If art is about communication and intention, what was Serra trying to say and what did he expect.
Did he have no forethought of what might happen? His idea that art divides or declares its own area seems fascist to me.
I don’t underestimate him, but did he not foresee the disgruntled office worker who had to walk 500 more steps to get to work each morning? I don’t know if it suggests that he thinks of people as unconscious zombies.
I wouldn't disregard the merit of his piece in an ideal (post apocalyptic?) setting, but even a megalomaniacal pharaoh wouldn’t want you to walk around a whole pyramid just to see his Sphinx.
Of course it would be a good thing if we can improve on pulling together the pluralist, innumerable, criss-crossing currents of the art world into a navigable river - A criss-crossing of comunication and empathy - instead of separating everything into a power struggle about race, gender, etc.
Or do you think, as Serra might suggest, we might need a Pharaoh to do it?
We might get a Pharaoh at some point but I hope we can avoid it. The image of Serra-like Pharoah putting a pyramid in the way of a Sphinx is great. As for Serra himself, I think that he and his supporters were so blinkered that it never occurred to them that the public at large would not admire Tilted Arc as much as they did--and for the same narrow art-world reasons.
Thank you for this essay which recalls to me your writing from long ago that made so much sense. It has the power to cut through mountains of rhetoric to make a meaningful and clear point---a gem of a voice.
I met someone in Washington DC many years ago who went on about the Tilted Arc for at least 10 minutes. She told me she worked in one of the office buildings on the square in which it was installed. She got up early in the morning to go to work and got home very late - often after dark. She would take her lunch and sit in that square even in the very cold and hot weather, just to feel the sun on her face - a necessary pleasure that Arc was installed. According to her, it completely blocked the sun. She did not see it as a work of art, it felt to her like a prison wall. Today, I feel that a lot of public art has become very literal - it lacks the mystery that the Tilted Arc provides. On the other hand, it rarely blocks the sun.
Yes, Tilted Arc was good on its own terms but those terms completely excluded all but the narrowest aesthetic meanings and values. And so it just didn't work in a setting where social values were in play.
It is interesting to examine how the Formalist /Structuralist School of Roger Fry, Clive Bell, Clement Greenberg and the 70's ArtForum/October Intellectuals swerved off course into a frozen separate zone, where art is distinct from its social fabric. The origin of structural analysis stems from the founding of art history-- Why and How is Baroque Art different from Renaissance Art.
Wolfflin elaborated these differences, and, we should emphasise, pointed to the social, economic and cultural aspects of each era to explain the structural forms. Note that the forms did not exist as a 'new thing' or market pitch or independent exploration in a segregated discipline of the arts. The forms of expression came out of the broader experience of living in that era.
Perhaps to gain more esteem, the 20th century Structuralists severed the dialog of form from our culture and the TILTED ARC expresses well that segregated bludgeoning of people. Compare the reaction of the Florentines of the 15th Century to DAVID; they felt enormous pride in their dynamic self image, while the Serra Piazza people felt oppressed by the ARC's existential weight and mass.
Many of the 70's formalists required a formal 'addition to the dialog' or new invention within the independent painterly forms. It is this juncture where the big swing or swerve away from connection to our culture obliterated other voices, and, to some extent, identifies the dizzy proliferation of sylishnesses and commentary type pictures.
But, is this dizzy display showing us anything about the structures of our 21st century experience?
It shows the streetscape of activity, but does it reveal the "streets", the main experience format of our time.
The formal art inventions of past eras revealed the structures of their eras, and that is why they have punch and import. They carry the meanings of their cultures in vital and fascinating ways.
Their structural and formal inventions were born from basic forces. We think here of free movements of payments, travel and bourgeoisie expansion, the mystery of exploration, or the consolidation of power and empire, the organization of social systems, security and abundance, ethical education from the Abrambraic Traditions--- these forces generated the formal innovations.
It is exactly what we do not see artists doing today. Isolated formalism is mirrored by an 'everyday', 'aw shucks' imaging, begging to be socially correct,right, acceptable, as though the artists were pre-using their jeans before making the party scene, so well described in the post of last week. It looks very much like genera art of ages past. Ho-huum, basically, always sells.
The dizzy mess looks so bland because there is little formal invention generated upon our broad cultural experience-- Bizarre especially because the 21st Century has so many great leaps away from the 20th.!
The Electronic Era, The Internet, Virtual- Cyborg Life, The Space Age, individual life in the stream, etc.
My comment is an argument for formal innovation connected within and leaping from our contemporary experience.
Thank you for your comments, George, which touch on an array on interconnected issues having to do not just with art but with its place in our world--its meaning for our world. And you're right about the way formalism--which at its best was rife with difficulties--has devolved into a stylized, sometimes stylish process of image making.
How fun to revisit and confront, once again, tilted arc! My mother made a City Walls proposal to transform Tilted Arc with one of her mural concepts in 1980. I was reminded of these recently while excavating her Soho loft. Tilted Arc was audacious. Now I see my mother’s proposal to augment the work of another artist as more so. Still, I’d have vastly preferred her version of Soho than the one we’ve ended up with. (I wrote a post about it - https://open.substack.com/pub/twohouses/p/soho-walls-never-funded)
Thank you.
If art is about communication and intention, what was Serra trying to say and what did he expect.
Did he have no forethought of what might happen? His idea that art divides or declares its own area seems fascist to me.
