In the Meantime:
A Playroom of My Own

Yuko Otomo
July 2014

#4: Public Art 

For some reason, I still haven’t been back to the Futurism show at the Guggenheim Museum yet. I’ve been meaning to do so in order to finish my writing on this fascinating movement for my Perpetual Ripplets column. I definitely have to make a date with myself to go there soon in order not miss the show before it ends on Sept. 1. Time does fly & it’s already July. In the meantime, I’d like to write on Public Art, a very summery subject, indeed.

I missed one of the hottest Public Art events of the year: Kara Walker’s installation work A Subtlety at the soon-to-be demolished old Domino’s Sugar Refinery building on the Brooklyn side of the East River in Williamsburg. Quite a few friends went to see it & told me about it with mostly positive reactions. I also read many articles on it & saw the images of the installation in different media sources. Now, the exhibition duration is up & the show is down. Naturally, I regret missing it. The gigantic sugar sphinx is going to be dismantled back into the materials & the place will be cleaned for another high-end luxury condo for the “Haves.” Same old; same old…

In the meantime, another big Public Art installation is here to stay for the summer. Jeff Koons’ Split-Rocker in Rockefeller Center Plaza. Nothing special about this one since it is just a “self-appropriation” of his own previous Public Art work: Puppy. Instead of an image of an animal, this time, it is an image of a toy based on animal images. I will never go see it, but maybe I’ll walk by accidentally on the way to somewhere else.

Indoors or outdoors, to place art in the public space has become a new form of entertainment for the public. Every year, every season, some sort of Public Art becomes the hot subject of attention to stir the curiosity of the general public & art lovers alike. Public Art always brings in contrasting “pros” & “cons” reactions. It’s usually “Great! I love it!” or “Oh, No! I hate it!” & not too much in the middle for some reason.

I’ve been wondering what makes Public Art public art. What makes it different from other art in general? Is it the location: the shared public space? Or, is it the size: super big or super small? Or, is it the unusual materiality used, such as sugar, flower or water, or an illusion of reality through electronic projections? But these elements also are reflected in non-Public Art. Some art is gigantic; some art is miniature; some art is made with unusual materials; some art is placed outdoors or indoors… So, these elements don’t just make art into Public Art. Then, what is the key difference?

Soon, I realized it was quite simple. It’s about “for what & for whom” art is created. Public Art is created for the public as the target of attention to begin with, while non-Public Art is created for various different reasons & purposes. Then, again, I wondered. Who is “the public?” The general public. The masses. Who are they? Am I included in it? Like the word, “society” & “world,” the word “public” has such a vague connotation by definition. Whoever it is, it is for them, Public Art is created.

Simply stated, most Public Art is created thinking of the audience’s reactions in advance. What they seek is more of the audience, not necessarily the viewers. This pre-calculation is an important creative process for most Public art. It’s more of a staged show. First of all, most importantly, you have to win the public’s attention. Naturally, the easiest way to get the immediate attention is the unusualness of the size or the materials. We react to these simple elements that break the habitual ordinariness we are accustomed to. For whatever the reasons are, we crave for a shock that induces a sense of “AWE.” Anything to bring us the sense of non-ordinariness to break away from the monotonous normality is always welcomed.  We enjoy the thrill of being overwhelmed by it, whether the shock is profound or base or it will only last an instant or longer.

Although the terminology has become fashionable recently, Public Art has  existed since the beginning of time as various monuments & murals. Whether it has something to do religions or power politics, it’s been around us for a long time. But the current popularity of categorized Public Art is something new. Naturally, most Public Art takes the form of sculptures: an easy extension family of monuments. 2 dimensional works do not work too well as Public Art unless they are murals. The materials have to be weatherproof, usually, metal, stone/rocks, concrete, wood, plastic & etc. unless they are displayed indoors. Indoors or outdoors, one of the challenges to the creators is to use non-cliché sizes & materials to attract the public to win their attention.

* * *

On July 4th, we were at a poet/writer friend of ours Tsaurah Litsky’s Brooklyn apartment in Old Fulton St. She moved to this area in the late 60s as a pioneer to live there. Then, it was nothing but a dark pier facing the NY harbor with a pack of wild dogs roaming around at night. Now, it is one of the hottest & busiest tourist spots. No wonder it attracts people so much, you can see the magnificent Metropolitan landscape with iconic NYC landmarks in one view with the Statue of Liberty on the left & the Empire State Building on the right & Downtown Manhattan sandwiched between them. The tide changes in & out in the East River as the monumental Brooklyn Bridge hovers right over you. The poet Hart Crane lived in her apartment when the building was still a rooming house. We love to imagine him looking up to the bridge writing all those poems. Many artists painted & photographed this magnificent bridge. Also from her window, you can see the Brooklyn Eagle building where Walt Whitman used to work… what a perfect place for T, a poet/writer, to live! & it is truly magical. A small party of friends got together to see the July 4th fireworks from her window on the top floor of the 5 story building. It is the last fort left not totally being taken over by the ever more intensifying gentrification yet.

