Talk About an Evolution

from Public Art Review issue 57 - 2018

Monumental Changes

TALK ABOUTAN EVOLUTION Looking back at 40 years of Forecast Public Art—and the changing field to which it belongs

BY JACK BECKER / Dedicated to my mentor, Melisande Charles

IN 1976, I EARNED A BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and, unlike many art graduates then and now, got a great job right away. I was hired by a CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) program, a one-year federal jobs program run by the visionary artist Melisande Charles that put 60 artists to work in communities. My job was to think of the city as a gallery and organize temporary exhibitions featuring CETA artists in public spaces like libraries, parks, and government buildings.

My new gig was an official development of what was going on informally in those days: the alternative art-space movement was in full swing across the United States, including here in the Twin Cities. Pioneering artists were taking over abandoned warehouses, producing independent exhibits, installations, and events that crossed boundaries and chal lenged audiences. With my CETA job, I was able to foster this spirit by connecting artists and art with public spaces and the public. I didn’t realize it then, but I’d found my calling.

In 1978, when CETA funds ran dry, my commitment to public art went to a whole new level when a handful of colleagues and I started the nonprofit Forecast Public Art. We were one of the only groups in the country programming on streetscapes, in the open air, nurturing what you might call “free-range” artists. In those days, it was easy to install sculptures in a city park. The St. Paul Parks Department, I recall, didn’t have any rules. The only document I had to fill out was a picnic permit. “Just clean up after you’re done,” I was told.

The field of contemporary public art was young and artists were eager to experiment, yet it was mostly about simply placing artworks in public places. Then along came conceptual artist Joseph Beuys, who coined the term social sculpture in the 1980s to signify his understanding of art’s potential

One year after Jack Becker (front, center) founded Forecast Public Art in 1978, Forecast members gathered for a group photo. From left, Bill Felker, Julie Worthing, Julie Beignet, Jack Becker, Nancy Reynolds, Dennis Sponsor, Sage Felker, John Schwartz, Anna Edwards, Andrew Shea, and Jannell Schwartz-Felker.

to transform society. Since those days, public artists have proven that art can have many functions, serve many needs. So it’s no surprise that today people want public art to do something in the world, not just be in the world. (In fact, public art is now sought as a Band-Aid for many of today’s built-environment blunders and social ills.) At the same time, public art has become more democratized, diversified, and technologized. As I reflect on the past 40 years and consider hundreds of artists, projects, places, forums, Public Art Review stories, consulting gigs, and conversations, a few trends stand out for me. Here are three that I think are worth sharing.

CLAIMING AND PROTECTING PUBLIC SPACES I used to think that public spaces were created for us; that they weren’t something the public needed, or ought, to have any say in. Today the door to community-engaged design has been flung open wide, and we all have the option to participate in the process.

There’s a commons movement underway. This growing social and political tendency believes that the commons— shared public goods, including public spaces like libraries and parks—represents a crucial sector of the economy and society. Conversely, the privatization of public space has grown at a rapid rate. These days, you often can’t tell if you’re in a public or private space until you cross the line between what’s allowed and what isn’t. There may be better security and maintenance in a pseudo-public zone like a shopping mall, but there are more rules too, along with surveillance cameras. Whether our public realm is truly public or privately owned, it’s time to increase community participation in the planning and programming of that realm, and to ensure that artists are brought into the process. And while we’re at it, let’s make sure artists get the kind of education and professional training they need for this kind of work.

ART AND CREATIVITY EVERYWHERE Emerging public artists in the 1970s, like the rag-tag club that helped Forecast get its start, were pioneers who tested concepts of art in public spaces. The work of Dennis Oppenheim, Ana Mendieta, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and Alan Kaprow, to name a few, was mostly ephemeral, but the results influenced generations of independent creators to come. Their efforts stood in stark contrast with top-down, large-scale, commissioned art by blue-chip artists like Alexander Calder, Claes Oldenburg, Louise Nevelson, and Isamu Noguchi.

