This lesson will present an overview of public art.
Hi, this is Erin Aldana. In this lesson, we'll explore public art. So I'd like to begin by giving you your key terms. The first is Percent For Art-- a building-development program that funds public art. Public art-- works of art installed in the public domain. New Genre public art-- experimental art practices. And placemaking-- the design and administration of public spaces that promote community.
So I just want to start out by saying that technically speaking any type of work of art in public space qualifies as public art. So this could range from ancient Roman monuments to Renaissance equestrian sculptures and everything in between. However, within the context of the 1970s to the present, public art refers to programs such as the Percent For Art program, that involve the installation of sculptures and other works of art in public space-- with the idea of improving those spaces.
So if you're not familiar with the term Percent For Art, that simply refers to the designation of 1% of the costs that are involved in constructing and building for the installation and construction of a work of art. And many times contests are held to choose a winning design for these projects. So now I'm showing you Richard Serra's Tilted Arc, which is one of the most controversial public-art projects.
And this was installed in Federal Plaza, which was not a very hospitable place to be in. The buildings created a sort of canyon effect, and high winds blew through this area. And then there was a fountain located in the plaza. And I think you can see that just off to the left-hand side of the sculpture. So on a windy day, the wind would be blowing water across the plaza. And it was very unpleasant.
So Richard Serra was commissioned to build this sculpture, and so he constructed a big slab of black raw steel, 120-feet long and 12-feet high, shaped in an arc that was slightly angled. And this cut the plaza in half and forced people to walk around it, as they were walking to work or running their errands. So the people who use this area on a daily basis were really not happy with it, and all sorts of rumors started to develop about the sculpture.
People said that it was possible that it could be used for terrorism, because someone could hide behind it and then set off a bomb. It could serve as a bomb shield-- that it collected trash on one side of it, and rats-- and all sorts of rumors. And people called for it to be taken down. So hearings were held. And finally, in 1989, the decision was reached that the sculpture should indeed be torn down. And Richard Serra was terribly disappointed by this, and he made a statement in regard to this work. He said, "I don't think it is the function of art to be pleasing. Art is not democratic. It is not for the people."
So it's possible that Serra was not the best choice of artist to do a public-art project, based on this statement. However, just keep in mind that public art tends to generate controversies everywhere it goes-- and this is whether it's figurative, whether it's abstract, or no matter what it does. And this is in relation to the fact that there is this perception that public art is supposed to serve a community and that it's supposed to be the manifestation of their ideals and concerns. And when it doesn't do that, then people get very upset. So now I'm showing you Maya Lin's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.
And this was the idea of an infantry corporal who had served in Vietnam. And he wanted a memorial that would acknowledge and recognize the service and sacrifice of all who had served in Vietnam. So a nationwide contest was held to select the design for this monument. And Maya Lin was an architecture student at Yale University at the time. And she was taking a class on Roman funerary monuments and heard about the contest through her class. So she decided on a whim to submit a design, and it was actually chosen as the winning design. It consists of a V-shaped series of slabs of black granite, upon which all the names of the people who died in Vietnam are printed.
So the way this monument works is that there's a sidewalk that runs the length of the V. And it starts out very shallow. There's just one name. And all the names are arranged chronologically in the order of the people who died. So you start out with the first person who died in Vietnam. And as you walk along the sidewalk, the monument gradually gets deeper and deeper and deeper-- and you kind of descend into it until it's several-feet high. And then it's above your head, and it gets taller and taller. And then you reach the middle of the V. And then you walk towards the other end, and it does the opposite. It gets more and more shallow.
So this has several different effects. One is that you get a sense of how the war in Vietnam escalated and more and more people died. And then you also have a sense, maybe, of descending into a grave or a tomb. Now, there are other aspects of this monument that are actually quite cathartic and healing. The surface of the black granite is highly polished, so that you can see your own reflection in it. And that shows up really well in this particular photograph. Then there are grooves in between the black-granite slabs. And people stick mementos, such as flags or flowers or letters. And so they do this near the name of the person that they know who died in the war. People also take rubbings of the names. And as you can see, they leave wreaths and many other objects in front of them. So this has really served an important function for healing. And it's been successful as a memorial.
