Jeanne-Claude, Collaborator With Christo on a Grand Canvas, Dies at 74

A note from the PAN Manager:
I am personally saddened to learn Jeanne-Claude, collaborator and wife of Christo, died today at age 74. It is widely-known Jeanne-Claude was the tireless proponent and advocate behind the artist team’s spectacular works of art in public space. My life’s work has been dedicated to publicly-sited work in the environment after witnessing Jeanne-Claude and Christo’s Running Fence at the age of 10. The image of the white billowing fence stretching across the California hills was an experience that impacted me profoundly and parallel to many audiences that have witnessed the duo’s great works. The arts field will not forget Jeanne-Claude’s passionate advocacy, so many art leaders diligently trod, in pursuit of grand-scale creative visions, realized in unique spaces for moments in time. May Jeanne-Claude’s next gate of transition billow in spectacular saffron.
Liesel Fenner ASLA
Americans for the Arts Public Art Network

From the New York Times
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Published: November 19, 2009
Jeanne-Claude, who collaborated with her husband, Christo, on dozens of environmental arts projects, notably the wrapping of the Pont Neuf in Paris and the Reichstag in Berlin and the installation of 7,503 vinyl gates with saffron-colored nylon panels in Central Park, died Thursday in Manhattan, where she lived. She was 74.
The cause was complications of a brain aneurysm, her family told The Associated Press.
Jeanne-Claude met her husband, Christo Javacheff, in Paris in 1958. At the time, Christo, a Bulgarian refugee, was already wrapping small objects. Three years later, they collaborated on their first work, a temporary installation on the docks in Cologne, Germany, that consisted of oil drums and rolls of industrial paper wrapped in tarpaulin.
To avoid confusing dealers and the public, and to establish an artistic brand, they used only Christo’s name. In 1994 they retroactively applied the joint name “Christo and Jeanne-Claude” to all outdoor works and large-scale temporary indoor installations. Other indoor work was credited to Christo alone.
Their working methods, as described on their Web site, remained constant throughout the years. After jointly conceiving of a project, Christo made drawings, scale models and other preparatory works whose sale financed the project. Working with paid assistants, they did the on-site work: wrapping buildings, trees, walls or bridges; erecting umbrellas (“The Umbrellas,” 1991); spreading pink fabric around islands in Biscayne Bay near Miami (“Surrounded Islands,” 1983).
“We want to create works of art of joy and beauty, which we will build because we believe it will be beautiful,” Jeanne-Claude said in a 2002 interview. “The only way to see it is to build it. Like every artist, every true artist, we create them for us.”
Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon was born on June 13, 1935, in Casablanca, where her father, an officer in the French military, was stationed. After attending schools in France and Switzerland, she earned a baccalaureate in Latin and philosophy in 1952 from the University of Tunis.
In addition to her husband, she is survived by their son, Cyril Christo.
After working with stacked oil barrels, Jeanne-Claude and Christo moved to New York in 1964 and embarked on ever more daring projects, grander in scale and more theatrical in conception. Seemingly, there was nothing too large to be wrapped. In the late 1960s, they wrapped the Kunsthalle in Bern, one of many buildings to come. At the Documenta exhibition in Kassel, Germany, in 1968, they erected, with the assistance of two giant cranes, an inflated cylindrical fabric “package,” in appearance a bit like a stretched-out Michelin Man, that stood nearly 280 feet tall.
The collaborations became communal events, during construction and after. Enormous numbers of viewers were attracted to “The Umbrellas,” installed simultaneously in Ibaraki, Japan, and at the Tejon Ranch in Southern California in 1991. “The Gates,” a series of flapping bannerlike panels installed in Central Park in 2005, also attracted big crowds during the two weeks that the work lasted, with each visitor handed a small sample of the saffron fabric.
Before Jeanne-Claude’s death, she and Christo were at work on two projects: “Over the River,” a series of fabric panels to be suspended over the Arkansas River in Colorado, and “The Mastaba,” a stack of 410,000 oil barrels configured as a mastaba, or rectangle with outward-sloping sides, envisioned for the United Arab Emirates.
Like all of their projects, these were intended to be temporary, a quality at the heart of the artistic enterprise. Whether executed in oil drum or brightly colored fabric, the art of her and her husband, Jeanne-Claude said, expressed “ the quality of love and tenderness that we human beings have for what does not last.”
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The cause was complications of a brain aneurysm, her family told The Associated Press.
Jeanne-Claude met her husband, Christo Javacheff, in Paris in 1958. At the time, Christo, a Bulgarian refugee, was already wrapping small objects. Three years later, they collaborated on their first work, a temporary installation on the docks in Cologne, Germany, that consisted of oil drums and rolls of industrial paper wrapped in tarpaulin.
To avoid confusing dealers and the public, and to establish an artistic brand, they used only Christo’s name. In 1994 they retroactively applied the joint name “Christo and Jeanne-Claude” to all outdoor works and large-scale temporary indoor installations. Other indoor work was credited to Christo alone.
Their working methods, as described on their Web site, remained constant throughout the years. After jointly conceiving of a project, Christo made drawings, scale models and other preparatory works whose sale financed the project. Working with paid assistants, they did the on-site work: wrapping buildings, trees, walls or bridges; erecting umbrellas (“The Umbrellas,” 1991); spreading pink fabric around islands in Biscayne Bay near Miami (“Surrounded Islands,” 1983).
“We want to create works of art of joy and beauty, which we will build because we believe it will be beautiful,” Jeanne-Claude said in a 2002 interview. “The only way to see it is to build it. Like every artist, every true artist, we create them for us.”
Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon was born on June 13, 1935, in Casablanca, where her father, an officer in the French military, was stationed. After attending schools in France and Switzerland, she earned a baccalaureate in Latin and philosophy in 1952 from the University of Tunis.
In addition to her husband, she is survived by their son, Cyril Christo.
After working with stacked oil barrels, Jeanne-Claude and Christo moved to New York in 1964 and embarked on ever more daring projects, grander in scale and more theatrical in conception. Seemingly, there was nothing too large to be wrapped. In the late 1960s, they wrapped the Kunsthalle in Bern, one of many buildings to come. At the Documenta exhibition in Kassel, Germany, in 1968, they erected, with the assistance of two giant cranes, an inflated cylindrical fabric “package,” in appearance a bit like a stretched-out Michelin Man, that stood nearly 280 feet tall.
The collaborations became communal events, during construction and after. Enormous numbers of viewers were attracted to “The Umbrellas,” installed simultaneously in Ibaraki, Japan, and at the Tejon Ranch in Southern California in 1991. “The Gates,” a series of flapping bannerlike panels installed in Central Park in 2005, also attracted big crowds during the two weeks that the work lasted, with each visitor handed a small sample of the saffron fabric.
Before Jeanne-Claude’s death, she and Christo were at work on two projects: “Over the River,” a series of fabric panels to be suspended over the Arkansas River in Colorado, and “The Mastaba,” a stack of 410,000 oil barrels configured as a mastaba, or rectangle with outward-sloping sides, envisioned for the United Arab Emirates.
Like all of their projects, these were intended to be temporary, a quality at the heart of the artistic enterprise. Whether executed in oil drum or brightly colored fabric, the art of her and her husband, Jeanne-Claude said, expressed “ the quality of love and tenderness that we human beings have for what does not last.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/arts/design/20jeanne-claude.html?hp

