Archives for April 2007

Semaphore, Board Game & Symbol San Jose, Melbourne, Indianapolis Adobe, Digital Harbour, International Airport LED, Laser Cut, Stone Rubin and Innocent Below continues the comparison on three works installed between August 2006 and September 2007. Today I leave the comparisons stark as I don't know yet, what to make of the simultaneous birthing of the works. I started with the online-inperson … [Read more...]

The flu kicked the shit out of me this week. So some foggy thinking about Indianapolis. This week, Indy announced that Donald Lipski would develop the 50th Anniversary Legacy Public Art Project. I would say that Lipski is now the most popular public artist in the USA, replacing James Carpenter from a few years back. I liked the old Horse on the Red Chair, but the current crop of repeating … [Read more...]

The image trap in public art is the administrator's, the curator's or the committee's dilemma, not the artists. (Of course, many artists do play.) The trap drops when a particular work is required to be a significant symbol for a place, a time or a people. So many writers have analyzed the invention of symbols. I don't have the background to comment on simulacre or metaphor. Sincerity or … [Read more...]

If I recall correctly, the Seattle artist Jim Pridgeon had a concept to create a drawing in sky by unrolling a ___ mile long reflective mylar sheet in the lowest level of orbiting satellites around the earth. Depending on the time of day, the drawing would be more or less visible. Most visible at sunset. At a global scale, Pridgeon's sculpture would capture and redirect (reflect) the light of … [Read more...]

Artist Christian Moeller is completing "Mojo", an interactive public artwork in San Pedro, California, 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. The developers of Centre Street Lofts funded the vulture - and the creepiest public art in 2007. Clearly, Moeller steps on every fear of surveillance: 1. a generally unsafe street at night, 2. potential attack by a thug or stalker in any neighborhood, … [Read more...]

The exhibition website starts with: "Ethics is the true axis of the gathering that will attempt to link Art and Politics with Poetry, Ecology and Technology." For the first time, I love getting old. In my mind, I join these artists at the southern most city on the planet at the end of nowhere - Patagonia. Although I might be disappointed if I hopped on an airplane for Ushuaia, Argentina, I … [Read more...]

A few months ago in Fort Lauderdale, landscape architect, Walter Hood of Oakland, California, present his work. Never heard of him, but the Design Arts speakers had been excellent at Broward County Cultural Affairs in the last few years. Hood sticks with me. Especially his recognition of the "overgrown" from the people on the Phillips community near Charleston, South Carolina. According to my … [Read more...]

I pulled all 15 arbitrary issues of Landscape Architecture Magazine still on my office shelf published between 2005 and 2007. Here is what added up for Public Art. 1. Seven Issues with Public Art covers. (Almost half) 2. Full length profiles on artists Maya Lin, Brad Goldberg and Stacy Levy. Moerenuma Park by Noguchi 3. Reviews of major public artworks, in collaboration with landscape … [Read more...]

Plagiarism was the topic on C-SPAN's BOOK-TV, March 31, 2007, rebroadcast a panel discussion held at the 2007 Chicago Humanities Festival. The old simple idea of claiming someone else's work as your own is not so simple anymore. Federal Judge Richard Posner laid out some legal theory about plagiarism in the age of growing copyright powers. (Ironically while stealing his book title, 'The Little … [Read more...]