HomeMy WebLinkAbout1990-08-20; City Council; 890-6; Arts Commission RequestPARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION - AGENDA BILL
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MTG. Bfa0/3O
DEPT. P^ft
TITLE:
ARTS COMMISSION REQUEST
( AC1 XQM )
DEPT. HD.
CITY ATTY
CITY MGR.
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COCOs
ou
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Consider the Arts Commission request to purchase the Boulder
pathway art work that is presently located in the Stagecoach
Community Park streambed and take appropriate action. g
^ITEM EXPLANATION;
The Manager of the Arts office will make a presentation
requesting the Commission's permission to permanently locate the
Boulder pathway artwork in the streambed located in the
Stagecoach Community Park.
The Parks and Recreation Staff and the Risk Manager do not object
to this request and recommend that the Commission approve the
Arts Commission proposal.
FISCAL IMPACT;
Purchase of the Boulder artwork will be provided by funds in the
Arts Department. Maintenance and operation impacts for the
boulder program are minimal.
EXHIBITS;
1. Memo dated August 6, 1990, to Senior Management Analyst,
Parks and Recreation, from Manager, Arts Office and articles
pertaining to the memorandum.
^xa-^-H
August 6, 1990
TO: SENIOR MANAGEMENT ANALYST, PARKS & RECREATION '
FROM: Manager, Arts Office
PURCHASE OF "BOULDER PATHWAY"
The Boulder Pathway, called "The Ten Thousand Year Trail," is an artwork in the
temporary art exhibition this year. It is located in Stagecoach Park along the streambed
where other boulders are already in place.
The Arts Commission is recommending that City Council purchase the piece as a
permanent public artwork. Because it is located in Stagecoach Park, I would like to
request that you place it on the August meeting agenda. The Parks and Recreation
Commission should endorse the permanent placement of the piece in the park before it
is placed on the City Council agenda. Risk Management has approved the piece and its
location.
I have enclosed articles discussing the artwork which you may distribute to the
Commission if you wish. Please call me if you have any questions.
CONNIE BEARDSLEY
c: Parks & Recreation Director
Library Director
Assistant City Manager
23 EXHIBIT 1
rations of surprise in multimedia
works such as A Monument to the
thmgs wi Iowa nothing about at For
all seemingly unrelated moments.
Tomas Roller's Exit, located at the
exit of the Otis/Parsons Gallery is
a deadpan installation which sums
up the story of the collectivization
and modernization of rural
Czechoslovakia: agrarian imple-
ments, including hammer and
sickle, are displayed on a wall; a
lecture stand and a small electric
iron evoke the official party pres-
ence and the advent of electrical
appliances; an ominous IV (intra-
venous) set attached to the wall,
dripping liquid on dark chemicals
generating smoke on the floor,
unhappily concludes the story.
Subdued satire and/or esthetic
refinement is characteristic of all
Czech art seen in Dialogue. The
answer to the question of whether
the concerns of contemporary
Czech art overlap with the Ameri-
can is yes and no. Unavoidably the
selection of this show is subjective
and the sampling incomplete.
In a way, Cialogiu was at its
best in the alternative exhibition/
performance space of the Arroyo
Arts Collective in Highland Park.
There, the Czech guests and their
American counterparts exhibited
their work together in an old,
somewhat dark and demoralized
building not originally meant as a
gallery or museum. In this worn
and spacious environment located
in a district that ages well but sur-
vives with difficulty the develop-
ers' bulldozers, the meaning of
Dialogue comes true. There,
chance and purpose meet, charg-
ing this project of cultural cooper-
ation with die mysterious and cap-
tivating energy of artistic and
environmental survival. •
DuUglu, Prtgut/Lu Angela through
August 18 it Otis/Parsons GaJleiy, 2401
Wilshire Bkd., Los Angeles; through July
15 at Santa Monica Museum of Art, 2437
Main St., Santa Monica; and through July
27 at Arroyo Arts Collectnc, 50th and York,
Highland Park.
Access to
Memory
Third Annual Temporary Sculpture
Exhibition in Carlsbad
BY JUDITH CHRISTENSEN
T he pieces in this year's
City of Carlsbad Third
Annual Temporary
Sculpture Exhibition
explore the notion of site-specific
artwork. Of the six artists who par-
ticipated, the most successful were
those who responded on more than
one level to the Location they
chose. Because they took into
account not only the existing phys-
ical properties of the site, but the
historical and cultural dimensions
as well, their pieces offer a multi-
leveled perspective on community
values.
