The island in the campus pond is an oft-traveled student shortcut, allowing one to bypass the concrete behind the University of Massachusetts' Fine Arts Center in favor of a more natural path from class to class, though many students may not see the island for what it actually is - a work of public art.
Proposed in 1980, the island project got underway in 1981 thanks to renowned New York City-based public artist, George Trakas.
"A lot of people just use it, not knowing it's art," Trakas said. He doesn't have a problem with this, and revels in the uses the island provides, claiming, "I really like people to stop on their daily routine to just think a little bit."
With the installation of bridges to and from the island, it was made a public place, an iconic center of campus which acts as a meeting place, a duck-feeding point, and at the very least, a logistical convenience.
This week marks the completion of restorations of the island and its offerings, with Trakas completing replacement of benches, refinishing railings, and even planting a new tree. These touch ups come in celebration of the University Gallery-sponsored symposium "Art in the Public Sphere: Singular Works, Plural Possibilities," running all day Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Student Union Ballroom, with a University Gallery opening of public art pieces to follow.
Public art is a concept experienced in every day life, whether one notices or not. It exists in daring architecture, alternative pavements or walkways, even down to one of its most culturally recognized, surprise-based forms, graffiti. The symposium will kick off with opening remarks from the University Gallery Director Loretta Yarlow, who spearheaded this event in order to allow students and the community to gain access to this type of field.
Yarlow sees pieces of public art as works in a "museum without walls, bringing art to people with no art basis." She stressed that "art has to be part of our daily lives," for the citizens within a community must possess an "openness to see art as a harbinger of change."
This idea of community relations to public art is a surprisingly new trend in the field, coming to light only within the past 15 years. Back in its early stages, an artist would create a sculpture on commission with all his own ideas and aspirations and just set it down wherever the city or town pleased, what Yarlow referred to as "plop art," which she defined as "make something and put it somewhere."
Artists used to be the author, but in today's world Yarlow sees a "wonderful sense of collaboration taking place" between a vast array of players, including architects, designers, the artists themselves, curators, scholars, and landscapers. This creates "less of an elitist attitude," as Yarlow explains, allowing anyone to become immersed in this evolving field.
Community involvement has been a hot issue in public art, an example being one of the symposium's panelists Rick Lowe's "Project Row Houses" in Houston, Texas. Lowe restored traditional low-income housing into community art centers, bringing a creative outlet to a public with no background in art. Lowe has been known to go against the grain, questioning the political climate of towns and making waves artistically.
Other panelists include architect and designer Vito Acconci, who has done major global work since the inception of his Acconci studio in 1988. He has worked in the urban environment, a major force in public subway art. He has also gone the way of Trakas, using nature as his canvas, by similarly constructing an island in the middle of an Austrian river. Curator Anne Pasternak has moved to turn New York City water taxis into moving cinemas, as well as embarking on a venture to publicly project videos in NYC's urban environment.
The symposium will cover a wide variety of public art forms, from Trakas' environmental works (including his new Beacon Landing Project on the Hudson River, which bears striking resemblance to the campus pond island's look) to Pasternak's video work, from sound installation to graffiti, from aesthetically pleasing ceilings and pavements to large-scale murals. All of these forms will make up the Fine Art Center's juried exhibition, whose opening and reception will take place in the University Gallery from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Friday evening. Nearly 200 works were submitted from around the world, with a UMass panel of professors narrowing the exhibit down to the 44 most powerful pieces.
The symposium will cover the many difficulties in public art, namely legalities, funding and temporality. In today's heated political climate, political art and activism can come at great cost. If a public artist does not communicate with the community in which his work will exist, backlash can occur and private, individual action can take place in the form of vandalism and destruction.
Politically charged art can create divisions within its audience. To avoid this, an artist must engage with his or her community in order to feel out what would fly and what would not. Other potential dangers for public art include environmental as well as general safety, for one does not want to be held accountable for damaging an ecosystem or putting one's young child in the hospital after a fall from a dangerous structure.
These fears are based in reality, as Trakas' campus pond island was the center of a stint of activism back in 1982, where a heated political demonstration took place against gender-specific dorms. His iconic island was the platform for their outcries, and he even recollected slides he saw of the students hanging all over the Fine Arts Center and the island, demonstrating their right to speak out while using his work of art as their point of reference.
While public art is more federally funded in urban areas, middle-sized towns like Amherst or Northampton struggle with commissions and funding in this area. In an urban area such as New York City, countless people are going to pass by any given public work of art daily, where it may not have the same effect in a smaller town.
One of the factors disallowing students and the public to understand that Trakas' island is piece of public art is its lack of acknowledgement.
"There's no plaque in the wall," explains Trakas. Aside from maybe a note about where funding came from, a modest Trakas needs not be praised for his work.
Yarlow's main goals for this weekends symposium are short and sweet - "to find a way to connect art with communities through the symposium" and to "bring people, art and landscape together." Like many other fledgling fields, public art has yet to work its way into the UMass classroom, though Yarlow mentioned UMass art history professor and symposium moderator Mario Onviteros' hopes for public art to become part of the arts department's future curriculum.
"We want to change the mindset and role of art," Yarlow explains, alluding to art's importance as an activist entity and a force to bring ideas and, most importantly, people together.
Ian Nelson can be reached at inelson@student.umass.edu
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