Soldier: Jefferson – length of service unknown. Nine photographs of soldiers by Suzanne Opton which were due to be shown on billboards in St Paul Minnesota this week have been cancelled. Go to ArtDaily.com for the story and to this site for the images. The images may be compelling, powerful, even shocking in the simplicity of their affect, but have they crossed some invisible political line? Apparently so. Take the time to look.

Apparently these photographs are “out of context” in the (drive-by) public domain: “The reason we have advised you that we cannot post these as billboards is that out-of-context (neither in a museum setting or website) the images, as stand-alone highway or city billboards, appear to be deceased soldiers. The presentation in this manner could be perceived as being disrespectful to the men and women in our armed forces.”

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This will either be filtered as spam, or you’ll get it and be impressed that Zoe has found a way to take off “I♥NY” for those (in other parts of the world) who ♥ Public Art! Now go to this link to read a really engaging article about PA by Roberta Smith in the NYT. (The NYT site might ask you to register; if it does and you don’t want to use your own details, try username “blabla” and password “blabla” (without inverted commas) or one of the other combinations at bugmenot.)

She credits Jeff Koons (see his retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago) for making public art popular. Yes ArtWranglers will be making I♥PA badges for everyone to wear! Thanks Max (who reads the NYT for us while we’re still asleep) for the lead…

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Read Gia Metherell (who is the Literary Editor of the Canberra Times) in this Saturday’s Forum section. In her measured and well thought-through account of the latest controversial Public Artefact, she asks: is the location of these “sculptural markers” the main problem? As we’ve commented in earlier posts (track back through “Public Artefacts” if you’re new to this discussion) the experience of a prospective “work of art” through the side window of the Daewoo at speed can be quite alarming, even alienating. Gia suggests there is a better reaction to such objects in the more domesticated spaces of parks and shopping centres, where at least we engage with the sculptural object as an aesthetic of physical interaction, as it should be. And she quotes politicians like John Hargreaves, who lamely argues that the controversy is a good thing… But when she makes the analogy with Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles, suggesting that it was controversy that has created its status as a destination work of art for the NGA, she jumps the rails.

In our previous discussions of examples of public art both in Canberra and internationally ArtWranglers has focussed on the prior criterion: is it a work of art, and on these terms, is it any good? In this regard, the sculpture at the centre of the latest controversy is Dinornis maximus, by NZ sculptor Phil Price – which at least makes it to first base! It’s an open homage to the work of the US kinetic sculptor George Rickey, and maybe one significant consequence of its siting is its scale: in competition with its roadwork setting and adjacent objects, (cars, trucks, busses), it shrinks, it looks diminutive in this urban architectural/machine inhabited context. But it moves beautifully in the slightest wind, and the curved blades change colour as they describe the most elegant imaginary forms, yellow orange against blue. But you only have this experience if you take your life in your hands, walk up to it, and spend time looking. So as Gia suggests, its siting is the source of most of its aesthetic problems. It’s the antithesis of a “destination” art work, as Blue Poles has become, because it feels transgressive to park and walk over to take a look. But unlike the dreaded Rhizome, which is concreted to the side of its hillock, it’s not “site specific”, so maybe in some later life this precursor to the emu can be moved to a more appropriate setting?

The issue which has caused this artistic road rage has its roots in a deeper malaise. Door-knocking aspirant politicians tell us the highway art is the single most unpopular symbol of the ACT Government’s Arts policies. As ex Arts Minister Bill Wood bemoans on the same page (“Come on, enjoy them”) the punters seem to hate having someone else’s aesthetic opinion imposed on their everyday life experiences.

