Orange cone sculpture drawing traffic at Stewart Hall
A new art display of traffic cones at Pointe-Claire’s Stewart Hall is part of a cultural program to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary.
But not everyone sees the artistic value in a sculpture made up of orange cones, part of a “Geopoetics Exhibition” meant to transform Stewart Hall into a “creative, multi-faceted site of artistic activity.”
Nigel Hughes, who lives across the street from picturesque Stewart Hall, calls the art work “junk.” Ouch.
Hughes was upset to learn the display, made up of dozens of cones arranged on metal poles between seven- and nine-feet high, would remain for the duration of the summer.
The work, entitled The Ten Public Works, was created by Canadian artist Giorgia Volpe, who is originally from Brazil. The city said members of the community collaborated with Volpe on decorating the sculpture. Hughes was not one of them. In fact, Hughes walked across the street while the sculpture was being installed and inquired about its purpose.
“I asked a lady there and she said it was a work of art. I thought maybe it was a photo shoot for some magazine or something. She said, ‘No, it’s going to stay here all summer.’ “Well, I told her I thought it was a blot on the landscape.”
Hughes also questions whether Stewart Hall, one of the prettiest landmarks in the West Island, should be used to showcase such an attention-grabbing display.
“The grounds (of Stewart Hall) are one of Pointe-Claire’s beauty spots. It’s where people come to (hold) receptions right on that area, wedding groups and whatever.
“I was bemused, not so much that Pointe-Claire council would commission this type of art, because that’s a subjective status to what is good and bad art — to me it’s a pile of junk — but to put it in such a nice location when it could have been less intrusive, and that the fact that these are just bright orange cones, obviously it attracts your attention that maybe part of your intention, it was a waste of money in exactly the wrong location.”
While Hughes may not like it, city spokesman Jean Maurice Duddin said all the art work on display at Stewart Hall this summer is meant to be a cultural celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday. Duddin also noted art is subjective, and even great artists like Picasso were subject to ridicule at some point in their careers.
This is how the city website described Volpe’s eye-catching work: “Consisting of recycled orange safety cones decorated by various people, the work celebrates the fraternity and sharing of fundamental values in the construction of Canada’s identity as a country.
“The sculpture’s 10 vertical elements are made of traffic cones that were transformed, superimposed and decorated with stencils to suggest the idea of an identity under construction. The motifs were designed by women from the local community, inspired by the traditional and cultural imagery of their different origins. This creation process echoes the process of identity-building, as each person drew from her own cultural background to exchange with the other participants, as well as the artist. Hence the work becomes a homogeneous whole that, much like the people of Canada, feeds on diversity to build unity.”
Pointe-Claire said the art exhibition received financial support from the Department of Canadian Heritage in the form of a Canada 150 Fund grant.
While Hughes clearly doesn’t see the artistic value in the traffic cone sculpture, his main beef is its prime location.
“It’s the wrong location for the wrong display,” he said. “If they had roped off a section of Fairview car park and put it there, fair enough.”
Of course, orange traffic cones have become synonymous with the seemingly endless road construction and traffic in Montreal, a point not lost on Hughes.
“When you have these people in the Turcot, by necessity (using cones), for Pointe-Claire to spend a lot of money to blight one of the most photographed areas of Pointe-Claire with the same junk, it just seems bad judgment.”
With Montreal also celebrating its 375th anniversary in 2017, Volpe’s traffic cone display could prove to be one of the more bemusing sculptures in the city this summer.
Although he spoke to his local city councillor, Paul Bissonnette, about the prospects of having the cone art relocated, Hughes is skeptical anything will change now that the sculpture has been installed.
For now, one man’s “visual blight” is another person’s art.