On April 11 in North Carolina, Glenn Harper, Editor of Sculpture Magazine and Bill Thompson, Editor of Landscape Architecture, and I meet to kick off the "Public Art 360" Conference.  Click Here to Attend.  In the next few weeks, I will publish some of my letters to Harper and Thompson in preparation for the dialogue. 

 

 

SEE GOOD COMMENTARY BY RIES IN THE COMMENTS.

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At the end of last week, two public art projects competed for media attention in the USA. In the small town of Yellow Springs, Ohio, a few local women knitted a sweater for ONE tree during a winter day. Any volunteer knitter could climb the eight-foot ladder and add her wrap to the tree trunk or limb. In Las Vegas, two of world's largest resort and gaming corporations announced a $40 million dollar expenditure for fine art at the future CityCenter $8 billion casino and resort. New huge artworks have been commissioned from Jenny Holzer, Nancy Rubins, Maya Lin and Richard Long plus the display of large existing works by Oldenburg/ van Bruggen, Frank Stella and Henry Moore.

Here is the result of "Head to Head" public art media blitz.

Yellow Springs Knitters

 MGM Mirage and Dubai World

I wrote Merrill and Beza that the screen was a poor choice of words to assist with the analysis. It was a forced metaphor regarding the spatial conception. I visit as many new urbanist places as possible to understand them. The designers conceive these developments as a series of territorial types, which are set next to each other. Each territory has an aesthetic heart (round, linear or grid) that is defined with building facades.

Once leaving the hearts, transitions between territories are very awkward and rely on the road to rudely connect them. The locations of the screens are the empty car zones of garages, parking lots, alleys or highways. The resident and visitor are supposed to mentally ignore these places like the toilet in the mansion. The leftover space is just that.

Harbor Town leftover space. (Frequently praised as multi-use parking)

The key to the spatial failure is the unrelenting demand for tiny heart after tiny heart. Each territory is not provided enough space to establish the vernacular repetition and controlled variation that we understand as a neighborhood or city. Without enough territory for natural repetition, control will be the psychological sense of the place. And control is the generator of discomfort for the some and the source of security for others. For many bloggers - extreme discomfort.

The irony is that the tiny hearts or odd spaces of containment are the moments we seek and remember in the suburban or low-scale urban environments. Somehow when designed, the feeling is control and not joy. The joy arises from the efforts of single person with a little imagination or a failure of coordination in the overall design.

When examining new urbanism, I must always remember that it is a developer's alternative to the gated suburban apartment complex and single-family neighborhood. New urbanism should be judged against the other choice for newness - not the neighborhoods with centuries or decades of demolition and remodeling. Eventually these places will be personalized and the control may dissipate. Or like the highly controlled of designs of late 19th and early 20th century religious retreats or military bases, the control will seem benign and part of another era. The museum viewing or resort dwelling instincts will take hold and replace the judgment standards of neighborhood living.

Recently, I visited Memphis and had the opportunity to spend a couple nights in the River Inn in Harbor Town. Harbor Town is one of the older new urbanist developments in the USA with the first sales in 1991. The mature landscape and some personalization have already emerged. The commercial mixed-use area has a messiness with different building types and scales that humanizes the space. It appears the architects - Loney Ricks Kiss - where designing by accommodation that than preconception. The personalization arises when the overall structure fails to resolve the space and the individual architects, gardens and owners must find a solution. Harbor Town proves the new urbanist system can succeed without the stylistic and spatial tyranny.

Harbor Town site plan on the Mississippi River by LRK.

Front onto the Mississippi River

Harbor Town mature trees (Note the Memphis pyramid)

Harbor Town with a little age and inconsistency

The imperfections start to emerge after 15 years.

See the Aesthetic Grounds Visual Essays for More Downloadable Pictures

Higher rent shopping arcades, centers and malls have been commissioning artworks since they were invented in the 18th century. (New urbanist shopping villages in the USA have NOT utilized artworks. Another essay.) Generally these shopping areas have commissioned artworks to attract high-income clients. Unlike other public artworks, the artworks are prominently located in the central space or the main façade. Spending money for a back corner, as is seen in many government buildings or parks, would seem foolish to the operators of the shopping place.

My highest praise Jacqueline Fletcher, the director of the art program at the Mall. The works are not "designed" into the building, but rather installed. The works appear in locations that the artist might have discovered on site. I felt like this very expensive mall was being used like the old warehouse shows. Artists found their spaces.