So what’s the solution? We say impermanence. Let’s use the Anniversary Monument $$$ to seed fund an annual sculpture festival – like the enormously successful (and popular) Sculpture by the Sea and its siblings like Bermagui’s Sculpture on the Edge – to take advantage of Canberra’s myriad open spaces and see how fast we can turn public opinion? Floriade used to have a sculptural component, which produced some great sculptural objects. People seem to be more willing to enjoy them if they don’t have to love them forever… And let’s NOT have to experience them as commuter decor…

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We now realise that this diminutive “monument” has been in the centre of Canberra for nearly a year. Would you believe we first posted this as a Public Artefact in August last year! This Ode to Marcel Duchamp is the clearly the readymade solution to the Monument dilemma. ArtWranglers has nominated it for heritage listing, and no doubt it will be registered on the National Estate as THE Northbourne Monument. See our previous Open Letter to the Chief Minister on the issue…

Well, actually, it’s a small miracle nobody has tripped on it and sued the A.C.T. Government for enough $$$ to build the big one… But as we’ve often noted, it’s a no-man’s land between the Melbourne and Sydney buildings.

In relation to the missing Million Dollar Monument, our spies in the corridors of power tell us the short-list has been reduced to three, there’s a miniscule additional fee provided for resubmission of the contenders’ proposals, and guess what? The new due date is October 1st. So we’re unlikely to hear anything before the election! No controversies in October, please!

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Pavilion opens today at the Serpentine Gallery. Take a look.

And see his previous wood and glass exercise on AGO in Toronto.

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…as an aesthetic impact. According to New York Mayor Bloomberg: “Public art is a signature of New York City and we are proud to welcome Olafur Eliasson’s exciting new project, the Waterfalls. Not only does public art excite and inspire New Yorkers, it helps draw visitors and adds millions of dollars into our economy. Olafur Eliasson’s innovative and monumental project reflects the revitalization of our waterfront throughout the five boroughs, and I thank the Public Art Fund for bringing this unforgettable work to our City while taking steps to protect the environment.” Take a look. And see our previous post on this artist’s work at MoMA… And (thanks to Max) see this great review in the NYT. And read what they think about it in Toronto: a public art show even a mayor can love, by Simon Houpt (Globe and Mail). Essential reading for Public Art in Canberra 101…

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…what the A.C.T. Liberals would make of an *!#@artwork#@!* like this! If you translate the plaque (below) you’ll see that the golden pot by Jean Pierre Raynaud has been to capital cities all over the world. Will it make it to *!#@Canberra@#!*? Not *!@#likely#@!* (another Forbidden City? see below).

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We’ve just seen the A.C.T. Liberals’ first shot in the TV commercials in the upcoming election campaign: “…no-one asked me if I wanted an *!#@artwork#@!* instead of finishing Gungahlin Drive.” We’ve never heard artwork narrated with that particular inflexion before… Unfortunately mediocre “sculptural markers” will always be an easy target for reactionary politics. See our take on the Chief Minister’s dilemma. The relevant questions are: can the commission process deliver better outcomes? or, is any art better than none?

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Can you make good art out of a subway entrance? Click to this Anish Kapoor proposal and this Jean-Michel Othoniel reality. The interview with Kapoor gives some interesting insights into the fraught relation between artists, architects, and public officials. Of London’s new Lord Mayor Boris Johnson he says: “He’s a fool. He hasn’t the faintest idea and he ought to keep his mouth shut.”

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Most of the sculptures in the Jardin des Tuileries are what my colleagues used to call “plonk art” – sculptures located in formal garden-like settings as if they had dropped from the sky – and the Tuileries is the mother lode of this kind of public art. However in one corner there is a jungle which surrounds this most intriguing example of art which takes its inspiration from the environment, and which re-creates a wild park-like environment of an absolutely distinctive kind. This work, Arbre des voyelles by Giuseppe Pennone, (1999) takes its origin from the wind storm that swept this part of the world in the 90s which overturned thousands of ancient trees and forests across Europe. Thus the fallen tree in this part of the Tuileries is a bronze cast of an oak tree – one of the casualties of the storm – and at each extremity of its branches is planted a new tree, now all healthily reaching skywards. Magical. Click the thumnails below to see more. Or see how it looks in winter here…

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