On Track / Off Track: Recent Public Art Experiments in Central and Western US by Mary Bates Neubauer
The Growth of the Public Sculpture in the West and Midwest •
There was a remarkable flowering large scale public sculpture in America beginning in the 1950’s and 60’s.
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After World War II and the Korean War enrollments in American university art programs flourished, the result of the GI bill, which made it possible for many individuals to attend college who would not otherwise have had the opportunity.
• These returning soldiers had knowledge in the trades and industry, skills which proved useful in art school. Practical and self sufficient, many were attracted to sculpture.
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In the Midwest, less tradition-bound than the East, large and monumental scale metal sculpture flourished vigorously in the open landscapes.
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works by Mark Di Suvero and John Hock at Franconia Sculpture Park, Northern Minnesota
Michael Bigger at Franconia Sculpture Park
http://www.franconia.org/
• The post-war American sculptors working in the open spaces of the West and Midwest were also reacting against peculiarly American concepts of art as a feminine pursuit. •
In their efforts to masculinize the field, sculptural attitudes became rugged and tough, attitudes derived from the industrial processes used in the studio aligning with a heroic form of modernism.
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Critic and sculptor Michael Hall, who ran the sculpture program at Cranbrook for years, noted that post-war American sculptors, particularly those working in the central states, often assumed a frontiersman-like identity suitable to their medium.
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[1] Michael Hall, Stereoscopic Perspective- Reflections on American Fine and Folk Art, UMI Research Press, University Microfilms, Inc. Ann Arbor MI, Essay “Modernism, Machoism, Midwesternism: Sculpture in America” p.60 -61
In many ways, that same spirit of independent, free-wheeling innovation continues to be celebrated and valued in our country today.
Cultural values of grass-roots ingenuity impel us to get the job done using the materials at hand. Araan Schmidt, John Hachmeister ,Melanie Van Houten
Much public art in the US thrives on an inventive do-it-yourself, make-it-yourself outlook. ( Play stations by Bridget Beck)
But the Paradigm is shifting!
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Playful spontaneity and unprecedented artistic freedom has emerged in a new blossoming of highly experimental, non-precious art materials.
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The discipline has opened up to encompass multiple modes and nodes of practice. No longer is public sculpture a singular monumental object in the town square. Concepts are portable.
• Fluidity of site and the acceptance of temporality places sculptures in changing urban, remote rural, even completely wild landscapes. •
Issues of sustainability, environmental stewardship, social interaction, and augmented levels of functionality are in the forefront.
• Use of digital technologies and web interactivity have changed the definition of public work. •
Complex new technologies demand multi-skilled teams and interdisciplinary collaboration more than ever.
Billie Grace Lynn- White Elephant and Chachalot
• Within these multiple groups and teams of sculptors working in the public realm, there is often a rejection of the traditional hierarchies.
• Hallmarks of this new public sculpture include international connectivity and dissemination; parallel events popping up in cities across the world; new technologies; and heightened transfer of information.
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Yet, in our public art, we also continue to see a celebration of industrial heritage, our parents’ and grandparents’ skills, our seat-of-the-pants enterprise, our fearlessness and ability.
Today’s artists, and perhaps especially sculptors, often working in teams for their processes, do not make work in a vacuum. They form communities of common interest. They create gathering places. They establish supportive groups. They combine their skills. Their collective force gives visibility and credence that individual artists often cannot attain alone.
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Artist-sculptors romance and celebrate this new public enterprise. Clan spirits, micro-societies, subcultures, thrive within public art as it is today.
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iron performance
hacker spaces
sound artists
With these new constructs in mind, we will look at several new public art paradigms , primarily through emerging projects in the West and Midwest- some tightly embedded in community, others far off the beaten path.
These movements may embrace the remoteness, wide open spaces, and wildness still existing in the American landscape. (compare Whitman’s inchoate forests vs. Wordsworth’s pastoral scenes!)
Kirsten Puusemp at HDTS
They may critique issues of sustainability and connectivity in the evolving, fragile, sprawling cities of the American sunbelt. Or they may re-imagine changing economies and technologies that can drive the fate of old rustbelt cities.
