EDMONTON HANDLES PUBLIC ART PROPERLY
It’s not clear that Calgary’s public art needs to be better, but the city sure needs to handle it better. Maybe the way Edmonton does.
Edmonton has an arm’s-length, non-profit council that decides on public art projects. It often publicizes plans as they’re developed, even releasing competitive drawings, while giving the public a chance to comment.
“People need time to get used to public art,” says David Turnbull, director of public art and conservation for the Edmonton Arts Council. “If you just spring it on them, they can be shocked.”
That’s exactly what happened last week in Calgary.
On Tuesday, Calgary city council voted to give $2 million to local arts groups hit hard by the recession.
On Thursday, the $500,000 Bowfort Towers installation was unveiled on Highway 1 near the new underpass at Canada Olympic Park.
The instant outrage was not confined to the public. Councillors who didn’t know about it were caught off guard, too.
“I certainly didn’t know this was coming and I don’t think anybody else did, either,” says Ward 13 Coun. Diane ColleyUrquhart.
The project was chosen by a panel of three community members and three art experts who answer to the city’s arts and culture department.
I can find only two minimal, undated descriptions of the Bowfort Towers on the city website. If there was consultation somewhere, it’s hard to find.
And so, on a fine summer Thursday, the thing just popped up. What had looked like roadside construction was suddenly described as art. The furious reaction was entirely predictable.
“We’ve got to have a more open process than this,” says ColleyUrquhart, with considerable understatement.
The Edmonton Arts Council shows one way that could work.
In 2015, the council published drawings by six final contenders for a $1-million public art installation at a new transit garage.
The public was invited to comment online, and the public sure did — more than 3,000 times.
The online comments weren’t taken as a vote; Turnbull says the arts council’s own panel made the final decision. But the public’s views were certainly considered.
When the arts council announced the winning design, by Thorsten Goldberg of Germany, there was little complaint. That may come when the garage is built, but at least the public is aware of what’s coming, and the city can’t be accused of secrecy.
Edmonton has also been admirably open about its development of an Aboriginal arts park that will feature work by six Indigenous artists.
The Bowfort Towers installation, by extreme contrast, is mired in accusations that Blackfoot symbolism was used without consultation and no understanding.
The way this was rolled out is unfair not just to the public, but to the artists, Del Geist and Patricia Leighton of New York.
The project is only halffinished. Still to come are “drumlins” on the north side of Highway 1. Presumably that will add scale to a project that at this point seems a bit puny.
By any standard of fairness, it’s simply impossible to pass judgment on the thing until it’s completed. Would you dismiss a Picasso before he applied the paint?
Picasso is a good example for Calgary, it turns out.
The sculpture he gave Chicago exactly 50 years ago was wildly controversial. After the unveiling, it was compared to a flying nun or a cow sticking out its tongue.
Fifteen metres high, it was reviled by columnist Mike Royko as a vast insect with eyes that were “pitiless, cold, mean” — much like the city itself, he concluded.
Today, the Chicago Picasso is one of the most popular things in that city, apart from the Cubs.
With many construction projects coming to Calgary, there will be more public art, too — unless council decides to freeze, alter or even cancel the whole program. It’s certainly possible when public art comes under attack two months before an election in a recession-ravaged city.
Before that happens, the city could try something a little different.
Give the public a chance. Not to mention the artists.