Lawrence Weiner

Weiner's work is the best for prominence, readability and site relatedness. The rough, yet controlled character of the stenciled "Admired, Desired, Required, Acquired" in English and Spanish matches the simple signage of the mall "Boss, Macy's, Penny's", but inappropriate in materials. Somehow you feel the texture of the paint and the stucco. The work jumps out in the "common space" of the skylight and holds its prominence from many views. (My Argentine wife tells me the mall is very popular with South Americans.)

Jorge Pardo

Pardo's "paper cut out" butterflies have very little impact on the space. Remove them and the space is the same. Perhaps at night the work is successful. But I would recommend a visit to the thousands of golden butterflies hanging in a cubic volume filling and sparkling the skylight space of Neiman Marcus in Boca Raton's Town Center Mall (I cannot find the artist or an online source to the in store art collections).

Julian Opie (Excellent website)

Opie's work is appropriate in the pedestrian zone on the mall's floor. But the work is much better in video. The contrast between the stylized, slinky, fluid movement of the LED woman and real walkers in the mall become dramatic in video and was unnoticed in the actual space. The video flattens the movement of people into the same realm as the LED woman. In real time, the people are too 3-D.

Rainbow Valley by Friends with You

Unfortunately, Friends with You created the children's play area called Rainbow Valley. I must admit that I thought the smiling snow covered mountaintops were mediocre commercial constructions. I did not think it was by talented artists until I discovered it via the Internet. (In 2002, the Mall PR praised the new artwork, but today the work is not on the Mall artwork's brochure).

My ignorance shows two things. One: I am out of it. Another proof of the pre-conceptions and limitations of the second wave public art club. (First: 1970s & 80s. Second: 80s and 90s. Third: Today.) The second wave is not even looking for the new. Two: Sometimes utilizing the language of something in the correct space causes it to disappear. The simplistic imagery of "Friends with You" fails to spark adult thought when in a kid's space. The same thing can happen with artists making architectural elements. This is danger for the public art curator.

Traditional Mall Public Art in Aventura Food Court

Banksy book for sale with other street artist books at Urban Outfitters.

As my time in shopping malls is infrequent, I discovered Banksy at Urban Outfitters along with other Street Art and Graffiti books. More signals of crossover between the creative industries of fashion, graphics and public art. But it is not the official art, but the unofficial. How can capture the spirit without killing the spirit as happened in the East Village by the 1990s?

I just liked this store.

Very nice changing rooms at Miss Sixty. (Great hotel project with 30 rooms by 30 artists in Italy. The Miss Sixty Hotel. )

Click on More for More Works by Wiener, Opie and Friends with You.

Ave Maria, Florida. Town Center and University

What I find interesting is the small cathedral (oratory) in the center of the plaza violating most new urbanist rules for a surburban village. At first the cathedral dominates your eye in contrast with the toy buildings surrounding it. The Catholicism is not an option - everything points toward it like piglets to a female hog. The goal is to feed from the spirit of God. This use of architecture and planning to reinforce the power of God is not seen anymore and rarely in the entire village history of America. Even a non-believer feels the purpose of the planners. In that way, the design works.

Yet another three story new urbanist pop-up village. Click here for Aesthetic Grounds photoessay of Florida new towns.

Cynically, we can see that the cathedral is an attraction to support shopping around its base and make an icon for a university and real estate development. But the founder Tom Monaghan, who has given massive amounts of his Domino Pizza fortune to Catholic causes, is a serious believer in which cynism is a thoughtless and easy reaction. Churches, temples, mozques, shrines, etc have been surrounded by commerce since the begining of urban religion. It is actually sururbanism that has isolated these religious buildings from shopping districts and pedestrian environments.

Monaghan is using New Urbanism for its deep implication that the shape of the village can build a community. Here we have a true test of its social value - something that the new urbanist leaders avoid in the official documents. But many Christian blogs and websites exist dedicated to understanding the relationship between faith and urban design - especially new urbanist principles. Here are some discussions:
Sacred Architecture,
Mirror of Justice.
Sidewalks in the Kingdom
A Theology of the Built Environment
University of Virginia Spring 2006 Conference on Lived Theology

As per the Aesthetic Grounds comparative method, I thought of the aggressive and pretty 1956 chapel of the US Air Force Academy in Colorado. I seem to associate modern planning composition with freedom of choice and symmetrical classical planning with control - but this is an 20th century critique that is ridiculous in the age of electronic control. Or is it?

Not listed as an inspiration, but compare with SOM's Air Force Acedemy Chapel, 1956

Oratory dominates the town like a medieval village.

Chapel punctuates the modern composition

Oratory in the dead center.