Open Space Initiatives
High Desert Test Sites •
Founded in 2000 by Andrea Zittel (with Shaun Caley Regen, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Andy Stillpass and John Conelly) this annual event is currently administered by Andrea Zittel and Aurora Tang through the A-Z West site at Joshua Tree National Monument.
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The High Desert Test Sites : “Generate physical and conceptual spaces for art exploring the intersections between contemporary art and life at large. Scattered along a stretch of intimate yet diverse desert communities, these sites provide a place for both fleeting and long-term experimental projects.”
http://www.highdeserttestsites.com/
• The Experiment •
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“To challenge traditional conventions of ownership, property, and patronage. Most projects will belong to no one and are intended to melt back into the landscape as new ones emerge. To “insert” art directly into a life, a landscape, or a community where it will sink or swim based on a set of criteria beyond that of art world institutions and galleries. To encourage art that remains in the context for which it was created—work will be born, live, and die in the same spot. To initiate an organism in its own right—one that is bigger and richer than the vision of any single artist, architect, designer, or curator. To create a “center” outside of any preexisting centers. We are inspired by individuals and groups working outside of existing cultural capitals, who are able to make intellectually rigorous and culturally relevant work in whatever location they happen to be in. To find common ground between contemporary art and localized art issues. To contribute to a community in which art can truly make a difference. HDTS exists in a series of communities that edge one of the largest suburban sprawls in the nation. Many of the artists who settle in this area are from larger cities, but want to live in a place where they can shape the development of their own community. For the time being, there is still a feeling in the air that if we join together we can still hold back the salmon stucco housing tracts and big box retail centers. Well maybe.”
HDTS’ current annual call for artists asks for work in the remote desert corridors all the way from Joshua Tree in California to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Andrea Zittel’s Wagon station
Solar Distiller/Fountains HDTS 2011 Claude Collins-Stracensky: “ A single glass sculpture resembling a glass obelisk functions as a water distiller powered by the sun. The distiller is able to purify many liquids into potable H2O through vapor distillation. Once the grey water basin is filled and the lid is replaced, a full cup of distilled water can be safely consumed in 1-3 hours.�
Untitled, by Kiersten Puusemp –”While the percentage of oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere is the same at all altitudes, the density of the air and thus the amount of oxygen available to human lungs decreases at higher altitudes. At these locations decreased atmospheric pressure causes there to be fewer molecules per breath. In the 17th century, this pressure function came to be understood when it was discovered that air was not a void or a weightless ether but had mass on which the earth’s gravity was exerting a pull.”
The ten acre, boulder strewn, parcel behind the Bail Bonds is the one corner of A-Z West that is open to the public. Sited up in the rocks is untitled by Sarah Vanderlip (two aluminum truck heads welded together) Directions: From 29 Palms Hwy and Park Dr drive east one mile to the big yellow Bail Bonds sign. Turn right onto Neptune. Drive up Neptune. Road will veer left. Follow the road along the powerlines and look for a parking spot right before the turnaround area.
The Land Art Generator Initiative Started at Freshkills Landfill outside of New York, this 2 year old public art/ design/ environmental initiative is seeking disseminate the sustainable energy concept to other urban areas.
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“The strategic objective of the Land Art Generator Initiative is to advance the successful implementation of sustainable design solutions by integrating art and interdisciplinary creative processes into the conception of renewable energy infrastructure.
• The goal of the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) is to design and construct public art installations that have the added benefit of large scale clean energy generation. Each sculpture will continuously distribute clean energy into the electrical grid, with each having the potential to provide power to thousands of homes. In January of 2010 LAGI put out its first international call to artists, architects, scientists, and engineers to come up with both aesthetic and pragmatic solutions for the 21st century energy crisis. The 2010 LAGI design competition was held for three sites in the UAE and we received hundreds of submissions from over 40 countries. •
In partnership with New York City's Parks & Recreation we held the 2012 LAGI design competition for a site within Freshkills Park (the former Fresh Kills Landfill).”
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http://landartgenerator.org/LAGI-2012/
Sock Farm- A LAGI 2012 proposal Artist Team: Nandini Bagchee, Artur Dabrowski (Graphics), Andrew Swingler (Energy Consultant) Artist Location: New York City, USA
Cloudfield-2012 LAGI Artist Team: Elcin Ertugrul, Katherine Moya, Carlos Alegria, Joaquin Boldrini Artist Location: New York City, USA
URBANA LAND ARTS Heartland Pathway’s rail road right-of-way runs directly through Shady Rest forest preserve in Piatt County. David Monk and Heartland Pathways have done extensive work developing the rail bed into a trail before the surrounding area was designated as a forest preserve. Monk added a jib crane and other railroad relics to the site to add “ambience” but has allowed the current group of artists to integrate the crane into its project.
