On Sunday I was sweeping around the Barton Highway cloverleaf and I got the second fright of the day! This “sculpture” (it must a sculpture because it has a title: “Rhizome”) nearly caused me to lose control. It transpires this design object is one fifth of a five part commission won by the high profile “artist/architect” Professor Richard Goodwin (CoFA, UNSW), who specialises in highway art, and has won many similar commissions in Sydney. I’m told (yet to be confirmed) that the O’Connor Ridge Gungahlin Drive Extension commission cost us $750,000.
Well it’s not popular, if the letters pages of the Chronicle are any measure.
But must public art be “popular”? It depends on its status as art. But this series of commissions fails in both senses. It aspires to the status of art, but isn’t, and therein lies the source of its failure. If it’s highway decoration, (a “sculptural marker”) and maybe that’s all it is and we can all relax, and bear the expense. But when it gives art a bad name, in that sense we’re all a little worse off.
Why are such objects not art? Let’s begin with “Rhizome”. The ambiguous status claims of this particular object as a work of art is an interesting topic of speculation. It’s claimed that it is inspired by a bunch of native grasses. But it is made out of bent steel RSJs and other steel sections. This choice of materials invokes a very specific art historical heritage, and it has to be judged against the standards of its own genre. Those who have been following the course of 20th century sculpture would be well aware of the downs and ups of the Caroesque school of formalist (usually steel, usually coloured) sculpture since the 1960s.
This is the charismatic school which evolved worldwide following the influential style of Anthony Caro’s early work, annointed by critic Clement Greenberg as the most painterly form of abstract sculpture, and therefore the best. This particular style remains the primary source of corporate and public bling and is enjoying a resurgence in this country. You can follow its influence in art schools in Australia through four or five generations in the wake of the local guru Ron Robertson-Swan. It is a style characterised by assemblage and the articulation of abstract coloured forms in space. Often the off-cuts of industrial and construction industries provided the raw materials. Earlier generations tended to use found steel forms, later generations tend to design their elements to approximate their antecedents, forming their elements from new steel construction materials. As in this case we’re even denied the simple pleasures of nostalgia – that primary motivation of so much of contemporary art.
Why does Rhizome fail as art? To begin with, its sheer size and location poses particular challenges for the artist. Scaling up for public art settings, while at the same time preserving the sanctity of the object as a work of art, has always posed problems for this kind of artist. Within true formalist aesthetics, this kind of sculpture should be an art of distanced appreciation. In this case, glimpsed from behind a car windscreen at high speed, is not a conducive context for contemplative engagement! Adherents to this mode of sculpture eschewed the plinth in favour of the floor plane. But this time! Yikes! the earth has tipped 45 degrees!!! It would be an art historical joke if it were not for the scale of the commission and the claims made of it.
As highway art, the most logical reactions to the piece are: has there been an accident, or, will it fall over and crush my Daewoo as I drive past it? No Willa, it won’t fall over, because as we nervously asked this question at 80km/hour, we also sighted the millions of bolts holding it to its 45 degree slab. Which may be its most innovative claim to the the status of art. Now this would not be relevant if it weren’t for the perennial sculptor’s question of “how does the piece sit?”. Sculptors always worry about the interface between their work and the space around it, how gravity works on the forms, how the object sits or floats or otherwise challenges the laws of its place in the world. We do, after all, relate to sculptural objects on a body-to-body basis. It’s the same with painters when they “read” the edge of a painting, or its frame, to learn about the artist’s methods and intentions… So these bolts also tell us something… Something rather mundane.
With highway art, we relate to the work in quite a different way. We have become mechanised bodies hurtling through space, we see the world through windows, in our own special time-space continuum. That’s why we found the millions of bolts so reassuring – it signifies that the artist/designer/architect person has realised we might be nervous, and has gone out of his way to reassure us. Relax! it says – this is not art, which might challenge your equilibrium (as good art should), it’s bolted down.
But, Professor Richard would argue, it evokes grass, and that grows on the sides of hills. So we must re-assess the work as semi-abstract, with a nod towards representation. In which case the choice of materials is an aesthetic bet each way. For us, you can’t have it both ways. Either you read it as an ode to post-industrial abstraction, or it’s a sensitive evocation of the local ecology. It’s a hoot, you’ve got to see it! But keep both hands on the wheel!
And later, when you search on the net you find a press release published by the Orwellian Community Engagement Unit of the ACT Government, and you learn a lot more. This chillingly cautiously worded document informs us that Rhizome is in fact one of five parts, it’s based on native grasses (like our front lawn) and that it’s (wait for it) a “sculptural marker”! And it’s there “to enhance the driving experience and better integrate the road with its natural setting”. So its aspirations to the higher order values we expect of art are shot down in its own clumsy press release!
Down the track (as it were) we’ll review the next elements of this “suite of public artworks” along the highway/fire break. But first let’s see if we can find out who commissioned it, whose decision it was, shall we? And stand by for the million dollar commission for the gateway sculpture (another “sculptural marker”) at the south end of Northbourne Avenue. In the meantime, this sad neglected little “sculptural marker” has been sitting in Northbourne Avenue ever since we first drew your attention to it in the centrophobia post some months ago…
And here are the images which go with Penleigh’s comments below…
11 responses so far ↓
1 dan // Dec 22, 2007 at 4:42 am
we came past during the ‘ínstall’and with the number of cranes and safety vests in equal proportions it was a much less static experiance.
2 Penleigh Boyd // Jan 7, 2008 at 11:55 pm
“Architecture gives Art a bad name”
Dear ArtWranglers,
Don’t feel too secure about those hold down bolts – they probably haven’t been labelled yet – big backlog in the ACT bolt labelling department at present.