Over the decades, public art, whether top-down or bottom-up, evolved into a profession, accompanied by

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84 thicker contracts, recommended best practices, and even a

sprinkling of university degree programs. (Yet we still lack

standards, licensure, job descriptions, and proven methods

to build a profitable career in the public art field. Indeed,

we’re still in the R&D phase of our profession.)

Since the early 1980s, women and artists of color have

found footholds in the public art realm; in fact, they’ve

outpaced their white male counterparts, bringing fresh

voices and a social-justice orientation that’s eager to

confront the status quo. Equity is the hot buzzword today,

as it should be, given the growing imbalances evident in

American culture. Thankfully there’s a growing number of

artists wanting to work in the trenches to daylight the truth,

bridge divisions, and spark meaningful dialogues. Placemak

ing, social-practice art, and community-engaged design have

brought community art, born in the ’70s, from the margins to

the center of our culture.

Millennials and Gen Xers are taking our decades-old hip-hop

subculture mainstream, embracing dance, music, street art, and

social media as join-in-and-help, DIY projects, part of a growing

trend that’s been dubbed participatory culture.

While this highly democratic kind of public art used to

be best exemplified by, say, the customized ghosts or Santa

Clauses in front yards during Halloween or Christmas, today

you can experience a flash mob, some yarn bombing, or

Pokémon Go anywhere, on any day.

Since the turn of the new century, cities have promoted

painted plastic animals as civic mascots, starting with Cows

on Parade in Chicago in 1999. Urban sculpture parks are

cropping up in many places. We have a handful of biennales

and nuit blanche (all-night) festivals, dozens of artist-in-res

idence programs, a Public Art Network (PAN), an online

Public Art Archive tm

, an international public art film festival,

and an International Award for Public Art.

The ever-present role of artists and creativity in our daily lives today is the result of the groundwork laid during the past 40 years. By paying closer attention to the trajectory of artists’ evolving role in our society we can begin to see, and to forecast, the value shift taking place in America—the recognition of the importance of equitable, people-oriented place development, designing experiences for healthful daily life, and collective community leadership.

PLANNING, PROGRAMMING, FUNDING: GROWTH AND LIMITATIONS Forecast was lucky to be founded in the philanthropically inclined Twin Cities, where giving back is a given. Funders viewed our work as a way to remove barriers to access to the arts, especially among those who didn’t—or couldn’t afford to—attend museums and theaters. We were bringing art to the people, on a project-by-project basis. Eventually we developed annualized programs, Public Art Review, Artist Services, and Creative Consulting.

In the 1980s, art critic Grace Glueck referred to public art as “the fastest-growing industry in the United States,” and it’s still booming. Tens of millions of dollars are spent annually on public art in the U.S., mostly from private sources. There’s a growing list of public and private funders supporting public art, including the National Endowment for the Arts, ArtPlace, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and others, including Kickstarter. Alternative funding models are emerging, including billboard taxes, license plate fees, gambling proceeds, microgrants, percent for private development, graffiti abatement funds, corporate sponsorships, and bartering, among others. Percent-for-art programs have grown from about 25 in 1980 to more than 350 today.

But the picture is far from perfect. Many programs are facing severe financial problems; they may have funds for art but are losing staff, or they have staff but their art funds have dried up. Public art collections are aging and maintenance budgets are inadequate. And it’s still easier to get project support than general operating funding. Aside from an occasional windfall grant, the nonprofit arts life is a hand-to-mouth existence. It’s a mission-driven life fueled by passion and difference-making.

It’s time to reinvent the percent-for-art model and to broaden support for the range of creative work that’s being done—and that’s needed. Cities need to work more collaboratively with businesses, foundations, nonprofits, educational institutions, grassroots initiatives, and artists, to redefine what a vital, meaningful, impactful public art program can be.

