By Mandy Espezel and Jill Stanton

This week, Jill and Mandy break free of the confines of the gallery and explore the streets of Edmonton with The Places: Art and Design in Public Places, a project by The Works Visual Arts Society. The walking tour and other information about the projects can be found at www.theworks.ab.ca.

Jill: As you wander the streets of downtown Edmonton and the surrounding area, you can’t help but notice a few of the public visual arts projects put on by The Works. The Works’ mission for these publicly artistic spots began as part of the Capital City Downtown Plan back in 1997: the goal was to revitalize the downtown area and create a set of shared visual heirlooms which would continue to be appreciated by generations to come. There’s even a website that organizes them into a walking tour, beginning with “Big Rock” by Catherine Burgess and Sandra Bromley in the middle of Rice Howard Way. Of course, being pretty fond of public art in general, we decided to hit this trail up, didn’t we, Mandy?

Mandy: Um, in a manner of speaking, yes. After all, the role of public art in a community has been coming up a lot lately, both in this column and in the city at large. I also figured that our ridiculously bleak winter only made me hungrier to finally get outside. Does Edmonton’s public art revitalize our vastly gray and cement downtown for you, Miss Jill?

Jill: Yes, and here’s the thing: I agree whole-heartedly with the idea of creating public spaces that are easy on the eye — especially in a city like Edmonton, whose grim winter landscape isn’t exactly a mecca of beautiful. I think it’s important that while health care and education are worthy recipients of our taxes, we also need to recognize the role that the visual arts plays in our community as a way to bring Edmontonians together and create environments in which we’d like to live. I see public art almost like infrastructure: it’s not some kind of frivolous luxury; in fact, it’s entirely necessary to the inner workings of a city and its people.

Mandy: And I would say most people would agree with that notion — or at least the idea that public art, common visual landmarks, contributes to the idea of a shared cultural identity. Of course, things get trickier when people decide they don’t like a particular work — that’s when you start hearing people talk about city hall wasting public dollars.

Jill: I think this is the sticky issue. For instance, I’m not sure Edmontonians are fully aware of the scope of the Places project, or that their tax dollars (aided by large corporate sponsorships) are being spent on it. Which is not to say that I have any qualms at all about this project; I just think that perhaps the community should be allowed to play a more active role in selecting public art. Most of the public (and publicly funded) art pieces around the city were selected behind closed doors by a small jury of people considered to be “in the know.” Why shouldn’t ordinary citizens participate in the selection process too, thereby creating a space that truly involves and describes them?

Mandy: You know what this is reminding me of? In 1981, the acclaimed sculptor Richard Serra created a piece called Tilted Arc for an area outside the Federal Plaza in New York City. The people who approved and funded it knew exactly what it would look like: it was this massive metal sculpture which leaned out over the people as they left or entered the building. But once the sculpture was completed, all the employees hated it so much that they eventually lobbied to have it removed. It was a big epic battle between the rights of the artist and what the people who actually had to interact with the artist’s work thought of it. Even The Gates, Christo’s huge installation in Central Park — Christo paid for those himself, and it was still this huge, 25-year struggle to get the project realized. When it comes to art, gaining majority approval from the public is very elusive.

Jill: I suppose so. And you’re right: we’ve had fiascos like that, even in Edmonton. Take the Sculpture by Invitation location, another initiative from The Works, which created a flurry of public outrage a couple of Septembers ago in response to the sculptures by Ryan McCourt that went up there. It just seems kind of weird that so often, public art, which is created to benefit the public and make a community richer and happier, has almost nothing to do with the community itself. I guess this is why I have a really hard time with Edmonton’s recently upgraded hate-on for graffiti. Graffiti, when done with an artistic eye (and I’ll admit the line between artistic and non-artistic graffiti can be blurry), is arguably the purest example of “public art.” It’s created by the public, and designed to be seen and appreciated by a huge public audience. I would also suggest that graffiti has a lot more relevance to the community than a few of these big-budget, officially sanctioned pieces of public art.

Mandy: Which sort of implies, doesn’t it, that artists are not a part of the community. Ideally, though, if I enter a mural competition that is all about, let’s say, cultural diversity within Edmonton, the board picking the winner has the interests of the community in mind, as well as the viability and attractiveness of the proposed project. If things work properly, the whole procedure is about “the public.” I agree with you, though, about graffiti: I don’t understand the link people always try to make between graffiti and crime.

Jill: I think we’ve run out of space! In any case, we encourage all of you to take advantage of this nicer weather and check out a few of Edmonton’s many public art spaces.