1001 Words: 02.07.10 Posted on February 7, 2010 by Stephanie Syjuco
*an ongoing series of individual images presented for speculation and scrutiny, with only tags at the bottom to give context. Because sometimes words are never enough…
Posts Tagged ‘Public Art’
Wonderland, A Follow-Up Posted on September 18, 2009 by Adrienne Skye Roberts
On September 7th, I posted a blog entitled, “Wonderland: A world turned upside down” in regards to Lance Fung’s multi-site public art exhibition occurring in the Tenderloin in mid-October. The response to this post was overwhelming: there are currently fifteen comments posted, the majority of which are almost as long as the article itself. The commenters included participating artists, interns, former collaborators of Fung’s, social workers and educators in the Tenderloin, those outside the San Francisco art scene and those within it. These thorough and often heated responses communicated to myself and the larger public that people are eager to discuss the issues surrounding Wonderland and that it remains a highly complex and controversial exhibition. I am pleased that the SFMOMA blog Open Space provided a forum for this discussion and hope that the conversation will continue during Wonderland’s symposium on October 18th. While it would be exhaustive to address each comment individually, I would like to take the opportunity to respond to some concerns and outline the two general sentiments I noticed in the comments.
I appreciated, very much, the responses from the artists and those currently or previously involved in Fung’s projects. Clearly, the experiences of the participating artists provide a nuanced perspective into the project and I am glad to know that many have and continue to carefully consider their position within the Tenderloin neighborhood and Wonderland show. These comments, as well as many conversations I have had with participants, assures me that many of the individual artists are aware of the potential problematics of designating the Tenderloin as a “wonderland.” As I acknowledged on September 7th, many projects will benefit the community members of the Tenderloin and provide them with creative opportunities they might otherwise not have. As the artists’ investments prove, Wonderland will undoubtedly have a positive social impact in the Tenderloin, particularly in comparison to other exhibitions that take place within museums and do not directly engage with the public. I appreciated the opportunity to think more deeply about these individual projects.
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Wonderland: A world turned upside down Posted on September 7, 2009 by Adrienne Skye Roberts
Wonderland: a land of wonder, curiosities and marvels.
Wonder: something strange and surprising. A cause of astonishment.
In the popular novel, Alice and her Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, a young girl follows a rabbit down its rabbit hole to find herself in a place that, from her perspective, is full of nonsense and chaos. In Wonderland Alice meets a cast of characters, anthropomorphic plants and animals and travels through a fantasy land that is far from the hum-drum bore of the world she just left behind.
The Wonderland that curator Lance Fung refers to in his upcoming public, collaborative project is far from the fantastical space of Carroll’s novel. Fung’s Wonderland is the Tenderloin. Tucked between wealthy neighborhoods like Nob Hill and Union Square, the Tenderloin is a small, densely populated neighborhood. The Tenderloin, like many urban areas, is a difficult place to describe and categorize. The Tenderloin has the highest percentage of families, children and immigrants living in any area of San Francisco. Its residents are largely low-income people who are marginalized due to class, citizenship status, race, gender and sexuality, many of whom do not get the social services they need.
Fung has curated ten collaborative groups to create projects in multiple sites throughout this neighborhood including public venues and community organizations. The project features forty-six artists, including those currently living in San Francisco, and other artists both nationally and internationally located. Wonderland began as a graduate level course taught by Fung at the San Francisco Art Institute. According to the press release, Wonderland is “born of and responds to” the diversities of the Tenderloin. The show’s primary audience is cited as those who live or work in the Tenderloin. Later the press release states that it will transform the Tenderloin into a destination for tourists, opening on October 17th with a block party in Boedekker Park, the projects will remain open for one month. Wonderland is sponsored by the North of Market Community Benefit District and several galleries in the area including the 1AM Gallery and Ever Gold Gallery.
Those are the facts: the title, the neighborhood and the project. To be honest, my research about Wonderland has raised a lot of complicated feelings and concerns for me—many of which are difficult to articulate and relate to many broader issues I have attempted to address here on Open Space; questions related to public art, to socially engaged art practices, to gentrification and specifically to San Francisco’s uneven economic and social landscape.
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“Without the public these works are nothing,” participating with Felix Gonzalez-Torres Posted on August 22, 2009 by Adrienne Skye Roberts
For the past seven months, a copy of Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s black and white print of a bird soaring through a cloud streaked sky has hung on the wall above my desk. This wall is opposite my bed which means that the print is usually one of the first things I see when I wake up in the morning. I took two copies of Gonzalez-Torres’s print from SFMOMA’s The Art of Participation exhibition last January, carefully rolling them and tucking them in my bag as I biked home. I tacked one above the various photographs, postcards, and notes that have gathered on the wall above my desk and the other I gave to a friend who had just moved into a new house.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres print above my desk in the Mission, San Francisco.
