Blog #7: Whose Monument Where?

    It was Judith F. Baca’s sub heading ‘Public Art in a Many-Cultured Society’ for her paper, “Whose Monument Where?”, that caught my attention. I immediately thought of this plane that the city of Long Beach dragged from a war and displayed in a park to inspire us and reflect the great power of our nation. Baca immediately opens her paper with how public art stems from the “cannon-in-the-park”(304) tendency and this type of display is a common example of a monument thought to use the past to inspire the future. Not only did this essay hit the nail on the head of what I originally thought of after reading the title, but I found myself relating to many of the points Baca made about public art being displayed in a community with multiple cultures. 

    Baca states the public art is used to help the developers agenda and oftentimes art uses this beauty to erase the ethnic presence in the area by transforming it into a blended visual culture. Instead of receiving a public presence they receive something beautiful to see. When I was in middle school my city began beautification projects all across North Long Beach by setting initiatives to plant trees and using the city’s money to pay for murals and sculptures that would be placed in the middle of parks, streets, or buildings. A pro to these projects was that people began to go outside more since the streets looked safer, a con was that most of the city’s budget that year was spent for a couple of sculptures, like the ‘Orange Twist’, costing the city around $10,000 for each piece. Long Beach is recognized as an art town yet the Orange Twist came from Denver. I also consider Long Beach a diverse city with socioeconomic diversity, ethnic diversity, and industrial diversity, yet the sculpture does not capture this. It is used purely to beautify and take away from the actual socio economic issues taking place in North Long Beach. The budget is spent on non-local art rather than resources that can help the community directly,  like building homeless shelters or providing materials for public schools.

    Just as the developers of Los Angeles created their symbol of ‘unity’ for a $500,000 artwork by two New York based artists, these pieces felt as though they were replacing the real voices in the city. A variety of cultures means a variety of art. For these public spaces to be filled with art they need to be approved by the developers and what tends to happen is that the voices of the people who actually live in these parts of the city are not represented. We end up with meaningless and expensive art like the Orange twist.

Orange Twist, Sculpture made of aerblock, stone-like, man-made
material. 12' long and 9' wide and sits on a granite base.