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?

See New page 38

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