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Putting the public into sculpture
By Debra Brehmer
Once in a while, trends in popular culture trickle into the high
art world and actually have a positive affect. This doesn't
happen very often, but it has, indeed, miraculously occurred in
the specialized world of public sculpture. As reality based
television shows such as Survivor, Fear Factor, and my
favorite, Project Runway, take over the air waves, audiences
have developed an appetite for entertainment with an
interactive component -- for entertainment where the notion of
"reality" and spontaneous interaction become the driving force
of the narrative.
But what do The Osbournes, America’s Next Top Model, or
MTV's Real World or any of these multifarious shows really
have in common with contemporary public sculpture? The
current, wonderful trend in public art is to involve the viewer in a
direct way, to activate the space between object and observer,
to blur the boundaries, so to speak, between art and life. What
a great trend this is. For way too long, public sculpture has
occupied an awkward space, wedged between the worlds of
community and commerce. Often, the monolithic abstractions
such as our orange grid iron sculpture, “The Calling,” by Mark
di Suvero at the end of Wisconsin Avenue, simply take up
space in a loud manner. The viewer is meant to feel small
before the Modernist totem, humbled in the shadow of its
genius, which, of course, is quite indecipherable to the
average citizen. One must be part of the art world to really
understand its dynamic of form and conceptual reverberations.
This is not to say that modernist sculptures (meaning
autonomous forms that stand aloof and look pretty) don’t have
their charms. But I think the corner we are rounding in the way
we think of what a sculpture can and should do in a public
environment is overdue and should be embraced with gleeful
urgency.
This past summer in Millennium Park in Chicago, on a day
when the temperature was near 100 degrees and every one
was miserable, an amazingly diverse crowd played, danced,
crawled and caroused in the shallow path of water between
the two rectangular pylons that form Spanish artist Jaume
Plensa’s “Crown Fountain.” If you haven't seen this piece, it
consists of two 50-foot columns of glass block with huge video
projections of individual’s faces on them. The faces form
different expressions and seem to speak to one another
across the shallow, 232 foot long watery field between them. At
uncertain intervals, they purse their lips and spew a stream of
water onto the people below. Essentially, the sculpture is
working within the genre of portraiture. How brilliant is that! But
what really makes this an exquisite and exceptional work of art
is how the public, young old and of many ethnicities, plays
within its form. Children crawl across the water, trolling along
inflated, sodden diapers. People who might never drop their
inhibitions, old people with sun hats, seem drawn to enter the
game alongside a bunch of strangers and get wet and
experience the crazy pleasure of this unexpected space.
Everyone takes pictures and cheers when the faces spit water.
And it's not just entertainment. The sculpture speaks of the
difference between humanity and architecture, as it jauntily
mirrors the urban skyline behind it. The organic and manmade
and the notion of individuality versus collective consciousness,
the ideas of how the electronic media or even urbanity
depersonalize individuality – it’s all there. His sculpture is the
ultimate monument to what really matters in life: human
connection. Bravo.
On another trip to Chicago, I was walking by the large corteen-
steel Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza. Picasso did not intend
for people to interact with the piece. He didn't need to. He's
Picasso and the piece is so visually compelling that it stops
people dead in their tracks anyway. However, on the day I
walked by several children had figured out a way to climb its
surface and slide down. How funny that I remember the
Picasso vividly from that day, but I don't remember any of the
other innumerable times I've passed by it. The children
brought it to life.
But what about Milwaukee? Two recent public sculpture
commissions have tried to do a little of what Millennium Park
has done. The shimmery flag sculptures at Discovery World
and the cage-like structure of gears and wire in Catalano
Square in the Third Ward both attempt to include the viewer in
the equation and provide an art experience that is alive rather
than static. One succeeded and one failed, leading me to the
conclusion that public sculpture is one of the most difficult
challenges an artist and selection committee could ever face.
Both sculpture projects occupy very small green spaces and
both are by artists from outside of Wisconsin. Discovery World’
s “Wind Leaves” was created by Ned Kahn of California and
the Third Ward’s “Stratiformis” was executed by South Korean-
American artist Jin Soo Kim, who teaches at the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago.