The power of public art for communities can’t be denied. Neither can the opportunities it offers artists to be change agents. What’s most meaningful for me is that public art is an energy and a philosophy as well as a practice. It produces iconic cultural symbols, tells stories, honors people and events, surfaces truths, and gives voice. I’m encouraged by the rise of the citizen artist, dedicated to advancing equality and justice. I admire outspoken activism. I’ve also learned to value taking risks and to use failure as a learning strategy. I’m striving to make the most of my creativity during my brief time on the planet, and as Forecast’s next four decades get under way, I invite and challenge others to do the same.

JACK BECKER is the founder of Forecast Public Art and director of its Creative Consulting program.

We’re proud to add our voices to so many others : Happy 40th birthday Forecast Public Art. Congratulations to Jack Becker and Theresa Sweetland and the whole board and staff at Forecast and Public Art Review.

When we think of Forecast’s contributions over four decades we think: leadership, genius, service, and the most exciting and meaningful publication in public art. We celebrate: empowerment, creative connection, community. As Jack reports, public art is the common thread that binds our hearts together.

With growing interest in public art worldwide, and increased demand for Forecast’s knowledge and expertise, it’s easy to imagine another 40 years of tangible inspiration. Public Art Review, Forecast’s consulting services, grants to artists, trainings, next generation leadership development, and commitment to the field — this is exactly what we need now.

FRIENDS OF PUBLIC ART REVIEW SALUTE 40 YEARS OF FORECAST PUBLIC ART

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FORECAST FROM THE FRIENDS OF PUBLIC ART REVIEW.

Kari Alberg and Dave Machacek Greg Esser, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University Hervey Evans, Erazmus Inc. Publishing Consultants Tom Fisher, MN Design Center, Univ. of Minnesota Amelia Foster Gretchen Freeman, Gretchen Freeman and Company Karen Griffiths Stacey Holland Seth Hoyt Elizabeth Keithline, Wheel Arts Administration / RI State Council On the Arts Suzanne Lacy, Roski School of Art and Design, Univ. of Southern California Jill Manton Lisa and Adam Mauer Elliott, Outside the Box Designs Karen Olson, Editor in Chief, Public Art Review Joyce Pomeroy Schwartz, Works of Art for Public Spaces Ltd. Philip Pregill, Landscape Architecture faculty, California State University, Pomona Print Craft, proud printer of Public Art Review Colleen Sheehy and Public Art Saint Paul Abby Suckle, cultureNOW Rebecca Sterner, Magazine Publishing Consultant Max Stevenson, Norway House, Minneapolis, MN

A RARE Opportunity in a Twin Cities Suburb The Richfield Artist Resident Engagement project (RARE) explored new ways for the arts and real estate to work together—and lessons were learned BY JON SPAYDE

THE CORNERSTONE GROUP, IN THE MINNEAPOLIS SUBURB OF RICHFIELD, MINNESOTA, is a for-profit real estate developer with nonprofit values. The company builds concern for the surrounding community into its projects, from creating community gardens to providing affordable units in otherwise market-rate apartment complexes.

And in a partnership with Forecast Public Art (the organization that publishes Public Art Review), they’ve been exploring how alliances with artists can further their goal of good neighborhood citizenship—while the artists have been learning how to cooperate with a developer in ways that go well beyond, say, plopping a sculpture in a plaza. Together, they’ve learned important lessons about how to work together successfully.

A BRIEF HISTORY It all started in 2014, when the city of Richfield approached Cornerstone to develop a town center. The developer held listening sessions to find out what citizens wanted the center to be. The answer, says Cornerstone founder and CEO Colleen Carey, was “a gathering place where arts and cultural events could happen.” Cornerstone bought the site of the long-defunct Lyndale Garden Center, adjacent to Richfield Lake Park.

Plans for the complex included rental units and retail, but also amenities like walking trails on the lakeshore, a public pizza oven, and an amphitheater for arts and cultural events. It was Cornerstone’s next move that began to widen Carey’s perspective on how the arts could contribute to what was dubbed the Lyndale Gardens project.

