Kevin Hamilton's guest commentary "'We're for art'? Then who is art for?" in the News-Gazette this morning got me thinking about the whole business of promoting public art. I've decided to oppose any effort that promotes art as a goal in and of itself.
If you support efforts to promote "art", ask yourself, would you support efforts to promote men's ties? Sure, the right tie can finish off a suit, but the wrong tie is worse than none at all and the best tie in the world won't turn a used car salesman into an investment banker. For formal wear you only have two choices: white tie or black tie. Public art is the same.
If a public space is aesthetically pleasing on its own, then tacking on extra art will at best be a distraction from the larger space. If a space is ulgy, then art may give you something better to look at, but you still won't want to eat your lunch there. The best spaces, like KoFusion and The Great Impasta, are designed to incorporate revolving art displays and the art is selected with the space in mind.
My nominee for worst public art installation is Darwin's Playground in front of the Institute for Genomic Biology. This eyesore is three copies of the same blob in different sizes. The day-glow colors add nothing to the building and scaling up the same form is bad sci-fi biology. A toy poodle has different proportions than a standard poodle. The miracle of genetics is that a few small changes can produce great variety.
Instead of a public "art" commission, we need a public aesthetics commission. Buildings and streetscapes should be works of art in their own right. To understand, go see the Dana-Thomas House in Springfield. It's full of paintings, sculptures, and vases but nothing is distracting or out of place. Your tax dollars bought and renovated this amazing building, but it'll be closed on December 1 due to Blago's budget cuts.
