Mutating Public Art Context

Philadelphia's latest huge move of public art, the Great Mother and Great Doctor from in front of the prison on the Parkway to the new School of the Future on the other side of the river.

http://www.philart.net/landmark.php?id=153

The pieces are visually appropriate to the new site, in a kind of Star Trek Next Generation set way. But they were commissioned as a rather misleading emblem of a youth prison, and I kind of wonder at the symbolism. Is the art reformed by the more uplifting site, or is the school now linked to the prison?

As one who has had terrible experiences with the handling of my work in public places, I find this post very important in its observations about changing sites. When the "owners" of the pieces move them without consulting the artists, particularly if they have been funded with public money, then they are breaking the 1990 Visual Arts Right Law passed by Congress, which stipulates that mutilation, changes to the work (which would include moving the piece) can not occur without the consent of the artist. Of course, expecting such an art adverse administration with such a justice department we have at present to enforce this law is to dream.

Response from Weiss
VARA has been tested in court. VARA only includes the physical object itself. It provides no protection regarding the relationship of site and artwork.

I created an "art proposal" format such that artist's can declare site issues part of the artwork AND the agency can accept those restrictions. I have used the format and usually ARTIST's don't take advantage. The artist can stipulate anything from lighting to background color to tree trimming to social context. The solution is the contract, not VARA for the moment.

But also the solution is education of public art administrators to seek assistance on new placement from the artist, or if not available, professional curators.

No matter how much thought is put into making a piece "site specific" or relevant to the community, a piece of public art is, in the end, just another object. And, like any object, as it gets older, all memory of its original context, meaning, and relationships to the society and culture in which it was created get lost or forgotten, and the object needs to make it on its own.
Strong objects, with personality and soul, will endure, regardless of site. Egyptian Stellae are sited in modern steel and glass skyscraper lobbies, or on desolate windswept plains, where every other building has crumbled, and still shine thru.
The artist puts something in, and, if they are any good, that something will still radiate back out as long as the piece lives, no matter the site.

Certainly some very minimal, site specific pieces may not survive context changes- but that is a chance an artist takes, when initially imagining that type of work.

A few artists will have the reputation to keep the sites maintained, in the short run, ie. for a hundred years or so- but beyond that, its all the luck of the draw.

Happily, many older artworks do indeed get second, and third and more, lives, in new sites, and although they may mean very different things to us than they did to their original viewers, they hang in there.

Response from Weiss
The artist makes while responding to the physical, social, etc context of the moment. But what about the caretakers, administrators and curators? How do they think about the relationship of the mutating context? At what point and for what reasons do you remove the work from the context because of the mutations? Do you ever "restore" the context for the work?

You bring up a good point that certain types of artwork might be more self-sustaining in any context. I need to think about all of it based upon real experiences of works out there in real space.