Why Public Art?

By Richard O. Jones
Reprinted with permission of the Journal-News

The story of Grand Rapids, Mich., and Alexander Calder’s “Le Grande Vitesse” has become legendary as the start of a wave of public art beyond war memorials and statues of men on horses.

In 1965, Grand Rapids was the recipient of one of the first National Endowment for the Arts grants through the Arts in Public Places Commission, the first public sculpture erected with a combination of public and private funds.

“Everyone was so upset about it,” said Calder expert Robert Stearns, who also served on the committee that placed “The Hamilton Gateway” on the corner of High Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard. He is currently the director of Arts Midwest, developing art exhibitions for international exchange.

Many people felt it was something of a cultural imposition, that it was too expensive and because it was modern art, it didn’t reflect the tastes and sensibilities of city residents. Some just thought it was ugly, a big strawberry-red blob plopped down in a spot that would have been better used for a fountain.

But a two-year debate before the actual installation of the sculpture began to turn public opinion.

“Alexander Calder was such a significant artist they realized they were lucky to have such a piece,” Stearns said. “Essentially, I think they got used to it and there was enough notoriety that they realized it put them on the map.

“The abstract nature of the work turned out to be adaptable to a logo, so the image of the work literally became the image of the city.”

Today in Grand Rapids, you can see the shape and bright red color of “Le Grande Vitesse” on everything from letterhead to garbage trucks — even the link icons on the city’s web site.

Not only that, but the installation of “La Grande Vitesse” helped create a wave of public art in a city that now boasts more than 25 sculptures in its downtown area. Grand Rapids has also become something of a hotbed for arts, with many and diverse arts centers, arts festivals (including the simply-named Festival with its Calder-designed logo) and artist colonies emerging in the last 30 years.

Am I suggesting that “The Hamilton Gateway” will create a similar artistic explosion in Hamilton?

No, I’m not.

I’m telling you the explosion is well underway, already making the streets of Hamilton quake, and “The Hamilton Gateway” is just one of the bigger aftershocks.

When I took over the arts and entertainment desk, it was just in time for the second anniversary of the Fitton Center for Creative Arts. In a story marking that anniversary, I quoted Paul Thoms, then the president of the Hamilton-Fairfield Arts Association, as saying “I believe we’re right on the eve of a golden era in arts in Butler County.”

I’ve recycled that prophesy from time to time because of the many ways in which it’s come true. When he spoke those words, Thoms didn’t know that local visionary Harry Wilks would turn his property on the outskirts of Hamilton into Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park and Museum, one of the nation’s largest sculpture parks — not public art, but as a non-profit cultural center has certainly helped inform the public about modern art .

Nor did he know just how far the Fitton Center’s SPECTRA+ program that brought working artists into the schools to help teach academic subjects would go, nor that the fledgling Arts In Common program would have survived to reach out to hundreds of underserved children every year, nor that the Fitton Center would become a hub of arts education by hosting Riverside Academy, offering a Master’s of Education degree in the Fine Arts and Multiple Intelligences in cooperation with Rio Grande College.

Nor did he know that Hamilton City Council would approve a proposal to nickname Hamilton “The City of Sculpture,” and that a committee of private citizens would spring up to be a link between artists and the officials who control public spaces.

Nor did he know that we’d now be poised to unveil a piece of public sculpture that helped create a new model for developing such works of art in the future. Where the people of Grand Rapids had their Calder thrust upon them, the people of Hamilton had a voice in the selection process that has given us “The Hamilton Gateway.”

Public art has thus been redefined. No longer is it simply art that belongs to the people, but it is art where the people are a part of the process.

Still, there will surely be dissenters, those who will call it ugly and/or wasteful, saying that we need better jobs, better roads, not art.

But we do need art. But we do need art. Art may not be the bread of life, but it is the leavening in the bread. Art lets our endeavors rise, makes life more palatable. Art is not just a diversion from our work, but it provides insights on our history and nature. In both general and specific ways, art is the core of civilization.

Indeed, art defines our humanity. Even insects have jobs. Only human beings have art.

I asked Stearns about that, and he told a story.

“Last weekend, I was in south Maine with some friends helping them finish the restoration of a house. My job was hanging up the art work. While I was doing that, one of the workmen came through, a carpenter who didn’t look like the kind of person who would be an advocate for the arts.

“He looked at what I was doing and said, ‘Ah! Making the house a home!’

“That’s what art is: It’s what makes a house a home.”