Cornerstone contacted St. Paul–based Springboard for the Arts, which connects artists with community-development projects. Springboard was placing “artist organizers” in various organizations around town, bringing artistic thinking and practice to bear on the organizations’ issues. Performance artist Molly Van Avery worked with Cornerstone,

“helping us see the power artists have to create change in a community,” says Carey. “I knew that artists could help make a place a great place to live, but Molly helped me see how they could engage the community in solving problems, to make the community a better place to live.” Van Avery is friends with Melinda Childs, then of Forecast, and she and Childs began working with Cornerstone under the Forecast banner to set up RARE (Richfield Artist Resident Engagement), a plan to embed an artist-in-residence in Lyndale Gardens.

But, as Carey notes, “development is not a linear process.” Financing for the residential building stalled—it’s since been restructured, with some of Cornerstone’s plans curbed or cut down—and Cornerstone and RARE had to recalibrate: rather than giving a resident artist an apartment on site, they would apply for a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board to support a pair of artists who would use all of Richfield as their home base, doing projects, garnering a sense of what the city’s diverse residents were thinking about, and making Lyndale Gardens better known.

The successful Arts Board application specified that the artists would be Witt Siasoco, an artist, graphic designer, and community activist with extensive experience working with youth, and Emily Johnson, a Minneapolis- and New York–based choreographer and installation artist.

When both Van Avery and Childs left their posts, a new pair took over supervision of RARE: Forecast’s Artist Services director, Kristin Wiegmann, and Andrew Gaylord, who started out as a Springboard artist organizer and then was hired by Cornerstone.

After a couple of false starts, including a plan for a skateboard park that turned out to be too difficult to insure, Siasoco created mural-size portraits of three well-known neighborhood residents. He also interviewed many Rich fielders about their hopes for the city and compiled the results on Instagram. Johnson involved local people in an ongoing quilting project in which residents were encouraged to express their hopes and dreams on cloth squares.

While Siasoco and Johnson met regularly with both Forecast and Cornerstone and garnered a good deal of input from the community, Carey wanted an artist-involved project that was more directly linked to the Lyndale Gardens site. A second Arts Board grant set up RARE 2, with three artists: muralist Greta McLain and spoken word artists Shā Cage and E. G. Bailey. Cage and Bailey hosted poetry workshops in Richfield, while McLain set up a mosaic-mural-making center on the Gardens site, along with hosting a number of workshops in the community.

RARE 2 was indeed centered on the development—the mosaic sections that McLain and local people created PUBLIC ART REVIEW | VOL. 29 | ISSUE 57 | FORECASTPUBLICART.ORG

The RARE program was piloted in 2015 with artists Witt Siasoco and Emily Johnson. ABOVE LEFT: Witt Siasoco (left) with a Richfield resident whose portrait was installed at a bus stop. ABOVE RIGHT: Artist Emily Johnson engaged Richfield elders and families through community meals, storytelling, and dance in the city’s nature preserves. Julia Bither, who works with Johnson, collected ideas from residents about their desires for Richfield on quilt squares.

were eventually installed in the seating area of the Lyndale Gardens amphitheater, and words from the community poems that Cage and Bailey facilitated found their way into the mosaics. The RARE collaborators also set up a Community Advisory Council, made up of Richfielders, that advised on many aspects of the project.

On June 21, 2017, some 400 local people showed up for the official unveiling of the amphitheater and the mosaic work—a community party that featured local bands and a dragon-dance group. The amphitheater’s inaugural season continued with a series of concerts by local musicians, the last of which was a September evening of salsa music, with Puerto Rican cuisine served from a food truck. Programmed by Andrew Gaylord and the Advisory Council, the concerts will recommence next summer.

While Cornerstone pursues a three-phase plan to finance the completion of Lyndale Gardens, the developer and the Council will work together to find ways for Richfield artists to support the project, without Forecast’s help—that’s RARE’s third phase.