During The Art of Participation these prints, known as Untitled 1992/1993, were placed one ontop of another in a stack placed on the floor of one of the galleries. The description of the print lists the printing method, offset lithograph on paper, and then includes this important detail in paranthesis: (endless copies). Visitors were encouraged to take a print home with them and as they did this sculptural stack of paper-thin prints would decrease in size and then would be replenished after hours, probably by a museum staff member, a ritual that will happen endlessly whenever this piece is on view.
The story of Gonzalez-Torres is well known. He immigrated to New York City from Cuba, gaining recognition as an artist in the late 1980s through his minimalist sculptures and installations that often referenced issues of public and private, accumulation and loss. The foundation on which the majority of his work was grounded was his relationship with his long-time partner, Ross Laycock. In 1989 he started exhibiting these stack pieces at MOMA, the Guggenheim and Andrea Rosen Gallery. It was during this time that Ross was dying of AIDS, and the stack pieces represented this process of letting go—they disappeared, yet unlike the inevitability of Ross’s death, the prints would return in their endless cycle of presence and absence. The prints themselves often depicted ephemeral moments; a bird flying or the texture of the surface of the water. These transient moments were captured on film and then in a sincere gesture, extended to others as a gift. Four years after Ross’s death, in an interview with Robert Storr for ArtPress, Gonzalez-Torres said, “When people say, ‘Who is your public?’ I honestly say, without skipping a beat, ‘Ross.’ The public was Ross. The rest of the people just come to the work.”
Felix Gonzalez-Torres print in Nicole's bedroom in the Lower Haight, San Francisco
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Green Architecture: Building for the People? Posted on August 8, 2009 by Adrienne Skye Roberts
In response to my recent post “This land wasn’t made for you and me”, my fellow columnist, Anuradha Vikram asked me for examples of humanizing green building projects to compare to my critique of both the San Francisco’s Federal Building’s “public” plaza and the houses built by Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation (MIR) in New Orleans that I wrote about back in June. Over the past couple of days I’ve been trying hard to think of green building projects in the Bay Area that incorporate a functional shared public space. Due to my lack of expertise in architecture, I’d like to open up Anu’s comment as a question for others to respond to: What are good examples of humanizing green building projects in the Bay Area?
In contrast to building projects previously discussed, I’d like to briefly mention The Heidelberg Project started by Tyree Guyton in Detroit, Michigan. Back in 1986, East Detroit struggled to recover from the aftermath of the Detroit riots and faced a depleted economy and racially segregated neighborhoods. Guyton, a resident of Heidelberg Street since the age of 12, began cleaning up his increasingly abandoned and blighted neighborhood with an enclave of children who lived nearby. With the materials they gathered from the vacated residences and lots, Guyton and the neighborhood kids collaborated to create art environments and installations in the vacant lots, on street posts, and the facades of homes. The city of Detroit resisted, of course, demolishing a portion of the project in 1991 and then again in 1999. However, The Heidelberg Project persisted and now operates as a non-profit arts organization, hosting a series of year round workshops and educational programs for schools and youth in the area.
The Heidelberg Project, installation of discarded vaccuum cleaners in a vacant lot on Heidelberg Street, Detroit, Michigan
Clearly, the context of The Heidelberg Project and the public plaza of the San Francisco Federal Building or MIR differ greatly and the comparison is a stretch, at best. However, I mention The Heidelberg Project as a way to push the possibilities of our collective spaces and as an example of a community-driven public art project that not only functions in the context of an urban neighborhood facing poverty and disenfranchisement, but employs the creative reuse of material and space—a thread that runs through many of my recent blog postings.
On that note, I look forward to hearing from Open Space readers about green building projects and public spaces in the Bay Area.
The Heidelberg Project, decorated home on Heidelberg Street, Detroit, Michigan
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Public Art and Improvement, Part 2 Posted on July 22, 2009 by Adrienne Skye Roberts
Back in April I posted a blog entitled Public Art and Redevelopment that looked at the new condominium building currently under construction on the corner of Valencia and 18th Street in the Mission District and more generally, raised the issue of the role of public art within the context of redevelopment. Today I’m focusing again on the Mission District and specifically, the impending public art project that is folded into one of the many city sponsored improvement plans.
