On August 30, 2006 I had the privilege of interviewing artist Doug Kornfeld of Cambridge, MA for Artwala Road on the subject of public art. Doug has fulfilled many public art commissions as well as making other forms of art. He has fascinating things to say about the process of commissioning public art.”
CB: ”Hi, Doug. Nice to see you. Let’s start by saying something about you. You’re a public artist.”
DK: ”I do public art. I show things in galleries, I show things in museums, I put my artwork on the web. Public art is just one of my areas where I create.”
CB: ”I admire the piece of public art you made in front of the courthouse in St Petersburg, Florida. It’s called Face the Jury. People can check it out in more detail on your website. Can you tell us how that came to be?”
Face the Jury by Doug Kornfeld
DK: ”It was commissioned by the city of St Petersburg. It’s next to a courthouse and across the street from city hall. It was inspired by the courthouse. They wanted a piece of art that was specific to St Petersburg and that place. It was also inspired by the fact that I was on a jury two years ago and I sat for thirteen days and, contrary to what most people think about juries, I loved every minute of it. What inspired me the most was that everyone on that jury had a very distinct opinion, which in many cases was very different than mine. We all heard the same information, all sat together and yet when it came to the vote that I was almost shocked at how they’d come to a conclusion when my conclusion was very different. So when I came to do this piece I wanted to respond to that. What I came up with was thirteen chairs. Twelve of them are different and represent the twelve different personalities that I recalled from our jury. There’s an additional chair that is generic that is designed to be where you sit. The piece is called Facing the Jury. You are meant to sit in this chair and face the other chairs, which are monumental.”
CB: ”How did you apply for this commission, what is the process?”
DK: ”Every day I get emails from various public art associations, from various sources all over the country announcing these things. I put myself on these mailing lists.
What most of them ask you do to send them a letter of interest and from six to twenty images, which you can now, thankfully, send on CD. You also send a paper with information about these images and a resume.
The second step is there is a public art administrator which all of this goes to and they project the images to a jury. During the course of that viewing they say yes, no, yes and whittle it down to three to five finalists. Those finalists are then contacted. They give you a very small stipend which is not enough to pay you for your time but with that money you are supposed to create a very distinct proposal that shows the piece, that gives a budget, that describes the piece and tells how you are going to install it and demonstrates that, indeed, you are capable of creating this and installing this within a budget. You are given a budget from day one. You have to stay within the budget, if you go over the budget you have to come up with that money. If you go under, that’s your profit.”
CB: ”Do you get to look at the site before you design for it?”
DK: ”Sometimes you can get to the site but they always send you a packet with photos and information abut it.”
CB: ”What is the average budget?”
DK: ”There is no average. It can go from $5,000 to $1,000,000.”
CB: ”I think you and I both agree that a lot of public art is not very provocative, or even thoughtful or beautiful. What do you think might be the reasons for that? Is it because of the people who are commissioning the work? I was thinking, in history, when we look back to the nineteenth century and before public art was focused on monuments honoring great leaders or battles, like Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square in London. In the twentieth century that has changed and we don’t get behind that kind of thinking any more. We have more ambivalence about the kinds of things that were commemorated back then.”
DK: ”There’s a lot of bad public art. In the past public art was commissioned by the government which was either the church or the state, or the church and state. They had the money and they chose the subject. The church would choose religious subject matter. Look at the beautiful churches and their statuary; I consider that public art. Then in a country ruled by a king you’d see monuments to the king or royal family, or in certain cases like Trafalgar Square you’d see a monument to a great military victory or personage. And rarely to anything else. Once in a while in France you might see a monument to a great philosopher. That’s what we had in the past. In certain countries that might still be the case. In America we have a separation of church and state. Public money is unlikely to go to religious themes. So what is the subject matter for public art? What are they commissioning?”
CB: ”Good question.”