ARTIST-DEVELOPER RELATIONSHIPS Perhaps the major key to making artist-developer relationships work, according to Carey, is making sure that each side understands the nature and pace of the other’s work. Real estate development goes forward by fits and starts, driven by financing, permitting, and other unpredictables, she says, “and I think the artists, who were out there talking about our project, sometimes wondered why it was taking so long and what the point of their work was if there was nothing in place yet.”

At the same time, Carey cautions developers to make sure they give artists a free hand to create. “Everybody needs to be clear and in agreement up front about their objectives,” she says, “and then developers need to support the artists in what they come up with, not say no.” For both Carey and Wiegmann, the way the project was granted—as a package with the artists already selected and the goals outlined in the proposal—created pressure, since there was little wiggle room for experimentation and rethinking. Wiegmann would have preferred a two-stage process in which artists and arts organization developed a plan for artist-led actions and works, which could then be presented to Cornerstone for approval—of the artist team and the project—plus necessary tweaking, before work began.

At the same time, Wiegmann says, the one-year grant period for each phase of RARE was insufficient for doing what she calls the “deep work” of community engagement. “I thought we had planned for a lot of time to do this engagement work and relationship-building in Richfield,” she says, “but there’s always more you can do in outreach—and I felt that perhaps a year, the cycle of the grant, just wasn’t enough.”

She also notes that RARE assured the artists that they didn’t have to knock on doors and initiate relationships, community-organizer style, either, if they didn’t want to. Cage and Bailey, who have extensive experience with outreach, were comfortable in the role, she says, while McLain preferred to concentrate on art-making with the community.

While connecting with the community is of the essence in this dynamic kind of public work, Wiegmann says, “we didn’t want to make artists responsible for marketing or branding the development.” It helped, she says, that Cornerstone was genuinely interested in being a positive presence in the community beyond the bottom line. “There were workshops where we didn’t mention Cornerstone at all,” she points out.

As for Greta McLain, she feels that her mural workshops were ultimately a success, but it was initially hard to get people to come to her on-site mosaic workshop. “Here we had all these great art materials just waiting to be used—and people just weren’t coming in,” she says. So McLain moved the workshops out into multiple locations in the community and had, as she puts it, “great success.” There was also a general problem of awareness, according to McLain. “The community as a whole didn’t have a sense of where the project was heading,” she says.

The answer to both problems, she suggests, would have been to connect the project with a single nonprofit community organization in Richfield, rather than depend solely on the artists and artist organizers who, though skilled and anxious to help, were not local people. “When you’re a community organization, you know who to call, you know how to rally people,” she says.

ENDEARING A PROJECT Even with all their challenges, says Forecast founder and now Director of Community Services Jack Becker, new liaisons between artists/arts organizations and real estate developers, liaisons that foreground community input and needs, are attracting attention in the development community as well as among the advocates of ethical development. “Developers are beginning to see that the more a project becomes endeared to a community, becomes authentically their place, not the developer’s place, the more people will come to it,” he says. “At Forecast,” he adds, “we’re already talking with other developers who want to go beyond commissioning art into other ways of working with artists that represent authentic kinds of community building.”

JON SPAYDE is senior editor of Public Art Review. PUBLIC ART REVIEW | VOL. 29 | ISSUE 57 | FORECASTPUBLICART.ORG

A Workable Plan for Arts Access in Los Angeles L.A. County’s sweeping Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative isn’t just another wish list—the County Board of Supervisors actually mandated it BY MICHAEL FALLON

ON LOCATION In April 2017, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission (LACAC) announced a monumental new Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative (CEII), which includes 13 recommendations to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors intended to “ensure that everyone in L.A. County has equitable access to arts and culture” and to “improve inclusion in the wider arts ecology for all residents in every community.”

The initiative wasn’t just a hopeful shot in the dark on the part of activists—the county itself called for it, back in November of 2015.

The recommendations cover areas such as cultural policy, the use of inclusive language, internships and training, workforce development, and equity and inclusion in arts funding, programming, audience development, and arts education.

