Public art master plans

Most of my life I have really been into newspapers. The summer after my freshman year in high school, I participated in a "summer youth program" session on journalism at Michigan Tech University, where I helped to produce a "newspaper" for the students in the program. (I never went on to work in journalism though.)

At the time there was a "Dial a Ride" proposal (a type of public transit service) up for a vote in Houghton, Michigan, and I wrote a piece about it, including in the article the line that the program should be supported. I was admonished by one of the instructors, who explained to me that the inclusion of opinions is inappropriate in what should be objective news stories.

I think about that just about every time I read a story in the Examiner with the byline "Markham Heid" as just about every article includes sentences and word choices that are deliberately designed to incite, where the implications the words engender come right out of the Rupert Murdoch school of tabloid journalism, although not nearly as "screamy". Nothing about those sentences is intended to represent objective journalism.

For example, the Kennedy Center got a big grant (from a conservative rich family no less) and in his story he equated the grant with the debacle over an unfunded grant by a rich guy who turned out to be no good. From the article:

The DeVos donation is reminiscent of a $50 million pledge made by Internet stock investor Alberto Vilar to the Kennedy Center's arts management institute in 2001. Vilar, however, did not fulfill his promise. Earlier this year, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for fraud and money laundering.

What a stretch! How are these two events related, other than the intent to fund the same program? It's hard for me to believe that the editors at the Washington Examiner are less careful than the instructor-editors in the MTU Summer Youth Program's journalism class.

Over the weekend, the Examiner ran a story, "Alexandria officials mull ambitious, expensive new arts program," by Heid about a public art master plan in Alexandria. Here's the lead:

Alexandria officials are crafting an ambitious new plan to fund public art using hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer cash, and by extracting contributions from private businesses.

Pretty much all government initiatives are funded by taxpayers ("taxpayer cash"), and it is typical for new development projects to have "public amenities" requirements ("extracting contributions from private businesses") but the sentence construction is clearly leading, if not pejorative, as are other sentences such as "Private property developers would be asked to pony up cash based on the size of new development projects, or expansions of existing properties."

Heid ought to be blogging maybe. Not writing stories for "legitimate" newspapers.

Anyway, the article discusses the creation of a public art master plan in Alexandria, which I think is a good thing. From the article:

"The purpose of this plan is to help us think through where we would put public art and how much of it we want," said Councilman Rob Krupicka, the council's liaison to the city's arts commission.

"It makes sense for us to have a solid public art policy and funding approach, and we don't have either right now," Krupicka said.

The city's plan as it now stands would allocate a percentage of Alexandria's capital improvement budget to arts programs each year beginning in fiscal 2012. The estimated taxpayer contribution would be $300,000 to start, and would balloon to $600,000 by fiscal 2016.

And that's a good lead in for what seem like interesting _and structured_ public art programs in New York City, Boynton Beach, Florida, and Charlottesville

Avenue of the Arts Exhibition

This year the City of Boynton Beach Arts Commission encourages artists to submit iconic artwork that features the tactile quality and celebrates sensory sensations. Artwork that has textural finishes, surfaces, grains, qualities and consistencies. The artwork can utilize sound, color or movement to communicate the texture theme. Is the artwork smooth, rough, pitted, soft, hard or squishy? Does it have grooves or gouges, smooth or polished or is it rustic or worn? Visual texture is the illusion of having physical texture. The artwork should hold up to the outdoor Florida environment for the year long display. The artists may consider more than one artwork site or create a site-specific installation that addresses this theme.

Times Square Alliance Public Art Program

Artists and arts organizations are encouraged to propose projects that address the unique nature and rich history of Times Square. Projects should be able to have an impact in a space defined by dynamic activity and continuous, competing visual stimuli. Organizations, curators and artists are encouraged to consider how their projects will change or effect the space during the presentation and how the 350,000 people here every day (as well millions of virtual viewers) will interact with the presentation. Public spaces to consider as locations for art projects and events include the new Broadway plazas and Duffy Square in Times Square and other public and private spaces throughout the Theater District, 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. Through its Public Art Program, the Times Square Alliance brings temporary high-quality, cutting-edge art and performance to Times Square's public spaces, so that it is known globally as a place where ordinary people encounter authentic, ever-changing urban art in multiple forms and media.

Art in Place

Several locations around the City have been selected for public sculpture. Charlottesville is visited by 500,000 tourists each year. All locations are in areas of high vehicular traffic. Although we are looking primarily for large works, we have established sites along Schenk's Branch Greenway where a pedestrian path parallels McIntire Road and allows for views of smaller works. Each installation will be in place for 11 months. Each selected work is provided with signs that direct the viewer to this Web site.

The point of a master plan for public art is to develop structured, supported programs that do interesting things. Not having a plan guarantees you won't have much. Having a plan guarantees that you'll get something, and if the plan and subsequent process is robust, it should end up supporting the creation of some great work and interesting (and maybe, but not likely provocative) projects.

I still am blown away by the gutsy public art project associated with the construction of the Interstate/Yellow light rail line in Portland. One of the stations serves a site that was a World War II Japanese-American relocation center. The sculpture honors the people who were imprisoned. In the pillars of the work are reproductions of front pages of Portland newspapers, with the most virulently racist headlines. I was impressed that a government-funded art project could show such guts and willingness to challenge and confront dark periods in our history. (There was an equally moving installation at the light rail station serving the Vanport area, which was the site of a devastating flood in 1948 that killed 15 people and left 18,000 people homeless.)

Expo Gates sculpture by Valerie Otani, Expo Center, Portland, Oregon.

I believe that if DC had a public art master plan, we'd probably do a better job than we are doing now with public art projects, some of which end up collapsing because of community opposition.