Is public art a waste of space?

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I know that’s the question that has been keeping you awake at night too. So on behalf of all of us I went to a free arts debate on the subject last week in the National Gallery. I’ll come back to it later but Apollo magazine has a good summary of the issues that came up.

What had got me thinking about the topic in particular was the abundance of bad public art in East London, and Stratford especially. We’re literally falling over the stuff out here. My kneejerk reaction now is to see it as a symptom of shoddy regeneration and council underspend - with a few notable exceptions, the sculptures / light installations / memorial fountains here add nothing to our experience of the environment we live in. The pieces aren’t attractive, challenging, interactive, thought-provoking, inspiring, controversial or any of the other things you might wish from art in the public domain.

What *really* irritates me is when you look past the sculpture and see a high street full of drunks, junkies, homeless people, or a forest of yellow murder boards. I am as arty farty as they come and I still think ‘surely you could be spending the money on something more worthwhile?’ At the debate Joan Bakewell said that “the effect of public art is that you see the space around it”, as well as the thing you’re ‘meant’ to look at. Perhaps that’s the problem? If you dumbly parachute ‘art’ into a place without considering the surrounding space you’re just drawing attention to the mismatch. It’s the indifference which jars - the indifference of the people who commissioned it is mirrored by the indifferent reception of the people who live with it.

Two examples from the centre of Stratford spring to mind. One is the ‘World Peace’ sculpture (1984) outside Morrisons: not only is this unimaginative to the point of GCSE coursework, it also completely disconnected from the place around it. The overwhelming feeling you get when you look at it is ‘why on earth is this here?’ That is if you see it at all.

I feel the same about the series of photographs called ‘Stratford Circles’, which reside in an attractive spot between the multi-storey car-park and the road, at the back of Krisp clothing store. Really, what is the point?

Just for balance, there is a piece I like a lot as well - the ‘Railway Tree’ by Malcolm Robertson. It is a pleasure to look at, it has a strong visual impact, and attempts to say something about Stratford’s unique identity. Even so, I think it suffers from the location, surrounded by busy road and office blocks - it discourages interaction because the only reason people would be near it is if they were crossing the road. And actually it’s a sculpture that works well up close because you can get into its ‘roots’, and feel the texture of the girders, and really appreciate the size of it. It’s only when you get close that is becomes tree-like.

The question of democracy in art came up at the debate - how do you involve the public in getting the art they want for their community? I certainly don’t have the answer. East London has an incredibly vibrant artistic community and loads of great stuff going on. What I’d like to know is how we can tap some of that originality and boldness and bring it into the public realm. A hip studio in Dalston or the fantastic Whitechapel gallery are open to the public, of course, but they are intimidating places, and often half-deliberately inaccessible, physically and intellectually.

There is lots going on in Stratford at the moment on the public art front, with a new Platform for Art initiative underway and advertised in the station. It would make me happy if the committees behind future projects took on board something that Sandy Nairne said at the arts debate: “Good public art changes, and makes, public space.”

I shall close this very serious gigantipost with a link to a picture of artist Mark Titchner, because he is pretty. Oh and also he was on the arts debate panel and has done lots of good stuff promoting human rights. Go Mark!

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Filed under Art, Newham, Regeneration, Stratford, Wandering

Tags: Art, debate, east london, joan bakewell, malcolm robertson, mark titchner, public art, railway tree, sandy nairne, sculpture, Stratford