Chapel addresses the main court

The 2004 Oratory was designed to repeat Thorncrown Chapel by Fay Jones - at three times the size. Perhaps six hurricanes of 2004 & 2005 caused the design to change.

A completely ignored public art form are the artists of religion. The 200 year old, Talleres de Arte Granda has been hired for the interior of the oratory.

Talleres de Arte Granda of Madrid: Past work

Talleres de Arte Granda: Past Work

In my backyard of southern Florida, not much great Christmas art emerges. Most public Christmas trees, Santa sleighs and Bethlehem manger scenes are of the lowest quality. The people that create the Christmas displays for governments and religious institutions are only interested in visual prominence, not the inventive quality. (See the aestheticgrounds essay on Hindu celebration)

In Florida and elsewhere in the USA, the finest visual displays on public or quasi-public property twinkle in drive-through light-bulb displays. Private groups decorate miles of park landscape with lights and charge a fee per carload. The whiter, the classier.

The best visuals elements of Christmas are neighborhoods filled with private lights on suburban homes. Only at Christmas do suburban values permit the utilization of the home as a public artwork. Only at Christmas do placid homeowners struggle with complex compositional decisions. Only at Christmas do homeowners see the communal street as a physical event.

Of course, the temporary nature avoids the normal demands of conventionality and blandness of the houses and landscapes of suburban neighborhood. Public art agencies, museums and arts ngo's are permitted to step-over-the-line of acceptability through temporary events. The suburbanite forgives the apparent insult, contradiction of normal values or danger to the minds of children. But only one or two times.

(I just deleted my rant on visual repression in the suburbs since it is Christmas.)

As the world's largest celebration with snow imagery no matter the environment outside the window, I thought I would bring an amazing program of the US government. Once a year, artists can apply for an unfunded residency in Antarctica through the National Science Foundation.

Antarctic Artists & Writers Program

The Antarctic Artists & Writers Program provides opportunities for scholars in the humanities (painting, photography, writing, history, and other liberal arts) to work in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. These visitors will be able to make observations at U.S. Antarctic Program stations and research camps and in wilderness areas. The purpose is to enable serious writings and the arts that increase understanding of the Antarctic and help document America's Antarctic heritage.

The skills of the visual artists range contemporary intellectuals to mediocre landscape painters and photographers. Below are a few interesting ones. (See 2007 Exhibition at the End of the World for other icy works.)

Werner Herzog making his recent film

"ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, a documentary film based on the Herzog's perception that the continent's volcanic activity, geological history, evolution and survival of life, represents the inner landscape of our planet. The project will culminate in a feature length film with support from Creative Differences Productions, and the Discovery Channel and will also be distributed on DVD." Sept 10, 2007 was the Official Premiere in Tronto. Not yet available on Netflix.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Earth from Above Project.

Kim Baranowki writes in her journal

"Sculptor and gallery installation artist, Kimberly Baranowski's travled to Palmer Station, Antarctica to gather research for her project, The Frozen Field. Her work will be comprised of a series of Antarctic-inspired, large sculptural installations that seek to instill a sense of wonder at the beauty of the region, while bringing to light the potential for instability in the Antarctic Peninsula ecosystem"

Andrea Polli's research results in 1000+ Flickr photos

"Andrea Polli, a digital media artist living and working in New York, specializes in the interpretation and presentation of weather and climate data using sound. Her work is part of a growing interdisciplinary movement in what is called data sonification. Like its counterpart, data visualization, sonification transforms data to communicate meaning."

Cortada buries a Mangrove seeding for a 150,000 year journey to the coast

"Miami artist Xavier Cortada planted a replica of a mangrove seedling in the South Pole.* The mangrove "seedling" was be planted on the 3 km thick glacial ice sheet that blankets the South Pole.

Embedded in the moving glacier, the "seedling" is now begin sliding downhill (9.9 meters every year) in the direction of the Weddell Sea, 1,400 km away. The "seedling" has thus begun its 150,000 year journey towards the seashore, where it can eventually (theoretically) set its roots."

Cortada installation around the official South Pole ceremonial marker.

I could not discover the designer of the ceremonial pole, but it appears designed by Santa's elves. According to the National Science Foundation, on January 1 of every year, a new brass marker is placed at 90 degrees South to designate the location of the Geographic South Pole. The ice sheet where the South Pole is located moves approximately seven meters a year. Previous years' markers are left standing for a few years, illustrating the movement of the ice sheet. Participants wintering at the South Pole design and create the unique markers each year.

