Look up public art or sculpture on the web and within seconds you will be reading about Richard Serra’s controversial Tilted Arc at Federal Plaza in New York City. Serra’s 120 foot long, 12 foot high steel wall was installed on the plaza in 1981 and removed in 1989.
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| Tilted Arc, Richard Serra, 1981 |
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| Poster for March 6th Hearing |
Serra stated that Tilted Arc made people more aware of themselves and their movement in space. Unfortunately, Serra’s intentions were lost on the majority who felt the piece was an aggressive act and unsuitable to the plaza; they demanded its immediate removal. Serra argued that the work was site specific and stated that if it was removed from the plaza, the sculpture would be destroyed.
In 1989, Tilted Arc was dismantled and removed.
The Tilted Arc controversy sparked debate about what public art is, what it should be, and how it is funded. It also questioned the artist’s role and the public’s role in public art practices. For Serra, there was no discussion: “Art is not for the people. Art is not democratic.”
By my nature I side with Serra. Watching this video clip makes me appreciate him more.
But what can one say if something does not work? In the case of public art, does the notion of good art apply blindly? By that I mean does good art necessitate good public art? According to philosopher, Arthur C. Danto, it does not.
Here are three passages from Danto’s essay, “Tilted Arc and Public Art” in his book, The State of the Art.
1.
“First, works of art, and certainly works of public art, do not exist in interest-free environments. There is a public interest in good art, but that is not the only public interest art serves. There is ground for removing a piece of public art when its placement represents interests that the work subverts, even if the work itself is good.”
2.
“What, then, should be the criterion for good public art? I find Henry James instructive here, as in most cruxes of life. There is a passage in The American Scene where he records his surprised admiration for Grant’s Tomb. ‘I felt the critical question…carried off in the general effect,’ he wrote. ‘The aesthetic consideration, the artistic value…to say, was the manner in which the tabernacle of General Grant embodied the values of a democratic society. He contrasts the monument with the tomb of Napoleon in Paris which, ‘as compared to the small pavilion on the Riverside bluff, is a holy of holies, a great temple jealously guarded and formally approached.’ His point is that these two structures project the deepest public values of the societies that built them. If esthetic values were a society’s deepest values, then ‘the aesthetic consideration’ would not melt into irrelevance unless a work failed artistically. In these two monuments, the two societies embody themselves.
3.
“Public art is the public transfigured: it is us, in the medium of artistic transformation. ‘The experience of art,’ Serra argued in his testimony, ‘is in itself a social function.’ So it is. But the social is not the public, any more than the individual is the private. Private and public are dimensions of the political. So when Serra’s attorney spoke of the ‘imposition of the political considerations into Federal programs related to all the arts,’ he was making a mistake of category. The public is already the political. What Serra has insisted is that the esthetic override the political, which it cannot do when the art is public.”
Public art is a delicate matter. It is for the public and paid for by the public yet the public is never consulted. The public’s interest is decided by panels and authorities. What is the criteria on which these boards and authorities judge and decide works of public art?
In the case of Tilted Arc and Phoenix Rising, it can be said that the sculptures did not connect with the people. Where Tilted Arc sparked outrage, controversy, and countless articles and documentary films, Phoenix Rising sparked a deafening silence. Not a word, not an article, just this blog and my documentary film. Where one went with a bang, the other will certainly go with a whimper. But a work’s lack of popularity, like Phoenix Rising’s, does not lessen this discussion. It balances the debate and points the finger back at the public – the group that ultimately decides the success, failure, and future of the public art they fund.
Last weekend, my wife and I went to NY. On Sunday morning, armed with a disposable camera (I had forgotten my digital camera in Philly) we walked from our hotel on Wall Street to Federal Plaza so that I could photograph the vacant plaza where Tilted Arc once stood. When we arrived I could not see any trace of the sculpture’s past life. In fact, I could not see the plaza because there was a long, tall fence encompassing the entire side of the building where Serra’s confrontational piece once stood. A new, chain-link Tilted Arc now blocked the plaza. It was just as tall as Serra’s work but much, much longer. The sign beyond the fence read: Recovery In Progress.
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| [Photo by Michael Johnston] |
From what I could find online, the recovery of the plaza is a federal program that “provides the opportunity to contribute to the nation’s economic recovery.” It was created to stimulate job growth and to repair our infrastructure and improve environmental performance. By improving environmental performance, I imagine that they will rip up the existing materials and dump them somewhere – never trying to recycle or reuse what is available.
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| [Photo by Michael Johnston] |
The same for Phoenix Rising. Why subject an interesting sculpture to standing alongside a café? Why reduce all plazas to public eateries and spitting fountains? I do not object to them, I think the new plan is perfect for Dilworth Plaza and the best remedy to a dead section of the city. But as we move closer to all plazas being public eateries, the possibility for works of art like Tilted Arc and Phoenix Rising to be incorporated into the public landscape becomes obsolete. While only a select few view a work's difficulty as high art, the majority view the difficulty as an obstruction to their daily lives. I have never liked a work of art, be it a painting, film, or sculpture, that did not challenge or confront me. Yet I do not like my public spaces to challenge or confront my daily activities. Should we install artworks that force the public to engage with their surroundings in different ways? Can we and should we install confrontational art in non-confrontational spaces at the public’s expense?
I remain on the fence.
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| [Photo by Michael Johnston] |
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