Tag Archives: art

Art, Ideas, Participatory Culture, Politics

#smallspaces Downtown #greaterlala Art Project Critics Strike Again

I awoke this morning to read Dave Bangert’s wonderful piece (Bangert: Critical mass for graffiti project?) on the latest round of criticism and censorship for a work that is part of Zach Medler’s #smallspaces art project in Downtown Lafayette.

This time, it concerns a zombie piece, created by an MFA student at Purdue, Sagan Newham, on the side of a building near 5th and Ferry streets.

This painting by Sagan Newham on the side of Haywood Printing, Fifth and Ferry streets, brought some complaints about the “small spaces: Lafayette” public art project. According to the project curator, the piece will stay up until Halloween and then be replaced. (Photo: Dave Bangert/Journal & Courier)
Photo: Dave Bangert/Journal & Courier

I am curious. Since the City of Lafayette is reacting in such a way with public art, how does this affect other public space type projects?  How does the City respond to a building development proposal based on aesthetics?  What about other public art pieces?  Parks?  Landscape designs?

Tom Shafer had some good ideas discussing public space and its inclusion in our daily life:

“If the work was in a gallery, the public could decide whether or not to look it. Medler’s concept is that if the people see public works of art every day, then the art becomes a part of their life,” Shafer said.

“When the city bought into this without subject matter and expertise guidelines, they ran the risk of underdeveloped concepts and subject matter that the general public cannot appreciate. Is some of the work poorly done? Yes. Is some of the work exceptional? Yes.”

Again, how would Tom’s criticism look if we were discussing buildings, businesses, parks, etc?

One aspect of #smallspaces that softens these types of criticisms is that if nothing else, they will be re-evaluated in two years.  A building, park, landscape design is a bit more permanent.

This reminds me of a conversation we had during the State Street Master Planning process regarding public art:  How do we include a sunset clause for public art?  Not everything deserves a permanent home or can last for decades.  What seems appropriate and inspiring today, may be insulting or dull in a few years.  What processes exist to remove public art in our current City code?

For now, I ask us to consider the same concepts, and more, when we are evaluating other long term and highly impactful aspects in our urban life.

At least in Lafayette, one or two people can have a major influence over what stays up, gets censored, moved, etc.  Let’s hope the same magnitude of citizen power can be yielded in other public arenas that are just as significant.

Politics

Art or Not Art? Doesn’t matter, Dave. It’s all propaganda.

Caleb Benner created an interesting comparative collage of what he considered art and not art in and around #greaterlala.

Art-Not-Art-2014-08-20Already, the Banana Statue, Granite Management‘s latest (and successful) attempt at a publicity stunt, is gaining traction.

Fascinating how we need to revisit the same question over a year later.  I ended my Letter to the Editor from May of 2013 regarding the Banana House with the following:

Creating art with direct and commercial messages cheapens its impact. Instead, we need lasting art that profits the entire community.

Granite continues to cheapen public art with its commercial message.  At least Joel Brovont is admitting that the statue is advertising and art.  Before it was just a funky coincidence.

UPDATE 2014-08-24:

Granite has created the hashtag, #bananasculpture for their latest contribution to the public’s visual space.

All global problems start locally somewhere.

BanaSculpture-2014-08-24

You can read my full Letter to the Editor below:

More community art, not more advertising

Upton Sinclair stated that all art is propaganda. All advertising tries to propagate. Therefore, all art is advertising … something. Let’s reframe the question to focus on the message of Granite’s Banana House art in West Lafayette. Is the banana a funky, artistic message or an attempt to obfuscate a commercial one?

J&C columnist Dave Bangert points out in his Sunday article that Granite has already established using a banana to denote its property: houses, apartments, trucks, website, etc.

In an earlier J&C article, a Granite manager stated, “It was just a property that needed repainted, and we wanted to get creative with how we repainted it.”

Creatively trying to avoid the ordinances of Tippecanoe County? This is not just a West Lafayette ordinance, despite what people think.

If this was a private residence, the conversation would be completely different. However, Granite is attempting to exploit the sympathies of those desiring more public art installations.

Continuing with a recent letter to the editor’s vein of logic, if this advertisement is allowed to stay, other property owners will adopt similar symbology to skirt around the established rules of the Unified Zoning Ordinance of Tippecanoe County, page 178, in order to take advantage of the Community of Choice argument.

Instead of celebrating the efforts of commercial entities attempting to disguise their billboard advertising as public (pop) art, let us work with Tippecanoe Arts Federation and other organizations to promote local artists and their projects to funkify the area we love so dearly.

Creating art with direct and commercial messages cheapens its impact. Instead, we need lasting art that profits the entire community.

Participatory Culture, Theatre

The Inspiring (re)Works of Charles (Chuck) Mee

I was going through some past notes in my Gtasks list and came across one that simply said: Charles [sic] mee

Googling his name again, I was quickly reminded about this amazing playwright and artist.

Taken from Charles’ web site:

Please feel free to take the plays from this website and use them freely as a resource for your own work: that is to say, don’t just make some cuts or rewrite a few passages or re-arrange them or put in a few texts that you like better, but pillage the plays as I have pillaged the structures and contents of the plays of Euripides and Brecht and stuff out of Soap Opera Digest and the evening news and the internet, and build your own, entirely new, piece—and then, please, put your own name to the work that results.

Artists, especially writers, forget that they are not creating in a vacuum; creating worlds, characters, and textures from the impressions their reality has set upon them.

A curry of humanity is expressed in every work of art.  The enjoyment is in how the particular chef prepares the ingredients.

His views on casting the works are also inspiring, encouraging us to challenge our view of the world.

I am an old crippled white guy in love with a young Japanese-Canadian-American woman, and we talk about race and age and polio and disability, but race and disability do not consume our lives. Most of our lives are taken up with love and children and mortality and politics and literature—just like anyone else.

My plays don’t take race and disability as their subject matter. Other plays do, and I think that is a good and necessary thing, and I hope many plays will be written and produced that deal directly with these issues.

Charles is an accomplished individual who has given his art to the world.

Taken from Wikipedia:

Among other awards, Charles Mee is the recipient of a lifetime achievement award in drama from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, two OBIE Awards (Vienna: Lusthaus (1986) andBig Love (2002)), PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award for Drama for a playwright in mid-career, and the Fisher Award given by the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Thank you, Chuck.  For creating art that is accessible.  On a multitude of levels.  Cheers!