I thought this article about Phoenix’s public art program was interesting in the context of Cincinnati’s potential public art program.
As the article states “You will never get 100 percent consensus, and in this case, art is very subjective.” But clearly the city of Phoenix has deiced that public art serves a legitimate purpose and there is enough support for there capital program to exist. More interesting is the sort of reflection on the history of the program. From the perspective of the a city just now developing a percent for part program the lessons learned from Phoenix, which is a highly regarded program among national public art professionals, can provide some insight into the purpose and effectiveness of a capital public art program.
2 Comments
03/18/2008 at 12:47 pm
It’s interesting that most of the responses to that article are negative. I will always argue for the importance of art in general and public art specifically, but I think most cities underutilize the potential of useful public art/design projects, like street furniture and the like. There seems to be a largely untapped opportunity that lies between a park sculpture and a civic building designed by a starchitect. Maybe this approach would achieve the same mission while appeasing some of the concerns about art’s impracticality [with which I don't agree but, as designer, I appreciate creative problem-solving].
As for the commission of “signature” public art projects, mentioned in the article, I can think of two examples that show the range of what can happen with such a high-profile project:
Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor in Chicago’s Millenium Park: I’ve not come across any negative commentary on this project, which I find surprising since it’s such an odd and huge form in a very high-visibility spot; it seems to have become a major tourist attraction and one of Chicago’s iconic structures
Tilted Arc by Richard Serra in NYC’s Federal Plaza: extremely controversial and deinstalled after 8 years on-site
03/18/2008 at 2:33 pm
I also think that the range between signature artist projects and local community projects is significant. There has been a tendency lately to mediate these two. Signature artist, who have developed there profession around public art are becoming more amenable to working with communities instead of just for them.
I think the importance of a capital art program at the city level is in it’s distribution in the city and in the types of works. The article talks about the clustering of projects as well as the signature works and the daily forms. This is my favorite phoenix example of that.
Part of what I love about these public art programs is not the voice of the artist, but the integration of artful design in the functional forms of the environment.