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August 25, 2006
Max, the N&O, Plensa, the City: Damn, Damn, Damn
by Max Halperen
Larry Wheeler, director of the N.C. Museum of Art: the public art process in Raleigh is “almost designed to not succeed.”
Paul Gray, art dealer for Jaume Plensa, artist chosen to create an installation for Fayetteville Street: “There doesn’t seem to be anybody in charge of this process.”
Max Halperen. critic at large: “Nor is there anyone who knows anything about it.”

Damn, damn, damn. I am still proud of the years I spent as a newsman and my efforts to be as objective as possible, but I am saddened and disgusted with the way the reporters and editors of The News and Observer handled the story of the downtown installation intended for the newly reopened Fayetteville Street, and I do mean “handled.” Almost from the beginning they set the parameters of discussion—the ordinary aw-shucks citizen versus the snooty lover of modern art.

(February 28) The early stories, largely written by Josh Shaffer, quickly set the tone for what followed. When Plensa came to Raleigh to present his scheme, wrote Shaffer “The newest and most jarring piece of downtown art will feature a wall of water dripping over a Fayetteville Street plaza.
“Cars will flow past a grassy square, driving on black granite streets sunk 3 feet down.
“A spotlight will beam a mile into the air, and a stainless-steel canopy will hang over the street, flashing bits of poetry”
“…Plensa, working with a $2.5 million private gift, has delivered abstract art in all its playful weirdness.

Can any project withstand that description?

Can any project withstand that description? “Newest and most jarring,” “water dripping,” “abstract art in all its playful weirdness.”
Later in the story we were told that “The commission and Plensa will have to sell the concept to a public that has shown some wariness about nontraditional art.”
So much for us. Ultimately, the story goes on to give the project its due. Mayor Charles Meeker was enthusiastic: "From my perspective, it's two thumbs up…The initial reaction is very positive, and I think this is something that's going to move forward very quickly." Oh, well.
But the N&O had just begun to appeal to its supposed readership, the great unwashed.

(March 11) “A heap of regular folks around Raleigh took one look at the stainless-steel canopy, the flashing colors, the wall of falling water and the mile-high spotlight, and spewed out a pool of bile.
“Jaume Plensa's design for downtown Raleigh wasn't just ugly, they said, though that word popped up in many a critique. The high-concept electronic piece just didn't jibe with the city's idea of art. Why not a statue?”
What was Shaffer talking about? They (and who were they) took one look at what? The colored drawing? Let’s remember, there was no stainless steel canopy. There was no wall of falling water. If ever a story was created to lead to an overwhelming answer this was it.
(August 7) Having cherry-picked people to interview, including one who “doesn’t care much for modern art anyway,” Shaffer got the obvious answers he wanted, leading to a headline that read “Now on exhibit: a city wary of art.” He even found someone to suggest that the city papas return to front and center that dreadful statue of Sir Walter Raleigh as Renaissance pimp. “That is the real personality of Raleigh.” Really?
The “real worry for Raleigh’s leaders, we are told, is preserving the view between the state Capitol dome and Memorial Auditorium.” Again, I must ask, really? Stand at one end of the street and I guarantee that your eyes will automatically fasten on the traffic and the parked cars.