The Valencia Streetscape Improvement Project was initiated and sponsored by the San Francisco Department of Public Works. In 2006, the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) received an Environmental Justice Grant from Caltrans to create a Pedestrian Safety Plan for Valencia Street and for the past three years this plan has slowly been in the works to improve the commercial corridor between 15th and 19th Streets. Improvements will include widening the sidewalks, removing the striped medians, creating curb extensions or “bulb-outs,” installing more bike racks, trees, kiosks, and art elements. Once component of the “art element” is a public artwork created by one artist and commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission. Since April, the artist selection process has been underway juried by the San Francisco Arts Commission, along with a panel of Mission District residents and business owners. A few weeks ago the four finalists were revealed, they are Ana Teresa Fernandez, Michael Arcega, Brian Goggin, and Misako Inaoka. (more…)
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The Garden as Protest Posted on June 3, 2009 by Adrienne Skye Roberts
Last month I attended a lecture sponsored by the Townsend Center for Humanities at UC Berkeley by local author, Rebecca Solnit entitled “If Gardens are the Answer, What is the Question?” Solnit, whose work ranges in topics from San Francisco geographies, to the history of walking, to landscape, gender, and art, addressed the recent popularity of gardens as educational tools and community resources in schools, rehabilitation centers, churches, and of course, the lawn of the Obama’s White House. Solnit considered the garden as an answer to the corporate farming industry, to American’s alienation from food, and to the development of safe, urban neighborhoods.
The vegetable and herb garden planted on Hooper Street by FARM
Robyn Waxman, a Graduate Design student from the Calfornia College of the Arts (CCA) confronted similar questions as she embarked on her thesis project this past fall. Waxman questioned her role as a designer and activist in today’s socio-political climate. The answer to these questions came in the form of a 66-foot long vegetable and herb garden built on the Westside of Hooper Street—a side street in the industrial area between San Francisco’s South of Market and Potrero Hill neighborhoods. Hooper Street bisects CCA’s campus and is used primarily for parking for students and faculty. The garden is growing strawberries, raspberries, chard, spinach, thyme, lavender, and marigolds while simultaneously using bioremediation techniques to remove toxins from the soil. The garden was created by FARM, an organization initiated by Waxman and comprised of students from CCA and members of the local community, including several day laborers who use Hooper Street as a pick-up site. FARM stands for “The Future Action Reclamation Mob” and is organized horizontally, anyone can work on or eat from the garden. More than a community garden, I think of FARM as a direct-action collective. Tucked between two buildings owned by a private college, Hooper Street is unused public property and therefore belongs to the residents of San Francisco. Rather than waiting for the city’s approval, the FARMers took it upon themselves to transform this neglected side street they pass everyday into a sustainable project site that generates produce for the local community.
Robyn Waxman, MFA Design Student and initiator of FARM
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Action, Ritual, and Ephemerality: Julia Goodman and the (de)Appropriation Wall Posted on May 14, 2009 by Adrienne Skye Roberts
We have an innate desire to preserve things: spaces, objects, memories. Preservation implies a sanctification, a remove from touch, and guard against eventual decay. Public spaces are redeveloped, graffiti is removed, and a new coat of paint added. Art objects, once delicately handmade, are often removed from touch by display cases and the demarcated spaces of museums.
Local artist Julia Goodman is interested in interrupting this process through a focus on ephemerality, ritual, and meditations on time. Goodman’s art practice consists of collecting junk mail once a week from her neighbors in Bernal Heights and transforming the junk mail into cast handmade paper sculptures. Her practice is multi-dimensional: community oriented as she travels door to door collecting paper and studio based as she engages in the laborious process of carving wood, making and casting paper. Goodman’s piece “Eleven Month Mourning Project: August 19, 2007 – July 14, 2008″ is representative of her dynamic process and adds a public dimension to her practice. Goodman created “Eleven Month Mourning Project” as a way of providing herself time to mourn the loss of her father. The foundation of the project is the Mourner’s Kaddish, a Jewish ritual of reciting a prayer in the presence of others for eleven months after the death of a parent.
For each month Goodman created a series of handmade cast paper sculptures and with this work engaged in public art actions, wheat-pasting one piece each day in a public space. The forms of her sculptures–birds in flight, phases of the moon, arrows depicting wind patterns, and sailboats–are a coded language of impermanence and often intangible movement. In Goodman’s words they represent a “different way of navigating through space.” In a more direct symbol, Goodman created a series of silhouettes of John F. Kennedy, Jr. saluting during his father’s funeral; an image that became a national icon of mourning and speaks to the experience of a bereaved child.
