Art, inside out: A UMass exhibit places public art front and center

By Kathleen Mellen
Staff Writer

Published on May 23, 2008

The stregth of public art is, of course, that it's out in public, where, theoretically, anyone and everyone can see it.

By its very nature, it is removed from inside the walls of galleries and museums where only those with the inclination, and the price of admission, can get a glimpse.

"The museum is an elitist institution," said Eva C. Fierst, curator of education at the University Gallery at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "The whole notion of museums is being questioned. People are increasingly looking for art outside a museum. It doesn't have to be necessarily all boxed into a box ... Contemporary art is so incredibly expensive. Having public art is democratic, provides access to everybody."

But, art designed for public - whether outdoor or indoor - display, also has its limitations. For example, it does not easily travel from venue to venue, so finding ways in which to share that art with viewers not in the immediate vicinity of its installation creates unique challenges, Fierst says.

At the University Gallery, located in the Fine Arts Center on the UMass campus, organizers of an exhibit, "Art in the Public Sphere: Singular Works, Plural Possibilities," think they have found a way in which to both honor, and make accessible, works of public art from around the country and across the globe, albeit, by placing images of those pieces right back into a museum setting.

The exhibit, which opened with a public symposium last month that examined the meaning and importance of public art, is a juried collection of digital images of 44 such pieces. It will be on view through May 24.

The exhibit grew out of a challenge by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEFA), that recently provided funding for the maintenance of one of UMass' own pieces of public art: "Isle of View," a piece of land art that is situated on an island in the campus pond at UMass. Created under the aegis of the University Gallery in 1985 by New York City installation artist George Trakas, it was in need of repair, Fierst says.

"Nothing lasts for ever. This Isle of View' was getting a little bit worse for the wear. It needed some maintenance badly. So we brought the artist back to work on it with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts." But, she added, there was a stipulation tied to the grant that UMass "do some educational component" with part of the funds.

Timely dialogue

In accepting the NEFA challenge, organizers at the gallery decided it was high time to stimulate questions about the meaning of public art in general.

Fierst says the campus itself is "a little skimpy" on public art. "It's a beautiful campus that is actually hungry for public art," she said. "It's a really ripe subject for us ... Could we stimulate public art dialogue with an eye toward having more contemporary public art? It [The exhibit] was meant to start the conversation," Fierst said. "There is a need for this type of dialogue that hadn't been done for a while."

Indeed, Fierst says, the question is one that fits well with the University Gallery's mandate to showcase contemporary fine arts on campus.

After a call went out to the arts community at large, the gallery received between 150 and 200 submissions from all over the world, Fierst says. A jury of artists, landscape architects and other professionals chose 44 pieces to be exhibited in the form of digital images. The accompanying symposium was sponsored by the New England Foundation for the Arts.

Among the jury members were three from UMass: Annaliese Bischoff and Frank Sleegers, both from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, and Joseph Krupczynski, an assistant professor of architecture and design in the Department of Art and Art History, who curated the exhibit.

The Bulletin spoke recently with Krupczynski about the exhibit and the changing nature of public art. Here are edited excerpts from that conversation.

Q: Why was there interest in presenting an exhibit about public art at the University Gallery?

A: There are interesting things going on in public art now. In the past, public art was more static, a monument or something monumental. These days, public art is often more temporary, reflective of a community, a place, in a way different from the tradition of monuments, traditional public art.

Q: What is the goal of the exhibit?

A: Not everyone can travel to various places to see the installed works. It was a way to make [the art] accessible to people. There is a whole range of work in a whole range of settings. They are indoors and outdoors; some are nearly invisible unless you know about it. [At the exhibit] you see a whole range of artistic practices in the realm of public art.

Q: Is the nature of public art changing?

A: While the term "public art" traditionally tends to suggest the timeless and immutable - the very "stuff" of traditional monuments - today's public art often provides the most timely and dynamic commentary on the change and indeterminacy that is a part of our daily lives. As public life becomes dominated by increasingly fragmented identities and restless societal differences, artists are creating works of public art that authentically engage a place, develop innovative participatory processes, promote social consciousness and creatively locate us within our communities.

Q: Does public art often raise issues of importance to a community?

A: There's an aesthetic component to public art, but also education and community and in some cases, activist components. There is often a lot of community input in public art. There is a Texas project [included in the exhibit] that uses recycled plastic bottles. People brought them to a site and placed them in a chain-link fence. The ... fence becomes a "canvas." The bottles made a beautiful instantaneous mosaic. This is about a community recycling.

Q: What are the challenges that are peculiar to producing public art?

A: I think the greatest challenge is to use and respond to this "input" in a creative way and not see it as something which diminishes the work, but as something that enriches it. The best artists working in the public sphere are able to see these processes as an intrinsic part of their creative process.

Q: Why is the use of digital projections in this exhibit sufficient? Is there a danger that the art taken out of its natural habitat, so to speak, may lose something essential in the translation?

A: One of the goals of the exhibition is to expand public awareness and understanding of public art in the many forms in which it is practiced today. So the digital projections are meant to expose the audience to a range of possibilities, and not substitute for engagement with the actual pieces. I think galleries can play many roles - especially the University Gallery which has a strong educational component - and in this case the "danger" of losing something in translation (which is certainly there) is balanced by the opportunity to expose an audience to a great number of possibilities. So critically presenting, discussing and examining these works through the exhibition (and symposium) plays an important role in re-invigorating the role of public art in the public realm.

Q: What might be an enduring positive response to the exhibit?

A: Perhaps a hopeful measure of the exhibition's impact would be the audience's greater understanding when they are confronted by a public art piece in the future - and the exhibition may play a small role in a more nuanced and appreciative reception for the piece.

Kathleen Mellen can be reached at kmellen@gazettenet.com.