ULA’s “Interurban” A mobile venue in a railroad right of way Bobby Zokaites, Paul Howe, and Sutton Demlong •
“The project centered around connecting three cultural objects: a potato chip truck, a jib crane designed for railroads, and remnants of a wooden grain elevator. The goal was to create a performing-public space which can be loaded and un-loaded from a truck to temporarily activate marginal or underutilized sites. The jib crane resting at Shady Rest was re-conceived as a device for building mobile public places.” http://urbanaillinois.us/boards/public-arts-commission; http://prairiemonk.org/; www.paulhowe.info/http://herbergerinstitute.asu.edu/; http://bobbyzokaites.com/home.html
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The Inter Urban was a light weight passenger train that once connected city centers in East Central Illinois. Two thirds of the cultural material being cycled through the project existed somewhere between centers; along the edges, borders, and right of ways.
“Inter-Urban was installed for four short days on Heartland Pathway’s right-of-way located between Monticello and Cisco, Illinois in the shadow of the Amenia elevator. The opening installation was inaugurated Urbana Land Art’s ongoing mobile exhibition series. Guest artists, designers, and performers were invited to curate the mobile venue and activate marginal and under utilized public spaces at various locations in Champaign-Urbana and surrounding communities. http://urbanalandarts.com/exhibition-2/inter-urban-previous-and-current-histories/.
Grey Area Foundation for the Arts (http://www.gaffta.org/) •
Calls designers, architects, artists, makers, coders, activists
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San Francisco is flush with innovation and imagination. But like most cities, there are significant and time-consuming hurdles to innovating in the public realm. Permits, hearings, fees and other requirements may dampen the enthusiasm of even the most stalwart and dedicated cultural producers. Urban Prototyping promotes alternative and complementary opportunities to this process by testing ideas and solutions for city life through rapid, inexpensive and temporary prototyping projects. This process invites creative solutions to a variety of unmet social needs and enhances the experience of comfort, inspiration and fun in the public realm.
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PROJECT REQUIREMENTS UP: SF seeks projects that can be easily replicated and adapted in urban contexts around the world, rather than being limited to a single site, event, location or instance. Projects should be designed as an intervention or adaptation which alters the status quo of city infrastructure and public space. Each project created as part of the festival must meet these basic requirements:
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DIGITAL + PHYSICAL Projects must include both digital and physical components, ideally mixing the two in unique ways that uncover new possibilities. This call does not preclude traditional urban design projects, but we encourage you to push beyond the boundaries of established disciplines. QR codes fixed on trees, sensor-laden street furniture, a mural accompanied by a time-lapse of its painting, or a seed bomb study documented on an interactive map would all fulfill this requirement in different ways.
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OPEN SOURCE + DOCUMENTED Projects must be open-source in every sense of the word and exhibited projects must be accompanied by a basic how-to guide that will be made available to the public. Details and costs of materials, a step-by-step assembly and installation guide and any source code used will be made freely available via urbanprototyping.org under a Creative Commons license. This opensource framework for innovation will empower designers, makers and other citizens around the world to recreate and adapt the projects in new contexts – and encourage city leaders to learn from their implementation.
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REPLICABLE + AFFORDABLE Projects must be affordable, aiming for a materials budget of less than $1,000 for the prototype phase, and must be designed for a type of place rather than a specific location.
Urban Prototyping 2012, San Francisco http://www.gaffta.org/
http://youtu.be/D9DWq9o75pU
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CLIP + SLIDE
Project by Eleanor Pries, Shivang Patwa, Allison Owens, Yes Duffy and Marina Christodoulides Transforms stairs from forgotten moments of public utility to moments of play and joy in the city. Stairs become slides and musical instruments in urban game of Chutes and Ladders. Clip + Slide kit is packaged as a kit that includes a set brightly colored plexi-glass laminated wood strips that clip together to existing staircases, outfitted with sensors, activated by touch to produce musical tones. The playing of the game fosters creativity, learning, and community, bringing pleasure and delight to all ages.
