Chapter 9

Toward an Art in Public Places

The kind of art that results from it has to answer to a new set of criteria and qualities. The starting point is that the work has a relationship with its environment. Its purpose is to make a contribution in shaping the public space, whether urban or ‘natural.’ In order to get away from the sculptural object that is just plunked down, cities have set up arts commissions and introduced procedural policies which require that artists, architects, landscape architects and designers collaborate from the start. The ‘old’ artist was commissioned to create an object. Robert Irwin said: “...only marginally public generally (it is) consigned to an out-of-the-way place, a leftover cul-de-sac or a ceremonial spot of the architect’s choosing..[278] The ‘new’ artist is involved in the design of a whole park or plaza. The idea of sculpture as object is changed in favor of a process of collaboration with architects, designers, engineers, environmentalists and local community groups, with a view to making the public space itself a work of art. The old public art object is transformed into an art in public places. The history of many of Irwin’s projects gave an indication of the tasks that lay ahead of an artist who decided to move into this field, whether in the form of an environmentally oriented work of art, or landscaping and land reclamation projects. The projects of. Bulgarian-born Christo are another good example. The proposals for his temporary wrapping projects like Valley Curtain (Grand Hogback, Rifle, Colorado, 1971-72) or Running Fence (Sonoma County, California, 1976) were generally not uncontested. Christo had to negotiate with politicians, discuss with community groups and environmentalists, or obtain permits from authorities. For Running Fence he was even asked to file an Environmental Impact Report, guaranteeing that the site would be left undisturbed and returned to its original state. For the actual realization, he has to hire specialists and a large crew of workmen. Contrary to Robert Irwin, who perceives these aspects as necessary evils, as a part of the job like preparing a canvas, Christo considers all these things as integral part of his work. In this respect, Christo is still connected to the ‘art is life, or life is art idea’ that Joseph Beuys represented.

The discussion of the development and construction procedures of such an ‘earthwork’ shows how different the function of the artist has become from the studio sculptor or painter. Not only has the artist an obligation to respond to the context and acquire the necessary knowledge, but he or she also has to understand the shift in working procedures involved in this type of work. In general, the following procedures are followed. First the artist is invited and/or submits a proposal, including detailed descriptions, plans and budget information, which is then juried by ‘specialists in the field.’ If the artist is selected he or she will generally have to sign contracts and sometimes be prepared to account for the implementation of the project with detailed reports. The artist has to be prepared to deal with government agencies, environmentalists, and the public. He or she has be prepared to have the proposal subjected to feasibility and environmental impact surveys, and to work in a team of professionals, as a project developer or supervisor. Obviously not every artist feels equipped for this task. It takes another kind of personality than that of the studio artist. Los Angeles-based sculptor Lloyd Hamrol described this position in an interview: “Yes. Dealing with public projects is complex, and sometimes very frustrating. The second part is that it often takes years to complete a large project; there are delays, interruptions, and money complications. ... It’s a world of practicalities, of economics, and doesn’t have anything to do with the language of forms and materials that I use. ... The artist encounters people on technical and administrative levels, and not just in their professional roles, but also who they are as individuals. I see my role as planner and orchestrator of my projects as an outgrowth of my teaching experience.”[279]

Since the beginning of outdoor environmental works in the mid-seventies, directions in public art have become quite diverse. Artists have become involved in recultivation of landfills and wetlands, and land reclamation projects, in the design of urban landscapes and parks. I have distinguished three directions based not so much on formal aspects or similarities as on intent and purpose: land reclamation, ecological art, and urban design and landscaping.

Land Reclamation

The initiative of King County Arts Commission in Seattle, Washington, was among the first land reclamation programs. Visual arts coordinator Jerry Allen wrote that the intention of the Earthworks: Land Reclamation as Sculpture project was “to create a new tool in the rehabilitation of technically abused land, by giving artists the opportunity to design for surplus gravel pits, surface mines and landfill sites. In King County, like most jurisdictions, the problem is acute, with 104 publicly owned and many more privately-owned surface mine sites. Few of these sites have meaningful reclamation plans. Thus they are scars that dot the landscape.”[281] The development of the program took two years (1977-1979), before one could even think of commencing the execution of one of the prososals, because the most important task for the Arts Commission was the building of a support system, and the allocation of sufficient funds from various non-art organizations.

