BS: Public art

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 11:24 AM

Don, Vertebrae is the sculpture at the SeaFirst building. You are correct. And FYI, as a silly gift Jean Smith gave my dad a small dinosaur coprolite - and dino droppings look just like many other animal droppings, not big chunky shapes like this sculpture. Just so you know. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: GUEST,Blandiver (Astray)
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 02:04 PM

Love this:

A memorial to the victims of the Liverpool Blitz of 1940-42

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 02:05 PM

Yep, that's the one. The "dinosaur droppings" wasn't my bit, I've heard others refer to it as that. And the Seafirst building--"The box the Space Needle came in...."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: GUEST,Blandiver (Astray)
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 02:29 PM

And then there's this:

Verity @ Ilfracombe - Damien Hirst

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Ed T
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 02:49 PM

And, this? 

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 12:36 AM

How has that pseud Hirst pulled off the 'famous for being famous' trick?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 01:21 AM

By going [figuratively] to Bed with that ditto Emin, perhaps?

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Musket
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 02:31 AM

Or perhaps in the eyes of many people, they are artistic?

After all, you'd be amazed what some around here reckon is entertainment..

To be fair, I don't think he is particularly to my taste but like most on here, I haven't seen all his work. Just descriptions of a pickled cow and a photo of a rather well presented jewelled skull.

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 03:57 AM

I'm not a believer in "conceptual art" - and I would describe Hirst as such - where the artist has the concept/idea, and other people do the work to make it exist. This is the norm in any sort of industrial design and manufacturing process, of course - and I'm probably just being old-fashioned - but I think art has to demonstrate something else, something more personal.

Still, he knows how to make money.

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: GUEST,Blandiver (Astray)
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 05:29 AM

Recently there appeared a sculpture on Cleveleys beach (north of Blackpool) which I found initially irksome, but chanced by one day back in November and saw it, literally, in a different light.

Mary's Shell, Cleveleys

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 05:36 AM

I don't know what is and what isn't art, but, for me, I like to see what I think as art demonstrating a special talent, showing vision and articulating an idea that either isn't in my mind at all or which is inchoate at best. I'm not struck by stuff that has been chucked together, such as bedclothes or piles of white boxes, and I'm not keen on being shocked or disgusted. As life is such a vale of tears, I prefer art that is uplifting and life-affirming. As I type this I'm listening to a Beethoven piano trio. That sort of art. But that's just me. I have no right to regard mine as a better opinion of art than anyone else's.

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 05:54 AM

Remember, à propos, the first stanza of Kipling's The Conundrum of the Workshops —

When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it Art?"

Ah, beware that bloody devil behind the leaves...

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: BrendanB
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 06:31 AM

I am in complete agreement with both Will Fly and Steve Shaw. I cannot go along with the idea of 'it's art because I say it is art' which seems to have held sway for too long in art circles. As Will points out, realising a concept is a practice that has been going on in design engineering for aeons. Is it not what every inventor does? I have been to exhibitions of work by Hirst, Emin and the Chapman brothers and my only response was irritation. On the other hand, I sat for about half an hour in the Rothko Gallery in Tate Modern and was profoundly moved. I do not know what, if anything, that proves but it underlines for me just how difficult it is to say what art is.

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 21 Apr 15 - 04:54 AM

BrendanB: "I am in complete agreement with both Will Fly and Steve Shaw. I cannot go along with the idea of 'it's art because I say it is art' ..."

True! Art for therapy might be great therapy, but it might not be great art!...or art, at all....

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: GUEST,Blandiver (Astray)
Date: 21 Apr 15 - 05:28 AM

I cannot go along with the idea of 'it's art because I say it is art'

It's never a case of that though, is it? Art is carefully reviewed and critically monitored as part of an unbroken tradition which is obvious from the most casual glance around The Tate - or even the giftshop. The bounds of that experience have been incrementally evolving in the academic hotbeds for centuries, and there's always been a reactionary element calling it degenerate. Boldly, Art endures, and challenges, and bewilders. Long may it continue to do so.   

Public Art is different in that you don't have a choice about it. The Angel of the North is an imposition, likewise all the ghastly folksy wooden things you see in pretty much every public woodland space these days when I'm of the opinion that there really is nothing lovelier than a tree. I don't like Gormley's rusty blokes on the beach either, though I must say Hirst's Verity is genuinely intriguing in that it really does look pretty amazing standing down by the harbour entrance at Ilfracombe. But then again, my trips to Ilfracombe are few and far between..

Talking of folksy wooden things, my favourite ever piece of public art was The Upper Room by Colin Wilbourn which stood on the banks of the River Wear in Durham from 1988. First time I saw it was by moonlight, very drunk, so the effect was even more stunning:

The Upper Room

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Apr 15 - 12:49 PM

Juneau, Alaska, has two pieces of statuary that are problematic. One is Nimbus, a rather strange but large piece of sheet metal that vaguely evokes the prow of a turquoise-colored ship. Artsy, it is not and it has had a difficult time finding a permanent home.

The other is a graceful bronze on the plaza of our Federal Building depicting four or five pelicans diving headfirst into a pool (currently dry). Nothing wrong with it other than Alaska doesn't have pelicans.

The story goes that the state of Alaska commissioned a bronze of eagles in flight. As it happened, legend tells us, Florida about the same time ordered statuary of pelicans. The forge mistakenly sent the eagles to Florida while the pelicans went to Alaska.

And Florida refused to give up the eagles. So we have pelicans.

