h e Arts in Sustainable Communities," will be held in Seattle. PORTER ARNEILL is the director and public art administrator for the Kansas City (Missouri] Municipal Art Commission and is currently serving his second term on the PAN Council. Readers can learn more at www.artsusa.org/networks.

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BOOK REVIEW

MASON RI

ARCHITECTURE and SUBURBIA f r o m English Villo to American Dream House, 1 6 9 0 - 2 0 0 0

JOHN ARCHER

ARCHITECTURE A N D SUBURBIA:

ARCADE: Artists and Place-Making

From English to American D r e a m H o u s e , 1 6 9 0 - 2 0 0 0

Rhona Warwick, editor London: Black Dog Publishing Limited, 2006 160 pages, $29.95 (paperback)

John Archer Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005 496 pages, $27.50 (paperback) More than half of Americans live in suburbs, and they are not going away soon. Deal with it. That's the simple conclusion of this comprehensive work by a University of Minnesota professor of cultural studies and comparative literature. Divided into three sections, the book traces the history of suburban development from its genesis in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosophy of England's John Locke. Enlightenment ideas of privacy, property, and selfhood combined with the rise of a comfortable and educated bourgeois class to spawn new architectural trends and settlement patterns, Archer claims—trends that later meshed neatly with America's values of individualism. Archer's goal, which he accomplishes admirably, is to show how architects, landscape architects, and planners have provided new terms, conditions, and architectural solutions to actualize the "existential challenges of Enlightenment selfhood." We are where, and how, we live. Critics like Theodor Adorno have argued that suburban developments are coagulating pools of architectural and behavioral standardization and cultural commodification. For Archer, though, the suburbs are not always the wasteland such urbanites assume. He cautiously builds a case for seeing them as Walter Benjamin might: as potentially more vibrant landscapes that provide for "multiple and diverse acts of individuation." It is time to give the suburbs the benefit of the doubt, he argues—to quit being disdainful and realize their potential. To that end, a broad aim of the book is to construct practical foundations for useful discussions about "housing, neighborhoods, difference, sprawl, gated communities, and other contentious issues." Scholarly, informative, and gracefully written, Architecture and Suburbia is at once patrician and pedestrian, mixing romantic history with contemporary urgency. Illustrated with historical prints and drawings of villas, homes, architectural plans, and formal gardens, the book is also provocative when addressing urban/suburban planning problems and solutions. It contains all you need to know about suburban history—and provides a compelling glimpse of the future. MASON RIDDLE is a writer, critic, and educator, editor of this issue 0/Public Art Review.

and is guest

Arcade: Artists and Place-Making is a primer for any artist, organization, architect, or developer interested in the role of artists in the regeneration of urban spaces. Provocatively written and generously illustrated, the book's subject is an artist-led initiative, the Artworks Programme, that began in 1999 as an orchestrated response to "the transitional stage and wholesale urban redevelopment" of the Gorbals, Glasgow, Scotland's notorious urban area. Known since the nineteenth century for its poverty, slum housing, and violence, the Gorbals became home to architect Sir Basil Spence's infamous 1960s residential tower blocks, which failed like so many high-rise housing projects. Their demolition was the flash point for the integration of artist projects in the construction of new places that move beyond a Utopian masterplan. More than 20 artists were commissioned to make both permanent and temporary projects reflecting a diversity of ideological approaches—all inherent in the shape-shifting Gorbals—to the notion of interpreting a sense of place. The book fleshes out 14 of the projects with compelling essays written by an impressive list of critics, curators, academics, and journalists. The essays are bracketed by an Introduction by Rhona Warwick, an artist, Programme coordinator, and Arcade editor; a Foreword by architect Piers Gough whose firm, CZWG, designed the Gorbals master plan; and an Afterword by the Artworks Programme lead artist, Matt Baker. The essays succeed as an "intertextual exchange" and bring clarity to the diverse projects. Gough lists the Artworks Programme as one of the few success stories where artists are integrated into a design project, citing that most "flounder" due to cost-cutting by clients and "planners clawing back cash for other public goodies like bottle banks and play structures; or by the money being swallowed up by a landscape overspend." How true. Baker describes the proliferating effort to include artists on design teams as an attempt to capture "an indefinable magic" missing from the functional modernist paradigm. Baker, perhaps, sums up the Programme's importance the best: "The last seven years have raised fundamental questions about the ways artists inhabit the political, economic, and social structures of urban change." Granted, these are not new questions. But the Art Programme's vision, labor, and aesthetics for Gorbals have provided one very successful answer.

joni m palmer /

JOSEPH

HART

BOOK REVIEW

T h e Practice of Public Art

E d i t e d by C a m e r o n C a r t i e r e a n d Shelly Willis

T H E PRACTICE O F PUBLIC ART

PUBLIC ART: Theory, Practice and Populism

Cameron Cartiere and Shelly Willis, editors New York: Routledge, 2008 286 pages, $95 (hardcover)

Cher Krause Knight Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2008 187 pages, $29.95 (paperback)

The editors of this important book have staked a bold claim for public art: that it is a "contemporary fine art practice and ... a significant contributor to art history." As such, the essays included will be of interest not only to academics but to practicing artists, curators, activists, art writers, administrators, designers, and educators. The Practice of Public Art locates public art squarely in the disciplines of art history and the "fine arts" while paying homage to key texts and projects, encouraging new explorations, and discussing the difficulties and limitations of defining public art. The essays are not constrained by this notion; rather, they respond from a fine arts approach. The result is a rich compilation of texts that suggests how public art continues to evolve along various trajectories and interdisciplinary possibilities. The first part of the book contains critical essays that explore the notion of public art through art history and social and critical theory. These essays are particularly provocative in their examination of site, spatial practices, temporality, and problematizing public, art as a specialization. Suzanne Lacy's "New Genre Public Art a Decade Later" is a highlight of this section. Like her book Mapping the Terrain (Seattle: Bay Press, 1995), Lacy's critique and reconsideration of the text is transformational. The editors include three essays on teaching public art, which voice the concerns and illustrate some of the means by which public art fits with fine arts and design curricula. Stories of practice vary in focus and scale, yet all pose the challenge of how public art might be active in hybrid forms of practice that embrace complex conditions, histories, and possibilities. The book's final chapter consists of a UK/U.S. timeline of public art. As the editors admit, it is incomplete, which is not a bad thing, as it provokes consideration of the various criteria by which one might chart the history of public art. The Practice of Public Art has an academic cache that comes at a steep price! But for university collections and other institutions, this important work is indispensable.

What is art? For philosophers and artists, few questions are knottier. But the question, "What is public art?" surely trumps it. The heroic statue on the square, the anti-heroic abstraction on the university green, the mural painted by at-risk teens—these are all familiar tropes. But what about a painting in a museum, which is, after all. open to the public? Or the privately funded works of Jean Claude and Christo? Or the commercial world of Disneyland? Cher Krause Knight, an art history professor at Boston's Emerson College, joins the growing number of critics, historians, and artists posing such questions. She (wisely) falls short of an overarching theory. Instead, she focuses on the notion of populist involvement as the yardstick by which to measure public art projects. In six short chapters, Knight rapidly sketches the changing perceptions about public art in the United States, beginning with the "official" programs of Roosevelt's New Deal and later programs like the National Endowment for the Arts. Along the way, she touches on well-known moments in the history of public art (Richard Serra's vilified Tilted Arc. the AIDS quilt project) to illustrate the ways that the public has been variously excluded, humored, harangued, or genuinely integrated into projects. (Unfortunately, her publishers stopped short of literally illustrating this history—the very few black-and-white reproductions are inadequate to the task.) Most interesting are her musings on commercial sites, like Disney's Magic Kingdom and Las Vegas casinos. In their admittedly pandering capacity for spectacle, she argues, such places include the public in ways that snooty art commissions don't—whatever you say about their aesthetic values. These arguments would seem to point to populist art environments like Burning Man, Marc Thorpe's early work on Robot Wars, or even the current revival of tent circuses and performance-art sideshows. But for Knight, the exemplar of public art that banks on openness is Chicago's Millennium Park. Works like Kapoor's Cloud Gate, she opines, are all that inviting public art ought to be: "Engaging, friendly, accessible, perspective-shifting, concerned with its environment and for its audiences, and oh yes. fun."

joni m palmer is a doctoral candidate in the Department Geography at the University of Colorado. Boulder.

JOSEPH HART is the managing

editor of Public Art Review.

BOOK REVIEW

ANNA

MUESSIC /JANE

DURRELL

DeOverkant ARTS

japunuMOQ

OF DEMOCRACY ART, P U B L I C C U L T U R E , A N D T H E STATE

DEN HAAG SCULPTUUR 07

T H E ARTS O F D E M O C R A C Y : Art, Public Culture, and the State

D E O V E R K A N T / D O W N U N D E R : Den Haag Sculptuur 0 7

Casey Nelson Blake, editor Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007 361 pages, $49.95 (cloth)

Marie Jeanne de Rooij, editor and curator Rotterdam: Veenman, 2007 184 pages, € 2 3 . 5 4 (paperback)

Less an argument than a story, The Arts of Democracy is a winding conversation about the shifting nature of arts and public culture in the last century. Casey Nelson Blake has compiled a book that charts the dynamic relationships between artist, citizen, and state by tracing a constellation of defining moments in American art. He does an expert job of describing the shift from a public cultural sphere defined by early popular commercial artists, to the mid-century rise of high modernism and the strengthened role of the federal government, which finally gave way to the disintegration of free, artistic civic space. Accessible to a range of professions and disciplines, the book is divided into three themed sections and contains a series of 12 critical, tightly focused essays from experts in their fields, including pieces on public speech on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.; art and politics in an age of postmodernism; and cultural propaganda tours during the Cold War. One of the highlights of the collection is an essay by Donna M. Binkiewicz on the early years of the National Endowment for the Arts, which debunks the widespread assumption that the program was a radical supporter of avant-garde artists. Through rigorous original research, Binkiewicz shows how the influence of Cold War attitudes and the New York City arts elite on its Visual Arts program resulted in overwhelming support for established, politically safe modernist styles like abstract expressionism, color field paintings, and abstract sculpture, in neglect of popular movements such as pop, Chicano/a, feminist, and performance art. A broad range of readers will find this book stimulating for its important questions about how the state should operate in supporting the free growth of public culture, the effect of propaganda on the arts in wartime, and the perennial tension between democratic access to culture and artistic excellence. It gives arts professionals a nuanced history of the field, and other interested parties a cross section of one of the most important of today's conversations in the study of art and public space.

If Down Under sometimes seems over-the-top, perhaps you had to be there. But being there, judging from the jubilee catalogue of The Hague Sculpture 2007, must have been a trip and a half. This collaborative exhibition by nearly 40 artists from Australia and the Netherlands was strung along the city's Lange Voorout (Limewood Lane), and served as the tenth edition of a summer show that began in 1998 celebrating The Hague's 750th anniversary. The outdoor sculpture display draws 200,000 visitors annually and has become more ambitious every year. This catalogue records 2007's celebration of a long if tenuous relationship between the Netherlands and Australia in what The Hague Sculpture Director Maya MeijerBergmans terms "a teasing exposition of Australian artists." Teasing in that one wants to see more? Seems likely. Among the startling sights: John Kelly's Cow up a Tree, in which a large, black-and-white block of stylized cow is indeed up a tree; Patricia Piccinini's oddly touching and thought-provoking anthropomorphic motor scooters; and Koen Wastijn's blazingly red billboard proclaiming "Kangaroos are Airlines." Down Under is more than an exhibition catalogue. In a snappy layout, the book delineates previous shows and includes essays on the modern flowering of Aboriginal art as well as the diversity of contemporary Australian art. Because it apparently went to press before full installation, Australian artist Callum Morton is represented only by letters about A Work in Progress, and the Netherlands' Harmen de Hoop entry notes that his work "has not yet been made ... even if it had been made, it is unclear whether it would actually be 'seen' as a work of art," as he places ready-mades in public space, noticed—if at all—by regulars to the area. Both these artists are well served by essays concerning their work, however; indeed, the essays on each artist, written by Marie Jeanne de Rooij, are useful and perceptive. Although snappy, the layout is sometimes hard to navigate, complicated by text appearing in both Dutch and English (in shaky translation). But as a window on lively creative endeavor by sculptors in two widely placed spots on our constantly shrinking globe, it functions perfectly.

ANNA MUESSIG is a long-time public art enthusiast and contributor to Public Art Review. She currently works at the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in New York City.

JANE DURRELL writes on the visual arts and on travel for a variety of publications.