The storm bypassed our city & the weather was perfect. We saw the massive crowd below her windows gather together denser & denser as the time moved on. Finally, the fireworks started. With 3 barges on the river & the Brooklyn Bridge as the 4th barge, the biggest fireworks of the year exploded in the night sky. We, in her apartment with open windows & the general public, down there, “wow”ed & “ahhh”ed & “ohhh”ed together in a big synchronized chorus. The spectacle went on for almost 30 minutes & ended with everyone’s total satisfaction. It was extra extraordinary, almost too overwhelming because of the bridge’s participation in it.

There is nothing greater than fireworks as Public Art, I thought as I was wowing & ahhhing. It’s literally “free for all.” Everyone was in the moment together as long as the spectacle lasted. Each one of us was in his or her ecstasy, totally forgetting everything else. Young, old, gender, race… none of them mattered here at all. We all “looked up” to the night sky, the dark infinity of the Cosmos, as we were all being part of it. The limitless sky as the stage, fireworks exploded the intense beauty. Nobody had to explain; nobody had to interpret & nobody had to possess it. We were “one collective self” despite individual differences. Its ephemeral quality always teaches us something about life’s fleetingness when we enjoy fireworks.

Japanese people have been crazy about fireworks for a long time since it was introduced in its society. It is called “Hana-Bi”: Flower Fire or Fire Flower. To my sensitivity, the English term “Fireworks” does not have an enough poetic connotation. I wonder what it is called in other languages? Whatever it is called, it is a commonly loved display of colorful flowers blooming in the night sky. With the darkness as the background, the explosion of minerals & other materials paint the fleeting images of flowers mainly, forming layered circular shapes. Invented in the 7th century in China, fireworks are loved by humanity all over the world, used mostly for celebratory occasions as we know.

There has been some memorable art & music created relating to fireworks such as Hiroshige’s Fireworks at Ryogoku (1857, a part of  One Hundred Famous Views of Edo). The scene can be ours now; the basic sentiment of the beauty of fireworks has not changed much, although there have been new inventions created over the years. Hana-Bi is a major season word of the summer for Haiku. It’s in the Kigo-Jiten: the season words dictionary. & in the Edo era when Hiroshige depicted the fireworks at Ryogoku works, people enjoyed watching them boating on the Sumida River in Edo* (*now, called Tokyo). Two firework workshops annually competed to show off their new inventions. It was a big entertainment for the public, & every social class enjoyed it equally at a time when the social caste system was prevailingly intense. Everybody loved fireworks then, & everybody still does now.

Another of my favorite fireworks art was done by Whistler, American born, a son of Lowell, MA, who lived & worked in Europe. His Nocturne: Black & Gold (1875), The Fire Wheel (1873) & Nocturne: Blue & Gold (1875) are more mystically poetic & ghostly than the Hiroshige’s, although Whistler’s firework paintings are clearly influenced by Japanese aesthetics. Also, Handel’s Music for The Royal Fireworks… Interestingly, one of my first paintings I did for a summer vacation assignment as a kid was an oil pastel piece done also of fireworks.

I often think of what happens after when the party is over. What happens to all those humongous materials of A Subtlety? Where do the 40 tons of sugar go? & the massive amount of Styrofoam?… Probably, they will be thrown into a garbage dump & then forgotten. What about those uncountable flowers used for Split-Rocker? What about the structural materials??? Probably, also into the garbage dump…

I am always conscious of the material side of art in general. No matter, art is never free from the bondage of materiality. Interesting to see that some Performance Art makes its non-material quality a selling point. But even they can’t exist without the material sides of reality such as museum buildings, the human attendants/performers, PR materials, etc. Like life itself, art has both physical & metaphysical sides intertwined inseparably & intricately. The more massive the artwork is, the more material is used. When I think of Public Art & its overall tendency to be massive to win the public’s attention, I cannot stop thinking of the end result terminal of the materials used for the spectacle.

Fireworks are not free from materiality either, although the effects are extremely ephemeral. The residue of chemicals & minerals used for the spectacle will be scattered into the air & into the water. But considering the heavy materiality of temporary gigantic sculptures, fireworks involve much less material in capturing the attention of the masses: the public. Fireworks as art might not have too much “content” in them, but the effects are full of philosophical meanings. They conjure up a sense of Cosmos, a collective universal self, an actual sense of life’s fleetingness in all of us, whether we consciously think of them or not. While we “wow” & “ahhhh” & “ohhhh”, we give ourselves back to the cosmic realty of our existence. It is only 30 mins. of ecstasy, but it is full & rewarding.

* * *

Soon, we walked back home crossing the Manhattan Bridge, since the Brooklyn Bridge was closed till 1 am. We enjoyed the river breeze all the way & the night sky was as quiet as ever, as if nothing had happened above us.

Post Script:

Several days later after I finished this writing, my questions regarding where all those post-installation materials of A Subtlety were going were answered. According to an article in the NY Times titled: Fleeting Artworks, Melting Like Sugar (July 12, 2014), the styrofoam was cut into pieces & washed to be recycled by the provider. 30 tons of sugar were thrown into a dumpster. 3 human-size “attendants” had melted during the show, & 12 remaining others have been put on sale by a gallery as part of an edition of 15 sculptures with the hope to be placed in public institutions for $100,000 to $200,000 each. The left hand alone is being preserved as the creator’s souvenir.

The creator was not present for the weeklong dismantling of the installation & declined to be interviewed. Concerned about the emotions she’d suffered, her staff packed her off to a house in the woods.

The Price of Sugar
Bill Haney



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