Nimbus

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Apr 15 - 03:29 PM

Frank Stella has a thing for immense steel sculptures, and over the years I've seen quite a few. The one my family enjoys and interacts with is Vortex, on the grounds of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The building itself is remarkable (Tadao Ando is the architect) but if they are closed, there is a lot to see outside. It doesn't take long for people to discover the incredible sounds that can be generated inside Stella's sculpture. We were alone as a family the first time we visited it and the kids made the discovery on their own. Other times you arrive and people are stomping and whooping up a racket so visitors figure it out that way.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: BrendanB
Date: 21 Apr 15 - 03:31 PM

'Art is carefully reviewed and critically monitored..'
But is it though? It seems to me that contemporary British artists work very closely with a small group of dealers and collectors who have an interest in ensuring prices stay high. I do not call any art degenerate, that's a word that has been levelled by some very questionable people. However, I wonder whether Hirst's spin pictures will enjoy the longevity of Caravaggio or Vermeer or any of hundreds of artists whose work defies time or fashion.

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Ed T
Date: 21 Apr 15 - 07:24 PM

Wolf-Cheetah Unicorn! -girl 

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: GUEST,Blandiver (Astray)
Date: 22 Apr 15 - 06:25 AM

Fair point, BrendanB - but by being of the moment all art aspires to the eternal! For me it doesn't get any better than the Sulawasie cave paintings...

Cave paintings change ideas about the origin of art

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 22 Apr 15 - 03:58 PM

SRS: "Frank Stella has a thing for immense steel sculptures, and over the years I've seen quite a few."

So are you going to write a protest/folk song about it????

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: BrendanB
Date: 22 Apr 15 - 04:34 PM

'By being of the moment all art aspires to the eternal'
I'm embarrassed to admit that I do not really know what that means.

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 22 Apr 15 - 04:59 PM

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.

-William Blake

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Penny S.
Date: 22 Apr 15 - 06:27 PM

There is a new piece in Dulwich as a replacement for the Barbara Hepworth which was stolen by metal thieves. It's by Conrad Shawcross, and is related to harmonics. Part of the artist's work leading up to the piece was on display in the Dulwich gallery - a wooden contraption that turned arms with hinged arms with lights on the end, which moved chaotically.


Three Perpetual Chords

I was rather pleased to see this, and the way that people were interacting with the coils, and the way the artist was happy that they were doing so. I had been thinking, after being on a cruise up the coast of Norway, that there was far more public art over there than here, like this:
Fish lady , and we needed more.

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Apr 15 - 07:42 PM

Sacramento built an expensive new airport terminal a few years ago, and paid a lot of money for a sculpture of a red rabbit to decorate the place. People screamed about the cost and the absurdity of the rabbit, but now everybody seems to like him.
The new building is all silver and glass and terrazzo, and quite sterile in appearance. The rabbit adds a lot to it, once you get used to the idea of it.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: olddude
Date: 22 Apr 15 - 08:12 PM

Am I the only Banksy lover? He is awesome

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Apr 15 - 11:13 AM

We drove past the willow man on the M5 this morning and he's in decent nick. Sadly, since he went up years ago in green fields he's now become surrounded by faceless housing estates and a huge and remarkably ugly Morrisons depot. It seems to make his seeming haste and urgent pointing to the Westcountry all the more poignant.

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Ed T
Date: 23 Apr 15 - 02:11 PM

Be warned-those tattoos, sometimes seen in public, is not art, and never will be.:)


Maybe mistaken as art-public at times 

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: GUEST,Blandiver (Astray)
Date: 23 Apr 15 - 04:00 PM

is not art, and never will be

Tattoos become more public as the weather warms up. I see them in terms of Folklore / Folk art, though I doubt any of the Folk Lords round here would agree because they're in no way quaintly folksy, rather they reflect the hopes, dreams, tastes and aspirations of real human beings. Mind you, the Worzel Gummidge we saw impressively rendered on the shapely calf of a young woman (who didn't look old enough to be legally tattooed let alone remember old Worzel) certainly hit the mark, but it was in (gulp!) Tewkesbury Morrisons...

I saw an Angel of the North tattoo once. Seems it's a common theme as a Google search will reveal:

Angel of the North Memorial Tattoo

I find that poignant as feck myself, but what would Gormley have to say???

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Apr 15 - 04:56 PM

Another legacy from the Seattle World's Fair in 1962 is the Horiuchi mural, painted by local artist Paul Horiuchi for the fair. In addition to being "public art," it serves as a backdrop for a stage in front of a large grassy area that serves as an amphitheater. No seats, people can just stand around or sit on the grass.

This was the site of the Seattle Center Hootenannies on Wednesday evenings during summer of 1963. If the weather was inclement, the hootenanny moved into the nearby Center House which, among other things, boasted a large auditorium.

About a dozen of us would gather and sing separately or together for a couple of hours. These events were well attended and well received and on one Wednesday evening, we drew a crowd of 15,000. That many people applauding sounds a bit like surf!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: GUEST,Peter from seven stars link
Date: 23 Apr 15 - 05:45 PM

Did you see the banksy in bereut ruins , oldude ?.

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: olddude
Date: 23 Apr 15 - 06:29 PM

No saw the one on the west bank with the girl jumping the fence

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 24 Apr 15 - 11:55 AM

Probably my mistake.....I was relying on memory !.

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 24 Apr 15 - 12:33 PM

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red
The most moving public art I've seen.

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 24 Apr 15 - 11:23 PM

Well, if you like seeing blood pouring out an old fort......


GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Apr 15 - 01:50 AM

Don, I remember that mural and that location. It is an iconic part of my childhood. That and the fountain full of jets that shoot water at irregular patterns and we used to race and squeal about getting delightfully soaked. I don't suppose that is still around, is it?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Public art
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Apr 15 - 01:40 PM

Yep! It's still there. They refurbished it back in the 90s and improved the nozzles…faucets? Spigots? Anyway, it's still there, being enjoyed the same way.

"Whee!!" (squealing and running)!!

Don Firth