JULIE C A N I C L I A / M A E S W O N

BOOK REVIEW

The Artist's Guide to Public Art H o w LYNN

KRISTINE

F I N D AND W I N

COMMISSIONS

BASA

MILLER

Designs on the Public The Private Lives of New York's Public Spaces

T H E ARTIST'S G U I D E T O PUBLIC ART:

D E S I G N S O N T H E PUBLIC: The Private Lives o f N e w York's Public Spaces

H o w to Find and Win Commissions

Kristine F. Miller Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007 182 pages, $25 (paperback)

Lynn Basa New York: Allworth, 2008 256 pages, $19.95 (paperback)

The meaning of public in public space is obvious, right? Think again. Miller investigates six well-known spaces in New York City, considering not just their design but, more importantly, their connections to various "public spheres" where the terms of their control and management are played out—and where, she finds, the actual public is excluded. As these case studies demonstrate, the "public" quality of public spaces is complex, constantly in flux, and sometimes hugely controversial. Miller covers the legal battle between then-mayor Rudy Giuliani and a nonprofit organization over public access to the steps of City Hall, which ultimately cost the city $4.8 million. Her chapter on Tilted Arc expands on the saga of Richard Serra's notorious sculpture by exploring the seemingly lighthearted landscape design that replaced it. Is the public really better served by landscape architect Martha Schwartz's swirling benches, which, as Miller says, are "tweaking New York City's nose," making insider commentary on the city's stringent design regulations? Miller also explores the influential role of designer Tibor Kalman in the redevelopment of Times Square. In particular, Miller discovers telling alterations to some statements made by members of "the public" for Kalman's large-scale poster promotions. The second half of the book looks at the bargaining, compromises, arrogance, power plays, and undue influence that characterize the dealings between city government and building owners in managing hundreds of New York's "privately owned public spaces." The public, one might conclude, is at best an afterthought in many of these so-called "bonus plazas," which allow developers to earn extra millions in rental revenues. Ultimately, Miller argues that mere physical access does not make a space truly public; rather, "a dynamic relationship among publics formed around issues of concern and bodies accountable for addressing these issues" is essential. Her book serves as a word of caution for designers and artists involved in the making, unmaking, or remaking of public space: Is it "public" in name only? JULIE CANIGLIA is a writer and editor in Minneapolis on visual art and design.

When we think about public art, we often ponder what it gives to the community—definition, enrichment, beauty, a tangible memorial of historic events. But what does public art give to the artist who created it? And how did the art make its way into the public sphere in the first place? According to Lynn Basa in Ttye Artist's Guide to Public Art: How to Find and Win Commissions, the answers are: a lot, and through intentional effort by the artist. Basa believes in the redemptive power of public art for both communities and artists—but she does not dwell on these intangible satisfactions. The book is a how-to manual, exhaustively outlining every step in the process of winning public art commissions. Basa starts with a primer on why governments and private entities commission art (to attract the creative class, to support the larger business climate) and the difference between studio art and public art ("whatever your imagination can contrive" versus "you respond to parameters set by the client"). She continues with a detailed tour of the commission process, from locating competitions to understanding the application lingo to dealing with a project manager on the job. Along the wav, she reminds the artist-readers of their worth (vis-a-vis the commission fee) and cautions against the starving-artist mentality. The book's strength—thoroughness—is also, at turns, its weakness; the copious detail can become tedious. Basa also has a penchant for stating the obvious. Saying that it's unprofessional for an artist to expect "special treatment for not being organized enough to get his or her application in on time" isn't ground-breaking news. At times we wonder if she is talking to her freshman class at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she teaches. The details make the book indispensable for a beginner, a bit redundant for the experienced public artist. Yet her occasional detour into the obvious never overshadows her enthusiasm or her belief that greater knowledge is key to winning commissions—and not starving. "I imagine a new era in public art where artists are informed, organized, and brave enough to stand up for our collective rights." writes Basa. Her book is a guide to such a future.

focused MAE SWON is a freelance

writer and public

art

enthusiast.

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m a l i s t Patricia j o h a n s o n ' s 146 o r i g i n a l g a r d e n

o n t h e a r t i s t ' s Rehearsal (Ensayo) series,

o f C o n t e m p o r a r y Art, i n c l u d e s c o l o r i m a g e s ,

p r o p o s a l s t h a t resulted f r o m her u n e x p e c t e d

a n d p r o v i d i n g an i n - d e p t h e x p l o r a t i o n o f t h e

o r i g i n a l essays by N i c h o l a s B a u m e , M a r y Jane

1969 House and Garden m a g a z i n e c o m m i s s i o n ,

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Jacob, a n d Partha M i t t e r , a n d selections f r o m

a l o n g w i t h seven c o m p a n i o n essays. W u d e m -

and the conditions of performance.

t h e artist's s k e t c h b o o k s .

o n s t r a t i n g t h e i n t i m a t e p r o g r e s s o f the a r t i s t ' s

D I E G O RIVERA: The Complete Murals

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Texts b y G r i s e l d a Pollock, Jacques Ranciere,

h u m a n s and the natural world.

Koln: Taschen, 2 0 0 8

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e n g a g e m e n t w i t h n a t u r e in her q u e s t for an art

3m S

6 7 4 pages, $ 2 0 0 ( h a r d c o v e r )

Z u r i c h : JRP | Ringier, 2 0 0 8

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T h i s extensive, 2 o - p o u n d v o l u m e , t h e first b o o k

160 pages, $ 4 9 (paperback) English & French

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o f A l f r e d o Jaar's w o r k , f r o m his early p u b l i c

188 pages, $65 (hardcover) A copiously illustrated v o l u m e presenting

murals, allowing their various c o m p o n e n t s

i n t e r v e n t i o n s t o his latest i n s t a l l a t i o n s , via

a n d s u b t l e t i e s t o be closely e x a m i n e d . A l s o

his w o r k s o n t h e g o l d m i n e r s in t h e A m a z o n

n u m e r o u s examples o f t h e p a r t n e r s h i p between

i n c l u d e d are a vast s e l e c t i o n o f p a i n t i n g s ,

a n d t h e 1 9 9 4 g e n o c i d e in Rwanda. A l s o

a r c h i t e c t u r e and nature, d e m o n s t r a t i n g

vintage photos, documents, and drawings f r o m

features p r e v i o u s l y u n p u b l i s h e d w o r k s created

the m a n y f o r m s o f interplay between b u i l t

p u b l i c a n d p r i v a t e c o l l e c t i o n s o f Rivera's w o r k .

in S a n t i a g o at a t i m e w h e n t h e artist was

s t r u c t u r e s a n d t h e i r e n v i r o n m e n t . Examines

experiencing the repression o f Pinochet's

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MENASHE KADISHMAN

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Jacob Baal-Teshuva, e d i t o r

N e w York: Prestel, 2 0 0 7

sensitive s t r u c t u r e s ; a n d artificial realities.

156 pages, $65 ( h a r d c o v e r )

I— CJ

A n i n - d e p t h m o n o g r a p h o n t h e celebrated

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v o n D r a t h e n , Siegfried G o h r

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Koln: W a l t h e r Konig, 2 0 0 7

warfare, t h e Bible, a n d t h e H o l o c a u s t .

256 pages, $48 (paperback) English & G e r m a n A c o m m e m o r a t i o n o f the t e n t h anniversary o f

S T U D I O O L A F U R ELIASSON: An Encyclopedia

C o l o g n e ' s a c c l a i m e d o u t d o o r s c u l p t u r e park,

Philip U r s p r u n g

this c o m p e n d i u m presents p h o t o g r a p h s and

Koln, G e r m a n y : Taschen, 2 0 0 1

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528 pages, S i 5 0 (hardcover)

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A comprehensive sourcebook covering the

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AVANT G A R D E N E R S

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ENCLOSURE

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Andy Goldsworthy

garden- a n d l a n d s c a p e - d e s i g n practices f r o m

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N e w York: A b r a m s , 2 0 0 7

a r o u n d t h e w o r l d , w i t h t o p i c a l essays t h a t

191 pages, $ 6 0 ( h a r d c o v e r )

e x p l o r i n g t h e u n d e r l y i n g p r i n c i p l e s o f these

Richter's 65-foot-tall, abstract, stained-glass

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w i n d o w for G e r m a n y ' s h i s t o r i c C o l o g n e

b e g u n in 1995 w h e n t h e a r t i s t b e g a n i d e n t i f y i n g

a n e w g e n e r a t i o n has rejected t h e n a t u r a l i s t i c

Cathedral (the o r i g i n a l o f w h i c h was d e s t r o y e d

a number of Cumbrian sheepfolds—stone

t r a d i t i o n o f W e s t e r n g a r d e n d e s i g n in favor

by b o m b s in W o r l d War II a n d thereafter

e n c l o s u r e s used for a s s e m b l i n g , s h e l t e r i n g

o f m o d e r n i s m , p o s t m o d e r n i s m , p o p art, a n d

replaced w i t h clear glass). Includes essays t h a t

and washing s h e e p — f r o m old maps, and

l a n d art.

C O N T E M P O R A R Y CLASS T H I N G S I HAVE L E A R N E D in my life so far

integrate t h e w o r k i n t o t h e c o n t e x t o f Richter's o e u v r e a n d shed light o n t h e p r i n c i p l e o f

reconstructing t h e m to incorporate artworks.

r a n d o m n e s s o n w h i c h it is based.

B l a n c h e Craig, e d i t o r

Stefan S a g m e i s t e r

L o n d o n : Black D o g , 2 0 0 8

B U R N I N G M A N : Art in the Desert

N e w York: A b r a m s , 2 0 0 8

191 pages, $45 (paperback)

A. Leo N a s h

248 pages, $ 4 0 (paperback)

Profiles o f m o r e t h a n 6 0 c o n t e m p o r a r y

N e w York: A b r a m s , 2 0 0 7

A p r e s e n t a t i o n o f S a g m e i s t e r ' s series o f

g l a s s m a k e r s t h a t explore t h e e v e r - i n c r e a s i n g

160 pages, $29.95 (hardcover)

p r o j e c t s [see page 16] t h a t spell o u t p e r s o n a l

ways t h a t t h e t e c h n i c a l a n d c o n c e p t u a l

Black-and-white photographic d o c u m e n t a t i o n

t r u t h s like " T r y i n g t o look g o o d l i m i t s m y

b o u n d a r i e s o f glass d e s i g n are b e i n g m e r g e d

o f t h e art o f B u r n i n g M a n Festival in N e v a d a ' s

life," a n d , as d i s p l a y e d by six g i a n t , i n f l a t a b l e

w i t h art a n d f a s h i o n . Features an i n s p i r i n g

Black Rock Desert, taken by A. Leo N a s h over

monkeys l o u n g i n g a r o u n d Scotland,

c o l l e c t i o n o f w o r k by e m e r g i n g a n d e s t a b l i s h e d

the past decade. I n t r o d u c t i o n by a u t h o r Daniel

"Everybody always t h i n k s they are r i g h t . "

artists f r o m a r o u n d t h e w o r l d .

Pinchbeck.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS ART A N D UPHEAVAL:

B O M B IT: T h e G l o b a l G r a f f i t i D o c u m e n t a r y

Artists on the World's Frontlines

J o n a t h a n Reiss

W i l l i a m Cleveland

N e w York: D o c u r a m a , 2 0 0 8

O a k l a n d : N e w Village Press, 2 0 0 8

D V D , 93 m i n u t e s , $26.95

352 pages, $20.01 (paperback)

S t a r t i n g w i t h graffiti's r o o t s in N e w York a n d

S n a p s h o t s o f artists and c o m m u n i t i e s

Philadelphia, this d o c u m e n t a r y f i l m goes o n

in c r i s i s — N o r t h e r n Ireland, C a m b o d i a ,

t o explore t h e art a n d its c u l t u r e in L o n d o n ,

S o u t h Africa, the U n i t e d States, a b o r i g i n a l

Paris, A m s t e r d a m , H a m b u r g , Barcelona,

A u s t r a l i a , a n d S e r b i a — w h o are w o r k i n g t o

Berlin, Cape Town, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, a n d Los

resolve c o n f l i c t , p r o m o t e peace, a n d r e b u i l d

Angeles. A l o n g t h e way, it tracks d o w n t o d a y ' s

civil society, t h e r e i n p r o v i n g art can be a

m o s t i n n o v a t i v e a n d pervasive street artists

p o w e r f u l agent o f personal, i n s t i t u t i o n a l , a n d

as they battle for c o n t r o l over t h e u r b a n v i s u a l

c o m m u n i t y change.

l a n d s c a p e . Features o r i g i n a l f o o t a g e w i t h artists s u c h as C o r n b r e a d , Lady Pink, S h e p a r d Fairey, Ron English, a n d m o r e .