DK: ”One of the reasons so much public art is so terrible is because of the process by which it’s chosen. Citizens who are interested are invited to be on juries by public arts organizations. The qualifications for these jurors vary considerably. They are often just community people. Many times there are other artists or curators. In one case for my work there was the janitor and groundskeeper for the building. Their vote counted as much as the curator or other artist. Then there are the artists who are chosen. Are they artists who have done work that has been exhibited in museums or galleries? Well, maybe. In many cases the artists on these juries are just someone who took a photography class. I’m not denigrating that but they are not experts. So you have a huge disparity in juries.”
CB: ”Is that the only problem?”
DK: ”Then there’s the process by which the work is viewed. You have a group of people who have a wide range of understanding of what is art, which is a whole other area we could debate and discuss. They sit in a dark room and have literally thousands of images flashed in front of their eyes. I’ve been in a situation like this and your brain turns to cotton. Who could keep track of them, remember them, process them, understand the nuances of the artwork that’s being shown? Especially people who don’t have a big art background. So things are picked very capriciously. I think you have a better chance of having your art picked if you’re at the beginning of the process because their minds are fresh.”
CB: ”And that’s just random.”
DK: ”I don’t even want to know. There are just a lot of things involved that could lead to choices that are not necessarily good art.”
CB: ”We were talking the other day about the piece in Chicago by Amish Kapoor. It’s fantastic.”
Cloud Gate by Amish Kapoor
DK: ”It’s an extraordinary piece. It was over-budget ten million dollars. It’s mind boggling that it was allowed to happen. I’m thrilled that it did. I’m not really sure about how it was picked or how the money was allocated.”
CB: ”One thing I discovered when I was looking that up was that Chicago has an ordinance for a percentage of taxes to go to public art. They must save that up.”
DK: ”In this case Chicago commissioned this gigantic lakeshore park, which is considered one of the greatest public works of the last fifty years. It’s in a magnificent location, right on Lake Michigan and the city runs right up against it. They also commissioned an amphitheater designed by Frank Gehry and there are a number of public works in the park. The most interest and popular is this one by Amish Kapoor.”
CB: ”Since 1978, when this ordinance was passed, they’ve had a sculpture by Picasso, one by Miro, by Calder and Chagall. Chicago is getting really heavy hitters.”
Picasso
DK: ”The Picasso is forty or fifty feet high, it’s a steel structure that appears to be an abstracted lion. It’s stunning. And it was done by Picasso. There was a great artist, a great mind working on it. However it was not chosen in the public art process; it was chosen by the developer of the space. The public had no say in it and, quite interestingly, when it was put into place it was almost universally hated. Forty years later, fifty years later, it’s considered a treasured part of the city.”
CB: ”That’s something that happens a lot with great art. It challenges us in a way that we’re uncomfortable with until it becomes part of our consciousness.”
DK: ”Exactly. Now, would it have been commissioned if there was a public art jury like we have now? I very much doubt it.”
CB: ”Interesting.”
DK: ”It’s even challenging now. What is it? You’re not even sure. You can’t say ”it’s a lion. You can’t even say it’s an animal.”
CB: ”But it’s a very striking, monumental form. It’s very beautifully composed and has a strength about it. It speaks to us in those less literal terms as well.”
DK: ”Yes. And I just think it’s fun!”
CB: ”Yeah!”
DK: ”It’s just pleasurable in my eyes to look at. I like it for its lightheartedness.
CB: ”It’s imaginative, it’s soaring and you really feel the artists is extremely confident and knows what he’s doing.”
DK: ”And it really fits well in terms of scale in the space. It does everything.”
CB: ”But it brings up a question. A lot of juries have people who are less informed or less sensitive to art and they’re always looking for what is it?”
DK: ”Exactly. And I don’t blame them. If you’re looking at something you don’t understand, what are you going to choose? You’re going to choose something that makes sense to you, something that your frame of reference can understand. Sometimes what you are familiar with is not good art.”