Thompson: 'Public Art' Could Be Oxymoron

Published Sunday, November 15, 2009
Athens Banner-Herald

A recent decision by the Athens-Clarke County Commission to have the county government staff make recommendations on a process for choosing art for the parking deck coming to the western end of downtown Athens begs a question.

Jim Thompson

more Thompson columns...

Is "public art" - understood as art installed in public spaces through some governmental or quasi-governmental process and/or funding - an oxymoron?

The question occurs in part because of a Thursday story out of Bowie, Md. posted at www.gazette.net under the headline "Artists to meet with residents for input on City Hall pieces."

According to the story, six artists chosen by a city arts panel as finalists "to create a sundial and hanging mobile for the City Hall, will listen (Wednesday) to resident input and answer questions about the art they plan to create. ... The idea of creating a sundial and mobile were suggestions from the Calverton-based company that designed City Hall."

Additionally, the story reports, "The sundial will be approximately 10 feet at its base ... while the mobile will have to be less than 12 feet wide and 10 feet tall, and weigh less than 1,500 pounds."

The six artists will present their proposals to the city arts panel in a couple of months, and the panel subsequently will select the two artists who will build the sundial and the mobile.

So what Bowie, Md., eventually will have as public art are two specific pieces, each suggested by a design firm, which must be built within a set of specific physical parameters, and which will be constructed by artists whose vision will be shaped by public opinion.