And Raleigh, that barefoot city, was described as one “that still boils about the ‘Life+Time Tower’ on Capital Boulevard…that raised at least as many hackles.” If memory serves, and I think it does, it was Mayor Tom Fetzer, an artcritical disciple of Jesse Helms, who publicly derided the tower when he saw it in model form and stirred up as much fuss as he could. That was a good long time ago and to speak of Raleigh as still boiling is nonsense. In fact, I know more than one commuter who delights in being greeted by the tower’s vari-colored reflections as he drives to town. Exactly who is still boiling?
There was at least one piece of straight reporting: Much space was given to City Manager Russell Allen, who was about to deliver a very negative report to the City Council, a report loaded with reasons to abandon the project. But Allen’s real reason for feeling so negative about the proposal did not emerge until the next day.
The reporter did have the grace to quote one art professional, Lia Newman, director of programs and exhibitions at Artspace, who is thoroughly disgusted with the idea that we might lose the work of someone as prestigious as the artist who designed the proposal, Jaume Plensa.
(Tuesday August 8) Prestige aside, for even a prestigious artist can produce a stinker, everyone seems to have forgotten that we cannot determine the merit of a work seen only in image or model form. Thus, when a mock version of Plensa’s work was installed on Fayetteville, the N&O’s next story quoted Mayor Charles Meeker, who had worried about obstruction of the view, as finding the lights “very interesting. It really doesn’t affect the view at all.” Nor did the question of the view bother Capitol Broadcasting’s CEO Jim Goodson, who was footing the bill for the installation. (Shaffer was now joined by Ellen Sung, whose later stories were much more carefully reportorial.)
But City Manager Russell Allen, who had been cited at length in the earlier story, made it clear that he had made up his mind the night Fayetteville Street was reopened when he caroused among thousands of merrymakers and then, apparently, spent some time finding other reasons to sink the project.
The earlier story did have one important salutary effect. It brought to light the fact that Allen’s report was about to go to the Council, which might scrap the project that very day, and aroused, not the city leaders, but the art leaders, particularly Larry Wheeler, director of the N.C. Museum of Art, who had been instrumental in creating the project, talking Goodson into underwriting it, and in selecting Plensa to install it. Apparently Wheeler might have learned about Allen’s report and the Council’s rejection after it was a done deal.
(Wednesday, August 9) Today’s story reported that the Council had put off a decision to sink the project and kicked it on to Raleigh’s Arts Commission, which had not been asked to do anything up to now. Despite the announcement by Meeker and Goodson that the view would not be disturbed, other Council members, who had not bothered to look at the mockup were convinced that the installation would block the view down Fayetteville (and what if it does?) They obviously had no idea of what an installation is, that it is intended for a particular space and no other, so that Council Member Philip Isley suggested that it “might go elsewhere downtown or even at the Dorothea Dix campus.”
(Thursday, August 17) At long last,| in a thoughtful article unfortunately buried on the Op Ed page, Lee Tripi, a member of the Raleigh Arts Commission, finally pointed out what is clearly the case: “One of the concerns expressed about the Plensa design, with its thin veil of light-emitting diodes suspended high in the air, is that there might be an obstruction of the view of both Memorial Auditorium and the Capitol. To make this a hot issue is either a shell game or shows an inability to visualize the completed exhibit.” But he gave too much credit to the Arts Commission as a group capable of providing “the conduit necessary to ensure clear communication for all concerned.” He also gave too much credit to the Council: “I encourage city representatives, decision-makers and advisors to band together and enthusiastically clear whatever hurdles exist.” (How many Raleighites read the piece?)

(August 22) On the day the Arts Commission was scheduled to vote on its recommendations, actually a set of restrictions that no artist in his right mind could accept, it was clear that everyone involved was playing the shell game, and the “view” had become a kind of code word for everyone opposed to the project. (August 23) And that day the Commission actually did set up two rules, as Shaffer reported. Rule 1: That famous view must be preserved at all costs. But it was Rule 2, as architect Brian Shawcroft had noted, that effectively destroyed Plensa’s vision: The 40-foot swath in the middle of Fayetteville Street belongs to cars. Plensa had already written, "If a street goes through the middle of this space it will no longer be a plaza or a place, first and foremost for people. It will be a street for cars," the statement said. "I feel strongly that the proposed plan allows these two elements to co-exist."
And that is probably that. I’d have a better feeling about it all if the News&Observer did more to actually cover the art world in the Triangle. It is far more diverse than Josh Shaffer can know.

P.S. Ellen Sung, at least, seems to have a clear sense of what it’s all about. In a Q.&A. session on August 19, she praised the original plan:?
“I think it's spectacularly ambitious. The strongest elements, I think, are the pool that really makes that grassy area inviting, and the fact that traffic is separated. The text projected on the LED mesh screens manages to be playful while referencing our high-tech region. The one part I'm not so sure about is the light projected into the sky. But you can't really pick apart a piece of art like that. The whole concept has to work together, so you have to give the artist a chance to finalize the plan before you judge.”