The one that succeeds is the shimmery flags of Discovery
World. It consists of seven 26-foot tall poles with half-moon
shapes at the top, which are covered with thousands of
stainless steel disks, like sequins on a leisure suit. The
sculptor also created for the site half-moon shaped wooden
park benches that have drum sticks attached. The visitor can
actually play the benches like xylophones. This sculpture
works on many levels. First, it can be seen from a far,
sparkling against the expanse of blue lake and the new
museum’s white geometry. It draws us to it. Up close, the
experience is powerful but not obtrusive. You can sit in the park
and relax, while at the same time enjoy the movement of the
shapes as the wind pushes them around. Yes, they move. If
visitors want to intervene, they can turn a wheel on each pole
and manually adjust the sculptures. There’s an auditory
component as well, a whooshing as the wind hits the scales.
While minimal in its overall countenance – simple shapes and
concept – the piece speaks of the interaction of science and
nature. It brings into harmony a wonderful alliance between
man’s innovative wizardry and engineering (technology as
represented in the steel sequins) and nature’s overriding
influence and unpredictable, mystical powers. It draws the
viewer into the space. We are part of the movement, the
moment, the dance. It’s like we are a necessary component of
the composition. The little park feels like a powerful place.
The sculpture that tried to reach a similar end, but failed is the
one by Jin Soo Kim in the Third Ward. The Milwaukee Institute
of Art and Design, through a carefully conceived program
called the Open Art Project tried to model for the city of
Milwaukee a process where public art commissions could be
awarded by both informed professionals and broad
community participation. After winnowing down the possible
pool of artists for the more than $100,000 commission, three
were selected to give lectures at MIAD. The public was invited
to these presentations and then could send in their support for
their choice of artist. I was at Jin Soo’s lecture and felt very
confident that I would like her to get the commission. Jin Soo,
as an immigrant from South Korea, sees the urbanscapes of
America with fresh eyes. She collects refuse from alleys and
curbsides and then weaves the old bits of metal, bike parts
and debris into exuberant and innovate compositions, that
totally transform the “junk.”
For her piece in the Third Ward, she became interested in how
the neighborhood’s industrial past was now almost totally
erased by the renovated condominiums and retail spaces.
She ended up focusing on the Reliable Knitting factory, which
has recently been sold to a developer. The building contained
remnants of old knitting machine parts that Jin Soo Kim found
both visually and intellectually appealing. She wanted to make
a sculpture that addressed the manufacturing past of the Third
Ward. It seemed like a good idea. She also wanted to make a
sculpture that involved viewer interaction.
The resulting project, called "Stratiformis," after the clouds of
the same name, is a cage like gridded metal square with
knitting machine parts attached willy-nilly to the armature.
Wrapped wire joints and appendages are interspersed
amongst the gears and artifacts. The armature is rusted and
decrepit looking. There is a small area where the viewer can
enter the structure and stand within the “cage.” This is the
interactive part. We can share in the physicality of the piece
and literally embed ourselves within the sturdy machinations
of the bygone manufacturing era.
Unfortunately, this sculpture fails on every front, just as Ned
Kahn’s flags succeed on every front. It looks ugly. With such a
dearth of greenery in the Third Ward (this is the ONLY park),
this little hill of grass is precious. The sculpture feels more like
an assault on the park than a contribution. It doesn’t
successfully speak of any of the issues it purports to deal with
and it doesn’t even hold its form well. "Stratiformis" looks like
the wind might blow it down any minute. The artistic
transformative process that links idea to concept to form that a
sculptor undertakes broke down at some important juncture
and what remains is a testament to, well, failure.
Despite this unfortunate and perhaps embarrassing
monument, the point remains that the concept and idea were
good and that Public Art is clearly headed in the right direction.
Public Art should involve the viewer. The world is a cold
enough place as it is. If public art can continue to make us
splash and dance, like the "Crown Fountain" at Millennium
Park, or make us celebrate the sky and the earth like “Wind
Leaves” at Discovery World then perhaps there is a ray of hope
that once again, art can regain its powerful position in society
as something that affects our collective psyche in a most
profound way. We know it’s possible. Even Reality TV can
teach us something once in a while.
(A shorter version of this essay aired on WUWM public radio
on Nov. 1. This audio version can be accessed at
www.wuwm.com/view_le.php?articleid=48).
Debra Brehmer is co-publisher of Susceptible to Images.