Isn't it fair to wonder whether any installation developed under those conditions ought properly to be called "art"? Couldn't Bowie officials just as easily hold a meeting to gather public input as to what residents would like to see in a sundial and a mobile, and then take the list to a local welding shop and have each project assembled?

And not to be too pedestrian here, but my bet would be that a couple of local welders would be willing to do the work for far less than the $185,000 the city has allocated to the project.

The Bowie story, detailing a rather regimented approach to public art, stands in marked contrast to a Nov. 7 story out of Pasadena, Calif. According to the Los Angeles Times, first-time artist Ken Marshall constructed an 18-foot wooden fork and, on Halloween night, worked with friends to install it at - bet you saw this coming - the place where two Pasadena streets divide.

According to the Times story, Marshall and a friend first talked about installing the "fork in the road" about 10 years ago. Marshall built and installed it as a birthday present for his friend, Bob Stane, with whom he owns a coffeehouse.

The fork, with a steel skeleton, is anchored in 2 feet of concrete at the fork of St. John and Pasadena avenues. Marshall and his friends donned fake transportation department uniforms and hard hats to install the sculpture.

Once it was up, the city decided it would negotiate a deal with Marshall to keep the fork installed as a temporary piece of public art, provided the city could determine whether the installation was safe and secure.

Now, really, which of these stories seems truer to the spirit of what "public art" should be?

On the one hand, in Bowie, Md., you have a project that arguably is overburdened with bureaucracy. While that approach might result in perfectly acceptable, perhaps even beautiful and compelling, pieces of art, it's hard not to think that giving the artists a freer hand might produce something more deeply interesting, something that might, in fact, meet what Bowie's arts specialist, Annette Esterheld, told www.gazette.net should be the goal of public art.

"Public art in a city should be a destination, a place that the public comes to," she said.

Honestly, though, would you be more likely to go out of your way to see a designed-by-committee sundial or mobile, or to see a fork stuck in the road (in the style of Claes Oldenburg, perhaps)?

Bringing the discussion closer to home, which of these stories seems nearer to embodying the spirit of Athens?

For my money, it's the Pasadena story.

That's not to suggest that Athens-Clarke County officials should adopt a freewheeling approach to developing a procedural framework for bringing art to the parking deck. While opening the deck up to the whims of anyone with a paintbrush or an arc welder might produce something as whimsical as the Pasadena fork, it also might produce some far less interesting results.

It is to be hoped, though, that whatever process the county develops, it will leave ample room for expressions of the quirkiness that defines Athens.

• Jim Thompson is editorial page editor of the Athens Banner-Herald. He can be contacted at (706) 208-2222 or by e-mail at jim.thompson@onlineathens.com.

Outside Art

By Leon Neyfakh
November 10, 2009 | 6:42 p.m
The New York Observer


On the day before his first day as director and head curator of the Public Art Fund, Nicholas Baume took the ferry to Governors Island to admire a group show of emerging artists called “This World & Nearer Ones.” The show was a multidisciplinary affair that consisted of works including a tent city and a cinder-block wall riddled with bullet holes. It had been curated and mounted by Creative Time, an organization that most people in the New York art world regard as the Public Art Fund’s chief competitor.

Mr. Baume is Australian, and he arrived in New York this fall at the age of 44 by way of Boston, where he spent the last 6 years as head curator of the Institute of Contemporary Art. The only other time he has lived in New York was in the late 1980s, when he spent one summer as an intern in the drawings department at the Museum of Modern Art and another as a junior curator at the Grey Art Gallery at N.Y.U.

Mr. Baume’s appointment as director of the Public Art Fund signals a sort of reboot for the 32-year-old organization, whose presence in the city is thought to have diminished following the 2005 resignation of longtime director Tom Eccles. The post-Eccles era at the Public Art Fund, overseen by Rochelle Steiner before she stepped down last spring, was marked by a significant decrease in the number of projects being produced because the organization was devoting so much money and manpower to the realization of The New York City Waterfalls, the hugely ambitious and expensive installation by artist Olafur Eliasson.

“There were other things as well, but every decision is going to have its opportunity cost, and as an organization you have to decide where to put your resources and your energy,” Mr. Baume said in a recent interview. “The waterfalls were the really big project. There isn’t a lot in the pipeline now, but that’s great for me, in the sense that I get to dream up the program and get it going.” More.