B A D L A N D S : N e w Horizons in Landscape

L o m i n Saayman a n d Lloyd Ross

STREET W O R L D :

C a m b r i d g e : M I T Press, 2 0 0 8

L I G H T O N A HILL: A Tour o f the Constitutional

Denise Markonish, editor

Court o f South Africa with Justice Albie Sachs S o u t h Africa: C o n s t i t u t i o n a l C o u r t Trust, 2 0 0 6

U r b a n Art a n d C u l t u r e f r o m Five C o n t i n e n t s

232 pages, $24.95 ( p a p e r b a c k )

41 m i n u t e s

Roger G a s t m a n , Caleb N e e l o n , a n d

S p a n n i n g t o p i c s s u c h as t h e h i s t o r y o f

Albie Sachs, a f o u n d i n g m e m b e r o f S o u t h

Anthony Smyrski

l a n d s c a p e art; t h e c a t a c l y s m o f f l o o d s ,

Africa's C o n s t i t u t i o n a l Court, gives a t o u r o f the

N e w York: A b r a m s , 2 0 0 7

volcanoes, and wildfire; envi ronmental

C o u r t a n d its u n i q u e c o l l e c t i o n o f i n t e g r a t e d

384 pages, $35 (hardcover)

innovations; and the politics o f global

a r t w o r k s . Built in 1994 o n t h e site o f t h e O l d

A p o r t r a i t o f global street c u l t u r e , w h i c h

w a r m i n g , l a n d use, a n d p o l l u t i o n , t h i s text

Fort Prison, w h e r e b o t h M a h a t m a G a n d h i

b r i n g s the diverse s u b c u l t u r e s a n d m o d e s o f

serves as a field g u i d e t o n e w l a n d s c a p e art.

a n d N e l s o n M a n d e l a were incarcerated, t h e

u r b a n e x p r e s s i o n together. C o v e r i n g c u l t u r a l

T w e n t y - o n e artists e x a m i n e t h e n a t u r a l a n d

site p r e s e n t e d an o p p o r t u n i t y t o c o n v e r t t h e

h o t s p o t s f r o m N e w York a n d Los Angeles

b u i l t e n v i r o n m e n t s w i t h a m i x o f h u m o r , irony,

negative energy o f the p r i s o n i n t o p o s i t i v i t y

t o t h e Brazilian m e g a - c i t i e s , S o u t h A f r i c a n

a m a z e m e n t , a n d even sheer terror.

and h o p e for a d e m o c r a t i c S o u t h Africa. T h e

t o w n s h i p s , a n d M u m b a i , t h i s t i t l e celebrates

e x a m p l e has r e c o n f i g u r e d t h e role o f a p u b l i c

t h e street as a stage for t h e visual creativity o f

O P E N N o . 14

b u i l d i n g in d e m o c r a t i c society.

a generation.

"Art as a Public Issue: H o w Art and Its

FOLLYDOCK:

U R B A N GUERRILLA PROTEST

45 Designs for Heijplaat, Rotterdam

Ake R u d o l f

R o t t e r d a m : N A i / SKOR, 2 0 0 8

Lowieke D u r a n , Carla Feijen

N e w York: M a r k Batty, 2 0 0 8

176 pages, ( p a p e r b a c k )

Rotterdam: Veenman, 2007

134 pages, $27.95 (hardcover)

Examines t h e diverse roles o f t h e v i s u a l

128 pages, $38 (paperback) English & D u t c h

English & G e r m a n

arts in t h e p u b l i c d o m a i n a n d assesses t h e

Institutions Reinvent the Public D i m e n s i o n " Liesbeth M e l i s , Jorinde Seijdel, e d i t o r s

A playful c a t a l o g u e o f t h e 45 w i n n e r s o f t h e

F e a t u r i n g m o r e t h a n 9 0 artists a n d i n i t i a t i v e s

impact of digitization and globalization on

i n t e r n a t i o n a l c o n t e s t t o d e s i g n an a r c h i t e c t u r a l

f r o m around the world, this book provides

t h e p u b l i c role o f art. A d d r e s s e s m a t t e r s s u c h

f o l l y — a visually provocative, p o e t i c s t r u c t u r e

i n s i g h t i n t o h o w activists have d i s s e m i n a t e d

as c o n t e m p o r a r y art's r e s p o n s e t o t h e p u b l i c

w i t h o u t a specific f u n c t i o n — f o r t h e H e i j p l a a t

t h e i r m e s s a g e s a n d used an array o f m e t h o d s

l i m e l i g h t , t h e role o f t h e v i s u a l arts in civic life,

district, a once flourishing, now down-and-out

t o grab t h e a t t e n t i o n o f t h e p u b l i c . D e s i g n e d in

a n d h o w art e n h a n c e s p u b l i c space.

i n d u s t r i a l d o c k l a n d area o f R o t t e r d a m w h e r e

a h a n d - m a d e layout, t h i s t i t l e d o c u m e n t s t h e

t h e r e has been p r o m i s i n g new d e v e l o p m e n t .

rise o f t h e m e d i a guerrilla d u r i n g 1 9 9 5 - 2 0 0 5 .

I N F O R M A L A R C H I T E C T U R E S : Space and Contemporary Culture

GRAFFITI W O M E N :

Rod Palmer

A n t h o n y Kiendl, e d i t o r

Street Art From Five Continents

L o n d o n : Black D o g , 2 0 0 8

Nicholas Ganz

2 0 7 pages, $65 ( h a r d c o v e r )

N e w York: A b r a m s , 2 0 0 6

A c o m p i l a t i o n o f new a n d classic w r i t i n g o n

232 pages, $29.95 (hardcover)

spatial c u l t u r e , t h i s b o o k creates an a l t e r n a t i v e

A c o m p r e h e n s i v e survey o f s o m e o f t h e

p e r s p e c t i v e o n t h e b u i l t e n v i r o n m e n t by

w o r l d ' s m o s t p r o m i n e n t f e m a l e graffiti artists,

f o c u s i n g o n t h e w o r k s o f a r t i s t s s u c h as D a n

i n c l u d i n g Brazil's N i n a , Japan's Sasu, M e x i c o ' s

Graham, Marjetica P o t r i and G o r d o n Matta-

Peste, a n d A m e r i c a ' s Lady Pink, S w o o n , a n d

Clark. Paying p a r t i c u l a r a t t e n t i o n t o spaces

M i s s 17. Includes f o l d - o u t collages, a f o l d - o u t

t h a t are in s o m e way t e m p o r a r y , c o n t i n g e n t ,

p o s t e r jacket, a n d 1 , 0 0 0 f u l l - c o l o r i l l u s t r a t i o n s .

m a r g i n a l , o r f i c t i o n a l in o r d e r t o critically analyze t h e m e a n i n g o f art.

P A I N T E D WALLS O F M E X I C O Phyllis La Farge, M a g d a l e n a Caris

RE-PUBLIC: Towards a N e w Spatial Politics

STREET ART C H I L E

M a d r i d : Turner Libros, 2 0 0 8

V e r o n i q u e Patteeuw, e d i t o r

Rod Palmer

224 pages, $ 4 9 (paperback) English & S p a n i s h

Rotterdam: NAi, 2007

Corte M a d e r a : G i n g k o Press, 2 0 0 8

S o m e w h e r e between a scholarly i n v e s t i g a t i o n

160 pages, $39.95 (paperback)

128 pages, $24.95 ( p a p e r b a c k ) .

and a travel b o o k , this t i t l e d o c u m e n t s t h e

A v o l u m e o f p r o p o s a l s , research, a n d obser-

A s n a p s h o t o f Chile's politically e n g a g e d street

often anonymous interventions of improvised

vations about the future o f contemporary urban

art that, since 2 0 0 0 , has c o m b i n e d Latin

m u r a l s p a i n t e d o n the facades o f c o u n t l e s s

space by t h e u p - a n d - c o m i n g , R o t t e r d a m - b a s e d

American propagandistic traditions with the

p u b l i c a n d private b u i l d i n g s . S u g g e s t i v e o f an

f i r m Z U S ( Z o n e s U r b a i n e s Sensibles), a t h i n k

rebelliousness o f graffiti. T h e result: artful,

u r b a n visual l i n g o t h a t can be t r a c e d t o t h e

tank that approaches landscape architecture

c o l o r f u l cityscapes t h a t are b o t h a p p r o a c h a b l e

ancestral m u r a l s o f p r e - C o l u m b i a n M e x i c o ,

p r a c t i c e w i t h an i n v e s t i g a t i v e a p p r o a c h .

yet defiantly a n a r c h i c — a n d t h a t play a c e n t r a l

t h e w i t a n d exuberance o f t h e s e w a l l p a i n t i n g s

Projects range f r o m c l o t h i n g d e s i g n via

role in t h e fabric o f Chilean society.

c o n v e r t streets i n t o o p e n galleries.

a r c h i t e c t u r e t o large-scale i n t e r v e n t i o n s .

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Spiral Jetta ' A Road Trip through t h e Land Art of t h e A m e r i c a n West

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N E W INSTALLATIONS Glendale, Arizona

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NEWS

o ART SPRAWL From A u g u s t 30 t h r o u g h N o v e m b e r 30, the A b i n g t o n Art Center o f Pennsylvania m o u n t e d Global Suburbia,

an exhibition h i g h l i g h t i n g

artistic r u m i n a t i o n s o n suburbia. B r i n g i n g together artists that c o n t e m p l a t e s u b u r b a n c u l t u r e in the U n i t e d States and abroad, cura-

tor Sue Spaid expanded the idea o f the s u b u r b by j u x t a p o s i n g i n t e r n a t i o n a l s u b u r b s such as in India, Brazil, and Japan to A m e r i c a n suburbs like those a r o u n d A u s t i n , New Jersey, and Phoenix. The exhibition puts f o r t h the idea that s u b u r b i a is a global reality and that creative critique is i m p o r t a n t . Spaid notes, " M o s t [artists] have been influenced by s u b u r b a n e n v i r o n m e n t s , t h o u g h only a h a n d f u l actually m a k e art t h a t addresses these issues. ... Since we f o u n d artists focused on all sorts o f ' b u r b s ...[we] will h o n o r this g r o w i n g t r e n d . " A r t w o r k

ART-TORN BAGHDAD Two years ago, the city g o v e r n m e n t o f Baghdad gathered nearly 4 0 artists t o paint concrete blast walls erected a r o u n d the city. Al-Sheik, a leader w i t h i n Jamaat al-Jidaar or "The Wall G r o u p , " said o f the project, "We w a n t people t o feel their e n v i r o n m e n t , t o r e m e m b e r their history." Murals painted by the g r o u p featured ancient Sumeria, King H a m m u r a b i o f Babylon, and other idyllic historical scenes. Recently, controversy erupted w h e n the g o v e r n m e n t decided t o hand the p r o g r a m over

GIVE 'EM A PLINTH

t o n e i g h b o r h o o d o r g a n i z a t i o n s and the sectar-

Trafalgar Square, h o m e to statues o f generals

ian struggle that has g r i p p e d the city f o u n d its

and royal-looking lions, is also the site o f

way into the murals: Images specific t o Sunni

c o n t e m p o r a r y art t h r o u g h the Fourth Plinth

or Shiite groups began t o appear, and many

Project. In June, L o n d o n mayor Boris Johnson

artists in the original g r o u p resigned because

a n n o u n c e d A n t o n y G o r m l e y and Yinka

o f this partisanship. "They w a n t t o take an idea

Shonibare as the w i n n e r s o f the project's

featured includes Fritz Haeg's " e d i b l e " f r o n t

that was s u p p o s e d t o unite the city and express

next cycle.

lawns [ m o r e on page 98], David Schafer's

the t h i n g s that divide us," said Saleem Badran,

m u l t i m e d i a m e d i t a t i o n s o n big-box stores, the

Constructed in the m i d - n i n e t e e n t h

o n e o f the original m u r a l i s t s in the g r o u p . The

Center for Land Use I n t e r p r e t a t i o n ' s publica-

century t o hold an equestrian statue t h a t was

g o v e r n m e n t has a t t e m p t e d t o steer artists t o

never built, the p l i n t h on the square used to

tions, and paintings by A m y Bennett. Bennett's

m o r e u n i f y i n g t h e m e s , but as original m e m b e r s

stand empty. The Fourth Plinth Project was

w o r k We Can Never Go Home Again

o f the group leave, hobbyists f r o m all walks have

established in 1999 by the Royal Society o f Arts t o stage public artworks that rotate annually.

(2006,

p i c t u r e d above) evokes a sense o f loneliness

been creating m o r e pointedly sectarian work.

and despair m a d e familiar by Edward H o p p e r ' s

The f u t u r e o f the p r o g r a m is uncertain as inter-

p a i n t i n g s typically f r a m e d in urban settings.

nal politics c o n t i n u e t o threaten its stability.

IPhoto courtesy Abington

Art Center.]

G o r m l e y ' s One and Other will involve a series o f volunteers s t a n d i n g alone on the p l i n t h for o n e h o u r each, rain-or-shine, 24-hours a day, for TOO days, u t i l i z i n g m o r e t h a n 2 , 4 0 0 people. G o r m l e y is k n o w n for

TUNE IN, TURN O N ART

m o n u m e n t a l w o r k like the Angel of the

North.

Florida's O r a n g e County Arts and Cultural

leads t h e m t o the next piece o f public art.