Comments? Email dbrehmer@susceptibletoimages.com
By Debra Brehmer
Once in a while, trends in popular culture trickle into the high
art world and actually have a positive affect. This doesn't
happen very often, but it has, indeed, miraculously occurred in
the specialized world of public sculpture. As reality based
television shows such as Survivor, Fear Factor, and my
favorite, Project Runway, take over the air waves, audiences
have developed an appetite for entertainment with an
interactive component -- for entertainment where the notion of
"reality" and spontaneous interaction become the driving force
of the narrative.
But what do The Osbournes, America’s Next Top Model, or
MTV's Real World or any of these multifarious shows really
have in common with contemporary public sculpture? The
current, wonderful trend in public art is to involve the viewer in a
direct way, to activate the space between object and observer,
to blur the boundaries, so to speak, between art and life. What
a great trend this is. For way too long, public sculpture has
occupied an awkward space, wedged between the worlds of
community and commerce. Often, the monolithic abstractions
such as our orange grid iron sculpture, “The Calling,” by Mark
di Suvero at the end of Wisconsin Avenue, simply take up
space in a loud manner. The viewer is meant to feel small
before the Modernist totem, humbled in the shadow of its
genius, which, of course, is quite indecipherable to the
average citizen. One must be part of the art world to really
understand its dynamic of form and conceptual reverberations.
This is not to say that modernist sculptures (meaning
autonomous forms that stand aloof and look pretty) don’t have
their charms. But I think the corner we are rounding in the way
we think of what a sculpture can and should do in a public
environment is overdue and should be embraced with gleeful
urgency.
This past summer in Millennium Park in Chicago, on a day
when the temperature was near 100 degrees and every one
was miserable, an amazingly diverse crowd played, danced,
crawled and caroused in the shallow path of water between
the two rectangular pylons that form Spanish artist Jaume
Plensa’s “Crown Fountain.” If you haven't seen this piece, it
consists of two 50-foot columns of glass block with huge video
projections of individual’s faces on them. The faces form
different expressions and seem to speak to one another
across the shallow, 232 foot long watery field between them. At
uncertain intervals, they purse their lips and spew a stream of
water onto the people below. Essentially, the sculpture is
working within the genre of portraiture. How brilliant is that! But
what really makes this an exquisite and exceptional work of art
is how the public, young old and of many ethnicities, plays
within its form. Children crawl across the water, trolling along
inflated, sodden diapers. People who might never drop their
inhibitions, old people with sun hats, seem drawn to enter the
game alongside a bunch of strangers and get wet and
experience the crazy pleasure of this unexpected space.
Everyone takes pictures and cheers when the faces spit water.
And it's not just entertainment. The sculpture speaks of the
difference between humanity and architecture, as it jauntily
mirrors the urban skyline behind it. The organic and manmade
and the notion of individuality versus collective consciousness,
the ideas of how the electronic media or even urbanity
depersonalize individuality – it’s all there. His sculpture is the
ultimate monument to what really matters in life: human
connection. Bravo.
On another trip to Chicago, I was walking by the large corteen-
steel Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza. Picasso did not intend
for people to interact with the piece. He didn't need to. He's
Picasso and the piece is so visually compelling that it stops
people dead in their tracks anyway. However, on the day I
walked by several children had figured out a way to climb its
surface and slide down. How funny that I remember the
Picasso vividly from that day, but I don't remember any of the
other innumerable times I've passed by it. The children
brought it to life.
But what about Milwaukee? Two recent public sculpture
commissions have tried to do a little of what Millennium Park
has done. The shimmery flag sculptures at Discovery World
and the cage-like structure of gears and wire in Catalano
Square in the Third Ward both attempt to include the viewer in
the equation and provide an art experience that is alive rather
than static. One succeeded and one failed, leading me to the
conclusion that public sculpture is one of the most difficult
challenges an artist and selection committee could ever face.
Both sculpture projects occupy very small green spaces and
both are by artists from outside of Wisconsin. Discovery World’
s “Wind Leaves” was created by Ned Kahn of California and
the Third Ward’s “Stratiformis” was executed by South Korean-
American artist Jin Soo Kim, who teaches at the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago.
The one that succeeds is the shimmery flags of Discovery
World. It consists of seven 26-foot tall poles with half-moon
shapes at the top, which are covered with thousands of
stainless steel disks, like sequins on a leisure suit. The
sculptor also created for the site half-moon shaped wooden
park benches that have drum sticks attached. The visitor can
actually play the benches like xylophones. This sculpture
works on many levels. First, it can be seen from a far,
sparkling against the expanse of blue lake and the new
museum’s white geometry. It draws us to it. Up close, the
experience is powerful but not obtrusive. You can sit in the park
and relax, while at the same time enjoy the movement of the
shapes as the wind pushes them around. Yes, they move. If
visitors want to intervene, they can turn a wheel on each pole
and manually adjust the sculptures. There’s an auditory
component as well, a whooshing as the wind hits the scales.