California’s 18-Foot Fork in the Road Public Art Birthday Present

The LA Times is reporting that a new work of guerrilla art has popped up in Pasadena, California. An 18-foot silver fork went up over Halloween weekend where South St. John and Pasadena Avenue’s split from each other–a literal fork in the road. The work was a birthday present for one Bob Stane on his 75th, given to him by a friend, Ken Marshall. Ten years earlier, Stane had offhandedly remarked that the location might be a good spot for a fork in the road monument and Marshall clearly took note.

To erect the fork, which is wooden with a steel internal frame and grounded with two-and-half feet of concrete, Marshall and a group of friends took to the street in the middle of the night dressed in Caltrans (California Department of Transportation) uniforms and hard hats. Upon completion, Marshall and friends showed the fork to Stane and gave him a chocolate cake.

‘We had a large-fork-in-the-road party,’ said Marshall. Stane, for his part, could not believe what he saw. ‘I was basically screaming, ‘Oh my God, he did it! He did it!’ recalled Stane.”

Now that the fork is in place and has attracted a good amount of press as well as a curious fan base, the city of Pasadena is trying to decide whether or not to allow the work to stay in its place. The structure is currently being analyzed for safety and sturdiness. If found to be sound, the LA Times reports that Pasadena might propose the fork remain as a piece of temporary public art if Marshall will cover the cost of its removal when the time comes.

Marshall says this is the first piece of art he has ever created, and though the fork may have eveolved as a prank/genuine birthday gift, it certainly appears to be Claes Oldenburg influenced.

via 18-foot fork in the road, erected as a birthday prank, might become art in Pasadena L.A. NOW Los Angeles Times. excerpted from blog - http://trueslant.com/nickobourn/

Arena Building Site is Canvas for Creativity

Monday, November 09, 2009
By Sara Bauknecht, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09313/1011906-53.stm#ixzz0WO79IEIb
Shepard Fairey isn't the only one jazzing up Pittsburgh's landscape these days with murals and messages.
Colorful murals and whimsical construction debris art by 100 local youths are adding color to the construction site of the new Penguins arena in Uptown.
The exhibit, "Construction as Canvas," was installed in mid-October on the fences surrounding the Consol Energy Center and will be on display for one year.
"Public art has been a big part of all the public buildings the Sports and Exhibition Authority has developed," said Mary Conturo, the sports authority's executive director. "Early on with the Pittsburgh Penguins and the help of the Urban Redevelopment Authority, we all looked at developing a public art plan for the arena."
Largely funded by the Heinz Endowments, "Construction as Canvas" is the first display for the arena. Other exhibits, "Garden Passage" and "Activation," still are in the works.
The Office of Public Art -- a public-private partnership between the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council and the Department of City Planning -- managed the display and called for applications last spring from summer camps and local artists.
Bedford Hill apartments, Schenley Heights Community Development Program and the Centre Avenue YMCA were selected among the eight organizations that applied to incorporate the art project into their summer programs.
I wanted "to give the [kids] something positive to do for the summer months and something they could be proud of," said Deborah Holt, resource coordinator for Bedford Hill apartments in the nearby Hill District.
Representatives from the three summer camps helped evaluate the portfolios of the 10 local artists who submitted proposals.
"We wanted to pick artists who really demonstrated the ability and desire to work with different age groups of kids," said Renee Piechocki, director of the Office of Public Art.
Artists Ashley Hodder, Gregory Anderson and Leslie Ansley were selected and given three weeks to come up with a theme for an art project and an educational curriculum to supplement it.
"It wasn't a coloring book kind of project where the artists come up with the ideas and the kids just fill it in. It was really a collaboration," Ms. Piechocki said.
At Schenley Heights Community Development Program, 25 students, aged 11 to 15, used their imaginations to turn construction materials donated by local companies into everything from a glow-in-the-dark insect to the Stanley Cup, said Ms. Hodder, who worked with them.
The kids "saw stuff in the materials that was really like, 'OK, I'll go with that.' I couldn't really see it at first, but that was really the fun part of the project -- waiting to see what they came up with," she said.
Their project -- "Building a Greener Hill" -- included a trip to Phipps Conservatory and lessons in recycling, LEED building certifications and green living.
Ms. Ansley's group of 10- to 18-year-olds from Bedford Hill apartments created a photographic fabric mural called "Remembering Our Future." The history of the Hill District was the focus of the camp and mural and the students learned about such figures as playwright August Wilson and photographer Charles "Teenie" Harris through writing, reading poetry and role playing.
The Centre Avenue YMCA project by Mr. Anderson's 6- to 8-year-olds called "Changing Shape" featured 24 panels of colorful construction characters.
For Mr. Anderson, the camp was "not only about the curriculum, but about how do I send [the children] back to school next year stronger and more confident."
Participants gathered at the Mellon Arena last month to celebrate the project's installation. When the artwork is removed next fall, it will be returned to the organizations to display.
The rapidly rising number of murals and other art displays popping up around Pittsburgh led the city to hire in 2007 its first full-time art manager.
Morton Brown, the current manager, was hired earlier this year.
A muralist himself, he is charged with coordinating efforts to add pizazz to public spaces. He endorsed the recent idea to place around the city murals by Shepard Fairey, whose politically charged art is on display at the Warhol Museum.
"Public art is about connecting the people in our neighborhoods to their rich historical fabric and improving their quality of life," Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said last week. "We are aggressively preserving the city's public art collection -- protecting veteran's memorials and statues -- while investing in exciting neighborhood public art projects."
Sara Bauknecht can be reached at 1-412-263-3858 or sbauknecht@post-gazette.com. Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09313/1011906-53.stm#ixzz0WO74TyUQ