1999-2005 designs by the scientists


The South Pole Webcam

The difference with Brad Pitt's latest effort - the Pink Project for Make it Right - is the creative synthesis typical of the film industry. Perhaps public art and urban design could take a lesson. If you listen to Brad Pitt's CNN interview, he describes the process like the film industry with known creative head (Brad Pitt) and complements to many creative anonymous people that made the event happen. Until the Academy Awards, no one even knows the many individual talents.

Somehow through the late night discussions, ideas emerge that link content with filmic visual vision. Heavy borrowing of images occurs from all kinds of designers, artists, architects and film itself. The visuals of the final project must attract the still and moving images of the media.

The Pink Project starts with the color. Pink and orange are the most contrasting colors with the urban and natural world. Yellow has been culturally utilized to signal danger. Red's history is too complicated. (See Aesthetic Grounds on Pink)

The project is a series of boxes and roofs scattered over the demolished residential landscape. The scattered symbolize the anarchy and destruction after the flood. Each time a $150,000 donation is received, a roof is placed on a box that is squared to the street. At the end, a second media opportunity should emerge of an orderly future neighborhood illustrated in pink. As on December 20, 2007, funds have been donated for 42 houses.

Below are some comparative images of the Pink Project with artists Christo and Thom Sokoloski projects this year, the Art Basel Miami Satellite Exhibition and architect Bernard Tschumi's 1982 Parc de la Villette design and Tim Burton's pastel suburb in the 1990 film Edward Scissorhands. (I wish I had artist Stephen Pearson's early 1980's cover of Arts & Architecture Magazine with orderly blue houses on the California lawn.)

If you have forgotten what happened to the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, check out M Styborski Photos


More Aerial Photos at pinknola_07

Christo's Orange Gates in Central Park, 2007

Pink Project past and future street

Tim Burton's 1990 Edward Scissorhands Set

The Pink Project at Night. Photo by Cosmic Ray

Thom Sokoloski's Encampment Essay, 2007 in NYC

Pink Project on First Day. Photo from NOGodess

Art Basel Miami Orange Gallery Boxes, 2007

Bernard Tschumi's 1982 Parc de la Villette

Brad Pitt explains the temporary art project to Larry King on CNN

Original 2006 Global Green Sustainable Design for New Orleans is moving forward with the first house to be completed in the next couple of months. Habitat for Humanity has been very successful at going ahead and building.

One Make it Right House Design and Global Green Holy Cross Project House Design

Completed Habitat for Humanity Houses

Art Basel Miami reminded me of the conservative tendencies in public art. Even the quasi-sponsored public art projects, were without energy. Only the muralist at the primary flight project brought a little freshness to outdoor Miami. My photographs and few downloaded ones are at the AestheticGrounds picasa site.

Question: Does not public art have a responsibility to "record" in the public realm the art of the moment even if the art becomes "dated"? Or even when the administrators do not yet understand the art form?

The newer art in Miami was energized with color, graphics and plastics. So I would like to throw in a few links to some artists that have been working the streets successfully. (On some images, I could read the artist's name. My apology.)

Primary Flight Miami

Little People Blog, London

Truthtag, Poland

Image from NeoGeo Book

Antoine + Manuel from Hidden Track Book

Beat 13 from Hidden Track Book

Image from Tactile Book

Image from Tactile Book

Image from Tactile Book

Last April, 2007 Henk Hofstra created an "urban river" in Drachten, The Netherlands. The Blue Road installation is an example of what mind-blowing urban public art can be.

Featuring 1000 metres of road painted blue and the phrase "Water is Life" written in eight-metre-high letters across it, the Blue Road is reminiscent of the waterway that used to be where the road is now. It's a memorial to nature, but it's also just plain awe-inspiring. There's even a few cool tidbits along the road, like a sinking car.

The project took 4000 litres of paint and cost 75,000 Euros. Half of the cost was covered by municipal funds. Hofstra wants the road to be visible on Google Earth, but it hasn't shown up yet.

Weiss Comment
Very simple and low cost urbanistic gesture to reinforce the street as a space and a place. Compare not to million dollar streetscape projects with trees, benches, pavers and signage, but with 1000 meters (1/2 mile) lightpole banners and kiosks. Don't complain that its does not last, but focus on the memory like a Christo project. Remember when the street was blue.....

Hofstra paints everything blue and "cars in the canal" is a little too easy and contradicts the canal metaphor, but makes provides for some populist photographic opportunities.