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3 Responses to “Max, the N&O, Plensa, the City: Damn, Damn, Damn”

1. S.J. Coop Says:
August 25th, 2006 at 8:00 am e

It just seems to me that you guys just took all that pedestrian stuff out of there and are jumping to accessorize it. Why don’t we just live with it for a while. Let it set in. Then start all over, considering designs. Perhaps Plensa would even agree to this kind of thinking and not be against resubmitting. It’s a more considered approach to spending that guy’s big bucks.
Live with the view.
Hey, for what it’s worth–I’m no hayseed, I’ve got a fresh view of this city having been here just a while and out of the country a good part of that time. But I hate that pile of sticks and screens on Capital Boulevard. It could have been a winner though from what I’ve read.
2. JosephGomez Says:
August 26th, 2006 at 6:50 am e

There is much insight in Max Halperen’s summary of the often biased reporting of the N & O on the entire Plensa project.
There is also something to be said for S. J. Coop’s plea to “live with the view” for a while.
The problem with Coop, however, is that he/she does not follow Jean Cocteau’s dictum for artists (and writers I might add): that the true artist knows how far to go too far. Coop always seems to go too far (see Coop’s blog as well). Who cares if Coop thinks that he is no hayseed or that he spends a lot of his time out of the country?
Also, and more to the point, what Coop calls “that pile of sticks and screens on Capital Boulevard” may look that way to him at dusk or on a very cloudy day, but on a sunny day the play of reflecting lights can be beautiful to an eye–even one in the head of a hayseed– that actually “looks” at things. Maybe Coop is just out of the country on all sunny days in Raleigh.
3. Tom Starland Says:
August 27th, 2006 at 6:02 pm e

The problem with public art is the public - the fact that they have a say in what and where - is the problem. Most of the time doing anything by committee is a formula for mediocrity. I equate this to my days as an environmentalist working with the Sierra Club - all decisions where made at a national level. Fund-raising and the disbursement of funds was controlled at the national level. They could tell you whether you had an environmental problem or not. Their idea of protecting the environment was by trying to influence decisions at a federal policy level. They spent a lot of time and money doing this. Any victories could be changed by the next administration and yesterday’s victories could and most of the time did become tomorrow’s new battles. Other organizations learned that the best way to preserve the environment was to purchase it.

The same is true of art placed in public view. It is better to be conceived by, paid for and placed on land owned and controlled by an individual or a focused group. I don’t like billboards, but somehow they get to stay in my view.

Public projects involving public funds, public money or even public spaces will always be at best a 50/50 situation - equal amounts of people who love or hate the project. Most of the time when art is involved it will be a 10/90 ratio - 10 percent like and 90 percent hate. So why try?

The “public” involves politics and when politicians are involved - they can only do what will get them reelected, not the right thing. But, then what else is new. Elected officials in Raleigh or most anywhere else have a track record of being weak-kneed when it comes to the arts.. Don’t expect them to stand up to even one vocal voice of opposition.

Artists should feel lucky that public funds disbursed through public arts agencies - federal, state and local are usually determined by “educated” and “unbiased” professionals. You should count your lucky stars that the “public” does not have a say in who or what gets those public funds in the form of grants, fellowships or exhibition opportunities.

I think the public deserves a say on public projects - after all they are paying for them and they will have to look at them. Artists who expect the public to see things through their eyes should get real. Anyone who still thinks newspapers are objective or neutral on any subject should ask to see their local newspaper’s file of “Letters to the Editor” and match them to what gets printed and what doesn’t.

I recently read in a press release sent to my paper that the Triangle is the “Creative Hub of the South”. Well that may have to be proved when it comes to public art in the Triangle. It’s going to take a lot of creativity to get around the public, but take my opinion to the bank - taking the public out of public art is the way to go.