From the artists who had been invited to send in a proposal, Robert Morris was chosen by a selected jury to create an artwork at Johnson Pit #30 of the same title. Robert Morris’ construction notes in the technical report give week-to-week information about the process and procedures of the undertaking. He describes the preparatory, executive, and management procedures. The preparatory procedures, for example, included hydraulics, soil investigation, an environmental impact assessment, and a bidding of the job to find a suitable contractor, as well as establishing procedures for the construction phase, such as soil testing, site drainage, hydroseeding, excavation, etc. The King County Arts Commission had even appointed a project assistant especially to supervise the procedures.[282]

Of the other proposals, only Herbert Bayer’s Mill Creek Canyon Earthworks (1982) was built. Bayer created a park, covering 2.5 square acres, composed of geometric elements which follow the contours of the land. He designed two mounds, a round one and an oblong one, a mound with a ring and a pond, and a cone with a bridge over the creek which runs through the park. The area being a retention basin, the mounds function as drainage as well as seating for visitors. The design and the construction of the ‘earthwork’ was in fact only a part of the whole reclamation project, which also included the construction and maintenance of the retention basin. This part, however, fell under the responsibility of the City Engineering Department, costing $450,000.[283]

Earthworks: Land Reclamation As Sculpture shows the new dimensions involved in the development and implementation of such a program, even if it seems relatively simple, since the projects chosen mainly involved reshaping the dirt of the site. Robert Morris accentuated the contours of the pit into a kind of inverted terrace. For Herbert Bayer the functional aspect was a major consideration in the final design. In addition, he used the circular shape of the earth mound for cone and ring mounds situated in the canyon’s landscape to integrate the existing and newly built parts of the landscape with as little interference as possible. Although both artists used formal references to historical and architectural concepts, those being integrated in the existing elements of the sites, the works became an integral aspect of the landscape, and subject to its continuous processes of change, natural or man-made.

Although Robert Morris was concerned that artists might be easily exploited because they tend to work more cheaply than commercial reclamation companies, more artists are invited to develop concepts for landfills and industrially damaged sites or quarries. Even though artists may not be accepted as equal partners yet, the successful examples of finished projects like Nancy Holt’s Sky Mound or Harriet Feigenbaum’s Erosion and Sedimentation Plan for Red Ash and Coal Silt Area - Willow Rings (near Scranton, Pennsylvania) should make us aware of the yet untapped potential of artists’ creativity. Planted in 1985, the three circles of sixty willow trees surrounding a pond have continued to grow and cover the once wasted 15 acre site of a coal strip mine. It is now part of a wetlands wildlife preserve.

Ecological Art

Patricia Johanson’s work actively intervenes and intentionally transforms sites into biodiverse systems in respect of the geographical and climatic conditions. She perceives her sculptures as “habitats” where flora and fauna can thrive as an organic interdependent system to revitalize and purify degraded environments. About her Leonhardt Lagoon (Dallas, Texas, 1981-1986) she writes: “The lagoon was in the middle of Dallas’ largest park with four major museums along the shore, and it seemed a wonderful opportunity to convert it into a home for native wildlife - ducks, turtles, fish, shrimp, insects - by cleaning up the water and conceiving of landscaping as food. The ‘sculpture’ was thought of as not just aesthetic, but rather a means of bringing people into contact with the plants and animals and the water.”[284] She also reflects on previous utilizations. In the case of Endangered Garden, conceived for Candlestick Cove on the San Francisco Bay between the ocean and highway 101 (1985 - present), it was the ancient native American culture. The goal of this project is to revitalize the original biodiversity. Johanson’s design encompasses a sculptural form in the shape of a ribbon worm, called Ribbon Worm Tidal Steps, the planting of native vines and shrubs, and the (re-)creation of birdpaths, and shellfish habitats, referring to the original shellfish mounds here, which were not constructed, though. Pathways allow the public to walk down from the baywalk above and enter the wetlands, depending on the tidal waves. As a delicate wetland, it is subject to the regular rise and fall of the tides and has a complex eco-system. The artist wants the visitor to explore this superficially uneventful situation, which on close inspection reveals an intense and lively animal population, in order to make the public aware of the extraordinary natural phenomena right in front of their eyes. This educational aspect contributes significantly to the meaning of her work.

Another ecological landfill project in the same region is Agnes Denes’s North Waterfront Park. Together with landscape architects R. Haag and J.N. Roberts she developed a large land reclamation project which is being realized for the city of Berkeley, California. The North Waterfront Park Master Plan (1989-1991, date of approval), a landfill situated on the eastern shore of the San Francisco Bay, is designed to transform the 97 acre site into a park with a self-regulating bioregional eco-system. The designers did not want to create an environmentally sound but isolated eco-island, but started from a concept which allows room for growth and change, even normal erosion and decay, thus functioning as an open-ended system. Denes describes the proposal as follows: “The overall organization of the park creates a time warp, going from civilization (entrance) to wilderness (end). Walkways and paths crisscross the park, offering changing views as they wind around mounds and trees. A perimeter path circles the park offering views and access to water. ... A 12 acre wildlife sanctuary establishes the whole park as a life-harboring environment for an increased number of species, and bioremediation programs offer techniques for cleansing land-fill pollutants.”[285] Agnes Denes’s work has been scientifically and interdisciplinarily oriented since the beginning of her artistic career in the sixties. Especially mathematics has been of interest to her, and is a recurring element. Since 1992 she has been working on a commission with other artists to develop art concepts for the Wildlife Preserve and Research Center in Columbus, Ohio, called The Wilds. Its purpose is again to reverse processes of erosion, and the extinction of regional flora and fauna. “My concern is with the creation of a language of perception that allows the flow of information among alien systems and disciplines, eliminating the boundaries of art in order to make new associations and valid analogies possible,” writes Denes.[286]