Sonic Wall Project
by Sergio Anderman, Morgan Kaninnen, Afaan Naqvi, Megan Gee, Brian Huey, Toby Lewis, Emily Shisko and Shane A. Myrbeck An ubiquitous but ignored aspect of our cities (the chain-link fence) is changed into a compelling sonic feature wall. The audience is drawn to experience this exhibit because it is musically engaging. Secondly, this project will offer a new way to understand the patterns of our cities by allowing us to experience, rather than merely look at them.
We find patterns in data that are conducive to the way we experience sound – information with trends and periodicities that are best understood over time, for example. The goal of this prototype, as with much work in the data sonification field, would be to find types of information that are better experienced through sound than through a visual rendering.
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“Gray Area Foundation for the Arts brings together the best creative coders, data artists, designers, and makers to create experiments that build social consciousness through digital culture.
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GAFFTA is the nation’s leading organization dedicated to furthering the use and advancement of creative technology for social good and artistic advancement.
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In this capacity, it maintains relationships with the world’s top academic researchers, innovative corporations, visionary artists, and civic leaders. By continually engaging and connecting this diverse community with challenges and opportunities, it extracts forwardthinking technological solutions.”
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“The finalists of the Urban Prototyping: San Francisco competition are all easily replicable ideas that could spread to cities worldwide, from the whimsical (giant playable keyboard) to the serious (measuring traffic).”
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From 10 Urban Projects That Could Change City Landscapes For The Better: Ariel Schwartz
Creative Framework •
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UP: SF will foster projects that transform objects, space, use patterns, or experiential qualities in the public realm to improve the relationship of individuals to the city.
Priority will be given to projects that: improve people’s enjoyment, navigation of and access to the city bring disparate populations of the city together engage and inspire residents and visitors alike are hysterically funny or heartbreakingly beautiful are designed to impact policy or become institutionalized in some way communicate and/or gather data or information in creative ways display material or technological invention catalyze or contribute to an ongoing revitalization of underutilized spaces or objects
Project by Anesta Iwan, Cesar Lopez, Marcella Del Signore and Mona El Khafif The 10-Mile Garden converts San Francisco’s fire hydrants into sites for bio-swales or mini gardens which add green spaces to the city and create a new water system in support of the urban ecology.
“San Francisco’s network of more than 9000 fire hydrants creates a significant, legal opportunity to add to the ecological green footprint of every neighborhood and of the city as a whole without violating fire department regulations. The 10-Mile Garden will transform 26 fire hydrant sites into green pockets/scapes. The project creates a framework for community participation by marking hydrants with QR codes, which will feed into a website that informs the public about the project and the potential of a citywide implementation. The digital interface may also allow visitors to drop an idea for additional programs, which would function as a virtual survey.”
In-Flux Tempe/ Scottsdale Public Art, Arizona http://influxaz.com/ •
Tempe’s IN FLUX art initiative supports and creates connections between local artists, merchants and property owners. The IN FLUX project is designed to brighten and activate available retail space left vacant when local businesses close.
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Craig Randich
“This innovative multi-city initiative demonstrates a holistic approach to temporary public art projects through a showcase of installations by local artists. These dynamic projects offer new perspective on the connections between community organizations, local businesses, artists, and audiences.”