However, this was not really apparent when the first designs were presented to the public. And people really spoke out against it. They called it a black gash of shame and said many bad things about it-- and said that this should not be installed-- that the black color went against the theme of white monuments in Washington, SC, and so on and so on. So it actually was installed, as you can see. And it was successful. However, as a concession, the government decided to install a series of figurative sculptures.
So this is Hart's design for the more traditional monument. You can see that it just consists of three soldiers who served in Vietnam. And it's much more straightforward, and is intended to placate those people who did not like Maya Lin's design. Now, also notice that it's much less interactive-- that you can't do any of the rubbing. You can leave mementos, but it just isn't the same. Because there's this whole aspect with Maya Lin's design of finding the names and leaving the objects there and seeing yourself and seeing the experience of other people, that's just so much more meaningful and interactive. And there isn't that level of meaning here.
So now I'm showing you Rick Lowe's Project Row Houses. And this is an example of New Genre public art. And the idea here is that the work of art is produced through a process of interaction and communication with the community where it's located-- and that the goal is that the work of art will somehow serve this community instead of alienating or irritating it. So Rick Lowe is originally from Alabama. And he was approached by a group of high school students, who asked him if he could produce a work of art that could help the community instead of pointing out problems to the community that it was already aware of.
So Lowe came up with the idea of purchasing these little houses, that are known as shotgun shacks, and renovating them. So he purchased a block of them. And some of them were used as housing for single mothers. And then some are used as artist's studios. And over time this project has been able to purchase more properties. And now it owns about 40 of them. And a recent visitor to the site said that it's impossible to tell where Project Row Houses ends and the rest of the Third Ward begins. So this has been an enormously successful project. And it's led to increased gentrification of this neighborhood. So that's kind of a related problem. When something becomes successful and leads to more affluent people moving to the neighborhood and then pushes out the neighborhood's original residents. And that is definitely a problem.
So to conclude, I just want to expand on this notion of public art by showing you an example of what has gone by many different names, including guerilla artwork. So here someone has painted sort of stencil graffiti on this site where a billboard was once located. And this has become an increasingly common form of artistic manifestation in cities. And it goes by many different forms. I've seen people put colored duct tape along the poles for signs in cities. Some people have done yarn bombing, where they knit sections of yarn or wrap areas of poles or tree branches in colored yarn.
So there are many different manifestations that this type of art takes. But the idea here is to install something without someone's permission. So it's very similar to graffiti. But there's also this idea maybe of speaking out, or making some sort of statement, or repossessing public space.
So we looked at public art. And although any type of art in open-or-shared space qualifies as public art, the term has come to refer to projects that use art to create a sense of community, or to redefine bland urban spaces. Public-art projects often generate controversy based on the understanding that they should reflect the attitudes and values of the communities where they are located.
Richard Serra's Tilted Arc was removed from its site because of the controversy it generated, while figurative sculptures were added to Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial, because there had been so many complaints about its design. Rick Lowe's Project Row Houses is an example of New Genre public art, which uses art to improve the lives of the people in the communities where it's located. A more recent type of public art resembles graffiti and consists of painting or other adaptations made to signage and other objects located in public space.
So that concludes our lesson for today. Thank you very much.
Key Terms
Percent for Art
A building development program that funds public art.
Public Art
Works of art installed in the public domain.
New Genre Public Art
Experimental art practices.
Placemaking
The design and administration of public spaces that promote community.
Image Credits
Richard Serra, Tilted Arc, Fair Use According to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tilted_arc_en.jpg, Vietnam Memorial; Creative Commons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_flag_reflexion_on_Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial_12_2011_000124.JPG, Frederick Hart, Three Soldiers, Fair Use according to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Three_soldiers.jpg, Rick Lowe, Project Row Houses, Creative Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Project_Row_house_studios.JPG, My Ad is No Ad, photo by John Feckner, Creative Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MYAdisNoAD.jpg,