Kelly Klaasmeyer's article MacSculpture for America in Edition #41 was billed by the editors as: an effort to understand some of the pitfalls of private and corporate forms of patronage, Houston-based artist and critic Kelly Klaasmeyer considers what can happen when a patron's social agenda or myopic aesthetic sensibilities overtake the content of a public art project. However, the article was in no way an effort to understand anything. Klaasmeyer's article should have been titled, There's a Sculpture in the Park that I Hate, Hate, Hate.
First, I notice that Kelly uses the same sophomoric swearing in her writing that she does in her artwork. I'm not offended by the language but as a result, the article reads more like a diatribe to a friend and not a serious exploration of the ins and outs of public art patronage.
Next, the article presents a detailed description of the clothes and hairstyles worn by the figures in Victor Salmones' Cancer... There's Hope Using words like: ice-bag on her head, Shoney Big Boy's pompadour, headband and linebacker shoulder pads their 1980s style hair and clothes really seem to get under Klaasmeyer's skin in a personal way. Indeed, Salmones' piece is a depiction of people wearing clothes. But what is the relevance? No one looks at Renoir's Dance at Bougival and says, It's soooo 1883... what a bad year for bustles and bonnets Yes, the figures are awkward in their scale, proportion, and movement. The rendering is also oddly stylized. That level of criticism is a catty rant more suited to the Glasstire.com message boards and does not qualify as substantive art criticism.
Paraphrasing Peter Plagens' art that supports a good cause shouldn't be confused for good art. Fighting and surviving cancer is, indeed, a powerful cause. If you've ever known anyone with cancer; maimed by treatments; fighting to maintain a positive attitude; the helplessness of the whole ordeal is huge. It's life-altering just watching someone else go through it. My follow-on thought to Plagens isdon't automatically expect noble causes to sponsor good art. It'd be great if that happened, but the art is not the priorityit's necessarily about the cause first.
In this particular case, I wouldn't even consider the cancer piece in the park a public ART project it's a public space dedicated to a human experience that happens to include some art. It's also not about the disease itselfthe abstractness of how the disease acts on a cellular level or how one might have become inflicted. Yes, cancer can be tied to environmental contaminants that come from chemical plants; but it can also be tied to cigarette smoking; or eating too many smoked meat products; or using hair dye; or exposure to radiation; or too much saccharine in your tea; or a particularly bad teenage sunburn; or a genetic predisposition. All of which is irrelevant in this context. This particular space is also not a memorial to the dead, like Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial. It is about people living through difficult experiences. Bloch's evangelical zeal is appropriate and needed, even if the art he chooses to sponsor is schlocky or dorky After all, saving lives is more important than stamping out the horror of bad art. It just is.
Bottom line, you are never going to make everyone happy with public art. Install something and it's either too conceptual for the public to embrace or too banal for the art crowd. If there is no public art, the art community worries that society is bereft of culture. If you actually get someone to pay for art, and a committee or a city council to approve itthen the art elite say it's a sell-out, non-art, or bad art. And frankly, the general public really does love insipid literal art, that's why Thomas Kinkade is a bazillionaire. So if you give an artist free reign on a publicly funded project, the local citizens are nearly guaranteed to come unglued. Should Arthur Ashe be playing tennis nude? Is an orange I-beam art? Who should make these decisions? Is someone who is art educated more qualified to decide?
The pluralistic/democratic art scene that our era has created spawns an incomprehensibly wide array of artwork. Individuals, art-educated or not, cannot be expected to respond favorably to all of it. If the Bloch Foundation has installed 25 of these things, then I suspect that someone likes the piece. It's working for them and it's on Bloch's dimehe puts up the money, he gets to choose. I don't like the piece either, but I'm okay with the equation. I happen to be a fan of the Tony Cragg bronze at the Hobby Center, but on more than one occasion have overheard giant cubist pile of dog-doo (Just makes me smile thinking of the giant cubist dog that's roaming around downtown somewhere!)
For the safety of others, I suggest Kelly keep her eyes on the road while driving by public sculpture. She could also try investigating the grassroots work of the many folks, like Michael Manjarris, who diligently invest their time building bridges between sculptors, patrons and cities for successful public art projects.
Or she could spend some time in her studio challenging herself with her own art. While I understand it's a critic's job to critiqueif you are going to wear both hats in the same town, you should remember that it's easy to say that's shitty'it's harder to make something that is not.
Sincerely,
Pam Horsman
Houston