Philadelphia: Celebrating 50 Years of City Public Art Funding

Philadelphia: Celebrating 50 Years of City Public Art Funding
by Todd Bressi
PlanPhilly.com 11/2/09
"Hundreds of city, state, and federal agencies have adopted policies that set aside a portion of their capital budgets for artworks—but Philadelphia was first. In 1959, the City Council and the Redevelopment Authority took the trailblazing steps of requiring city capital projects and private developments to include public art. The intent was to 'humanize and mitigate the deficiencies in the urban landscape,' according to Aaron Levy, executive director and curator of the Slought Foundation. Since then, [Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority] and the Convention Center Authority have followed suit, and Philadelphia International Airport has created a program of temporary art exhibitions. Twenty-five years ago, the city launched what has eventually become the Mural Arts Program, which has created more than 3,000 works throughout the city. And before all of this, more than a century ago, the Fairmount Park Art Association began its work creating and caring for artworks in the city’s parks and open spaces." http://bit.ly/dmo9H

A Better Picture for the Arts

by Nicole G. Anderson
Nov 2009
The Gotham Gazette

photo (cc) Barry Yanovitz

During his administration Mayor Michael Bloomberg has encouraged high-profile public art projects such as Olafur Eliasson's Waterfalls.

After Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's strained, and often turbulent, relationship with the art community, the arrival of Mayor Michael Bloomberg came as a great relief to many artists and New Yorkers working for the city’s cultural institutions and art nonprofits. Most of their hopes have been realized. In sharp contrast to Giuliani, Bloomberg has been a strong and vocal advocate for the arts, supporting culture in his official capacity and as a philanthropist.

Over the last eight years, his administration has implemented a number of initiatives and programs designed to support small and large art nonprofits, museums, cultural institutions, performing arts groups and individual artists. In partnership with the Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kate Levin, Bloomberg has made critical changes to the system of allocating funds to nonprofits and cultural groups, which have ultimately led to a significant rise in the number of organizations that receive funding from the city. While the economic downturn poses a threat to the welfare of the city's cultural institutions and artists, the mayor's office has stepped in and provided essential resources and new programming to ensure that the arts in New York City not only remain intact, but also continue to thrive.

At the same time Bloomberg has rallied for the art community, he also has been responsible for some flashy high profile projects that have received mixed reviews. The Gates, Christo and Jeanne-Claude's installation in Central Park, won much acclaim and increased tourism and economic activity. Olafur Eliasson's Waterfalls, however, had far less impact on the local economy -- and got decidedly mixed reviews.

If Bloomberg has had a failing in his support of the arts, it comes in arts education, which some experts say has not received the attention it requires. More.

Mayors Make Wager Over Game

By: Peter Crimmins
pcrimmins@whyy.org
Traditionally during championship sporting events, opposing city leaders will make friendly bets on who will win. This year, Cardinal Justin Rigali of the Philadelphia Catholic Diocese has wagered Philly cheesesteaks against the Archbishop of New York, who put up bagels. But the mayors of the two cities have a different kind of wager altogether.