He sees One and Other as a " p u b l i c spectacle

Affairs office has i n t r o d u c e d a new way t o lead

O r a n g e County hopes this new initiative will

o f the personal" in w h i c h the body becomes a

visitors t o p u b l i c art sites: Inspired by t h e

"raise awareness about public art and its

metaphor.

i n t e r n a t i o n a l p h e n o m e n o n o f Letterboxing,

many benefits."

they created an o n g o i n g public art treasure

Shonibare's Nelson's Ship in a Bottle

The University o f Exeter, UK, has begun

is a scaled replica o f Nelson's HMS

Victory

a similar initiative t o b r i n g a new, engaged

ship inside a giant glass bottle. The sails are

office has set up special boxes near 13 public

audience t o their free, o u t d o o r sculpture park.

m a d e o f Shonibare's signature batik textiles

art pieces a r o u n d the county, each c o n t a i n i n g

The University has created an iPod

a logbook, a u n i q u e s t a m p representing the

Walk: Any visitor may rent an iPod prepared

Shonibare says, are associated w i t h Africa, but

artwork, and a clue leading to the next piece.

w i t h 9 0 m i n u t e s o f audio descriptions for each

their origin is in fact Indonesian and they were

h u n t they call Public Art Treasure Caches. The

Sculpture

purchased at a L o n d o n market. The patterns,

o f the park's 25 works. They can shuffle and

mass-produced by the D u t c h and sold in the

clue o n the O r a n g e County website or go

skip a c c o r d i n g to their particular path a l o n g

colonies o f West Africa. He sees his installation

directly t o a box below a w o r k o f art. They b r i n g

the sculpture park, navigated using a free m a p .

as a "celebration o f L o n d o n ' s i m m e n s e ethnic

w i t h t h e m (if they wish) a personal s t a m p and

C o m m e n t a r y w r i t t e n by retired University librar-

wealth ... breathing precious w i n d into the

H o w it works: Participants find the first

logbook. They leave their personal mark in the

ian Alasdair Paterson provides background o n

sales o f the United K i n g d o m . "

s c u l p t u r e ' s book and s t a m p their o w n l o g b o o k

sculptures by Barbara H e p w o r t h , Paul M o u n t ,

[Photos of Gormley with his model and Shoni-

Geoffrey Clarke, and others.

bare's model by James

w i t h the artwork's s t a m p . The clue in the box

O.Jenkins.]

U N D F O R M LANDMARKED In a rare exception to typical l a n d m a r k i n g practices, the city o f Kent, Washington, n a m e d Mill Creek Canyon Earthworks

as an official

historic landmark on April 2 4 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; i t s first-ever designated landmark. The h o n o r is typically reserved for a work at least 4 0 years old, but the exceptional quality o f the earthworks and the significance o f its creator t r u m p e d its relative youth (the work is only 26 years old). Mill Creek Canyon Earthworks was installed in 1982 by Bauhaus veteran Herbert Bayer after an earthworks s y m p o s i u m organized by the King County Arts C o m m i s s i o n in 1979. Bayer attended and t h e n taught at the Bauhaus d u r i n g the 1920s, and organized the school's first exhibition at the M u s e u m o f M o d e r n Art in N e w York City.

ART ANGEL SAINTED L o n g t i m e arts patron Joan A d a m s M o n d a l e was presented the 2 0 0 8 Public Art N e t w o r k (PAN) award by the A m e r i c a n s for the Arts on June 2 0 at t h e g r o u p ' s annual meeting, held this year in Philadelphia. The annual PAN award was created t o recognize and h o n o r innovative and creative c o n t r i b u t i o n s and c o m m i t m e n t t o the field o f p u b l i c art. For three decades, M o n d a l e has been k n o w n for her o u t s t a n d i n g s u p p o r t b o t h in t h e M i n n e a p o l i s , M i n n e s o t a , m e t r o area and o n the national stage o f arts f u n d i n g and legislation. W h i l e her h u s b a n d , Walter M o n d a l e , was serving as vice president t o J i m m y Carter, Joan M o n d a l e served as the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n ' s " o m b u d s m a n for the arts."

Spreading across a 2.5-acre p o r t i o n o f the 96-acre park, meticulously designed g e o m e t r i c

As the honorary chair o f t h e Federal Council on the Arts and the H u m a n i t i e s , she pressured the

shapes o f waves, hills, cones, even a peculiar,

Department o f Transportation to support the

donut-like island w i t h i n a pond, c o n t r o l the

integration o f art into t r a n s p o r t a t i o n initiatives,

alluvial delta at the m o u t h o f M i l l Creek Canyon.

w h i c h later resulted in the Design, Art, and

Serving the dual f u n c t i o n s o f c o n t a i n i n g s t o r m

Architecture Program in 1977. Because o f her

water f r o m the creek and p r o v i d i n g an aesthet-

activities in the arts w h i l e in W a s h i n g t o n , she

ic experience, the work is considered a m a j o r

THE MOTHER OF US ALL

was given the playful n i c k n a m e "Joan o f Art."

A sculpture larger t h a n N e w York's Lady Liberty

achievement in the earthworks m o v e m e n t . M o n d a l e remains a local presence in her Designating this site as a landmark will aide in f u n d r a i s i n g necessary for protective measures like w e e d i n g invasive vegetation and increasing the capacity o f the waterway t o keep u p w i t h the increased capacity o f a nearby d a m . [Photos by John

is slated t o rise in Batangas City, Philippines,

h o m e t o w n o f M i n n e a p o l i s , where she s u p p o r t s

in 2012. The c o m m i s s i o n e d artist is Eduardo

n u m e r o u s arts initiatives. She keeps u p her

Castrillo, a Philippine s c u l p t o r w h o d e s i g n e d

o w n art practice as a lifelong potter, w o r k i n g

a sculpture in h o n o r o f Mary, M o t h e r o f t h e

in the s t u d i o o f r e n o w n e d potter Warren

Poor. A lifelong professional artist, Castrillo has

MacKenzie.

c o m p l e t e d many other m a j o r religious m o n u -

Hoge.]

m e n t s in the Philippines, G u a m , and Poland, but Mary, Mother of the Poor w i l l be his largest t o date. Rising 2 0 4 feet f r o m t i p t o toes (Lady

GRAFFITI ARTISTS TO SUE NYC

Liberty is 102 feet f r o m base t o t o r c h ) , it will

The noted g r o u p Tats Cru has filed an intent

federal d e f a m a t i o n and slander l a w s â&#x20AC;&#x201D; c l a i m s

stand over M o n t e m a r i a (the M o u n t a i n o f Mary)

t o sue the City o f New York for the d e s t r u c t i o n

w h i c h are s u p p o r t e d by the A m e r i c a n Civil

t o look o u t over t h e South China Sea. The t o p

o f one o f the g r o u p ' s graffiti murals in East

Liberties U n i o n . The city, however, has argued

o f the statue will be bedecked w i t h t h e A p o s t l e s

H a r l e m . The mural, Stop Snitchin',

that no law was violated, since the b u i l d i n g ' s

o f Christ, and the base will house a shrine.

was created

in 2 0 0 6 w i t h the p e r m i s s i o n o f the b u i l d i n g ' s

o w n e r gave consent t o have the m u r a l painted

o w n e r and featured a rat w i t h a noose a r o u n d

over. A l t h o u g h the b u i l d i n g ' s owner was not

hands and head o f t h e s c u l p t u r e , w h i c h , a l o n g

Castrillo's t e a m is b e g i n n i n g w i t h t h e

its neck and the title phrase that has often

available for c o m m e n t , Tats Cru's lawyer said

w i t h t h e feet, will be s c u l p t e d in c u t - a n d - w e l d e d

frustrated police investigations. In an effort

fines were threatened if the owner refused t o

brass. The r e m a i n d e r o f t h e body will be c o m -

spearheaded by City Council Speaker Christine

allow the repainting.

pleted in stainless steel. A t e a m o f professional

Q u i n n and the Rev. Al Sharpton, c o m m u n i t y residents painted over the m u r a l in July. Tats Cru asserts that the city's action violated their right t o free speech, as well as

" S t o p S n i t c h i n ' " has been a controversial

architects will assist w i t h t h e e n g i n e e r i n g o f

phrase and efforts have been m a d e t o ban its

the base, factor in w i n d velocity, and assist

use. Witnesses w e a r i n g " S t o p S n i t c h i n " ' shirts

w i t h other technical aspects related t o t h e large

have in t h e past been t h r o w n o u t o f courts.

scale o f the w o r k . [Photo courtesy the

artist.]

NEWS

O N PARADE Officials at the Chelsea College o f Art and Design, part o f University o f the Arts London, dedicated L o n d o n ' s newest location for public art on July 2, 2008. The Parade G r o u n d is a 3,500-square-meter open space that previously held art projects, garnering it the title the "gallery w i t h o u t walls." N o w called the Rootstein H o p k i n s Parade G r o u n d , the n a m e

change came after the Rootstein H o p k i n s f o u n d a t i o n d o n a t e d ÂŁ1.5 m i l l i o n ($2.7 m i l l i o n ) t o re-landscape the site and draw larger audiences. A n i s h Kapoor christened the site w i t h a hope that it will m o v e public art in new directions, saying, "I hope that w h a t we see on t h e Parade G r o u n d will be a m o v e away f r o m the w h i m s i c a l (in public art) t o w a r d s

MONUMENTAL PRIDE

the symbolic."

The British Isles are at the f o r e f r o n t o f a recent

at M i d d l e h a v e n Dock. The piece will be 360

trend: u s i n g m o n u m e n t a l sculpture initiatives

feet l o n g (as l o n g as a soccer field) and 164 feet

t o garner a t t e n t i o n in the hopes o f a t t r a c t i n g

high, w e i g h i n g 66 t o n s . A d a r i n g experiment

to. Artists like Chris Burden have s h o w n work

e c o n o m i c and cultural revitalization. Three

in m o n u m e n t a l sculpture, Temenos consists o f

there in the past, and after a l a n d s c a p i n g

u p c o m i n g projects illustrate t h e p h e n o m e n o n .

t w o hoops linked by metal mesh, rising in the

makeover by Planet Earth Landscapes,

A n i s h Kapoor, Turner P r i z e - w i n n i n g

air above a bridge leading t o a sports s t a d i u m .

u p - a n d - c o m i n g artists like Cildo Meireles,

This site certainly has m u c h t o live up

sculptor, in c o l l a b o r a t i o n w i t h leading struc-

All five sculptures will be similar in their indus-

Lara Favaretto, and Bill Fontana will present

tural engineer Cecil B a l m o n d , has recently un-

trial feel, e c h o i n g the industrial heritage o f the

their works on w h a t the college is calling

veiled plans for a series o f five m a j o r sculptures

region. Kapoor plans t o c o m p l e t e the sculpture

"Europe's largest open-air exhibition space."

that will spread across the N o r t h East region

next s u m m e r .

An a m b i t i o u s statement, and a high-profile

o f England. The Tees Valley Giants project, com-

The a n n o u n c e m e n t o f Kapoor's project

m i s s i o n e d by Tees Valley Regeneration, c o m e s

c a m e on the t e n t h anniversary o f A n t o n y

w i t h a price tag o f / 1 5 m i l l i o n ($26.7 m i l l i o n )

G o r m l e y ' s Angel of the North,

and is being discussed as the largest public art

started the trend o f using public art t o raise a

initiative ever. Leaders are f r a m i n g the project

region's profile. A n o t h e r m a j o r regional public

o p e n i n g , for a space that college officials hope will one day be on par w i t h the Tate M o d e r n .

seen to have kick-

as a m o n u m e n t a l t u r n i n g p o i n t for t h e region:

art contest is under way in Ebbsfleet, Kent,

PUBLIC ARTISTS MEET ONLINE

Joe Docherty, c h i e f executive o f Tees Valley

where the w i n n i n g proposal for the so-called

The Public Artist Forum Yahoo! g r o u p hit the

Regeneration, said, "This isn't s o m e t h i n g

Angel of the South is under panel review, w i t h a

g r o u n d r u n n i n g on June 23, 2008, w i t h m o r e

we need in the Tees Valley. It's s o m e t h i n g we

w i n n e r slated t o be a n n o u n c e d this a u t u m n .

than 2 0 0 artists and public art professionals

deserve. This is a calling card that the area is o n t h e t u r n . " Planning for the project began in 2 0 0 4 and it is projected that all five sculptures will take 10 years t o c o m p l e t e . The first sculpture, Temenos, will be erected in M i d d l e s b r o u g h

Send your latest public art NEWS and RECENT PROJECTS to:

office@ForecastPublicArt.org

A d d to this flurry o f civic l a n d m a r k i n g

signed up. The f o r u m was launched t o gather

Andy Scott's The Kelpies. His t w o mythical Scot-

i n p u t about the d e v e l o p m e n t o f professional

tish sea horse sculptures measure nearly 100

standards and guidelines as part o f the evolu-

feet in height and are placed at the entrance o f

t i o n o f the Open Letter to Public Art

the Forth and Clyde Canal in central Scotland.

tors (PAR, Issue 36) and the " W h a t Do Artists

Administra-

The horses will actually d i p and rise, m o v i n g

Want?" session at the m o s t recent AFTA

water t o create the d i s p l a c e m e n t lock boat lift

c o n v e n t i o n . Already, however, it has taken on a

system and u s h e r i n g vessels in and o u t o f the

larger life as an exchange for questions, advice,

canals. These sculptures provide yet another

and resources on a range o f topics. Since it is

example o f civic revitalization t h r o u g h massive

g r o w i n g so fast, the m o d e r a t o r s (Porter Arneill,

public art initiatives in the British Isles.