CB: ”Right. So who should be on those juries? If it’s just people who resonate with stuff that’s very literal or easily explained aren’t we missing the opportunity to have a Picasso or an Amish Kapoor? There are levels of perception in terms of art that you experience as an artist and as someone who views art. It takes practice.”
DK: ”It takes education. The first time we all took a sip of wine we probably didn’t like the taste. Now, if we’re still drinking wine and trying to find enjoyment in it, you can taste differences. You know what’s good. You’re no longer drinking wine that’s sweet, now as you get older, more mature, you understand it in a different way. The same with art. When you first look at art it’s very mysterious, especially contemporary art. There are different concepts and feelings and thoughts that the artist is concentrating on that may not be literally understandable at first glance. And to learn how to decode contemporary art you need to have looked at a lot of art, to have thought about art, to have talked about art. For public art in a city remember the mayor or people who run the city are going to have very strong feelings about what an artist is doing. If you put up a piece that is received poorly it reflects on them. They have to go out and get votes. They do not want something that’s controversial. Many times great art offends or is not understood. It’s unlikely that an elected official is going to allow something like that if they have power over it.”
CB: ”Yet we have the Chicago example to offer us hope.”
DK: ”The mayor, thank goodness, did not have power over it so we got that Picasso.”
CB: ”How might the process then be improved?”
DK: ”I want the people who are on public art juries to have a background, to either be artists or curators or people who have experienced a lot of art, who has really spent time and energy and emotion in looking at art, in going to museums, in going to galleries, in thinking about art and wanting to understand it. That’s number one. It’s public art and the public has to look at it. There should also be concerned citizens. Should they have the deciding vote? No, but they should be there to express their feelings. Should there be the groundskeeper or the janitor on a jury? Absolutely not. They should be seated there to answer questions of maintenance or safety. Their opinions should be taken into account. Should they have a vote? Absolutely not.”
CB: ”So what would you do?”
DK: ”In the ideal world, if I were a public arts administrator, I would bring all of the images together. I would then pick a tiny jury of learned people—curators, artists, a small group of three or four to jury those pictures on a first pass and throw out all the stuff that is junk in their opinion. Then I’d bring in a larger jury that included concerned citizens, politicians, and show them a select group of the work with a seminar about what the artists are trying to do, what they’re thinking about. Inform this larger jury about what they might want to think about as they view the work. Not just does it look nice but to think about the ideas. And then present a small group of final artists to the jury, maybe ten or twenty, an amount that the jury can go through and focus on. It should be done slowly and people should ask questions and comment. Then reduce those ten or twenty artists to a finalist group of three to five. At that point the jury can reconvene and those artists can make their final proposals. The curators and artists on the jury should try to control the discussion, not direct it, but not let something extraneous get in the way. There are certain criteria but they’re hard to define without being limiting.”
CB: ”One might be that the work feels original. A lot of public art feels second-hand.”
DK: ”You’re right. I see a lot of art that looks like other art or it looks like abstract art by great artists. And again the jury picks something that they’re familiar with. It’s very tricky. I don’t necessarily think that my idea for a jury would guarantee that only good work would be selected but I think more control over the selection process is going to make better art. They’re going to pick better artists.”
CB: ”That’s it for now, Doug. Thanks so much.”
To see more of Doug Kornfeld’s art please visit—
www.awaka-inc.com
September 25th, 2006 | Category: Interviews | Comments (1)
Will we ever forget where we were yesterday when Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States? We four artists who have studios at the art center all crammed into my next door neighbor’s to watch her tiny old 12″ TV. Just as things were about to start one of us dashed out to get a box of tissues then we settled in, three sitting on the cement floor, one standing. When Obama put his hand on Lincoln’s Bible the tears started. And we’re just four white women—I can only imagine the tears of the black women all over this country. He simply took our breath away with the vision he holds for this country and the world, how he dares to ask for what we all truly want without hesitation or compromise. I especially loved how he sees a world beyond tribalism.