Mayor Nutter's bet with Mayor Bloomberg in New York involves public art. If the Yankees win, Nutter will go to the Bronx and participate in a painting project at a public school. If the Phillies win, Bloomberg will come to Philadelphia to work on a Mural Arts Project at a city recreation center. Mural Arts Project Director Jane Golden.

Golden: I want to commend Nutter for thinking outside the box, not just thinking about something that is cliche or stereotypical like food, but thinking about transforming neighborhoods and beautification.

As a result of the Phillies Pennant win earlier in the post-season, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaragosa will come to Philadelphia at some point to work on a Habitat for Humanity project. He'll bring along Hollywood's famous Pink's Hot Dogs for the volunteers. More.

Public Art Fund Presents "Double Take" a Group Exhibition

Matt Irie and Dominick Talvacchio, Lamppost (rendering), 2009. A project of the Public Art Fund. Image courtesy of the artists.

NEW YORK, NY.- From November 11, 2009, the Public Art Fund presents a group exhibition featuring six emerging artists at MetroTech Center in downtown Brooklyn. "Playful and provocative, Double Take brings fresh momentum to the Public Art Fund tradition of giving today's most exciting young artists the chance to debut new work in our public spaces," said Nicholas Baume, Director and Chief Curator of the Public Art Fund.

Double Take showcases new commissions by Michael DeLucia, Christian de Vietri, Natasha Johns-Messenger, Johannes VanDerBeek, and the collaborative team of Matt Irie and Dominick Talvacchio. Designed with the site's specific conditions in mind, the artists have taken an element of the existing architecture or environment and subjected it to a process of modification or metamorphosis. Each work plays with fantasy and illusion to force a shift in perception, in turn creating a mirage of sorts. Nothing is as it seems: a chain-link fence dissolves into pixels, a bonfire yearns for its flame, outdoors is indoors, a ghost lurks, and a lamppost bends. Double Take celebrates the curious over the comfortable, the strange over the simple, and the mysterious over the mundane. More.

NYC Street Advertising Takeover (Briefly) Reclaims Public Space

Via Gothamist

The advertising company couldn't keep up with all the whitewashing, though-- here artists Serf and Mint put up a piece on a reclaimed billboard. (Jake Dobkin)

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You may have noticed teams of people in orange vests whitewashing advertising billboards in Manhattan and Brooklyn today. They weren't employees of NPA, the company that maintains the billboards. In fact, they were part of a subversive network convened by the Public Art Campaign to take back hundreds of advertising locations that NPA has placed around the city.

We tagged along with one of the whitewashing teams this morning in SoHo, as they took down five billboards. Surprisingly, no one looked twice at them as they walked around with an enormous bucket of paint, brushes, and a wobbly cart. Later, we biked over to LES, where NPA employees had already commenced retaking the whitewashed billboards, less than an hour after they were painted. And still later, we took some shots of the artists the PAC had organized to paint the remaining billboards.

Only time will tell if this protest will call attention to the problem of pervasive, illegal advertising here in New York. So far, the city has been loathe to enforce the existing zoning rules that are supposed to prevent these kinds of ads, and from the complete lack of reaction of the local police officers we saw today, that doesn't seem like it's going to change anytime soon.

Did you take any good billboard pix today? Send them to us at photos@gothamist.com, or tag them "gothamist" on Flickr, and we'll add them to the gallery.

Update: the Times is reporting that five people were arrested in connection with the protest.

Look out, Paris, Boris plans a ‘Piffle Tower’

Chris Gourlay and Cristina Ruiz for the Sunday Times

It is a building to match his bravado. Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, is planning a £15m monument to rival the Eiffel Tower and seal his legacy.

The magnificent edifice will be put up in the capital’s Olympic Park in time for the 2012 Games and will be funded by the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal — Britain’s richest man.

However, as vanity projects go, it is likely to be compared with the “wedding cake” that Mussolini completed in Rome or the 250ft gold statue that Saparmurat Niyazov, a former Turkmen dictator, commissioned to loom over his capital and rotate to face the sun.

Johnson had even pledged to crack down on tall buildings in his mayoral manifesto, describing London’s skyline as “precious”. More.

LAPD's Public Art Has Weathered Storms

Christopher Knight for The Los Angeles Times

When I was writing the other day about Peter Shelton's sculptural ensemble for the new Los Angeles Police Department headquarters, I decided to stop by Parker Center, the old police HQ that sparked a huge firestorm over public art when it opened in 1955. (You can read about the earlier ruckus here.) The minute I got there I thought, “Distance lends enchantment to the view.”

