Shaking things up
I’ve just returned from a public forum on the siting of two pieces of sculpture on the CMU campus. The time spent was well worth it, and I come away more surprised than ever at the diversity and ferocity of opinion held by the various factions.
The big draw at the meeting was the discussion of Jonathan Borofsky’s piece “Walking to the Sky,” (shown here during installation in Rockefeller Center) a 100-foot sculpture that depicts people in various stages of ascent up the near-vertical, 20-inch wide stainless steel surface. The campus received the piece as a gift from a donor, and is now undertaking the messy process of determining an appropriate site.
Initial reports led people to believe that the art would be placed somewhere near the campus mall, a long-preserved green space framed by (mostly) original campus buildings. Workers went so far as to pour a concrete slab near one particularly sensitive location, giving rise to this poorly-Photoshopped abomination, which was passed around electronically and through printed flyers. This turned a lot of people off from the start.
But at today’s meeting, in an announcement that was news to me (and most everyone else there, I assume), the Public Art Committee said that it is favoring a different location, one that is far removed from the mall locations. The new site fronts Forbes Avenue, which is a main thoroughfare past campus. The sculpture would be placed right in the center of this map, in a small triangle of grass between several sidewalks. This patch of grass lies at the top of two sets of stairs and is located right at the cusp of the major entrance to campus.
My thoughts on the placement of the piece are generally favorable. The original locations were not to my liking. While there may be a piece of art that can gracefully intrude on the classic lines of the mall, this piece is definitely not it. This new siting, however, is better. I think it would do a fine job of carrying on the upward line of motion that the stairs and the surrounding topography lend to the area. Little line-of-sight into campus is lost due to its off-center placement. There are few other places on where this sort of impact could be achieved without major sacrifices to the dual integrity of the work and the campus.
As a visual statement, it’s a lukewarm success. An off-kilter 100 foot steel pole is to be noticed, for sure. But will it be a powerful impact, or a limp cartoon? I just can’t say. (And these Photoshop mockups don’t help the piece’s cause.)
Symbolically, I find the basic idea of the sculpture to be as inspiring as a Successories poster. As far as themes go, this one is about as white bread as you can get.
And maybe that’s a good thing, and the piece’s saving grace. While it’s not genius brought to the everyday or a bold affront to a campus pedestrian’s routine, it’s enough to raise the hackles of many here. Anything more controversial would be rejected immediately. Being at the margins of acceptance is where the real value of the piece lies.
Art is not about pleasing everyone. It never has been. Cave painters did it for themselves; Renaissance artisans for monied clients. Yes, when looked at through the narrow lens of “conventional” museum-art, it’s easy to play ostrich and ignore whatever one does not like, picking-and-choosing a Van Gogh here and a Rembrandt there. But public art is public. There’s no avoiding it. It’s a spectacle that must be lived with, and this spectacle includes the daily encounters, the editorials, the public forums, and the water-cooler conversations. At least we’re alive enough to care.
So put it up, I say. Let’s live with it for a while and see what it does to us. Needless to say, things have been interesting thus far.