Lynn Basa, Jack Becker, B.J. Katz, Jack Mackie,

S u b m i s s i o n s are reviewed twice annually,

[Digital

and Daniel Sroka) are w o r k i n g on finding a

in M a r c h and September.

Regeneration.

rendering o / T e m e n o s courtesy Tees Valley Photo of The Kelpies courtesy

Nisbet Wylie Photographs

Ltd.]

m o r e versatile f o r m a t online. To join, go to groups.yahoo.com/group/publicartistforum.

NEWS HEALING FOLLOWS HATE CRIME A well-loved stone s c u l p t u r e in St. Paul, created t w o years ago by Chinese s c u l p t o r Yixin Lei, was defaced in July 2 0 0 8 w i t h blue spray paint, i n c l u d i n g profanity, swastikas, the initials KKK, and an anti-Asian slur. Lei, w h o s e controversial proposal for t h e national M a r t i n Luther King M e m o r i a l in W a s h i n g t o n , D.C., d r e w w i d e s p r e a d a t t e n t i o n , p r o d u c e d the piece d u r i n g an i n t e r n a t i o n a l sculpture s y m p o s i u m s p o n s o r e d in 2 0 0 6 by Public A r t Saint Paul. The case is being investigated as a hate c r i m e and a felony. W h i l e suspects have been identified, n o arrests have been m a d e t o date. Citizens have raised a reward t o assist police in p u r s u i t o f the case. Public A r t Saint Paul u n d e r t o o k r e s t o r a t i o n o f the s c u l p t u r e at a cost o f over $12,000. This m e t i c u l o u s process was led by c o n s e r v a t o r Kristin Cheronis w i t h t h e help o f m a n y c o m m u n i t y volunteers and involved r e m o v i n g t h e p a i n t w i t h tape, h o t water, and scalpel-like tools. " W e j u s t p u t h u n d r e d s o f h o u r s o f t r e a t m e n t t i m e i n t o it in a four-day period, because there were so m a n y people [who w a n t e d t o help]," C h e r o n i s said. A U n i t y C e r e m o n y p r o d u c e d by artist

DUSTUP SETTLED

in residence M a r c u s Young, and m a n y arts

Finally, a settlement for an o n g o i n g d r a m a in

and n e i g h b o r h o o d o r g a n i z a t i o n s i n c l u d e d a

the public art c o m m u n i t y : News c a m e April

" r i t u a l i s t i c b e g i n n i n g " o f t h e restoration.

30 that artist Kent Twitchell will receive $1.1

Lei sent a letter t o be read at t h e event:

m i l l i o n in the settlement o f a lawsuit over

"[The sculpture] is n a m e d Meditation.

a giant m u r a l that was painted over in Los

This is

w h a t I w a n t e d t o express w i t h t h i s art piece:

Angeles in June 2 0 0 6 .

This is a rich and peaceful land, and it intrigues

The mural, Ed Ruscha Monument,

was

people's best wishes and d r e a m s for t h e future.

70 feet tall, 11,000 square feet, and took the

I feel f o r t u n a t e being an artist, because there

f a m e d p o p artist nine y e a r s â&#x20AC;&#x201D; f r o m 1978 t o

are n o national b o u n d a r i e s w i t h the language

1987â&#x20AC;&#x201D;to c o m p l e t e . It took considerably less

o f art.... I will forgive t h o s e w h o d a m a g e d

t i m e for the m u r a l t o be erased, a controversial

this sculpture. As you gather in St. Paul, the

action that Twitchell's lawyer blames on

O l y m p i c G a m e s are now being hosted in

m i s c o m m u n i c a t i o n : "It was the left hand n o t

China, and people o f all races are g a t h e r i n g in

k n o w i n g w h a t the right hand was d o i n g . " The

Beijing. People are happily celebrating. I a m

p a i n t i n g was on 1031 South Hill Street, at

w o r k i n g on a m o n u m e n t for M a r t i n Luther

O l y m p i c Boulevard, w h i c h now houses the Los

King. King is a hero, and I a m deeply t o u c h e d

Angeles Job Corps.

by his spirit. He had t a u g h t us 'Darkness The settlement includes $ 2 5 0 , 0 0 0

c a n n o t drive o u t darkness; only light can d o

f r o m the federal g o v e r n m e n t , w i t h the rest

that. Hate c a n n o t drive o u t hate; only love can

c o m i n g f r o m 10 other defendants, i n c l u d i n g

d o t h a t . ' " [Photos during and after

contractors and subcontractors. It represents

courtesy Public Art Saint

a landmark m o m e n t for artists' rights. It is

conservation

Paul.]

the largest awarded settlement under the Federal Visual Artists Rights Act o f 1990, w h i c h prohibits the removal o f certain works o f public

HIGHWATER MARK FOR ARTS

art w i t h o u t 9 0 days notice given t o the artist.

C o m m i s s i o n s for the Arts Council o f New

"This settlement sets an i m p o r t a n t

Orleans' 2008 Art in Public Places were revealed

Each w o r k comes w i t h a price tag o f a r o u n d $25,000. Some, like M i c h e l Varisco's

precedent w h i c h will benefit other artists,"

N o v e m b e r 1, c o i n c i d i n g w i t h the o p e n i n g day

Memory

remarked Twitchell, "This resolution makes it

o f the Prospect.1 New Orleans biennial, and

temporary, w h i l e others will be p e r m a n e n t ,

clear that w h e n it c o m e s t o p u b l i c art, you have

b r i n g i n g a critical mass o f artworks t o this

i n c l u d i n g Generic Art Solutions'

to respect the artist's rights, or incur significant

regenerating city.

Medallions,

liability." The settlement allows Twitchell t o

Twenty m a j o r new c o m m i s s i o n s feature

Banners placed in City Park, will be Memorial

c o n s i s t i n g o f plaques e m b e d d e d

on B o u r b o n Street sidewalks. The large scale o f

recreate the m o n u m e n t , but the artist does not

artworks f r o m M i s s i s s i p p i and Louisiana

the project was m a d e possible by a g r a n t f r o m

w a n t t o revisit the site. He has until June 2 0 0 9

residents affected by H u r r i c a n e Katrina or

the Joan M i t c h e l l F o u n d a t i o n .

t o decide w h a t t o do, and has indicated that he

Rita. Their projects range f r o m s e n t i m e n t a l

may uncover and preserve the face and hands

t o lighthearted, and many o f t h e m concern

w i t h s c u l p t u r e w h e n , o n February 7,

o f t h e mural.

the a f t e r m a t h o f H u r r i c a n e Katrina. Projects

for New Orleans premieres, b r i n g i n g local

New Orleans will c o n t i n u e t o be filled Sculpture

include Marcus Brown's interactive s o u n d

and i n t e r n a t i o n a l s c u l p t o r s t o present w o r k s

Angeles, f o l l o w i n g a stint as an illustrator in the

installation HUMS

a r o u n d the city. A n d AORTA Projects (formerly

U.S. Air Force. His a m b i t i o u s series o f murals,

Catherine Burke's Open Air Project t o insert

Monuments

artists' work in the many e m p t y neon signs

roots response t o the post-disaster landscape

near

a r o u n d New Orleans, and D a w n DeDeaux's

this fall w i t h an a m b i t i o u s line-up o f c o m m u -

Monument

h a u n t i n g set o f disassociated, g l o w i n g steps

nity-based p u b l i c art. G o t o w w w . a o r t a p r o j e c t s .

installed in several locations a r o u n d t h e city.

b l o g s p o t . c o m t o learn m o r e .

Twitchell's career stretches back to Los

to American

Cultural

in 1971 w i t h Steve McQueen

Heroes, started

Monument

d o w n t o w n L.A. and Strother Martin in H o l l y w o o d . [Photo by Melba

Levick.j

in W a s h i n g t o n Square Park,

ART in A C T I O N ) is r a m p i n g u p their grass-

metro.net

Metro Art congratulates Judith F. Baca for her public art contribution to our transit system: Metate

Bench

M e t r o Rail I m p e r i a l / W i l m i n g t o n Station G o u n d fiber reinforced concrete benches w i t h glazed ceramic tile inserts in the shape o f c o r n kernels. A f f i r m i n g t h a t art can m a k e the t r a n s i t experience m o r e i n v i t i n g a n d m e a n i n g f u l for p u b l i c life, M e t r o c o m m i s s i o n s artists for a w i d e array o f projects t h r o u g h o u t Los Angeles County. To find o u t m o r e or t o add y o u r n a m e t o o u r database for new art o p p o r t u n i t i e s , call 213.922.4ART o r visit

Metro

metro.net/art.

Iowa West Public Art

Council Bluffs, Iowa iowawestpublicart.org William King Interstate

2008 Beijing O l y m p i c Park

Dance w i t h t h e Wind

Kinetic Wind S c u l p t u r e ( 3 0 f t )

U.S. RECENT PROJECTS

in the m i d s t o f s u b u r b a n d e v e l o p m e n t . It

f r o m four miles in any direction. A c o m p u t e r -

r e m i n d s lowans o f their earthy origins, while at

ized p h o t o m e t r i c process was used t o carefully

the same t i m e c o n f i r m i n g recent c o n t r o l over

m o d e l h o w external l i g h t i n g w o u l d affect it

t h e landscape.

under c h a n g i n g c o n d i t i o n s , and at night the

The 118-foot tall, 16-foot diameter tower was c o m m i s s i o n e d by private developer R&R Realty as a way t o anchor a business park in the

.Âť.

I â&#x20AC;˘

i ! j

structure also softens as one moves closer.

Des M o i n e s . The developer was inspired by a

As a public artist, Dahlquist's work has been

spire designed by architect Frank Lloyd W r i g h t

influenced by the history o f ceramics and

that uniquely marks an area in Scottsdale,

pottery. He t h o u g h t a b o u t the tower in the

Arizona. Similarly, Paragon Prairie Tower was

same way he w o u l d any other vessel, w i t h the

designed t o resonate w i t h the characteristics

power t o shape and influence its s u r r o u n d i n g s .

o f its o w n s u r r o u n d i n g e n v i r o n m e n t , w i t h the

At the start o f the design process, the artist lay

kind o f magnetic presence t h a t w o u l d make a

d o w n in prairie grass, and he a t t e m p t s in the

business w a n t to locate there, or an individual

final work's patterns o f glass tile to capture the

t o reflect on the story o f Iowa's evolution.

shapes and subtle hues he saw. Standing at

The tower's surface is covered w i t h 1.8

Senty

W h i l e c o m m i s s i o n e d as a s y m b o l o f strength and prosperity, the c o m m a n d i n g

s u b u r b o f Urbandale, Iowa, o u t s i d e capital city

its base, the viewer feels as if they are on the

m i l l i o n pieces o f colored Byzantine mosaic tiles

g r o u n d , l o o k i n g up at the grass as it waves and

m a d e by state-of-the-art glass m a n u f a c t u r e r

reflects against the ever-changing Iowa sky.

SICIS. D a h l q u i s t worked directly w i t h SICIS

F E A T U R E D PROJECT by Kristin

entire c o l u m n glows as if lit f r o m w i t h i n .

Surrounded by a reflecting pool and

in Ravenna, Italy, laying out glass and m a k i n g

public plaza, the tower has b e c o m e a

selections on the floor o f the plant. The tiles

c o m m o n gathering place for workers at the

are s u p p o r t e d by precast concrete panels that

s u r r o u n d i n g business park and for residents

The pastoral c o u n t r y s i d e o f Iowa has o n e o f

were welded and bolted together to w i t h s t a n d

w h o live nearby. As a public art installation

the highest c o n c e n t r a t i o n s o f land c o n t r o l l e d

the extremes o f w i n d , cold, and heat typical in

and d e s t i n a t i o n cultural landmark, it tells the

for p r o d u c t i o n . Row u p o n row o f corn and

Iowa, and the entire c o l u m n is g r o u n d e d w i t h

story o f e v o l u t i o n o f Iowa's landscape and its

beans extend f r o m o n e h o r i z o n t o the other,

a frieze o f terra cotta tiles and glass

o n g o i n g c o n n e c t i o n t o c o m m e r c e today.

fiber-

and a r o u n d the edges o f city centers, s u b u r b a n

reinforced concrete panels. It is the largest

While Paragon Prairie Tower draws viewers

o u t c r o p p i n g s appear t o m i m i c that order.

glass mosaic tile m u r a l in the U n i t e d States.

w i t h its c o m m a n d i n g presence, the softness

Paragon Prairie Tower is the recent w i n n e r o f

o f the images offers t h e m the chance t o yield

a S p e c t r u m Award o f M e r i t for design in the

and relax at its base like creatures in soft

O n c e a rugged tangle o f prairie t h a t c h w i t h a u n i q u e order all its o w n , Iowa's landscape was literally rolled back by pioneers t o make way for a new civilization. P A R A G O N PRAIRIE TOWER, a 2 0 0 7 public art installat i o n designed by artist David B. D a h l q u i s t and RDG Planning and Design, marks this change

c o m m e r c i a l division, and the TileLetter Award

prairie grass. [Kristin Senty is an

was granted t o Des M o i n e s Marble and M a n t l e

writer whose work focuses on

for tile installation.

development,

Like a Roman c o l u m n lit deep blue at the top, the tower is a marker that can be seen

Iowa-based

community

poverty, philanthropy,

small

business, and the arts. Photos courtesy Planning and Design.]