Bernard “Tony” Rosenthal's abstract bronze wall relief just to the right of the entrance doors is a minor sculpture by a minor artist, produced at a time when painting is where most of postwar Modern art's adventurous action was in America. And at any rate, as I noted in my Shelton review, it wasn't the relative quality of the art that caused the uproar back then -- a dozen years would pass before another abstract sculpture would be commissioned for a downtown public space -- an uproar that seems quaint when faced with Rosenthal's sculpture today.

In fact, there's no getting around how great the ensemble of sculpture and building (by Welton Becket & Associates) looks now, more than 50 years on, especially at the glass-and-ceramic-tile entry. The original golden hue of Rosenthal's relief has gone dark, the shabby garden beneath it needs attention and subsequent construction around Parker Center has altered the light-filled transparency of the setting; but, although some have suggested tearing down the place now that the LAPD is moving out, as a midcentury Modern period piece it's smashing.

“Distance lends enchantment to the view.” The phrase comes from “The Pleasures of Hope” (1799), a long and sentimental Romantic poem in rhyming couplets -- lots of exclamation points and yearning question marks are scattered throughout -- by Scottish writer Thomas Campbell. He was no Wordsworth or Coleridge; but the sentiment expressed in perhaps his most well-known phrase is certainly apt:

At summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering bills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky?
Why do those clifts of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near? —
'T is distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.

It's a long journey from here to there. Time's passage always softens perceptions.

A few more photos of the Parker Center ensemble are after the jump.

-- Christopher Knight

Photos: Parker Center. Credit: Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times

Anthony McCall: Projected Column

North West from Arts Council England on Vimeo.

Anthony McCall will create Projected Column, a slender, sinuous, spinning column of cloud rising into the sky from the surface of the water in Birkenhead’s disused Morpeth dock in Merseyside, directly opposite the city of Liverpool. The project will be produced by FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology).

A sculptural landmark based on pure energy, Projected Column will echo the dynamism of a city and a region that has recently undergone major cultural and economic development.

Extending upwards as far as the eye can see, and visible on a clear day from up to 100 km away, the column will disappear and re-appear in slow structured sequences, punctuating the skyline whilst connecting it with the city and its docks.

Projected Column will recycle discarded local heat, and, day or night, will operate as a self-sustaining system.

Public Deaccessioning

University College London has a jumbled collection of objects and is asking visitors to vote on what deserves to be kept.

'Agatha Christie Picnic Basket' is among items in the exhibition exploring what should be disposed of from museum collections. Photograph: Martin Godwin
Read More Here.

The Case for Mike McGinn: Part 3

by Brendan Kiley for the Stranger

McGinn portrait by Nat Damm, from a photo by Kyle Johnson. The third in a series by Seattle artists.

To be honest, I'm slightly chagrined to find myself writing the third installment of this Perpetual Adoration of Saint Michael. The Stranger has thrown so much unqualified weight behind the man, it's starting to get a little boring. The contrarian in me had hoped to come out swinging for Joe Mallahan just to break the tedium.

Nevertheless, here I am, endorsing Captain Beardo's culture platform, because—it cannot be denied—it beats Captain Cell Phone's.

Neither candidate had shown a deep interest in arts and culture prior to the election, but there's no shame in that. As writer Jonathan Raban pointed out in an e-mail: "Given their lack of experience on more conventional mayoral issues, that's probably a good thing. One wouldn't want to see either of them ducking early out of city hall for a night at the opera, or whiling away a weekend over Anna Karenina."

We don't need an art critic for mayor. We need a mayor who understands two foundational facts: (1) Culture—music, theater, film, literature, art—is a constituency that generates billions of dollars in sales, tens of thousands of jobs, and over a billion dollars in tax revenue; and (2) culture is not an add-on—it is fundamental to the city's intellectual, aesthetic, and financial health.

Arts funding isn't a handout that disappears into a black hole of elitist erudition. It's a practical investment with high returns. In 2005, Seattle's Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs had a budget of $2.57 million—minus money for public art, which would bring the figure closer to $4 million—and local arts organizations, with the help of OACA, returned $12.3 million in local government revenue. That's not counting state revenue or dollars that went to private businesses (lumber for sets, bar and restaurant revenue, hotel rooms for the people who came to see Der Ring, etc.). At worst, the city tripled its investment; at best, it quintupled it. More.