I don’t underestimate him, but did he not foresee the disgruntled office worker who had to walk 500 more steps to get to work each morning? I don’t know if it suggests that he thinks of people as unconscious zombies.
I wouldn't disregard the merit of his piece in an ideal (post apocalyptic?) setting, but even a megalomaniacal pharaoh wouldn’t want you to walk around a whole pyramid just to see his Sphinx.
Of course it would be a good thing if we can improve on pulling together the pluralist, innumerable, criss-crossing currents of the art world into a navigable river - A criss-crossing of comunication and empathy - instead of separating everything into a power struggle about race, gender, etc.
Or do you think, as Serra might suggest, we might need a Pharaoh to do it?
We might get a Pharaoh at some point but I hope we can avoid it. The image of Serra-like Pharoah putting a pyramid in the way of a Sphinx is great. As for Serra himself, I think that he and his supporters were so blinkered that it never occurred to them that the public at large would not admire Tilted Arc as much as they did--and for the same narrow art-world reasons.
Thank you for this essay which recalls to me your writing from long ago that made so much sense. It has the power to cut through mountains of rhetoric to make a meaningful and clear point---a gem of a voice.
Thank you!
I met someone in Washington DC many years ago who went on about the Tilted Arc for at least 10 minutes. She told me she worked in one of the office buildings on the square in which it was installed. She got up early in the morning to go to work and got home very late - often after dark. She would take her lunch and sit in that square even in the very cold and hot weather, just to feel the sun on her face - a necessary pleasure that Arc was installed. According to her, it completely blocked the sun. She did not see it as a work of art, it felt to her like a prison wall. Today, I feel that a lot of public art has become very literal - it lacks the mystery that the Tilted Arc provides. On the other hand, it rarely blocks the sun.
It posted as I was correcting - the sun was a necessary pleasure until the arc was installed.
Yes, Tilted Arc was good on its own terms but those terms completely excluded all but the narrowest aesthetic meanings and values. And so it just didn't work in a setting where social values were in play.
Bravo. I especially love your last sentence, Carter.
Thank you!
It is interesting to examine how the Formalist /Structuralist School of Roger Fry, Clive Bell, Clement Greenberg and the 70's ArtForum/October Intellectuals swerved off course into a frozen separate zone, where art is distinct from its social fabric. The origin of structural analysis stems from the founding of art history-- Why and How is Baroque Art different from Renaissance Art.
Wolfflin elaborated these differences, and, we should emphasise, pointed to the social, economic and cultural aspects of each era to explain the structural forms. Note that the forms did not exist as a 'new thing' or market pitch or independent exploration in a segregated discipline of the arts. The forms of expression came out of the broader experience of living in that era.
Perhaps to gain more esteem, the 20th century Structuralists severed the dialog of form from our culture and the TILTED ARC expresses well that segregated bludgeoning of people. Compare the reaction of the Florentines of the 15th Century to DAVID; they felt enormous pride in their dynamic self image, while the Serra Piazza people felt oppressed by the ARC's existential weight and mass.
Many of the 70's formalists required a formal 'addition to the dialog' or new invention within the independent painterly forms. It is this juncture where the big swing or swerve away from connection to our culture obliterated other voices, and, to some extent, identifies the dizzy proliferation of sylishnesses and commentary type pictures.
But, is this dizzy display showing us anything about the structures of our 21st century experience?
It shows the streetscape of activity, but does it reveal the "streets", the main experience format of our time.
The formal art inventions of past eras revealed the structures of their eras, and that is why they have punch and import. They carry the meanings of their cultures in vital and fascinating ways.
Their structural and formal inventions were born from basic forces. We think here of free movements of payments, travel and bourgeoisie expansion, the mystery of exploration, or the consolidation of power and empire, the organization of social systems, security and abundance, ethical education from the Abrambraic Traditions--- these forces generated the formal innovations.
It is exactly what we do not see artists doing today. Isolated formalism is mirrored by an 'everyday', 'aw shucks' imaging, begging to be socially correct,right, acceptable, as though the artists were pre-using their jeans before making the party scene, so well described in the post of last week. It looks very much like genera art of ages past. Ho-huum, basically, always sells.
The dizzy mess looks so bland because there is little formal invention generated upon our broad cultural experience-- Bizarre especially because the 21st Century has so many great leaps away from the 20th.!
The Electronic Era, The Internet, Virtual- Cyborg Life, The Space Age, individual life in the stream, etc.
My comment is an argument for formal innovation connected within and leaping from our contemporary experience.
Thank you for your comments, George, which touch on an array on interconnected issues having to do not just with art but with its place in our world--its meaning for our world. And you're right about the way formalism--which at its best was rife with difficulties--has devolved into a stylized, sometimes stylish process of image making.
How fun to revisit and confront, once again, tilted arc! My mother made a City Walls proposal to transform Tilted Arc with one of her mural concepts in 1980. I was reminded of these recently while excavating her Soho loft. Tilted Arc was audacious. Now I see my mother’s proposal to augment the work of another artist as more so. Still, I’d have vastly preferred her version of Soho than the one we’ve ended up with. (I wrote a post about it - https://open.substack.com/pub/twohouses/p/soho-walls-never-funded)
Thank you sending this link. Your mother's proposals for Soho walls are terrific! I wish she had been able to transform Tilted Arc.
Thank you. This thread would have pleased her very much.