Noel Koran and Joyce Cut-
ler-Shaw chose Magee Park for
their site, where remnants of Carls-
bads history, an old barn and a cis-
tern, have been preserved. Kortens
piece, Shedding Light Upon the
Warn, includes an audio, as well as
a visual, component. In an alcove of
the barn, viewer hears longtime
Carlsbad residents recollect (on
tape) childhood memories about
the ocean, the spring and the ebb
and flow of the lagoon.
Several images, seen through
^^^^______^ small glass I*"***
mounted in the
sides of the bam,
present visual
slices of Carls-
bad's history.
These formal
peepholes, about
the size of knot-
holes, heighten
viewer awareness
of the inside/
outside and
now/tDen dicho-
tomies. The i«*«*^ of the dosed-up
bam becomes representative of die
past, which is accessible only
through people's memories and
photographs and which can be
experienced only in bits and pieces.
Cutler-Shaw's piece explores
the origin of die towns name: the
quality of mineral water from a
local w 11 equalled tha- from a
famous well in Karlsbad, Bohemia.
She etched the story into a succes-
sion of wood pieces and spaced the
wooden story-blocks a few. steps
apart on tLj park lawn. The piece
has a promising beginning, as the
reader moves physically as well as
mentally into the story and toward
the old cutem, but it fails to deliver
on that promise. The story stops
abruptly, a poetic interlude
intrudes. There are sections written
in an alphabet of bones, a personal
alphabet which Cutler-Shaw has
created, and finally, the story is
retold in Spanish. The piece
assumes a relationship between
these diverse ele- ^^^^^^
ments, but because it ^^^^^*
fails to provide a
basis for understand-
ing the connection,
die viewer is left con-
fused about the focus
of the work. Cutler-
Shaw wants to do
more than tell the
story about the well,
but halfway through
the piece she leaves
me viewer adrift.
Raul Guerrero's
tile bench, situated
on the bluffs above
the ocean, is the
weakest piece. His
use of generic sea
imagery, a floating
bottle, fish and a
starfish, reflects its
location in only a
general way. In addi-
tion, Guerrero,
known primarily as a painter, dis-
plays little sensibility for the media
of mosaic. The background design
(blue, white and brown lines and
waves) flows well But the images,
constructed with a paint-by-num-
ber approach, lack resolution.
The third location chosen by
participating artists is the dry
streambed in Stagecoach Park.
Machi Uchida and Jim Wilster-
mann interspersed nine rocks
etched with water symbols among
the existent rocks. This subtle
piece elides an experience that is
cimilar to that encountered in nat-
ural surroundings. It, like nature,
detail The rock petrogryphs act as
trail markers along the streambed
as they draw the viewer along a
path of discovery.
Some of the signs are easily
recognizable ("r^O* and the inter-
national symbol for water, a glass
of water, for example). Few viewers
will be able to interpret all of them,
but they will be able to ascertain a
multicultural '"fl"*"**», from the
indigenous TTM^*"* to the Spanish,
to the Germans who gave the city
its present name.
The last symbol, used on maps
co indicate a water source, looks
like a snake. Ironically, to me left of
this rock is a highly conspicuous
"Warning Beware of Snakes" sign.
This siting influences the interpre-
tation of this symbol, even for
those who are aware of its origin.
With her grass-mounded
Memory platform, Anne Mudge
seeks to recall the (now subter-
ranean) San Marcos Creek which
used to 6ow nearby. But the barely
audible sounds the viewer hears
through the listening tubes on the
mound resemble the movement of
air, not water. The piece's real
impact is its capacity to amplify
sounds projected into the piece
from above, rather than those orig-
inating from below the piece. Air-
planes flying overhead, as well as
children singing and yelling into
the pipes, make the piece interac-
tive, although not in the way the
artist intended.