In our green universe, we start to analyze by life cycle costing. I wonder how many years the street could be painted blue before the exceeding the cost of permanent pavers? My experience in Florida is that the "permanent" streetscapes are redone every 20 years. Some cities in Florida use colored pink concrete sidewalks. But the cities that paint the sidewalks rather than stain have a much better solution for image, color and cleanliness.

Blue Road by Henk Hofstra, April 2007

Drachten, The Netherlands

As on November 16, thirty-six photos had been posted. As I have written before, the ability of a public artworks to attract the photographer is a significant criteria of success. As I look at the photographs, I believe the photographers value the following.
1. Something temporary caught by the camera. Either the artwork itself will disappear or something is temporarily interacting with the artwork such as people or light.
2. Contrasting scale. Oversized or undersized on the street.
3. Juxtaposition of almost anything. Style of art and site. Connotations of art and people.
4. Ability to photograph from strange angles, but up to the sky is most popular
5. Dynamic motion of the image in the photograph (not necessarily at the site)
6. Color in the drab city. Either the art or the blue sky
7. Looks like a well composed tourist brochure photograph.
8. Just plain strange. Can you believe this exists?

After checking out the photos, I visited artist Leslie Fry's website. I know she once dated a very talented photographer. He had taken or influenced some of the images on her site.

2007 Temporary Installation in Florida. Studio in Vermont.
Florida: Temporary. Just plain strange.
Vermont: Composed tourist brochure.

Park in Vermont. Installation in New York.
Vermont: Strange angle - shooting up. Capturing evening light.
New York: Oversized object. Contrasting room and object. Capturing a moment of light.

Public Art for Broward County Libraries in Florida.
These projects are not succeeding photographically as public art. The photographer may document this type of art as an object that he/she may like, but the artwork in its setting does not motivate the photographic mind.

The project is documented with complete photographs on how to construct this street elements at reconstructionnyc.org. Re:construction is organized by Alliance for Downtown NY in collaboration with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

I am attracted to the project due to its internal contradictions of being both

1. invisible - visible (normal barricade - public art event) and
2. legible symbol - confusing metaphor ( simple safety alert - artistic message)

As result, the orange zebra barricade is most successful.

Zebra concrete barricade by Tattfoo Tan Photo: NY Times.

Striped fences by Carlos J. Gómez de Llarena, Mateo Pintó and Carolina Cisneros

Design of overhead barricade by Richard Garber and Nicole Robertson of GRO Architects

On the street construction by GRO. Reported by Joey on Curbed.com

Of course, the construction barricade or safety fence has been the material of other artists. Unfortunately I can not find the images of Lo Tec's fence in 2001 in Fort Lauderdale. Carolyn Law's overlapped vinyl chainlink in the early 1980s for an electrical substation fence in Seattle. She continues work in chainlink today.

Broad Street Station in Seattle by Carolyn Law in early 1980s

Bridge Fences in Kent, Washington by Carolyn Law in 2006

Ms. Kirsh. Your assessment of the public art in Philly fails to grasp Public Art in its cultural and artistic role. Your critique is fine for readers in the artculture. From that perspective, you might be generally correct. But the artculture is generally limited in its abilities to assess public art as it is lazy. Local cultural investigation is just too much work, so remain with artculture values. I too in my blog at Artsjournal.com fail to sufficiently investigate.

As to Philly, first you need to provide links to www.philart.net with Chris Purdom's massive documentation of public art in Philly. And the mural database developed at UPenn is outstanding at cml.upenn.edu/murals.

Second: Many artworks in Philly dramatically outclass anything in NYC for their visual impact and cultural relationships. The scale of the giant murals of American African figures in distressed neighborhoods may be some of the most powerful public art works in the world. I know they stopped me in my tracks.

Tim Spencer by Cliff Hudson and Dr. J by Kent Twitchell

Herman Wrice by David McShane & Eurhi Jones and Malcolm X by James Burns & Ernel Martinez

The mosaic work of Isaiah Zagar covering thousands of square feet of buildings south of downtown Philly entertained me for an hour - a long time to appreciate public art. Lily Yeh's Village in Germantown with its memorials and murals should have international stature for its integration of community building and artistic excellence.

Isaiah Zagar. Photo by Mosaic Art Source

Lily Yeh's Village of Arts and Humanities

Philly's fifteen or more Ben Franklin public artworks is pleasantly insane. James Peniston installed the lastest in October, 2007. The Rocky sculpture at the museum strikes hard at the relationship between art, popular movies and picture taking - an important cultural relationship.

I continue to strive for intellectual and artistic excellence in public art, but with additional critical values added to important ones of artculture

James Peniston's Keys To Community