There are a few issues going on in “Architecture gives Art a bad name” so here goes……
IS PUBLIC FUNDING OF COMMUNITY ART GOOD?
Of course. All government programs should have an art component (preferably integrated with the main work but add ons are better than nothing). Why only sponsor engineers?
IS IT GOOD ART THAT IS BEING FUNDED ?
Rhizome could have been better. The work attempts to compete with its industrial design setting and, in my opinion, comes off second. It would work better in isolation – a “Sculpture by the Sea” type setting or that hilltop outside Cooma. “Rhizome” is just not appropriate to this busy highway intersection.
The alternative “non-competitive” approach, as Claes Oldenberg has done with his San Francisco work at Bay Bridge, would work better with its wry humour, scale, legibility, appropriateness to context and landmark creation. “If you get to Rhizome you’ve gone too far ” fails the landmark test. I know which approach I’d prefer at the Rhizome site.
DOES ART HAVE TO BE POPULAR TO BE GOOD?
No. Would we want the Boxing Kangaroo as our new national flag?
DOES ART HAVE TO BE POPULAR AT TIME OF UNVEILING OR CAN FUTURE APPRECIATION JUSTIFY THE WORK ?
Time is the only worthwhile test. Some artworks are immediately accepted by the community (Vietnam Memorial on Anzac Parade, the Sydney Opera House), others slowly grow in people’s esteem (Eiffel Tower, Pollack’s Blue Poles). Immediate acceptance by the public is no test. On the other hand, works are sometimes popular at unveiling because they are promoted, endorsed or are inherently important (e.g. New Parliament House) – it is not controversial to like them. However, in time, the public grow weary of such works as they often lack some essential ingredient – they do not spark the imagination. I do not think Rhizome sparks the imagination. Which brings one back to the question: If it is not good art, how did it get chosen?
So, has Architecture given Art a bad name? Perhaps more a lost opportunity to have done something better. The sculptor’s qualifications are no restriction as Melbourne’s gateway (on Tullamarine freeway) was also created by architects and that is probably the best highway art in the world.
Thanks for the discussion venue,
Penleigh Boyd
Architect Canberra
January 2008
3 Rhizome critique continues // Jan 13, 2008 at 10:00 pm
[...] online, Dec 9th, 2007) and now Ian Warden (CT, 13 January, p.19) picks up on our previous post (architecture gives art a bad name). Yes, the question of public art is complex, but unlike other complex questions which surround [...]
4 Jane Barney // Jan 16, 2008 at 1:35 am
Whether this is good or bad art is a matter of opinion. The more pertinent question may be whether it is an appropriate commission for the GDE project.
Firstly, how was it selected?
The suite of works by Mr Goodwin would have been submitted as a very small component of a very large highway construction tender. Whilst an art component may have been a requirement for tenderers, the selection criteria would probably have ignored the art component and focussed instead on the tenderers overall cost, capacity and capability (standard Government procurement criteria). Therefore, this art has not really been selected by anyone, but rather came as part of a package. (Akin to the extra set of steak knives…)
Secondly, why did Roads ACT want art on its new road?
Was it because everyone else is doing it? Or was it because they had just had a protracted debate / consultation with the adjacent communities who expressed vehement opposition to the new road?
The ACT Government’s August 2007 media release states that the GDE public art will: ‘enhance the driving experience and better integrate the road with its natural setting’.
On a road surrounded by disaffected communities, what is the point of using public art to ‘enhance the driving experience’ of the motorists who are presumably perfectly pleased with their faster smoother drive from point A to B?
Just because roadways are brutal engineered places, it doesn’t mean the art that goes with them has to be as well.
Perhaps Roads ACT could have used the public art to reconnect the communities back to their compromised natural reserves by commisioning environmental art for the access areas around the underpasses into O’Connor Ridge and Black Mountain.
Though Richard Goodwin is the road-art-specialist of most engineers’ choice, I once saw a sketch of his for an environmental artwork that was never built. From memory it was located in a pond and was designed to collect solar energy. It looked like an overgrown stick insect that was a bit wobbly on its pins. This wonderfully whimsical work would have looked great in one of the ponds near the GDE, and could have served a second purpose by powering some of the roadway lighting.
5 Rhizomatosis // Jan 16, 2008 at 2:55 am
[...] the informative new comment on our original post in the Rhizome [...]
6 another 100 years of ambiguity // Feb 3, 2008 at 11:00 am
[...] artist/architect/engineer consortia, and thus we’re likely to see an outburst of “sculptural markers” of the kind we find along the Gunghalin [...]
7 ANCA gives the architects a go… « glass central canberra // Feb 10, 2008 at 12:37 am
[...] further than some of the public art travesties foisted upon us these days to see that – check out http://artwranglers.com.au/architecture-gives-art-a-bad-name/) And indeed, some of them are/were; Gaudi, Gehry, et [...]
8 post painterly abstraction // Mar 11, 2008 at 2:42 pm
[...] [...]
9 …but is it art? // Apr 9, 2008 at 12:08 am
[...] ArtWranglers wonders, what questions is the panel of experts asking? Hopefully, something like the above. And if the shortlisted works don’t provide answers to questions like these, we say: don’t buy it! Invite some real artists next time. Save us from another “Sculptural Marker“… [...]
10 Liberals open campaign with a cheap shot at public art // Jun 18, 2008 at 10:55 am
[...] heard artworks narrated with that particular inflexion before… Unfortunately mediocre “sculptural markers” will always be an easy target for reactionary politics. The question is: is any art better [...]
11 ACT Chief Minister’s Latino Aesthetic lives up to expectations | iconophilia // Dec 4, 2009 at 5:28 am
[...] dear. It’s a fizzer. This “sculptural marker” for Canberra’s non-existent “Latin America Quarter” looks as jimcrack and [...]
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