RDG

U.S. RECENT PROJECTS

Each s u m m e r , t h e c o u r t y a r d o f P.S.I C o n t e m porary Art Center, an o u t p o s t o f N e w York's M u s e u m o f M o d e r n A r t in L o n g Island City, is t r a n s f o r m e d i n t o an u r b a n oasis t h r o u g h t h e m u s e u m ' s Young Architects Program. This year, W o r k A r c h i t e c t u r e C o m p a n y s u b m i t t e d the w i n n i n g d e s i g n : a f o o d - p r o d u c i n g g a r d e n t h a t takes t h e idea o f local a g r i c u l t u r e t o a n e w level by c r e a t i n g a s c u l p t u r a l , interactive, f u n c t i o n i n g garden. Entitled P.F.I (PUBLIC FARM O N E ) , t h e i n s t a l l a t i o n ' s c e n t r a l aspect was a s t r u c t u r e r e s e m b l i n g a f l y i n g carpet m a d e f r o m elevated c a r d b o a r d t u b e s b l o o m i n g w i t h e d i b l e p l a n t s such as lettuce t o w i l d f l o w e r s . T h e t u b e s created a gentle wave above v i s i t o r s ' heads and served as a l o o k o u t for m u s e u m g o e r s a n d guests t o P.S.I's weekly s u m m e r d a n c e series, W a r m Up. There was even a s m a l l p o o l in t h e center o f the f a r m t h a t served as a respite f r o m the s u m m e r heat. T h e f a r m also f e a t u r e d live a n i m a l s like chickens, as well as a cell p h o n e c h a r g i n g s t a t i o n and o t h e r c u r i o s i t i e s . [Photo by Elizabeth Contemporary

Art

Felicella, courtesy Center.]

P.S.I

M a r k i n g t h e t h i r d anniversary o f H u r r i c a n e Katrina, F L O O D LINES a p p e a r e d in t h e w i n d o w s o f t h e C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t Center in N e w O r l e a n s , L o u i s i a n a , o n A u g u s t 29. T h e piece was t h e w o r k o f artists Debra H o w e l l , Krista Jurisich, Jan G i l b e r t , a n d M i c h e l e W h i t e , w h o w o r k collectively as Vestiges, as p a r t o f t h e i r T h i n k Tank series a n d a residency at t h e center. T h e piece c o n s i s t e d o f large p h o t o l i g h t b o x e s d e p i c t i n g i m a g e s o f f l o o d l i n e s â&#x20AC;&#x201D; t h e filthy stains t h a t still r e m a i n o n m a n y N e w O r l e a n s b u i l d i n g s , m a r k i n g Katrina's h i g h - w a t e r m a r k . W h i t e w r o t e t h a t t h e f l o o d lines r e m a i n an eerie r e m i n d e r o f t h e s t o r m , yet c o n n e c t t h e c o m m u n i t y . She said t h i s p r o j e c t was a b o u t " h i g h l i g h t i n g a n d p e r f o r m i n g [the line's] histories... in o r d e r t o c o n n e c t o u r h i s t o r i e s t o o u r p o s s i b l e f u t u r e s a n d try t o fix t h i n g s . " T h e i n s t a l l a t i o n r e m a i n e d u p t h r o u g h O c t o b e r . M o r e i n f o r m a t i o n o n t h e p r o j e c t a n d t h e Vestiges g r o u p is available at w w w . t h e v e s t i g e s p r o j e c t . o r g . [Digital

photo rendering

of the final installation

courtesy Contemporary

Art Center-New

Orleans.]

Taking its i n s p i r a t i o n f r o m La N u i t Blanche, Paris' a l l - n i g h t festival, Santa M o n i c a ' s ever Clow p r o j e c t b r o u g h t m o r e t h a n

first200,000

p e o p l e t o t h e beach f o r a 12-hour p u b l i c art event. F r o m d u s k o n July 19 u n t i l d a w n t h e next day, p a r t i c i p a n t s i n t e r a c t e d w i t h c o m m i s s i o n e d w o r k s f r o m 16 artists i n c l u d i n g U s m a n H a q u e a n d Shih Chieh H u a n g . Live p e r f o r m a n c e s , installations, and interactive public projects literally a n d

figuratively

i l l u m i n a t e d the Santa

M o n i c a Beach, Pier, Palisades Park, a n d t h e A t l a n t i c O c e a n itself. H a q u e ' s w o r k , P R I M A L

For t h e next year, a series o f e i g h t e n o r m o u s

S O U R C E , u t i l i z e d a large-scale o u t d o o r

figures

w a t e r s c r e e n / m i s t p r o j e c t i o n s y s t e m t o create a

as tall as 25 feet o n t h e 2 0 0 - a c r e g r o u n d s

mirage-like installation glowing with constantly

o f t h e F r u i t l a n d s M u s e u m in H a r v a r d ,

c h a n g i n g c o l o r s a n d p a t t e r n s . T h e lights

M a s s a c h u s e t t s . Joe W h e e l w r i g h t ' s TREE

c h a n g e d by t h e m i n u t e , r e s p o n d i n g t o s o u n d s picked u p by nearby m i c r o p h o n e s . Clow was an i n i t i a t i v e o f t h e City o f Santa M o n i c a a n d t h e Santa M o n i c a Arts F o u n d a t i o n . [Photos by William

Short

Photography.]

m a d e f r o m real trees w i l l s t a n d

FIGURES is p a r t o f t h e m u s e u m ' s

Branching

Out p r o g r a m , a year o f i n s t a l l a t i o n s , gallery e x h i b i t i o n s , a n d related e v e n t s t h a t kicked o f f June 28 a n d w i l l r u n t h r o u g h N o v e m b e r 2 0 0 9 . [Photo courtesy Fruitlands

Museum.]

U.S. RECENT PROJECTS

Barbara Kruger recently u n v e i l e d A N O T H E R , a new i n s t a l l a t i o n t o c o m p l e m e n t t h e new central a t r i u m o f t h e Stuart C o l l e c t i o n S t u d e n t Center at the U n i v e r s i t y o f California, San Diego. Seen f r o m all t h r e e levels o f t h e m u l t i u s e center, the w o r k c o n s i s t s o f t h e i m a g e o f t w o large blacka n d - w h i t e clocks c o v e r i n g a 4 0 - by 8 o - f o o t wall. P u n c t u a t i n g this b o l d i m a g e are t w o LED news tickers a n d static r e m i n d e r s t h a t read " A n o t h e r D r e a m , " " A n o t h e r Fear," " A n o t h e r Dollar," a n d so on. T h e wall i n s t a l l a t i o n is c o m p l e m e n t e d by q u o t e s e m b e d d e d in t h e a t r i u m floor. Featuring t h i n k e r s like H a n n a h A r e n d t a n d Voltaire, these messages c o m m e n t o n e d u c a t i o n , critical t h i n k i n g , a n d free expression. O n e f r o m Robert Frost reads, " E d u c a t i o n is t h e ability t o listen t o a l m o s t a n y t h i n g w i t h o u t l o s i n g your t e m p e r or your s e l f - c o n f i d e n c e . " Another,

completed

t h i s May, is t h e s e v e n t e e n t h w o r k in U C - S a n D i e g o ' s 25-year-old c o m m i s s i o n i n g p r o g r a m . [Photos by Philipp Scholz

Rittermann.]

From May t h r o u g h August this summer, the h i s t o r i c Battery M a r i t i m e B u i l d i n g , located at t h e s o u t h e r n t i p o f M a n h a t t a n , b e c a m e a r e s o n a n t , i n t e r a c t i v e m u s i c a l i n s t r u m e n t for all t o play. PLAYING T H E B U I L D I N G , c o n c e i v e d by legendary artist D a v i d Byrne a n d p r o d u c e d by veteran p u b l i c art p r e s e n t e r Creative T i m e , m a r k e d t h e first t i m e t h e b u i l d i n g was o p e n t o t h e p u b l i c in decades. A r e t r o f i t t e d a n t i q u e org a n was c o n n e c t e d t o t h e very s t r u c t u r e o f t h e b u i l d i n g a n d w h e n played, it blew, hit, p i n g e d , and vibrated infrastructural elements o f the 9 , o o o - s q u a r e - f o o t space, p r o d u c i n g u n i q u e t o n e s a n d s o u n d s . M e t a l b e a m s , electrical

Singers, d a n c e r s , rappers, a n d DJs go o n t o u r , so w h y n o t graffiti artists? T h e C O N C R E T E A L C H E M Y T O U R , o r g a n i z e d by t h e A l b u s Cavus collective based in N e w B r u n s w i c k , N e w jersey, d e b u t e d this May, t a k i n g 15 graffiti artists o n a five-city t o u r t h a t i n c l u d e d N e w York; Princeton, N e w Jersey;

c o n d u i t s , p l u m b i n g , w a t e r pipes, a n d m o r e

Philadelphia; W a s h i n g t o n , D.C.; a n d N a t i o n a l H a r b o r , M a r y l a n d . Cleaving m o s t l y t o t h e classic

w e r e used. V i s i t o r s were asked t o sit at t h e

aerosol graffiti style o f t h r o w - u p s , pieces, a n d m u r a l s , p a r t i c i p a t i n g w r i t e r s i n c l u d e d artists t h a t g o

o r g a n a n d experience t h e c a v e r n o u s space as a

by such aliases as Kasso a n d Mr. Maxx M o s e s . T h e t o u r e m b o d i e d graffiti art's m o b i l e , t e m p o r a l

musical instrument. The work allowed visitors

aesthetic by c r e a t i n g new pieces live in each city. W i t h a r e s i d e n t DJ and social g a t h e r i n g s in each

t o experience w h a t Byrne d e s c r i b e s as " t h e

city, t h e m e s s a g e was respect, peace, a n d t h e p r o m o t i o n o f the p o s i t i v e and c o m m u n i t y - b u i l d i n g

s o u n d - p r o d u c i n g q u a l i t i e s t h a t are i n h e r e n t in

p o s s i b i l i t i e s o f graffiti a n d h i p - h o p c u l t u r e . A c c o r d i n g t o t h e i r press release, t h e i r " a l c h e m y "

all m a t e r i a l s . " [Photo by Justin

t r a n s f o r m s c e m e n t walls. " U n d e r t h e i r t o u c h , sterile c o n c r e t e explodes, a n d a fresh, new, o r g a n i c

Creative

Time.]

Oullette,

courtesy

n a t u r e s p r o u t s t h r o u g h t h e cracks." M o r e at www.albuscav.us. [Photo by Ricardo

Barros.]

U.S. RECENT PROJECTS

" G R I M E W R I T I N G " is n o t a new c o n c e p t in t h e graffiti c o m m u n i t y ; d i r t y t r u c k s a n d cars have l o n g been the canvas for

finger-scrawled

tags o f Wash M e a n d o t h e r q u i p s . E x p a n d i n g o n t h i s t e c h n i q u e ,

t h e artist M o o s e (Paul C u r t i s ) created a 1 4 0 - f o o t m u r a l in San Francisco in A p r i l u s i n g s t e n c i l s a n d h i g h - p r e s s u r e hoses. T h e w o r k was c o m m i s s i o n e d , a p p r o p r i a t e l y e n o u g h , by C l o r o x ' s G r e e n W o r k s . In his h o m e t o w n o f Leeds, M o o s e has l o n g used s h o e - b r u s h e s , e l b o w grease, a n d w a t e r t o s c r u b art a n d a d v e r t i s e m e n t s for t h e likes o f X b o x a n d S m i r n o f f i n t o t r a f f i c t u n n e l s , s i d e w a l k s , a n d d i r t y w a l l s . T h i s so-called " c l e a n " graffiti cleverly avoids laws m e a n t t o d i s c o u r a g e street art, a l o o p h o l e artist A l e x a n d r e O r i o n d e m o n s t r a t e d in A u g u s t 2 0 0 6 . O r i o n used s o a p a n d rags t o clean away s o o t o f a Sao Paulo t u n n e l , leaving a m u r a l o f s k u l l s . Since c l e a n i n g is n o t illegal, p o l i c e c o u l d o n l y s t a n d by a n d w a t c h . Frustrated a b o u t b e i n g u n a b l e t o arrest O r i o n for his graffiti, a u t h o r i t i e s i n s t e a d began a c l e a n i n g c a m p a i g n o f all t h e city's t u n n e l s . A u t h o r i t i e s in Leeds a r e n ' t sure h o w t o m o v e against M o o s e . " I ' m w a i t i n g for t h e k i n d o f M o n t y P y t h o n c o u r t case w h e r e e x h i b i t A is a p o t o f c l e a n i n g f l u i d a n d e x h i b i t B is a pair o f m y o l d s o c k s , " he t o l d N a t i o n a l Public Radio. [Photo courtesy the

artist.]