“Everyone is very hopeful of moving the needle, so to speak,” says LACAC executive director Leticia Buckley of the initiative and its recommendations, “and ensuring that there ends up being more accessibility for folks to engage in the arts in every neighborhood across the county.”

The CEII’s full 116-page report was the result of an 18-month process conducted by an advisory committee of 36 diverse community leaders, led by three co-chairs—Tim Dang, Helen Hernandez, and Maria Rosario Jackson—wellknown arts leaders in L.A. The committee conducted 14 town hall meetings in locations around the county, during which a total of 650 participants shared their experiences with, and ideas about, county arts programs.

The advisory committee also formed working groups to further discuss and hone ideas about equity and inclusion in five key target areas: the boards of directors of cultural organizations, arts organization staffing, arts audiences and participants, arts programming, and artists/creators. More data and information were captured through the first-ever L.A. County–wide demographic survey of the arts and cultural workforce, which measured the diversity of boards, staff, volunteers, and contractors.

Finally, to determine best practices and assess the current state of knowledge about inclusion and cultural equity, the committee consulted with peer groups in cities like New York and San Francisco, and conducted a full literature review.

The public process that LACAC conducted to formulate the CEII’s recommendations was critical to its completion, but even more important was what Buckley calls “the perfect storm” of county support for the initiative, which promises to give it a real and practical impact. After all,

“What’s important is that this conversation isn’t about the arts only. It is about access and equity for residents and citizens in L.A. County.”

—Leticia Buckley, executive director, Los Angeles County Arts Commission

since it was the L.A. County Board of Supervisors who originally directed LACAC to conduct the study and formulate a set of recommendations, the initiative marks a rare opportunity for effective policy to emerge.

“Above all,” says Buckley, “we actually wanted to walk away with real, actionable items. It was very important all along that this was not going to be another gathering of arts and culture folk having a conversation about lack of diversity or anything else with nothing to show at the end of it.”

Political realities are political realities, however. The practical steps associated with the 13 recommendations imply an increase of $20.5 million in county arts funding in the first year. In June, the Board of Supervisors, citing “budget uncertainties at the state and federal levels,” approved funding for only five of the recommendations, dedicating a bit more than $1.1 million to establishing a cultural policy for the county, requiring county arts grantees to adopt equity plans, expanding paid arts internships for community college students, developing work-based arts learning opportunities for teens, and placing artists in paid positions as creative strategists to solve social problems.

While the allocations fell far short of the CEII’s recommendations, the LACAC remains hopeful that the county board will work toward realizing what are, after all, its own equity and inclusion goals by funding additional recommended programs in future years. “What’s important is that this conversation isn’t about the arts only,” says

ABOVE: People emerge from the NoHo Arts District metro station on L.A.’s red line. BELOW: Panorama of the city of Los Angeles, California.

Leticia Buckley. “It is about access and equity for residents and citizens in L.A. County. With the idea that the arts are embedded in everything we do, it’s important to know that this is another tool in the tool kit to ensure that people are receiving equitable distribution of resources and access.”

MICHAEL FALLON is a Los Angeles–raised, Twin Cities–based arts writer who is the author of two books, including Creating the Future: Art and Los Angeles in the 1970s (Counterpoint Press, 2014). He is also the executive director of Hand Papermaking, Inc. PUBLIC ART REVIEW | VOL. 29 | ISSUE 57 | FORECASTPUBLICART.ORG

Transformations: Art and the City Elizabeth M. Grierson, ed. Bristol, UK: Intellect; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017

This wide-ranging collection of essays is the fruit of a symposium held at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, in 2014. Artists, media professionals, and specialists in public policy, law, business, science, cartography, geography, and many other fields con- vened to ask: How can we understand the contemporary city “through an aesthetic lens—and what pos- sibilities exist for transformative action?” Topics range from art projects intended to revitalize city neighbor- hoods to artistic interventions in the justice system to artists as recorders and archivists of urban realities.

