 |
| A debacle of public art. (philart.net) |
Now they’ve gone too far.
If only The Plateau had lived up to its name and indeed set a high point of garishness past which no “public art” would go.
Unfortunately, such hopes were crushed under the massive weight of the latest mountain of mediocrity masquerading as art. The new Bells structure erected in front of the new DOMUS building on 34th & Chestnut has not only ruined the appearance of a perfectly handsome new building, but taken up an abundance of perfectly good space in the process.
Highways have hearings when they get built. SEPTA has a hearing when they announce that they are broke, yet again. One would think that, we the people could be consulted and involved in the process of picking public art, at least on some superficial level.
Such is not the case with Bells, or the Plateau, or the dueling tampons, or any of the other aesthetic disasters dotting our campus. They were placed in the name of some elusive public good that is served by employing unremarkable artists to build ugly masses of metal. These designs were foisted upon the unwashed masses whether they found it remotely appealing in their community or not.
We have hearings for liquor stores that offend the sensibilities of Philadelphia’s Muslims. There is no reason we cannot have a hearing for works of “art” that offend the sensibilities of anybody with eyes.
If one were to hold a campus-wide vote on the future of these works of “art,” all these eyesores would surely be marked for swift and unceremonious dismantling. Until that day in which we live up to the democratic goals espoused in Amy Gutmann’s political tomes, perhaps the powers that be can at least introduce some form of democratic input to limit future works of public art from offending…well, the public.
An RSS feed of The Spin is available
April 6th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Why can’t there be a vote against the DP taking shitty articles from John Kneeland that try to be witty and facetious but fail miserably?
April 6th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
In some defense of Plateau, the artist meant for it to “zip” together the campus and West Philly, and the seating is a part of that. So the actual artwork, in the eyes of the artist, can only be observed when there are a lot of people sitting on it. I walked by on Tuesday when it was so nice out and there were a lot of people sitting on it. The people made it look A LOT better.