ONe is perhaps there for more than five years and one for less than two.
Permanent
materials are made to withstand being vandalised
materials are made to withstand weather and erosion.
It will stand for a few years so its messages need to be politically correct or true.
It must not offend anyone.
It must be aesthetically pleasing.
It costs lots of money, sometimes up to $150,000.
It usually gets up via group consensus, often through the aquisence of council employees and politicians, and some community consultation ( perhaps three to six people on a committee).
More tensions exist with issues of aesthetics, site, audience, urban design,
Ephemeral
A sense of play is included in the temporariness of the project. It is a non-static thing in a static landscape of solid and still buildings.
It can be more political or question values because it isn't going to last long. The shorter the time it exists the less we need to worry.
It might be put there by a rogue artist or it might have been a small commission - usually less than $3,000.
Because its short-lived many people will forgive it if it is less aesthetic, considered, in the wrong place or doesn't improve the environment.
There are less hurdles to jump through to get it there.
In his interview with Neil Mulholland David Shrigley said (of his ephemeral works)
In terms of making 'public' art I've never felt that I wanted anything I did to last. This was (and still is) partly because I don't want to permanently alter the world. I don't feel I have the right to. Only the city council is allowed to change things forever.
Why I am interested in Permanent Projects
Its easier to achieve community engagement in Ephemeral artworks whereas its much more difficult to get a commission for artworks with community engaged as makers because it makes the artwork unpredictable in all sorts of areas. We can think about the terms often used in public art policies such as Quality, well-known and reputable artist, enhancing, to realise that artwork by non-artists becomes problematic. There is more at stake when you make something permanent, even if permanent is defined as five years.
permanent artworks become objects. ephemeral art is an event. it is time.
There is also the idea of public artworks being prized for their being made by a well-reputed artist, and in this sense they become an object of value collectively owned by the people.
in the play between permanent and ephemeral, a little hierarchy of types is allowed to play.
perhaps a bronze sculpture is at the high end of permanent, but often what is thought to be ephemeral could be permanent and what is permanent, becomes a burden.
I am interested in this quote from the Darebin Public art strategy, that touches on the difference between permanent and ephemeral.
While permanent works clearly need to be constructed of lasting materials, public art of a temporary or ephemeral nature includes works using such things as video, sound, projection or live performance.
In what way are videos, sound and projection, not permanent or able to be made permanent. The idea of permanent public art wears a heaviness to it, in terms of its history of bronze and marble sculptures and its solidity of content. Why does a permanent public artwork have to be madeof lasting materials. what does permanent mean?
TIME
the difference between permanent and ephemeral is that they use time in differenct ways. But permanent art, takes up more time and doesnt generally deteriorate in time, and its use of more time gives it a higher status.
laurence weiner also says that time is one of the most important things in the world, particularly for an artist.
'I'm terribly sorry, the most important thing in the world and the most expensive thing in the world is time. The only way you can get time is to buy it and in order to buy it, if you're rewarded for spending your time putting things out you take that money and you buy time and you make more things . . .'
Laurence Weiner , The means to answer questions [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AscU8wKzbbE]
Time also generates lasting memories and ongoing thoughts. The audience has longer to come to terms with the artwork and for it to burrow into their subconsciousness. The artwork might become part of the identity of the place for them. Think about the average of 7 seconds that an individual artwork in a gallery might get from each person, in comparison with the repeated viewingof a public spculpture that might sit in someone's suburb.
When i was a child my hometown of Devonport purchased a Ron Robertson-Swann sculpture, silimilar to the yellow one in Melbourne. We heard that the one in Melbourne had been called the yellow peril ( Its actual name is 'Vault' ) and so sometimes i thought of the red one that we owned as the red peril because it seemed to draw ont he same controversies as the yellow one in Melbourne. Our red one was called vertex. It gets moved sometimes. I often wonder what the people of Devonport think about it. what does it mean to them.
To me, when I see it, it is the reminder of a debacle. The council must have thought they were purchasing some sort of status for their town. The sculpture was from another world (the art world) so it was little understood by the locals. I laugh when I see it. It is placed out of the way. Those in the know, know they have something valuable but no-one else values it. What is interesting though, is that it was comissioned by the Devonport Jaycees who organised funding and commission. Similarly, the latest public sculpture in Devonport was commissioned by a coaltiion of community groups.
here is a statement form the 2006 draft public art policy in the Devonport Council march 2006 agenda which alludes to the controversy.
'The project was dogged by controversy from the early stages. The Council tried to
withdraw funding part-way through the project and the State Library decided the work
should no longer be installed in the Library’s forecourt. Consequently Vertex, a work
designed specifically for an urban environment is now installed in an unsuitable,
aesthetically sensitive site adjacent to the Mersey River and no longer represents the
artist’s original intent which was to respond to the urban nature of the new city
square. '
http://www.devonport.tas.gov.au/upload/documents/yourcouncil/agendas/2006_agendas/20th_march_2006.pdf
statements about what permanence means in terms of public art policy
Permanent works are generally intended to last between 5 – 15 years or occasionally
longer depending on the durability of the materials, and the ongoing relevance of the
work. For example a “permanent” wall mural is likely to last for 5 – 6 years while a
steel sculpture is likely to last up to 15 years or longer.
(http://www.moreland.vic.gov.au/globalassets/areas/arts-festivalslib-4055/public-art-guidelines.pdf)
No comments:
Post a Comment