Sir, – I read with interest Finn McRedmond's article "What is the point of public art if the public does not like it?" (Opinion & Analysis, August 13th) discussing the merits and drawbacks of public art. The timing is pertinent, as many artists (myself included) are currently preparing applications for stage one of the Sculpture Dublin initiative.
Discussion surrounding public art, as in Finn McRedmond’s article, invariably invokes the “average Joe” or the “average punter”.
Who are these people exactly? Indeed, what exactly is the “public”? Superficial characterisations assume the public to be an homogenous entity with a particular persona when in fact the “general public” is a varied array of demographics with numerous different perspectives, experience and tastes.
As an artist, I have first-hand experience of this, because as an artist, I have worked in a service job for many years to support myself and my work.
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As an example for varying outlooks, I can’t resist asserting my difference of opinion from your columnist’s on what is “good” or “bad” art. While I agree that Heather Phillipson’s blob of whipped cream on the Fourth Plinth at Trafalgar Square is “gauche and grotesque”, it is knowingly so as a searing critique of the crassness of surveillance capitalism and the kitsch nature of the political establishment that enables it.
Anish Kapoor’s Bean and Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North to me are intensely narcissistic vanity projects by the most privileged of artists (the “Angel” is actually a cast of Gormley’s own body magnified to immortal proportions).
As a “service worker”, I try to “please” the public.
I’m friendly. I always attempt to smooth over potential tensions with politeness. I try to be helpful, and makes things easier for people, but even then, there are always unhappy customers.
As an artist, on the other hand, it’s not my job to please, smooth over the cracks or mollycoddle.
Instead, art tends to shine a light on the cracks, expose the tensions and speak of inconvenient perspectives. The worst insult an artist can hear about their artwork is “it’s polite” (ouch!).
In the context of public art, are artists to behave as “service providers”? To “please” and “unify”the public?
The brief for Sculpture Dublin is extensive and intimidating – at one point it states that artists can choose to engage with “political idealism, the pursuit of freedom and the weight of history”. Ha!
No pressure then for a sector that was already underfunded and now decimated by the pandemic.
If the political establishment here with enormous salaries fails to “please” or “unify” the public (let alone engage with the weight of history), why is this ever expected from a sculpture? Or a service worker, for that matter. – Is mise,
DOIREANN
NÍ GHRIOGHAIR,
Dublin 9.