Art sited in a public venue
should enhance the viewer's under-
standing of community. The artists
in this exhibition demonstrate a
variety of approaches to exploring
elements that contribute to the
makeup of a community, including
its history, its natural resources and
its geographic location. al
Tbmi Ataaui Tempo-art Stulpavt Exbt-
Mcufl through August 2 at various kxanoos m
Carlsbad. CA.
i of Art, Long BHoh. (MwCK Don MU.I
Nature at
Mankind's
Mercy
Waterworks
at Long Beach Museum of Art
BY UTA BARRIE
U^irtg the thematic title
Waterworks Co link
artworks exploring
the metaphoric mean-
ings of water, Long Beach Muse-
um of Art's senior curator Josine
lanco Starrels, makes her swan
song before leaving the museum
with a seductive mixed-media
exhibition that foregrounds the
extent to which water's signifi-
cance to human life has been an
enduring rh*m* in art history up
to present day.
The exhibition includes pho-
tographs by Richard Misrach,
Lewis de Soto and Robert Frick,
sculptural installations by Mineko
Grimmer and Michael C.
McMillen and videotapes by Bill
Viola, Nam June Paik with Paul
Garrinand DougHalL
Misrach's sumptuous images
of Desert Seas (forming part of the
second canto in his epic Desert
Cantos) reveal a seascape of failed
human ambitions, where an irriga-
August 2,1990 17
24
ATTHE OAUEmCS /LEAHOILMAN
Carlsbad's Public-Art Exhibit Stresses Variety, Quantity
The ihird time is the chum forCarlsbad's annual temporary
public-art exhibition.
In both of me city* previousifforu. free-lance curator* for Iheshows pui a premium on variety
...Ml quantity, but not necessarily
[.,1 substance There were a tew
. tceptions. ev«n a dip or two into
[ lAMDsMOCOUIITT
- «*1 criticism, but i tone of deco-r iuve appeasement prevailed.Perhaps the curaton were gun-< iiy. After ill. public art has hut ai id name in San Diego in the last
! w jure, since three promising
, ,olic -in propolis were reveled
: ; cuv P.ICI commissioners whose
,rr,,A -i->i* thc> claimed re
..iK.ix.-a Ironi the iUil ll -inu'ij• <jaj<j its citizens genily iniu the: juan of public *rt by keeping it..avious and temporary Conse-quently. however, moil of the iwoof three down works m the previ-
ous shows stood on their stiei with
jH ihe awkwardness ol shon-ierm
greats-conspicuous and loud.
This year's selection differs sub-
annually from the past. The belt
.r mi> five works fit inugly into
: ,. ,r cnosen sites. adding - ital new
i uio^u* without rudely interrupt-
ii g ine old They announce them-
. ivei slowly, quietly, subtly! tiur presence may even go unde-i.ciirl by some, others will gleaniu.?ir insights dunng a graduali :, to very, but few will glance and
- * Ik away
K.itya Williamson, a staff mem-
r -f in the Carlsbad Arts Office.
. ade the selections thu year
jrkmg with a committee, ihe
, rivsi: su rirnsu I two working as a.mi frnfli Southern California.,.iJ invited their responses 10 par-i.cular sues. This marks a sigrufi-
i .nt change in tactic from previousv jan. when most of (he workshown wai prt-ensting and amply
ptouped onio IU we. welcoming orrut.Another factor adding cohtaoni,. LAW year's stow it m itittMiicficus. -illiiiiiiin tncouraftd UMurtist* 10 crttu work that ad-jrejsed the city's idtnutjr.
Only on* of tht arti«u sue-
Dumbed u> reiieraung the charm*
01 Carlsbad's appealing surface.
! jul Guerrero, a pramintnl local
..rust known for more penetrating
t >r*yi iniu the surreal, conceptual
jnrt psychological, opud here for
a..nple dccoriuon. Hu coiored ult
un^e of nan, lurfish. water and
, ,. J covers the SMI and seat back
>,' ^ concrete bench overlookinginr gcean iCariibad Blvd. be-i e«n Sycamore and Chetinuiji , ). Guerrero auggetu. through a; lenient posted nearby. Uut the
image refers to both natural htsto-
r and humwi evolution, but viau-
ali y. R u ItlUt more than a cuclw.
Ttm (our rouinttf artworU
toj+ on Caristoed's Unary, eape-
ciaOy UM etMnl rota waur hM
pUiyrt la Uut hittary. AS JoyceCutrtr-ShaWi "Carlsbad WaterSi now" IMafM Pvk. Carlrtad
B.'Utovard and Be««h Stntt) «\t\jUm. UM city wu named aftwn well famou* for ita
to " sent* of *> wood panels *tt>i^tt.ih* park's thick gns*. Cutlv-Shaw contratu a reaped for then ,.tar. especially on ihe. part of Utt:iattvt IndMn popuUuon. with am j» contemporary, cavalier am-tu.lt toward It Succinct and poetic.LM tales are burned into the wood
m Bnglish. Spanish, and tb* San
l^4fo artut'i own Alphabet of
Bontt."