T h e Coney Island b o a r d w a l k a n d arcade, k n o w n for f l i r t i n g w i t h t h e l i m i t s o f taste w i t h a t t r a c t i o n s such as Shoot the Freak a n d bawdy b u r l e s q u e s h o w s , was o n e - u p p e d t h i s A u g u s t by artist Steve Powers' T H E W A T E R B O A R D T H R I L L RIDE. T h e " r i d e " was installed in the arcade and, viewed t h r o u g h a w i n d o w , revealed a life-size a n i m a t r o n i c d i o r a m a t h a t reenacted a p r i s o n e r b e i n g w a t e r b o a r d e d . K n o w n for his graffiti art a n d b o l d , g r a p h i c style, Powers p a i n t e d t h e exterior w i t h a cheery c o m i c o f S p o n g e B o b SquarePants getting waterboarded while exclaiming, "It d o n ' t G I T M O better!" The project blurs the

Plastic bags o f t e n fly a r o u n d city streets,

l i m i t s o f art a n d political c o m m e n t a r y , as w e l l

b u t rarely d o they fly in such s y n c h r o n i c i t y

as p r o t e s t a n d illegality. Partly d e s i g n e d t o

as they have in M e d e l l i n , C o l u m b i a ; Lyon,

interactive sculpture H O M O U R O B O R O S f r o m

raise awareness o f t h e realities o f t h e t o r t u r e

France; T i r a n a , A l b a n i a ; a n d m o r e recently

t h e B u r n i n g M a n festival in N e v a d a t o t h e

t e c h n i q u e a n d spark debate, Powers said

in M i n n e a p o l i s , M i n n e s o t a . T h e Walker

C h i l d r e n ' s M u s e u m o f San Jose, t r a n s p o r t i n g

t h a t reactions t o t h e i n s t a l l a t i o n ranged f r o m

A r t Center's 2 0 0 8 a r t i s t - i n - r e s i d e n t , TomSs

a taste o f t h e festival's f r e e w h e e l i n g creativity

h u m o r t o horror. " H u m o r has l o n g been a

Saraceno u n l e a s h e d his M U S E O A E R O

t o a larger a u d i e n c e f r o m M a y 15 t o June 15.

A r t i s t Peter H u d s o n b r o u g h t his playful,

strategy for s p e a k i n g t h e u n s p e a k a b l e , " said

SOLAR, a s o l a r - p o w e r e d b a l l o o n created f r o m

H i s s c u l p t u r e is a u n i q u e take o n t h e h u m a n

A n n e Pasternak, p r e s i d e n t and artistic d i r e c t o r

t h o u s a n d s o f reused plastic bags f r o m a r o u n d

c r e a t i o n story. T h e g i a n t s t e e l - f r a m e s t r u c t u r e ,

o f Creative T i m e , w h o p r e s e n t e d the p r o j e c t .

t h e city. T h e finished b a l l o o n , m a d e w i t h t h e

w h i c h s t a n d s 2 4 by 3 0 feet, r e s e m b l e s a tree

Powers p u t s it m o r e ironically: " I t ' s a b o u t t i m e

help o f c o m m u n i t y w o r k s h o p s , c u l m i n a t e d

w i t h 18 life-size, realistic m o n k e y s c u l p t u r e s

t h a t t h i s u n i q u e l y A m e r i c a n ritual o f i n t e n s e

w i t h its i n f l a t i o n , h o w e v e r grey skies p r e v e n t e d

h a n g i n g f r o m its c u r v e d b r a n c h e s . Passers-by

w a t e r horror, a practice l o n g reserved for N e w

it f r o m t r a v e l i n g like it has in o t h e r cities. In

E n g l a n d w i t c h e s and A l - Q a i d a brass, was

p o u n d o n six d r u m s , w h i c h set t h e e n t i r e piece

M e d e l l i n [ p i c t u r e d here in 2 0 0 7 ] , it was rescued

m a d e available t o t h e p e o p l e , " he says. " T h i s

s p i n n i n g . U s i n g s t r o b e s at n i g h t a n d l i q u i d

w h e n it d e s c e n d e d e a r t h b o u n d as s u n l i g h t ran

p r o j e c t will give s o m e everyday N e w Yorkers

crystal s h u t t e r goggles d u r i n g t h e day, t h e

o u t . E n g a g i n g w i t h t h e field o f e n g i n e e r i n g a n d

the c h a n c e t o e x p e r i e n c e â&#x20AC;&#x201D; f o r a few brief,

sculpture becomes a huge zoetrope and the

t h e legacy o f f u t u r i s t i c a r c h i t e c t u r e , Saraceno

bone-chilling secondsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;all the thrills o f being

w a n t s his b a l l o o n t o " e x p l o r e t h e p o s s i b i l i t i e s

a p r i s o n e r u n d e r i n t e r r o g a t i o n at C u a n t a n a m o

o f a i r b o r n e h o u s i n g as a c o n c e i v a b l e s o l u t i o n

Bay. A n d t h e i n s t a l l a t i o n is f u n for t h e w h o l e

to the problems o f population growth and

family." [Photos by David B. Smith,

rapidly c h a n g i n g c l i m a t e s . " [Photo courtesy

Creative

Time.]

courtesy

artist and Walker Art

Center.]

s p i n n i n g m o n k e y s a p p e a r t o m o v e in a lifelike f a s h i o n , a n i m a t i n g a scene in w h i c h a s e r p e n t h a n d s t h e m o n k e y an apple. T h e p r o j e c t w a s p r e s e n t e d in c o n j u n c t i o n w i t h t h e S e c o n d Bien-

the

nial 01SJ G l o b a l Festival o f A r t o n t h e Edge. [Photo courtesy Black Rock Arts

Foundation.]

INTERNATIONAL RECENT PROJECTS

FEATURED PROJECT by Jon Spayde Ryoji Ikeda is a Japanese-born, Paris-based artist w h o has, u n t i l recently, used m o s t l y t h e a t e r s a n d clubs as t h e v e n u e s o f c h o i c e for his p o w e r f u l , i m m e r s i v e , s o m e t i m e s overw h e l m i n g technology-themed sound-and-light s h o w s . T h e o n e t i m e Tokyo DJ a n d art-center p e r f o r m a n c e p r o g r a m m e r s p e n t a decade as t h e s o u n d m a n a n d l i g h t d e s i g n e r for t h e ultrah i p Kyoto-based p e r f o r m a n c e t r o u p e D u m b Type, c r e a t i n g b l a s t i n g , b l i n k i n g p r o j e c t i o n s a n d s o u n d s c a p e s t h r o u g h w h i c h t h e actors m o v e d like Beckett characters t e l e p o r t e d t o an extraterrestrial d a n c e c l u b . O n his o w n since 2 0 0 0 , he has m a d e a series o f w o r k s t h a t fill r o o m s with intense light and sound patterns based o n c o m p l i c a t e d c o m p u t e r a l g o r i t h m s — o f t e n p u s h i n g listeners t o (or past) t h e b r i n k o f aural/visual discomfort. B u t in June, Ryoji Ikeda m o v e d way, way o u t d o o r s — u s i n g t h e w h o l e city o f A m s t e r d a m as a p e r f o r m a n c e s p a c e — a n d i n t o an artistic space f o r w h i c h meditative

m i g h t be t h e best

adjective, s p e c t r a [ a m s t e r d a m ] , Ikeda's first p u b l i c p r o j e c t , t r a n s f o r m e d f o u r o u t d o o r sites

Ikeda's i n t e r v e n t i o n s were c o n s i d e r a b l y

facility's designers created a lake by half-filling

in t h e D u t c h m e t r o p o l i s u s i n g i n t e n s e w h i t e

m o r e austere. In t h e V o n d e l p a r k , a green

l i g h t — a n d silence. In t h e s e i n s t a l l a t i o n s , Ikeda

expanse near the city's e n t e r t a i n m e n t center,

Ikeda installed 65 p o w e r f u l l a m p s a r o u n d

t h e t e c h n o p h i l e a n d p u r v e y o r o f s e n s o r y over-

he installed a m a m m o t h i n d u s t r i a l l i g h t in the

t h e p e r i m e t e r o f t h e circular lake, c r e a t i n g a

l o a d e x p l o r e d w h i t e l i g h t in its purity, l e t t i n g t h e

ceiling o f a nineteenth-century bandstand. The

highly t h e a t r i c a l space that, by i l l u m i n a t i n g

D u t c h n i g h t s u p p l y all t h e a d d i t i o n a l visual a n d

p o w e r f u l l a m p gave the delicate s t r u c t u r e an

the algae-rich water surface, also m a n a g e d

a u d i t o r y accents.

a l m o s t surreal b r i l l i a n c e — a n d i l l u m i n a t e d and

t o evoke M o n e t ' s water lily p a i n t i n g s — i n a

o n e o f the h u g e f o r m e r gas tanks w i t h water.

killed h u n d r e d s o f insects. H e a i m e d an o b l o n g

p o i n t e d l y p o s t m o d e r n , p o s t i n d u s t r i a l way. But

s e c o n d p r o j e c t , o f D R E A M A M S T E R D A M , an

bea m o f light at a r e c t a n g u l a r e l e m e n t o n t h e

the m o s t spectacular o f spectra's

a n n u a l art event that, a c c o r d i n g t o its f o u n d e r ,

facade o f Kisho K u r o k a w a ' s new gallery w i n g

was w i t h o u t a d o u b t t h e i n s t a l l a t i o n at the

j a m a i n Brigitha, is i n t e n d e d t o raise c o n s c i o u s -

for t h e Van G o g h M u s e u m , literally h i g h l i g h t i n g

eastern t i p o f Java Island in t h e Ij River: 25

ness a b o u t c o n t e m p o r a r y art in a city better

it. T h e b r i g h t rectangle, c r i s s c r o s s e d by right-

lights o f t h e s a m e i n t e n s i t y as t h o s e used in

k n o w n for m u s e u m s s h o w c a s i n g van G o g h a n d

angled lines, l o o k e d like n o t h i n g so m u c h as

the t e m p o r a r y Twin Towers m e m o r i a l in N e w

t h e s e v e n t e e n t h - c e n t u r y D u t c h m a s t e r s . Last

a d i g i t a l visual in o n e o f Ikeda's t h e a t e r or

York, all s h o o t i n g s t r a i g h t u p w a r d : c o l u m n s

year D R E A M A M S T E R D A M b r o u g h t Spencer

club shows.

o f light f a d i n g and t h i c k e n i n g w i t h c h a n g e s in

Spectra m a r k e d t h e s e c o n d year, a n d

Tunick t o t o w n , a n d t h e c r o w d - c r e a t i n g p h o t o g -

A n o t h e r i n s t a l l a t i o n c o u l d be f o u n d

light s h o w s

atmospheric moisture, intangible architecture

r a p h e r p o s e d g r o u p s o f local v o l u n t e e r s n a k e d

n o r t h w e s t o f t h e city center, at t h e C u l t u r e

o n a m o n u m e n t a l scale.

in several l o c a t i o n s — i n c l u d i n g 2 , 0 0 0 p e o p l e in

Park Westergasfabriek, a o n e t i m e g a s w o r k s

[Jon Spayde is a contributing

an A m s t e r d a m car park.

t u r n e d park a n d arts c o m p l e x . Here, t h e

Photos by Nick

Cobbing.]

editor to PAR.