Greater Than Ever: New York’s Big Comeback Daniel L. Doctoroff New York: Public Affairs/Perseus Books, 2017

This first-person narrative account is written by the former New York City deputy mayor for econom- ic development under Michael Bloomberg, of the Bloomberg-led revival of the city after 9/11. That revival produced tangible public goods like the High Line linear park and pedestrian days in Times Square, along with failed plans for an Olympic bid and for a major stadium on the West Side, and deep and ongoing concerns about equity and gentrification.

Public Space? Lost and Found Gediminas Urbonas, Ann Lui, and Lucas Freeman, eds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017

Theoretical essays and accounts of recent projects in art and architecture rub shoulders in this com- pendium, which asks how artist and architects can best contribute to a wider understanding of public space—its forms and its possible fates—in the twen- ty-first century. Subjects discussed range from artists’ work in politically charged zones like the U.S.–Mexico border and South African shantytowns to the impact of digital media on physical and virtual public space.

Boredom: Documents in Contemporary Art Tom McDonough, ed. Destruction: Documents in Contemporary Art Sven Spieker, ed. London: Whitechapel Gallery; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017

These two volumes are the latest in the Whitecha- pel/MIT series, which boldly examines big and often surprising topics as they relate to the art world, through reprints of scholarly and theoretical essays, as well as reviews and artists’ writings. Boredom’s range is wildly wide, from an essay by iconic Ger- man critic-philosopher Walter Benjamin on boredom in France in the age of Baudelaire to Andy Warhol’s well-known ennui to Greil Marcus on the boredom with album-oriented rock that helped launch the Sex Pistols. Destruction opens with the Communist Manifesto and proceeds through a landscape of phil- osophic/artistic creation/destruction that includes Robert Rauschenberg (“On Erased DeKooning Drawing”), Jean Tinguely on his suicidal machines, and, in a chapter entitled “Disintegrity,” essays on vio- lence, vandalism (of iconic paintings), and excrement. What Makes a Great City Alexander Garvin Washington, DC: Island Press, 2016

Beginning with praise of Spain’s urban-revitaliza- tion efforts in the city of Bilbao, Yale School of Ar- chitecture professor Garvin lays out his recipe for excellence in public space in a series of chapters illustrated with photos of successful cities worldwide. For Garvin the city needs to be open to all and to offer something to everyone. It also should be able to adapt to the changing demands of its residents; take advantage of its layout and geo- graphical situation; be “habitable,” that is, pleasant and green; and be designed to encourage cooper- ation rather than conflict.

Out There: Landscape Architecture on Global Terrain Andres Lepik, ed. Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2017

Published in conjunction with an exhibition at Mu- nich’s Architekturmuseum der Technischen Univer- sität, this is a set of two theoretical papers and ten case studies, ranging from Europe to Africa to Lat- in America and illustrating a profound shift in landscape architecture thinking—from simply plotting spaces that artfully balance urbanity and nature to critically examining the interplay of landscape design with global issues like massive urbanization, the exploitation of fossil fuels, increased mobility, and pollution.

Seeing the Better City: How to Explore, Observe, and Improve Urban Space Charles R. Wolfe Washington, DC: Island Press, 2017

Wolfe, a Seattle-based urbanist, believes in basic approaches to understanding cities and what people need from them, and in this how-to volume, he encourages urban dwellers to look at and record their experience of urban space via photography and “urban diaries”—written accounts of what strikes them about specific urban locales, including description, memory, and comparison with other city experiences. The book then provides theories and concrete suggestions about how this street-level research (aided by digital technology) can find its way into urban planning.

Chicago Monumental Larry Broutman Chicago: Lake Claremont Press, 2016

In a time of turmoil about the meaning and form of monuments [see “Monumental Changes,” p. 40], this large-format book of color photographs of Windy City sculpture (which includes 3-D images) is a useful reference collection. It documents the dominance of the dead-white-guy-in-bronze and reminds us how common allegory and mytholo- gy once were (the grain goddess Ceres on the Board of Trade building; the Spirit of Music play- ing a lyre in Grant Park). But there are tentative new directions too. Filipino freedom-fighter José Rizal got a portrait statue in 1999 (Lincoln Park) and Louise Bourgeois’s semi-abstract Helping Hands of 1996 (Chicago Women’s Park) honors Jane Addams, the settlement-house pioneer who invented social work.