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Public Art and Redevelopment Posted on April 26, 2009 by Adrienne Skye Roberts
At the corner of Valencia Street and 18th Street in San Francisco’s Mission District is a construction site as seemingly banal as any other construction site: a chain-link fence designates a hard hat zone, wooden frames and scaffolding are visible, and hammering can be heard. As a resident of the Mission District and someone who prefers walking to public transportation, I pass this site several times a week. The construction is happening faster than I imagined and soon enough 700 Valencia Street will transform into a brand new condominium building. Despite San Francisco’s plan to keep housing in the Mission affordable, all of the eight units will be available at market or above market prices.
The Mission District is historically a Latino/a neighborhood with a reputation of cultural diversity. Despite recent and visible gentrification trends, it continues to be relatively less expensive than other neighborhoods in San Francisco. Additionally, the Mission is home to many cultural and art spaces including the Mission Cultural Center, Artist’s Television Access, Precita Eyes, Galeria de la Raza, and Southern Exposure. The Mission is known for its countless murals found on the sides of buildings in streets and alleys including Clarion Alley, Balmy Alley, and the Women’s Building. The Women’s Building, tucked just behind the construction site at 700 Valencia Street, is a non-profit that provides vital community services and resources, as well as hosts events and programs geared towards gender equity. The building itself has a bold presence on 18th Street. Its facade is bursting with the MaestraPeace Mural which illustrates the contributions of well-known female activists, authors, and artists. This colorful and detailed mural stands in stark contrast to the sterile construction less than half a block away.
As a native to the San Francisco Bay Area, I have become increasingly aware of sites like 700 Valencia Street and the transformation of many of the city’s neighborhoods, both subtle and not so subtle. It is nearly impossible to ignore the current nationwide housing crisis; headlines of foreclosures, threats to rent control and tenants rights, and the decline of SROs. The relationship between artists and urban space has always been complex. I am reminded again and again of the paradoxical nature of artists in urban neighborhoods: artists of a certain wherewithal often move to industrial and “less desirable” neighborhoods in search of space and cheap rents and in doing so, pave the way for developers and investors. As the trends of gentrification goes, artists are then often adversely effected by shifts in urban landscapes that they, in many ways, helped to create. It is a double edge sword. So, what is the role is of artists in shifting urban landscapes? And how does public art function in the context of redevelopment?
I recently reread a portion of Rosalyn Deutsche’s book, Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics, in which she discusses the ways in which dominant uses of public space are often exclusionary despite their facade of democracy and unity. In her chapter “Uneven Development: Public Art in New York City” she focuses this discussion specifically on public art projects in Manhattan during the 1990s, highlighting collaborations between artists and development agencies. This chapter reminded me of the meaning and function of public art in cities and the ways in which it is often folded into new development and the rhetoric of beautification–or a way of concealing the processes of gentrification and displacement.
Last year, local artist Kari Orvik faced this issue head-on. As a part the show Grounded sponsored by Southern Exposure and Intersection for the Arts, Orvik created a participatory photography project entitled “The View From Here.” This project spoke directly to the proposed construction site at 700 Valencia Street. During an afternoon in December, Orvik invited participants to the roof of a neighboring building on Valencia Street and photographed them with the background of the Women’s Building’s MaestraPeace Mural. The mural on the eastern face of the building depicts a larger than life portrait of Guatemalan indigenous rights activist, Rigoberta Menchu.
“The View From Here” aimed to raise awareness about the five story condominium building that would obstruct the view of the MaestraPeace Mural from Valencia Street prior to the series of hearings before the Commissioners on San Francisco’s Board of Appeals. In Deutsche’s words, Orvik’s project is public art “as new spatial activity.” Rather than complicit within redevelopment and the designation of public space for the purpose of capital, Orvik politicizes space and critiques the metamorphosis of San Francisco’s Mission District. Functioning as social practice, Orvik’s piece lends itself nicely to critique and protest. While one could walk down 18th Street to view the Rigoberta Menchu mural more closely, I think Orvik intended her piece to be a gesture that speaks to larger issues of what we stand to lose as city dwellers to development and increasing housing prices. The metaphor is obvious: the Women’s Building, a grass-roots community space and its lively mural created collectively in 1994 becomes obstructed by a brand new, five story, eight unit condominium building affordable to very few who currently call the Mission District home.
Within today’s political and economic climate sites like 700 Valencia Street will continue to be debated in the Mission District. Orvik’s work reminds me of the importance of recording our experiences in our neighborhoods, the histories of places rapidly turning over to developers, as well as the important role of artists as politically engaged citizens who speak against the dominant use of public spaces and attempt to create alternatives.