INTERNATIONAL RECENT PROJECTS T i m e d t o c o i n c i d e w i t h the A m e r i c a n presidential c a m p a i g n d u r i n g the s u m m e r o f 2 0 0 8 , The Eleventh H a g u e Sculpture e x h i b i t i o n Freedom focused on A m e r i c a n s c u l p t u r e o f the past h a l f century. Established and e m e r g i n g A m e r i c a n s c u l p t o r s c o n t e m p l a t e d the m e a n i n g o f f r e e d o m w i t h projects t h a t symbolically resonated w i t h t h i s historic N e t h e r l a n d s city, h o m e t o n u m e r o u s political and d i p l o m a t i c i n t e r n a t i o n a l o r g a n i z a t i o n s . Works ranged f r o m the overtly political, like Paul McCarthy's giant inflatable (George W.) B U S H H E A D , t o the subtle, c o n t e m p l a t i v e m i r r o r / w i n d o w T H R O U G H T O Y O U by Natasha JohnsMessenger. Related activities included a kiosk video installation, a bicycle tour, and free lectures o n the t h e m e o f " f r e e d o m " at local public library branches. O t h e r p a r t i c i p a t i n g artists i n c l u d e d Kiki S m i t h , H a n s Haacke, Roxy Paine, and Kara Walker. See m o r e at www. d e n h a a g s c u l p t u u r . n l . [LEFT: Photo courtesy the artist and Hauser of Wirth, Zurich RIGHT.â&#x20AC;˘ Photo courtesy the

We often pass the same landscape every day,

For his m o s t a m b i t i o u s large-scale project

and on these well-frequented routes, b u i l d i n g s

to date, British artist Roger H i o r n s created

b e c o m e familiar and we take t h e m for granted.

SEIZURE, a crystalline ecosystem w i t h i n a

It is this passivity that John K o r m e l i n g

derelict and s o o n t o be d e m o l i s h e d h o u s i n g

challenges w i t h his latest p e r m a n e n t work,

complex near L o n d o n ' s Elephant & Castle. In

ROTATING H O U S E , a project c o m p l e t e d in

his first m a j o r urban intervention, H i o r n s used

the spring o f 2 0 0 8 after nearly a decade o f

c o m m o n materials like detergent, disinfectant,

p l a n n i n g and c o n s t r u c t i o n . Located at the

p e r f u m e , and fire, as well as his t r a d e m a r k

Hasselt r o u n d - a b o u t near the entrance to

crystals m a d e f r o m c o p p e r sulphate. The

Tilburg, H o l l a n d , the full-scale house rotates

artist and his t e a m poured 9 0 , 0 0 0 litres o f

in the direction o f traffic and completes a full

the c o p p e r sulphate s o l u t i o n into the vacant

circle every twenty hours. A l t h o u g h it looks

flats, and after a carefully c o n t r o l l e d drainage

like m o s t other T i l b u r g residences f r o m the

process and a few weeks c u r i n g t i m e , caves

outside, K o r m e l i n g ' s house rolls on rails,

o f cobalt blue crystals emerged. Seizure

t r a n s f o r m e d objects and the infrastructure

whose past works have included a Ferris-wheel

w i t h i n the large b u i l d i n g into a fragile, crystal

designed t o a c c o m m o d a t e passenger cars,

f o r m â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a celebration o f b o t h organic and

hopes passers-by will feel jolted f r o m reality

g e o m e t r i c structures. Seizure was on view

u p o n finding the house has m o v e d locations.

f r o m September t o November. This is the t h i r d

The w o r k is also a c o m m e n t a r y on the Hasselt

project c o m m i s s i o n e d by the J e r w o o d / A r t a n g e l

round-a-bout itself, w h o s e c o n s t r u c t i o n in the

O p e n , a new c o m m i s s i o n i n g initiative for the

1960s created a physical d i s c o n n e c t between

arts, f o u n d e d by Artangel and the j e r w o o d

the historic Hasselt Street and the Chapel o f

Charitable Foundation and s u p p o r t e d by

Hasselt (1530). Watch a video o f the neo-

Channel 4 and Arts Council England.

situationist artwork at w w w . j o h n k o r m e l i n g . n l .

[ABOVE:

Photo by Nick Cobbing. RIGHT:

[Photos courtesy Peter

by Sarah

Davies.]

Cox/Eindhoven.]

Photos

artist.]

London.

INTERNATIONAL RECENT PROJECTS "Traveling is a pleasant state o f ' d o i n g n o t h i n g . ' In a t r a i n c o m p a r t m e n t o n e can w i t h d r a w i n t o o n e s e l f a n d give o n e s e l f over t o c o n t e m p l a t i o n w i t h o u t b e i n g b o r e d . " So states SKOR, t h e o r g a n i z a t i o n t h a t c o m m i s s i o n e d DE C O U P E , a r o o m in the geriatric h o m e De B i e s l a n d h o f in Delft, H o l l a n d , t h a t was t r a n s f o r m e d i n t o a t r a i n car s i m u l a t i n g m o t i o n . A r t i s t s Lino H e l l i n g s a n d Y v o n n e D r o g e W e n d e l had m a n y c o n v e r s a t i o n s w i t h residents a n d d i s c o v e r e d t h a t rather t h a n creative activities, p a t i e n t s w a n t e d the o p p o r t u n i t y t o relax a n d " d o n o t h i n g . " T h e r o o m h o l d s six t r a i n seats a n d has v i d e o screens in place o f w i n d o w s t h a t s h o w a scenic D u t c h l a n d s c a p e p a s s i n g by. As an extra c o m f o r t , p a t i e n t s are able t o o r d e r beverages as well as a h o t meal. C o m m i s s i o n e d by De B i e s l a n d h o f and SKOR, t h e w o r k o p e n e d o n June 28. [Photo fay Cert Jan van Rooij, courtesy

SKORJ

O n e year, 2 0 artists, 2 4 h o u r s each. T h a t ' s t h e p r e m i s e o f N e w Z e a l a n d ' s O n e Day S c u l p t u r e p r o g r a m , w h i c h features i n t e r n a t i o n a l c o n t e m p o r a r y artists in a series o f d a y - l o n g p u b l i c art experiences, staggered t h r o u g h o u t t h e year. Reputable artists like T h o m a s H i r s c h h o r n and Javier Tellez, as well as e m e r g i n g artists, are c o m m i s s i o n e d t o enact o n e new t e m p o r a r y site-specific p u b l i c w o r k t o take place over t h e c o u r s e o f 24 h o u r s . Projects w i l l range f r o m s c u l p t u r e t o social intervention, public m o n u m e n t to dance p e r f o r m a n c e . B e g i n n i n g in June 2 0 0 8 and T h i s A p r i l , a g r o u p o f e i g h t i n t e r n a t i o n a l artists,

c o n t i n u i n g t h r o u g h June 2 0 0 9 , these events

hailing f r o m countries ranging f r o m Indonesia

will take place in cities t h r o u g h o u t N e w

t o H u n g a r y , c o n g r e g a t e d in G u a n d u N a t u r e

Z e a l a n d , in p a r t n e r s h i p w i t h d i f f e r e n t c u l t u r a l

Park in Taipai, Taiwan, t o p a r t i c i p a t e in t h e

o r g a n i z a t i o n s . O n O c t o b e r 9, City Gallery

t h i r d a n n u a l Guandu

Wellington commissioned THE FLOOD,

Sculpture

International

Outdoor

M Y C H A N T I N G by W e l l i n g t o n native A m y

Festival. T h e f o c u s o f t h i s year's

festival was global c l i m a t e change. C u r a t o r

Howden-Chapman. A 24-hour performance

Jane I n g r a m A l l e n asked the artists t o r e s p o n d

t o o k place u s i n g a c o l l e c t i o n o f strategically

t o t h e t h e m e by c r e a t i n g site-specific w o r k s

installed h i s t o r i c m a r i n e bells o n loan f r o m

t h a t d r e w f r o m n a t u r a l m a t e r i a l s f o u n d in the

the M u s e u m o f W e l l i n g t o n City a n d Sea's

area. B a m b o o was t h e p r i m a r y m a t e r i a l for

c o l l e c t i o n . A c h a i n reaction o f s o u n d was

nearly every i n s t a l l a t i o n : A r t i s t Roger T i b o n o f

heard, as o n e bell after a n o t h e r was activated

t h e P h i l i p p i n e s b e n t l o n g pieces o f b a m b o o

by v o l u n t e e r ringers, d e l i n e a t i n g an area o f t h e

t o create his interactive e n v i r o n m e n t T H E

city t h r e a t e n e d by f u t u r e f l o o d i n g . T h e p r o j e c t

S H I E L D ; C h u n g - h o C h e n g a n d C h i a - p i n g Liu

references t h e o u t d a t e d t r a d i t i o n o f r i n g i n g

o f Taiwan c o n s t r u c t e d a series o f b a m b o o leaf-

c h u r c h bells in t i m e s o f danger. A c c o r d i n g

like s t r u c t u r e s e n t i t l e d Every Drop Counts;

t o H o w d e n - C h a p m a n , "A d a n c e is created

and

D o n a l d Buglass o f N e w Z e a l a n d created an

b e t w e e n fable a n d fact, science and p r o p h e c y . "

a b s t r a c t Talisman for Change. T h e i n s t a l l a t i o n s

C u r a t o r a n d critic Claire D o h e r t y c o n c e i v e d t h e

were o n display t h r o u g h m i d - S e p t e m b e r .

project, w h i c h e m e r g e d f r o m a f e l l o w s h i p w i t h

[Photos by Timothy

t h e Massey U n i v e r s i t y S c h o o l o f Fine A r t s .

Nature

Park.]

S. Allen, courtesy

Guandu

[Photo by Stephen

Rowe.]

speaking of HOME A public art project by Nancy Ann Coyne www.speakingofhome.org

www.ADSOKA.com

ADVERTISING

MARKETING

PUBLIC RELATIONS

FRITZ

HAEC

S i n c e 2 0 0 5 , I have been creating a series o f public projects on private land in a variety o f cities, repurposing domestic front lawns into edible landscapes. These Edible Estate Regional Prototype Gardens are not the fussy precious aspirational gardens that you see in magazines. They are examples that anyone can look at and imagine d o i n g themselves. Each garden is c o m m i s s i o n e d by a local m u s e u m or art institution, a local family is selected as host, and a design is generated that responds t o the site, climate, and desires o f the residents. The gardens are planted by friends and local volunteers, and the unfolding story o f the garden is then broadcast t h r o u g h exhibitions, videos, photographs, and stories with many collaborators.

Edible Estate gardens are meant t o serve as provocations on the street. What happens when we share a street with one o f these gardens? The front-yard gardeners become street performers for us. C o m i n g out the door to tend their crops, they enact a daily ritual for the neighbors. We get t o know t h e m better than those who have lawns. We talk t o t h e m about how their crops are doing. They often can't eat everything they are growing, so they offer us the latest harvest o f tomatoes or zucchini. We go out o f our way t o walk past the garden to see what is going on.

Occasionally neighbors are threatened by these gardens. Anarchy, rodents, p l u m m e t i n g property values, willful self-expression, wild untamed nature, ugly decaying plants, and winter dormancy are some of the reasons that have been given. More to the point is a general sense that some unspoken law o f decency has been broken. Public tastes still favor conformity when it comes t o the front yard, and any sort o f deviation f r o m the n o r m signals a social, if not moral, lapse. The abrupt appearance of such a garden on a street o f endless lawns can be surprisingly shocking, but after the neighbors watch it grow in, they often come around. Private property, and in particular the home, has become the geographic focus o f our society. When we take stock o f the standard American singlefamily residence, it becomes quite clear where the priorities are. It is within the walls o f the house that the real investment and life o f the residents occur. The land outside the walls typically receives much less attention, and can even become downright unwelcoming. Any activity in the yard will typically happen in back, where there is privacy. We are obsessed with our homes as protective bubbles f r o m the realities around us. Today's towns and cities are engineered for isolation, and growing food in your front yard becomes a way to subvert this tendency.

F R I T Z H A E G was born in St. Cloud, Angeles.

Minnesota,

His recent u/ork includes edible gardens,

environments, for people. released in

animals'

homes, domestic

and is currently public

gatherings

dances,

based in Los educational

and occasionally

buildings

His first book, Edible Estates: A t t a c k o n t h e Front L a w n was 2008.

Top photo of the Maplewood, New Jersey Regional Prototype Garden # 3 (shown before and after planting) courtesy the Canary Project. Background photo of the Lakewood, California Regional Prototype Garden # 2 by Fritz Haeg.

www.gardenlab.org

Artist: Skunder Atelier, National Artist of Ethiopia-Ethiopian Embassy, Washington, D.C. ^ Material: Five layers of aluminum.This piece represents all tribal and religious groups in Ethiopia,

& Our Inspired Fabrication* • . ^ c r e a t i v e edge 601 South 23rd Street, Fairfield, Iowa 52556 USA •800-394-8145 Contact Ron Blair: 641-919-2071 •888-853-5797Tonb@cec-waterjet.com

Franz Mayer of Munich, Inc. Architectural Art Glass and Mosaic since 1847 The Professional Studio for the Independent Artist

www.mayer-of-munich.com t o

o\c\

Barbara Neijna: "Foreverglades", Concourse J, Miami International Airport, Miami, FL, completed 2 0 0 7 . A fascinating example of great Public Art, which included Terrazzo floors, huge areas of handmade stone plates and some 2 5 0 0 sqft of art glass. W e had the privilege to fabricate - in close collaboration w i t h the artist - all of the art glass. Photos: Marcos Martinez

? r * \ f

V-

nl truth p x i l t r u t h

- i r r M

/ / K