Clockwise: projects by Mary Neubauer & Todd Ingalls, Ryan Peter Miller, Logan Bellew, and Melissa Martinez
THE 2012 ZERO1 BIENNIAL – SEEKING SILICON VALLEY http://www.zero1.org/programs/biennial •
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Under the theme Seeking Silicon Valley, the 2012 ZERO1 Biennial features work by a diverse group of local, national, and international contemporary artists, transforming Silicon Valley into an epicenter for innovative art production and public experience. Established in 2006 The ZERO1 Biennial is North America’s most significant and comprehensive showcase of work at the nexus of art and technology. The ZERO1 Biennial presents work by a global community of innovative artists who are reshaping contemporary culture. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JZaeIPQP5hw; http://www.zero http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgZqWcHGfGE&feature=relmfu1.org/
“Renowned globally as a hub of entrepreneurship and innovation, Silicon Valley is notoriously difficult to experience. More than a specific location, it is a network of freeways, technologies, companies, and relationships connected in a complex physical and virtual web.�
The Bay Lights, designed by Leo Villareal. “Similar to the ambitious lighting of the Eiffel Tower for its 100th anniversary, The Bay Lights will commemorate the Bay Bridge’s 75th Diamond Anniversary – at 7x the scale of the famous Parisian landmark – by installing 25,000 LED lights onto the bridges’ cables, networked to create a spectacular, animated array across the West Span. This installation will go live during the 2012 ZERO1 Biennial and stay live for two years, providing a stunning fine arts experience for the entire Bay Area and its visitors with the goal of illuminating the arts both locally and globally.” http://vimeo.com/41574472
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Northern Spark and Nuit Blanche events
http://2012.northernspark.org/index.php http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/northernlightsmn/northern-spark-twin-cities-nuit-blanche-june9-10?ref=card
Nuit Blanche Movement •
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Nuit Blanche is an annual all-night or night-time arts festival. A Nuit Blanche will typically have museums, private and public art galleries, and other cultural institutions open and free of charge, with the centre of the city itself being turned into a de facto art gallery, providing space for art installations, performances (music, film, dance, performance art), themed social gatherings, and other activities. The Nuit Blanche concept came from Jean Blaise, who founded the Research Center for Cultural Development in Nantes France in 1984. In 1989, the same year that the Helsinki Festival established its Night of the Arts "when every gallery, museum and bookshop is open until midnight or later and the whole city becomes one giant performance and carnival venue", new mayor of Nantes renovated the central city and established a "contemporary patrimony", which led Blaise to create a late-night cultural festival, "Les AllumĂŠes" ("The Lighted Up").
PUBLIC ART MASHES UP Public Art as an aspect of Beyond-the-Center Culture.
Maker Faires
Contemporary public art, in some of its performative aspects, is now affiliated with the relatively new Maker Movement, which celebrates DIY, electronics, robotics, and fantasy machinery.
Steam Punk
Public Art can also intersect with in its romance with an alternative industrial age that never was.
The Fire Arts Festival
and other recent events at the Crucible in Oakland combine sculptural objects with performance, ballet, the symphony, opera, high fashion, and the industrial arts.
PUBLIC ART AS SPECTACLE
BURNING MAN Aspects of the Public Art performance culture intersect with other Fire Cultures such as Burning Man and various Fire Arts Festivals.
Lucent, the Flaming Lotus Girls, and Therm
are all established pyrotechnic sculptors’ groups working in public venues today.
Fire Bowling,
by Dark Juggalo, mashes up bowling and live
cupola iron in a recent event in Denver.
David Lobdell and The Iron Tribe:
Sculptor David Lobdell combines meditative contemplation and viewer participation with his large-scale temporary sculpture.
Matthew Barney in Detroit: “Khu� The multisite magnum opus made in Collaboration with composer Jonathan Bepler in seven one-time-only Performances revisits and celebrates our fading Industrial History.
PUBLIC ART GOES ON THE ROAD
A group of sculptors under the direction of Donnie Keen, of Keen Foundry in Houston and by Butch Jack of Lamar University, travel the Arctic Haul road, leaving impromptu monuments at Wiseman Village above the Arctic Circle. One of their goals is to spread the use of cast iron as a sculptural material and to train participants from the workshop sites to make their own sculptures.
Other Resources •
WEAD Women’s Environmental Artists Directory http://weadartists.org/
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The Santa Fe Art Institute Desert Residencies www.sfai.org
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The Desert Initiative Arizona State University Art Museum http://desertinitiative.org/
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International Society of Electronic Artists
Social Finance and Design, Crowdfunding http://creative-currency.org/projects/
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Arid, A Journal of Desert Art, Design, and Ecology http://socialmedia.hpc.unm.edu/arid/
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The City of Albuquerque’s http://openspacealliance.org/
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Sustainable Business development http://newton-circus.com/
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Balance- Unbalance Art-Science x Technology http://balance-unbalance2011.hexagram.ca/
http://www.isea2012.org/
Recent work by the speaker
The Sensory Meadow Interactive Public Art by Mary Neubauer & Todd Ingalls http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EEZlVPzYxWQ
The End