The progrtMwn of panels ends
UL a restored. llth-Ctniury cisttrn.It stands as a reminder from the\>m of UM essential nature ofv-ater. while Cutler-Shaw's worda
ii nr« as a warning for the future:
'OM water speaks/The water says
> tu can use me, But you cantovercome me/ You lead me out of
my epnngs/You le*d me from my
nvtri/But I com* from the
<,.««n/And I shall go back into the
M<au/When I am out of sight 1 am•-' i my way home "
YoungsWi ptay on Jean Mudflt't pubHc artwork, uutd •'Mtmory," M Staftcoach Park tn Cansoad
Oispity of rocks Dy Jim WNsttrmann m C*rt»Md'» Stii>cor.n padt» HUM "Tern Thousand Yeac Trail
Korun kai ptaod mnl round.
bn> pUut oo UM oiMfe wit* o<
IM M«M **»• °~ ^ »y<^Imurle Hraetmi In UK pwk.
Worti KMM M > W*l "" "*puu. tndrdi • muU «j«taU taniltarti i luk-nri *ta» o< i pkou-
p^pfeic nowaf* witiHO. Ont. for
liugecoach Park. 3420 Camuuto
i^ lot CochesI also mourns thesr*Mh«nng of Carlsbad's naturali source* by development and ig-
i i^rance. ll tne* to restore the tang
i-f iht park's underground stream
by planting "sound lubes' in a
i".lit grusy mound above it
Oot*-up of rocu n tne •'!«! Trtoutand Yaar Trial" art display.
kludge, a local sculptor whosework is also currently on vww atthe San Dtego Museum of Contan-ponry Art. wants park goers u>put their ear to a tube and Uattn totht aound of the bumd straam. but
she hat mads that act as awkwardas pottibltby placing tba lubttuo
btgh on the mound to be reached
with east. Clumsy and unsatisfy-
ing. " Memory" never dots commu-
nicate tht 'ancient song" of
Mudft's accompanying poem.Reaching further back and with
far mort grace into collteliwmemory is the work of Jim Wil-
Hermann and Machl Uchld*
{Stagecoach Park). Th« trtittJ,both San Ditfo radtnu. ineittddifferent symbols for water onboulders that lint the park's fttbtt.cement-bottomed creek.
Wavy lines suggesting water or
snakes, a imall grW P»"«rn. »
target and other markings from old«ml new Indian. Japanese. Zodiac.• ariographic and jcientific vocabu-laries appear on rock* interspersed
along the length of the creek. The
Ten Thousand Year Trwl" wh*.per* 10 pttson-bv m a pnmaltongue one that encompasses bothsocial and natural history
Noel Korton. tlw only Los An-
geles artisi of ihe gr./up. practtcwasunil-r .nierventiunut approach.His "Shedding Light Upon UMWaters I Magcc Park) presents
wily a subtle change m the pre-ex-
isiing environment, but is capable
of evoking a much richer, deeper
impression in sf1 J of th«
Florence Shipley and Hugh Ma
early sttUan on Uw til*. They
wnits rUmg hortat, tht uxt on tkt
platt reads, and they surrMdigainat tht will of her father,whom snt never saw again. Tht
imtn within echoes tht ptifntMy
of tht UM U human**. UM tHt in
a way that hituneal pwqutt eua-
ply can't
Another of Korun • worki OBB-trasu an Uth-Century dttcr»Oonof tht Carlsbad landscape with an
image of its prtstnt suu. douadwith ubiquitous. Spanish-ule-roofed houvng dtvelopments.
Korun. Cutler-Shaw. WUattr-mann and Uchida introduct a ntwlevel of sophistication into Carli-Dad's temporary pubuc art pro-gram. Thtir workrntvtr compete
with their suss, but mergt with
ihem They are full of insights andquest*** they rtward the visitorwith an inquiring eye and tense, 01
discovery
The *how is scheduled to end
Aug. 2. but these enriching work*deserve permanent sum*. Mtm-ben of the Carlsbad Art* Offict
will t* meeting soon to contidtr it
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