Rhapsody on view

Where did the selection committee go wrong »

with Rogers Plaza’s new public art project?

Pubtic art at Rogers Plaza,
North Shore Rhapsody by
Richard Wojciechowski -

Ron Falcioni
ART REVIEW

OTALL art on the

North Shore is to be ©

found in the local
art galleries.

Nor is it ail as transitory as that
found in the galleries. Although no
official policy seems to have been
instituted, examples of public art
have been appearing for decades,
some of it memorable or notewor-
thy, some of it not.

In May of this year we witnessed
the unveiling of a work in the
Rogers Plaza on Esplanade that
was reputed to be the first
achievement in a projected pian to
put works of art in public places.

Carolyn Lair, the North Shore
Arts Commission's widely
respected first cultural develop:
ment officer, was largely responsi-
ble for instituting that plan. In the
second issue of the now-defunct
Arts Commission publication Ant
Matters, she observed the follow-
ing: “Directed by council to ex-
plore the logistics of a ‘percentage

* for art’ and to develop guidelines

RICHARD WOJCIECHOWSKI'S Ahapsody has more in convneon

for a public art program, City and
North Shore Arts Commission sta:
viewed the Rogers Plaza project «
a unique opportunity to try out
ideas and develop principles from
which to later establish a
masterplan for art in public
places.”

Public art was there defined as
that art ‘created by a profes-
sional artist ... which addressed
the public use and character of a
specific site ... and was acquired
through a publicly approved pro-
cess.”

A committee was duly elected,
drawing on representatives of
various strata of the arts, business
and political communities and
chaired by Carolyn Lair herself.
The objective of the selection
committee was to choose from
among submissions made by 20
artists the work or works of art
best qualified to ‘‘endow Rogers
Plaza with uniqueness and to en-
sure that its use is an enjoyable
experience shared by all.’’

The artwork considered to fulfil
the geals and criteria of the selec-
tion committee was that of Richard
Wojciechowski, a Polish artist who
had only just immigrated to
Canada the previous year. -

Of the two works commission-
ed, one celebrated the memory of
Joe Bustemente, the legendary
one-armed trumpeter whose solli-
tary horn-call was reputed to have
aided fog-beset ferry captains
navigating Burrard inlet at the turn
of the century. According to
another essay by Carolyn Lair, the
committee's second selection —
an unaccountably perverse one in
view of its first choice — was in-
tended to commemorate the
mythical harpists of antiquity

& eae,
HEWS photo Mike Woks Held

with Eastezn Europe than North American culture.

whose alluring strains tempted
unwary seamen to their watery
graves.

Completion and installation of
the work was slated for Christmas
of 1991. No further mention was
made of the project until a final
article on the work-in-progress
appeared in the Winter 1992 edi-
tion of Arts Access — the newly
transfigured reincarnation of the
Art Commission's now officially
terminated publication. Art Mat-
ters. :
Uniortunately, that article was
hardly illuminating.

Being largely a highly subjective
rehash of data gleaned from a
previous essay on the subject by
Carolyn Lair, it shed more light on
the personality and effervescent
prose style of its author, the now-
former editor of Arts Access Mag-
azine, Diane Lund..

Now that al! the ceremony and
self-congratulatory praise have
subsided, what can hanestly be
said of the art engendered by the
Rogers Plaza project?

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