Jonathan Jones at the Guardian thinks the public can’t be trusted to have anything to say about public art, here.
Public art is not a matter for the majority – people should simply cough up and stand back as talented artists indulge themselves.
How very monarchist of him. The problem with public art is not the public. The public is part of the challenge. The problem is lazy-ass, timid arts administrators who don’t bother to engage the communities who will interact with the art on a daily basis. Too many artists in the public realm are also timid. They go for the safe and bland.
All this is the public’s problem? Offer good art and sell it to those who are going to see it regularly as they go about their business. Critics who have nothing but contempt for public art are also the problem. They need to be using different criteria to evaluate what Lawrence Alloway called “focal points for an undifferentiated audience.” Instead, they bring only their studio art gasbag of tricks.
What the well-dressed bank robber will wear: (Freddie Robbins)
Culture Grrl (Lee Rosenbaum) blames the victim, here, in a post about the beleaguered Rose Museum and heroic director, Michael Rush, not heroic to CG, however, who rewrites history to knock him.
Michael Rush, whose directorship at the museum ends June 30, told (Geoff) Edgers:
The Rose, as we have known it, is closing…
…or at least the Rose as HE has known it is finished. My hope that a new director, arriving in Watham without the baggage of an acrimonious relationship with the administration, will find a way to preserve the Rose’s collection and its status as a full-functioning museum, while making a more effective effort to communicate its necessity and importance to Brandeis officials, the broader university community and the general public.
Catching up: Excellent Aldrich director Harry Philbrick interview last Februrary with Robert Lazzarini in his New York City studio here.
HP: Do you own a gun?
RL: Well, I own that gun [the one reproduced in the artwork] the original, simply because that’s my process, and I had to go through an FBI check and all that stuff, but I don’t shoot, and it’s not that I don’t want to. I’ve been to a firing range in the city because one of my assistants was a gunsmith, and he worked at a firing range so I’d go there and shoot there. But it’s really loud, even with ear protection on you’re like “wow, that’s loud!”
HP: So not your thing.
RL: I prefer stabbing.
I love Photo Shop: Erik Johannsson, Road Pull
Jonathan is ignorant. Artists do not make public art to “indulge themselves.” It pays better than the galleries, its more consistent than commissions and its a new and exciting challenge. But to indulge oneself? Oh christ, he has never sat through 18 meetings and made $4 a day and had 6 ideas shut down. Eat shit Jonathan, a big spoonful please…
I agree.
Also, “timid administrators” and “timid artists” are seldom the problem either.
Mostly, its the system.
First, a jury, with perhaps one artist on it, and, usually, an architect who feels any art is an intrusion on his genius, plus a few laypeople who are convinced the budget would be better spent on giving them more days off.
Unless you have been on juries (hint, hint, Regina- you are a free woman in Paris now, no reason you shouldnt pay your dues with some public service) you have no idea the horsetrading, educating, and politicking that are involved to get any but the blandest, least threatening, beige art selected.
Although I am an artist who competes for these projects, I have served on several juries over the years, and most every time, the strongest artists with the most personality are voted out in the first round, despite my protests.
Jury composition is an art- in the legal system, there are consultants who charge hundreds of thousands to help on jury selection of big cases. And this is one of the biggest weaknesses of a weak arts administrator- not timidity, but the inability to find, and cajole, great people to serve on juries. Generally, the administrator must sit on the sidelines, and manage process, not lobby for favorites.
Then, the even bigger problem is the politicians or beaurocrats who must say yes before checks are signed- the main reason for dumbing down of ideas.
In the recent Dan Weber/Olympia dustup, it was the elected politicians who shot down the idea, not the artist who was timid- and this is very very common. Which leads professional artists, ones who have been around the block once or twice, to avoid pitching that x rated day glo pink giant reptile eating human cadavers amidst a pile of crack bags. Self editing is what you are talking about, not timidity.
The same self editing that occurs when the old Regina, at the PI, didnt review the erotic arts show at the Exhibition hall, or try to get the PI to post the picture that said “Please dont handle the penises”.
In any field of endeavor, there is a difference between being timid, and just tossing out expletives for their shock value.
Nope, Vito has never proposed that he would masturbate under the stairs for a project for a new convention center…