Urban Design and Landscaping

Since the eighties, a number of cities have introduced outstanding progressive art programming policies that consider the visual arts an integral part of the network of social and political activities. Within these programs, artists and architects now collaborate on buildings, landscaping, and even public transportation systems. The City of Seattle led the way in the practical integration of art within communal planning. Its Arts Commission is generally credited with being the first to explore the use of interdisciplinary design teams on contemporary art projects since 1983. Involving artists from the beginning of the development of a public building has become accepted. Los Angeles followed with a similar concept, developed by the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) in 1985, when the first Public Art Policy was introduced, setting official guidelines for the implementation of the percent-for-art legislation. The focus here was on social context and community participation in respect of the city’s multi-cultural heritage, seeking civic responsibility and spirit. Local and regional artists were to play a central role. This policy intended to answer a major issue of today: to try and repair some of the damage done to the daily environment, “to eliminate blight and revitalize the citiy through redevelopment in designated residential, industrial and commercial areas” with the sole purpose “that these activities have a major impact on the citiy’s design and aesthetics, its livability and workability” by bringing together the revised ideas on “urban landscaping” and creating a function for the visual artists to participate in this process.[287] Since its inception the Community Redevelopment Agency has fostered a series of public art projects for redevelopments in downtown Los Angeles, such as South Hope Park, a 2.5 acre landscaped park, and the redesign of Pershing Square. All these projects aim at reshaping the downtown area, so that it may regain (some of) its old lustre. Whether this is at all possible, considering such insurmountable problems, as homelessness and crime, remains to be seen; the attempt is admirable. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Commission has developed a similar program for its new metro rail system, called Art for Rail Transit, in which artists work with architects on the design of the subway stations.[288]

An outstanding example is Battery Park City Plaza in New York, a collaboration between artists Scott Burton and Siah Armajani and architect Cesar Pelli. Burton and Armajani were selected from a competition to collaborate with Cesar Pelli and landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg to shape the plaza surrounding the World Financial Center, designed by Pelli on the tip of Lower Manhattan, in Battery Park City (1982-1989). Initially, Pelli was not enthusiastic at all, and the Arts Committee seems to have had a difficult task convincing him. “I thought it was a terrible idea,” he said in an interview. “My worry was that I’d be saddled with an artist who would be primarily interested in expressing personal and esoteric pursuits. There are many examples of anti-civic art, where the building is seen as background for the artist who feels he must make a confrontational point.”[289] Pelli’s reply shows that there exist quite a few misconceptions between architects and artists regarding each other’s professions. However, in the end he was convinced, and the result was a true collaboration, where the individual ego was subordinated to the larger philosophy of the future function of the site. For Siah Armajani, who had worked on other collaborations, the task was not new. He had already stated his point of view about art in public places: “Public art’s immediate concern is not with the artistic but with the work it is meant to perform: it should be open, available, useful, common and near public spaces.”[290] The design team divided Battery Park City Plaza into four principal design areas, connected by walkways and stairs: a broad paved plaza, waterside seating, a small green park and a garden with labyrinth and fountains. There are enclosed, private areas, where one can sit quietly, and spaces that resemble a marketplace, where people meet for lunch, do business, etc. The design combines structurally laid out functional-sculptural elements with artificial-natural grounds that may not offer an encounter with an impressive work of art, but try to answer to personal needs of a particular moment. Although the project is already a few years old, it is considered one of the most successful in its kind. As indicated before, this approach not only poses a different conception of art, its also puts forward an artistic role which no longer emphasizes individual achievement. It is not the autonomous art work any more that counts. The art work becomes subordinated to the requirements of the larger ‘whole,’ and the final result may not even be recognizable as art. It is obvious that the interdisciplinary collaboration between different disciplines implies a change in production and working methods, in which, ideally, there is a professional exchange of ideas on an equal footing. And ideally, the result will be a work whose existence is justified by its relationship to the environment as a whole, its multiple social and cultural layers. The final purpose of such a project, its service to the public, comes before the artist’s personal aesthetic, even. The possibilities for artists to work on urban design and landscaping projects have continued to grow in the nineties, offering opportunities for a new kind of art in public places.