While minimal in its overall countenance – simple shapes and
concept – the piece speaks of the interaction of science and
nature. It brings into harmony a wonderful alliance between
man’s innovative wizardry and engineering (technology as
represented in the steel sequins) and nature’s overriding
influence and unpredictable, mystical powers. It draws the
viewer into the space. We are part of the movement, the
moment, the dance. It’s like we are a necessary component of
the composition. The little park feels like a powerful place.
The sculpture that tried to reach a similar end, but failed is the
one by Jin Soo Kim in the Third Ward. The Milwaukee Institute
of Art and Design, through a carefully conceived program
called the Open Art Project tried to model for the city of
Milwaukee a process where public art commissions could be
awarded by both informed professionals and broad
community participation. After winnowing down the possible
pool of artists for the more than $100,000 commission, three
were selected to give lectures at MIAD. The public was invited
to these presentations and then could send in their support for
their choice of artist. I was at Jin Soo’s lecture and felt very
confident that I would like her to get the commission. Jin Soo,
as an immigrant from South Korea, sees the urbanscapes of
America with fresh eyes. She collects refuse from alleys and
curbsides and then weaves the old bits of metal, bike parts
and debris into exuberant and innovate compositions, that
totally transform the “junk.”
For her piece in the Third Ward, she became interested in how
the neighborhood’s industrial past was now almost totally
erased by the renovated condominiums and retail spaces.
She ended up focusing on the Reliable Knitting factory, which
has recently been sold to a developer. The building contained
remnants of old knitting machine parts that Jin Soo Kim found
both visually and intellectually appealing. She wanted to make
a sculpture that addressed the manufacturing past of the Third
Ward. It seemed like a good idea. She also wanted to make a
sculpture that involved viewer interaction.
The resulting project, called "Stratiformis," after the clouds of
the same name, is a cage like gridded metal square with
knitting machine parts attached willy-nilly to the armature.
Wrapped wire joints and appendages are interspersed
amongst the gears and artifacts. The armature is rusted and
decrepit looking. There is a small area where the viewer can
enter the structure and stand within the “cage.” This is the
interactive part. We can share in the physicality of the piece
and literally embed ourselves within the sturdy machinations
of the bygone manufacturing era.
Unfortunately, this sculpture fails on every front, just as Ned
Kahn’s flags succeed on every front. It looks ugly. With such a
dearth of greenery in the Third Ward (this is the ONLY park),
this little hill of grass is precious. The sculpture feels more like
an assault on the park than a contribution. It doesn’t
successfully speak of any of the issues it purports to deal with
and it doesn’t even hold its form well. "Stratiformis" looks like
the wind might blow it down any minute. The artistic
transformative process that links idea to concept to form that a
sculptor undertakes broke down at some important juncture
and what remains is a testament to, well, failure.
Despite this unfortunate and perhaps embarrassing
monument, the point remains that the concept and idea were
good and that Public Art is clearly headed in the right direction.
Public Art should involve the viewer. The world is a cold
enough place as it is. If public art can continue to make us
splash and dance, like the "Crown Fountain" at Millennium
Park, or make us celebrate the sky and the earth like “Wind
Leaves” at Discovery World then perhaps there is a ray of hope
that once again, art can regain its powerful position in society
as something that affects our collective psyche in a most
profound way. We know it’s possible. Even Reality TV can
teach us something once in a while.
(A shorter version of this essay aired on WUWM public radio
on Nov. 1. This audio version can be accessed at
www.wuwm.com/view_le.php?articleid=48).
Debra Brehmer is co-publisher of Susceptible to Images.
Comments? Email dbrehmer@susceptibletoimages.com
| Three images above: Jaume Plensa, “Crown Fountain,” Millennium Park, Chicago. |
| Three images above: view and details of "Wind Leaves" by Ned Kahn, Discovery World and Pier Wisconsin, Milwaukee. |
| Three images above: view and details of "Stratiformis" by Jin Soo Kim. Catalano Square, Milwaukee. |