Public art must be considerate of the public. Lexington is getting all inked up, mural-wise, and there is more to come. The scene might be late 1864, because the main players are carcasses, starving children, and Abe Lincoln. Sadly, like “The Recent Unpleasantness”, an important notion (not the salvation of the United States, but the improvement of our city) has at times turned ugly, and is about to get uglier. To decorate our city as if it is your dorm room is short-sighted and selfish. But, ‘Abe on Vine’ is pretty cool. The Emancipator looks out over an unsettled hardscape as if to say, ‘freedom is full spectrum and contemporary.’ He is a balm to the claustrophobic tunnel that is Vine Street East. Not true for Herakut’s tribute to heroin addiction on Short and North Lime. Between those polarities, we have horses, buses, musicians, and more. Lexington will never agree on what is good, or pretty, or fun, naturally. But any design for the public space needs to be looked at, before it has to be looked at. Lexington has done public art beautifully. Horse Mania was fantastic, because the almost universally beloved form of the horse effectively ‘snuck in’ styles of art including not only the conventionally beautiful, but what would ordinarily be dismissed by many as weird, scary, or ‘not for me.’ Somehow, the horse made it okay to look. Furthermore, HM tapped local talent. It excited the city for months (then moved on.) It was brilliant. Herakut’s ghostly waif, on the other hand, is tepid at best, and offensive at worst. I cannot buy it. I could, I think, enjoy her image and her story in the book she also lives in, but the critical thing is that Public Art of any longevity equates force-feeding imagery or experience without the consent of those who must see it. With Public Art comes responsibility. Art will be offensive sometimes. Art has a job to do. To see 99.99% of artwork, you own the experience. You say ‘when’ (or ‘uncle’, as the case may be.) If any artist is going to seize the public viewshed, he is obliged to a reasonable standard of beauty, or to neutrality, or, if there is a point to be made that is disquieting, to make his art temporary. Which brings us to MTO on Manchester Street. Full disclosure: I have a dog in this fight. I work for Todd and Cynthia Kelly, who own Kelly Nursery, which cannot escape the proposed mural on the old Pepper Distillery, which will cover the entire side of the building. Their office windows are filled with the building. Historically, MTO paints faces or busts of people, in black and white. Often, but not always, their expressions are aggressive toward, or dismissive of, the viewer.The content of the mural was secret, as he did in Sarasota, FL, to avoid the piece being disallowed. Instead, there was a brazenly fake campaign on Facebook asking for Kentucky nominations. MTO sees himself as an artist who balances a city’s ‘illness’ with his statements. I sympathize with that. The difference is, I do not expect anyone to look at my art or listen to my poems all day every day. I am asking: what are my two friends who’ll have to work below this ego trip? Collateral damage in the war on uncoolness? It is delusional to think art must be forced upon the public to work its magic. Most folks just want to get home to eat, play with the kids, or dogs, or both. Guernica, one of the great art pieces of all time, is in a museum, and MTO is no Picasso. These cryptic, dark images may or may not be great art (I cannot say), but they are meant to disrupt, and to thrust one of them into the daily lives of Lexington citizens, against their will, is ugly.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 13:00:45 +0000
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