08

PSYCHOLOGY & THE CITY: THE HIDDEN DIMENSION

BY CHARLES LANDRY & CHRIS MURRAY

The Nature of Design: Principles, Processes, and the Purview of the Architect M. Scott Lockard Novato, CA: Oro Editions, 2017

This large-format book, illustrated with the author’s own renderings, is both a step-by-step primer of the architectural design process, written in an informal style, and a call to step back from the prevalent idea of the architect-as-artistic-genius, and replace that glamorous concept with an image of the designer as a flexible, well-prepared, and resourceful responder to the demands and needs of the site and the project. “Design is not art,” Lockard insists. “It is not the private playground of the architect. Above all, design responds to criteria.”

Psychology & the City: The Hidden Dimension Charles Landry and Charles Murray Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Comedia, 2017

“The city impacts upon our mind—our mental and emotional state impacts upon the city.” With these words, internationally known visionary urbanist Landry and urban designer (and former psychologist) Murray open this wide-ranging discussion of what they dub “urban psychology.” They discuss deep-seated, even archaic, yearnings in the human being that cities (where most people now live) can either meet or frustrate; explore the idea that cities themselves have “psyches” or “souls”; and suggest how urbanism and psychology can illuminate each other.

ADVERTISERS IN THIS ISSUE

Americans for the Arts

Brailsford Public Art

Broward County Cultural Division

City of Albuquerque, Public Art

City of Alexandria

City of Austin, Art in Public Places

City of Palm Desert

Edward Carpenter

Fort Worth Public Art

Franz Mayer of Munich 11 americansforthearts.org

29 lithomosaic.com

31 broward.org

8 cabq.gov/publicart

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Luxury to Forget This project from We Are All Criminals reminds us that only some of us who break the law get caught —and that should prompt discussion about our justice system

ABOUT ONE IN FOUR AMERICAN ADULTS HAS A CRIMINAL RECORD, but nearly all of us have a criminal history—one or more times when we’ve broken the law. It’s just that 75 percent of us had the privilege or luck to get away with that hit of cocaine, that act of petty shoplifting, or something more serious.

For those who were charged with even a minor offense, a criminal record can be a barrier to a career path, college acceptance, or housing.

Launched in Minnesota in 2013 by attorney Emily Baxter, We Are All Criminals (WAAC) is a small group of legal professionals who want to prompt discussion about imbalances in the criminal justice system. Luxury to Forget, one of WAAC’s projects at weareallcriminals.org, is a collection of more than 100 personal stories and photos of people who didn’t get caught. Most include images of disembodied hands holding chalkboards that bear stark, hand-written messages: “Every saint has a past,” “Drug user (but it’s cool, I’m white),” “Brought loaded gun onto a plane,” “I’m sorry but you’ll never know,” or simply, “Arson.”

“We’d like to change the way people view others, by changing the way they view themselves,” says Baxter. “We believe this is the foundation for a more rational, reasonable, equitable, and merciful criminal justice system.”

The organization holds events across the nation, including discussions, photographic exhibitions, and conferences. Baxter’s new book, We Are All Criminals, was published in September 2017. —Jen Dolen

Professions of twelve Luxury to Forget participants, whose confessions are pictured above. From left, TOP ROW: Comedian, student, federal officer, law enforcement officer. MIDDLE ROW: Prosecutor, licensed counselor, corrections professional, pastor. BOTTOM ROW: Attorney, filmmaker, profession not indicated, attorney.

Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project - Washington Metro Silverline, Tyson East Station, Fairfax, Virginia - Airbrushing and sandblasting on saftey glass. - Artist: Martin Donlin, UK