Public Eye

When it comes to art, only one thing matters: Is it any good? (More matters than that -- way more. But they are quibbles, either major or minor, and I'll get to them.) Style doesn't matter -- I can, and do, revere a Chris Burden conceptual piece in which he sits on a wooden ladder in a pool of water filled with live electrical wires, as much as that lovely visiting Vermeer in the Norton Simon. Period doesn't matter -- if you only like contemporary art, or only like Impressionist art, or only like 15th-century Burmese carvings, you don't like art: You just have a fetish. Beauty, creepiness, good taste, perversity -- none of these things matter, or, they don't matter when it comes to whether art is any good.

And sometimes there can be a style of art one can appreciate the skill involved in, but never really love.

In the matter of the public art proposed for the front entrances of the new and greatly improved Pasadena Convention Center surrounding the properly hallowed Civic Auditorium on East Green Street, it is, as always, a matter of the art first, quibbles next.
Except that in the matter of sculptural pieces in a public plaza -- "plop art" is the derogatory generic term -- quibbles can be deal-killers.
All three artists selected by an Arts & Culture Commission panel have impeccable reputations in their fields. Light-and-sound artist Hans Peter Kuhn makes work of mystery and beauty; Dennis Oppenheim was a major figure in early earthworks and later conceptual art; the L.A. muralist/graffiti artist known as Man One is huge.

As to their proposals: Kuhn's proposed kinetic sculpture of waving stalks of light would be gorgeous and ethereal. Oppenheim's "Thinking Caps," a humongous fedora, sun hat and baseball cap, is unspeakably ill-conceived, tacky in its rendering, derivative in style and not worthy of the site. (This from someone who loved much of his early work, especially "Reading Position for a Second Degree Burn.") As to One's mural: well, it would be inside, which is a good thing for me, at least, an appreciator of graffiti-style skill but not an aficionado.

Thus the art; now the big quibbles. The critics are entirely right about the need to protect the sight lines in front of the Civic. We spent decades fighting the godawful Plaza Pasadena and its blocking of the carefully planned view axis between the Central Library and the auditorium. For decades as well the lousy Brutalist-style bunkers flanking the Civic for meeting rooms were embarrassing neighbors to Cyril Bennett's timeless Italianate monument. At long last, Fentress Bradburn Architects' new flanking buildings are both contextual and very fine. Now we want bad 30-foot hats in the way? We do not. No, they're not smack in the middle of the axis; still, the arguments of those who want massive public art not to block classic views need to be heard. This isn't a fight between philistines and the high-minded, or one about style; it's about guaranteeing that the great art and great architecture we deserve respect each other instead of working at cross-purposes.