The Role of Public Art

What does it mean when we say "public art?" Usually we know it as a sculpture or some other design approved by a committee that managed not to offend anyone. Of course, art that doesn't offend anyone may not do much of anything.

How we define public art as well as its role in the public space is a broad question that we are considering all semester in Creative Communities (a name I prefer to CRTW 550).

Two visiting writers presented their own perspectives on the topic at a Jan. 18 BathHouse Reading event at Eastern Michigan. Eric Lorberer, who is the editor of Rain Taxi Review of Books in Minneapolis, enlightened us through a virtual tour over "Ashbery Bridge" in Minneapolis. And Barrett Watten, a professor at Wayne State University and one of the founding theorists on the Language School of Poetry, discussed physical projects that incorporate poetic texts in their space.

I had the privilege of introducing both speakers. (link).

Ashbery Bridge is the moniker given to the pedestrian bridge best known for an untitled poem by the American poet, John Ashbery, adorning its trellis. The bridge was designed by Siah Armanjani, who commissioned Ashbery to write the poem. Intended for pedestrians, the poem is viewed walking across the bridge in a single fragmented line. As Mr. Lorberer explained, it requires the user of the bridge to activate the experience.

It is also an example of "Relational Aesthetics," whereby a work of art is only realized through participation of its audience.

The designer, Iranian-born Armajani, is best known for designing the Olympic Torch presiding at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and includes texts and poems in all of his projects.

Ashbery Bridge traverses 16 lanes of traffic and connects Loring Park to the Minneapolis Sculptor Garden. It was constructed by workers in the Transportation Authority.

"It presents poetry in a revolutionary way, and focuses us off the paradigm of the page," said Lorberer.

The poem is physically encountered at the top of the 38 steps of the bridge. The air is different, the traffic noise changes. The free verse text is fragmented in clusters of short clauses separated in spaces between support beams. It's lack of a title is crucial, says Lorberer.

Without a title, the poem also resists being announced or contained, he says. And it allowed Armajani to break it up as he saw fit.

Text appears on both ends of the bridge so that a walker will engage with it coming and going. Poetry in this physical context adds textuality to experience. It is experienced differently off the page and in real time.

The poem in its entirety:

"And now I cannot remember how I would have had it.
It is not a conduit (confluence?) but a place.
The place, of movement and an order: The place of old order.
But the tail end of the movement is new.
Driving us to say what we are thinking.
It is so much like a beach after all,
where you stand and think of going no further.
And it is good when you get to no further.
It is like a reason that picks you up and places you
where you always wanted to be.
This far.
It is fair to be crossing, to have crossed.
Then there is no promise in the other.
Here it is. Steel and air, a mottled presence, small panacea
and lucky for us.
And then it got very cool."

Sometimes languages and images complement a structure, such as Ashbery bridge, or they oppose or clash with a physical structure, which invites an "interrogation" of physical space, explained Dr. Watten.

Language itself takes on its own unique visual properties, such as unbroken blocks of text that disorient viewers or texts arranged in various shapes to mimic geometrical figures.

"A Heap of Language" by Robert Smithson

For instance, Dr. Watten's pieces entitled, "Non Event I", "Non Event II", Non Event III," and Non Event IV" show language that resists any kind of structure and seems to be in fact running away from structure. Pairing this with a building -- an image of stability -- offers a commentary on product design, he said.

Part of effort by language poets is to re-contextualize language from representational to a primary engagement.

The modernist poet Laura Riding Jackson attempted to formulate a new dictionary that organized words not by their definition but rather their "rational meaning." This is a project she dedicated her life towards, but never completed. Her simple home was moved to an ecological preserve where Dr. Watten held poetry workshops on rational meaning. Throughout the structure of the home, he pinned words from her dictionary, meant to re-imagine the essence of words through different contexts.

Think of these as a bridge to make poetry experiential, he said.