THE ART OF Embedding Public Art in Public Architecture BY FRAN PRUYN Standing Tall Tooza Design “Standing Tall” is a modern interpretation of the famous lady justice sculpture, with her blindfold representing impartiality, scales to weigh evidence of the accused, and a sword to exercise an appropriate verdict. Tooza Design’s interpretation sets the Lady Justice atop a series of precast benches, that progressively change shape from random and angular, to uniform and regular. This represents the process of the District Attorney in bringing order to chaos. 15’ x 10’ x 18’ Precast Concrete and Corten Steel Salt Lake County District Attorney Office, West Jordan, UT Art has been integrated with architecture since the dawn of humankind: cave paintings and sculpture gardens, ornamental hardware and draperies, decorative cornices and sconces. And, of course, the stone, steel, glass, wood and concrete used to build structures create their own kind of art. Utah, which has always valued visual, literary and performing arts, has a plethora of beautiful art installations peppered across the state that was funded by taxpayer dollars. How to choose them, how to incorporate them into buildings and how to make them last are concerns artists, architects and arts administrators in civic government address daily. I talked with several people who are deeply involved in this process and will share their thoughts — but first a little background. “Art” itself has always been an abstract term. It is defined loosely to embrace many forms of expression and creativity, but until the 1930s, American public art was routinely limited to paintings, statuary and stained glass that were used to tell a historic narrative, to glorify founders, or to memorialize war heroes, veterans and prominent political figures. Certainly, buildings were often ornamented, but these embellishments were often considered decoration and not “fine art.”1 Publicly commissioned statuary, paintings, windows and sculpture tell the stories of the place, the time, the history and the culture in which they were created. However, one generation’s hero can be the next generation’s dastard. George Washington’s soldiers and citizens tore down a statue of George III, cut off its nose and melted the rest down to make bullets for the revolution. Today, we are seeing murals and statuary being removed, replaced, and defaced.2 That is why, now, when we choose public art for a public place, built with taxpayer dollars, it is critical to choose wisely. 1) The art must be more than embellishment or ornamentation but tell a story. 2) It must speak to the setting where it was created. 3) Since public art communicates the values, people and events that the community wants to be remembered (and sometimes commemorated), it should reflect the culture and period when it was created. 4) Finally, it should last, both figuratively and literally; it must pass the test of time. This last criterion is by far the most arbitrary, challenging and important. Motivated by relieving the impact of the depression on artists and to encourage a national pride in American culture, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal enabled the standardization and regulation of public art by instituting the Art in Architecture’s program’s one half of one percent for art program. One half of one percent of the construction cost of government buildings was reserved for contemporary American Art. Major tenets of this program were that art was required to be accessible to the public, site specific, and celebrate the people of America. This too had challenges as the early programs had propaganda goals, but much of this structure is still in place across the United States. The entire concept of public art changed drastically in the 1970s, when artistic efforts formed an alliance with urban renewal. 24 REFLEXION
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