Typically, when we think of public art it's some kind of permanent installation that requires approval by various community stakeholders and bureaucratic layers of municipal government. That's especially true if it's in a public space or on a private space that's overseen by a historic district or redevelopment zone, or frankly anything that requires a permitting process for aesthetic consideration. Art installed on a public building is sometimes further scrutinized. What is the effect of having so many hands in the pot?
In his essay, "Fine Furs," David Antin describes his involvement in two kinds of public art projects -- both ephemeral and permanent. Both illustrate a case study in different receptions for art forms.
He arranged to write a poem in the sky above San Diego with bi-planes. The poem in his estimation would be, "a commercial that isn't selling."
He envisioned this to create an event followed by dialogue.
"I was counting on a certain randomness of interest among the onlookers. Some would know about the skypoem in advance and come to a certain viewing place where they'd be waiting for it, because they'd read about it or been invited. Some might drift in when they saw the others gathering. Some might happen to be looking u while they were walking on the beach or driving on the highway. Some might pick it up in the middle or at the end, and some might leave before the end because they had to or because they didn't care to stay. And I liked it that way."
The lines would read:
IF WE GET IT TOGETHER
(pause)
CAN THEY TAKE IT APART
(pause)
The poem required no permits or governments or citizen input, just money, which is not the case with permanent installations.
He was invited by a consultant in a Miami art in public spaces program to submit a proposal for a public installation at the Miami International Airport in 1985. His concept was to run an uncut newswire over monitors in a waiting area that was randomly interrupted with segments of poetry, one-liners and aphorisms, sometimes in English and sometimes Spanish. "My idea was that the news was something like an airport. Predictable in general and surprising in detail."
The work started in 1986. He secured approvals from the Associated Press for the newswire and then found a software program to perform the machinations of what he envisioned. He could have been the first poet in the world to have a maintenance contract with an airport, he said.
But getting clearance form the Miami airport's advisory boards and integrating it with the airport's master plan in concert with the Miami Art in Public Places program, unanswered letters, unanticipated costs, unanticipated collaborators assigned by the board -- and finally the project stalled and was killed.
What happened? It wasn't the costs, since the whole thing would have about $20,000 to $30,000. It was something else. It was the duration, Antin surmised in his essay. "It could have gone on for years, for as long as the Miami International Airport lasted, as long as the AP wire continued to transmit and phone company lines persisted in working. Skypoems are gone in twenty minutes. And this is the major point of most of the issues surrounding public art. Permanence."
No one really knows who the public is or what it wants or needs. There are many people who claim to act on the public's behalf. And no one is sure what space belongs to them, he says. Usually it's the space that's discarded and leftover. Rights of ways, parks, streets. There's so little of it, that any artwork on it is seriously debated by all constituencies. As Antin says: once something is going to be permanent everybody cares about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment