I’m not talking about the sculpture of Chief Sealth, which I like just fine. (It’s the one in the middle) But what the hell are those boards behind him on either side? They look like they were done by a bunch of eighth graders drunk on grape soda.
Leaves, dollar signs and crosses. Lemme guess… dollars signs and crosses are bad, leaves are good.
Really, folks. Chief Sealth was a great Native American, to whom the current residents of this area owe a great deal. We certainly owe him more than this underwhelming art installation.
What bugs me the most was that somebody approved this. Since this is Seattle, the decision was probably made not by an individual but by a group of people.
To be a fly on the wall at that meeting…
1st Guy: Look folks, we’ve got to finalize a design for this Chief Sealth art thing. Any ideas?
2nd Guy: How about something in bronze with ornate inlays, done by skilled craftsmen with an eye for detail. Creative consulting work by members of the Duwamish tribe. Something classic yet modern, accessible and informative. Something that remembers Chief Sealth for who he was and preserves his memory for years to come.
1st Guy: That’s good, I’m liking it. Anything else?
3rd Guy: How about we run down to Home Depot, get some paints and some plywood, and have my kid’s eighth grade class crap something out for us. I’m thinking something like-
1st Guy: Stop there, Bob, you’ve struck gold. Don’t say another word because that is genius.
While some of you might say, “hey asshole, who asked you to be the big critic guy of all the art?” Folks, we’re not talking about the crappy turd-shaped ash trays you made for your parents in ceramics class. This art display is in a city park. A park you pay for! That means it’s fair game for me, or anyone else, to have a go at.
Some bureaucrat approved this thing, and it’s my right (no, duty!) to speak truth to power. Downtown residents like myself deserve better than this!
UPDATE [Lee]: What is written on those things anyway? I can’t find anything using Google. I’m pretty sure there are no actual languages with question marks and superscript w’s.
UPDATE [Lee]: OK, I found it now, it’s definitely a real language. Check this page out.
What do the signs say? I have no idea.
UPDATE [Lee]: This is the last one, I promise. I’m learning a lot today. From commenter “Smartypants”:
The languages are Lushootseed (front) and English (back). Lushootseed is the local dialect of the Coast Salish language that was used by the Duwamish people.
English translation Panel on Left: Chief Seattle Now The Streets Are Our Home
English translation Panel on Right: Far Away Brothers and Sisters We Still Remember You
Here’s the explanation of the work: “With the sculpture Day/Night the theme of the porcelain panels seeks to proclaim that for many transient inter-tribal people the streets of Seattle are home. Secondly it is declared that although these tribal citizens have sought refuge in the urban centers which have sprung up on Indian Territory around them, the far rural tribal communities from which the originate hold each and everyone’s memory in close and high regard.”
the words look a little like the words on the sign at the snoqualmie tribe’s
building. dunno.
You may know what you like, but you don’t know anything about art.
Public art that appeals to every single person is pablum. Art should challenge, communicate, provoke, inspire wonder, or anger, or joy. Consider yourself educated. Thank the city.
Tell you the truth, I don’t like Chief Sealth either. Anymore, thanks to the Makahs, every time I see something to do with native Americans, I think of dead whales.
Let me guess that the culprit(s) is/are the Seattle Arts Commission, a more self-impressed-with-themselves gaggle of gigglers the world has never known.
I speak as someone who’s suffered their slings and arrows of outrageously dumb questions proffered during grant interviews.
Your tax dollars at waste, there Will…
And as for you, Big Daddy Love, you can contend all you like that what is bad taste is unintelligable to all save the enlightened, but the simple fact is that crap is crap is crap…
That you call it “art” does not necessarily make it so.
If you want art that angers or even nauseates, you have the absolute right to have it…but neither you nor anyone else has the right to have Will and I pay for it! Artists should have to compete in the marketplace just like everyone else, and if you want to pony up the dough to commission mindless drivel, have it mounted for public display on land you own, and pay for its maintenance and upkeep, then waste all the money you like.
In the meantime, Will, in his role as self-appointed art critic – a role he is even more entitled to than your counter criticism since he’s not implicitely asking for a tax subsidy – has the absolute right to call drivel…drivel.
The Piper
@3…Upton…
There are dead whales lawfully taken under terms of treaties signed between a semi-sovereign tribe and the United States, and then there are dead whales unlawfully killed by renegades who have severely embarrassed their tribe, broken both tribal and federal law, and are now subject to the punishment of both.
The Makah people are entitled to hunt whales under their treaty, and from I’ve seen, they’ve sought to do so with respect and under the law. Much as the other PNW tribes have rights to salmon and shellfish under their treaties, why can’t the Makah be similarly respected?
The Piper
I happen to like narrative art, art that has a message, tells a story. I can argue that the signage’s more narrative than the head. The head is just a head, it shows what the man looked like. The placards at least have an implied message about nature, money and religion. They could be rendered more elegantly, but you were still able to glean some commentary from it.
I think it’s too late to improve it, it’s been there for enough generations to ossify into being “historical”. It doesn’t matter if it’s butt ugly or pointless, it’s become “tradition”, it’s just what has always been there. Like the pergola but much worse. It will take a meteor strike or Great Fire to get rid of it.
Here’s a link to a web site with an explanation of the work:
http://www.heapofbirds.com/hac.....s_publ.htm
You have to scroll down to the second entry for this piece, called “Day/Night”
The languages are Lushootseed (front) and English (back). Lushootseed is the local dialect of the Coast Salish language that was used by the Duwamish people.
English translation Panel on Left: Chief Seattle Now The Streets Are Our Home
English translation Panel on Right: Far Away Brothers and Sisters We Still Remember You
Here’s the explanation of the work: “With the sculpture Day/Night the theme of the porcelain panels seeks to proclaim that for many transient inter-tribal people the streets of Seattle are home. Secondly it is declared that although these tribal citizens have sought refuge in the urban centers which have sprung up on Indian Territory around them, the far rural tribal communities from which the originate hold each and everyone’s memory in close and high regard.”
Then there’s another quote from Chief Seattle:
“Our dead never forget this beautiful world that gave them being. They still love it’s winding rivers, it’s great mountains and it’s sequestered valleys and they ever yearn in affection over the lonely-hearted living and often return to visit, guide and comfort them.
Day and night cannot dwell together. The red man has ever fled the approach of the white man, as the changing mist on the mountainside flees before the blazing sun.”
Chief Sealth (Seattle), Autumn 1854
The signs appear to be written in the International Phonetic Alphabet http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ipa/.....C)2005.pdf .
Probably a tool used to assert cultural dominance over indigenous peoples.
@7…SP…
If that’s the case, then given that this is so-called “public art” and most of the “public” isn’t fluent in the languages used, why can’t the English translation be as prominent and front and center?
And the so-called “explanation” of the work sounds like an invitation to be homeless on the streets of Seattle. That what it means? If so, just how pathetic is that?
The Piper
@5 “The Makah people are entitled to hunt whales under their treaty, and from I’ve seen, they’ve sought to do so with respect and under the law.”
Is that what happened in the the illegal killing of the last whale? A clear violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Three of the men involved were also involved in the legal taking of a whale in 1999. They include, Wayne Johnson, the captain of the whaling crew, and Theron Parker, the man who first harpooned the young Gray whale in Makah Bay in 1999. Another one of the five, Andy Noel is a Makah whaling commissioner. Apparently, they got tired of waiting for a waiver. You want me to respect that?
“Taking a stand against
crappyALL TAXPAYER-FUNDED public art”@10…Upton…
When the TRIBE hunts, they do so under the law. When renegades hunt, they don’t. That one or more of the lawful hunting party then took it upon themselves to break the law doesn’t void the legality of the initial effort.
If you wish to show respect for different cultures, then isn’t necessary to do so even when it presses against your own sensitivities?
The official position of the tribe has been to both disavow the unlawful hunt and apologize to the public at large. Certainly, you can’t ask for anything more than that.
The Piper
@10 Piper Scott
I have a sneaking suspicion that the only reason the Makahs have both disavowed the hunt and apologized is because it has become a public relations nightmare. They also have that little matter of trying to still obtain the waiver to take another whale.
The fact that the Makah tribe can’t control their own whaling crew reflects very badly upon them.
@11 I like the good looking TAXPAYER-FUNDED public art, just not the ugly stuff.
In no particular order.
I like the Fremont Troll for it’s Fun value
http://www.whatrain.com/seattl...../troll.htm
Or the black tire that is fun to climb on
http://www.seattle.gov/arts/pu.....038;item=5
but logs seems pointless.
http://www.seattle.gov/arts/pu.....#038;img=2
My problem with much of committee art is that it plays it so safe. The result is usually so bland or so abstract that it feels like a waste of money.
You folks ought to see what printed Inukitut looks like, if you think Salish is strange. They have triangles too, and strange curvy characters!
Committees love install abstract art because it’s safe.
Take the fountain in the new sculpture park of the man and his son. People with weak minds freaked because they were nude. (Good lord! Unclothed people! Avert thy eyes!)
IF it had been abstract, both figures might have been geometric round columns and nobody would have been able to object, except that then it would boring and have all the soul of corporate lobby sculpture. Now it offends cause it’s too real. I was critical of it, cause the modeling was kind of lumpy.
The more real it is, the more it will offend SOMEONE!
Also, the more narrative there is, the more chance that someone will object to the message. The art will be too pro environment or too anti corporate or too gay or too pro marriage, blah blah blah.
15 BJ (unfortunate as that abbreviation might seem)
I agree.
Piper certainly, and Will very probably, objects to whatever public art he (or he) doesn’t like. It doesn’t require “enlightenment” or intellectual attainment to realize that art one does not like might also have a right to exist; all it takes is tolerance, which is a commodity in very short supply.
Actually, I’m a bit disappointed that Will and others didn’t recognize this as the written form of a local indigenous language.
Do you get that uptight about signs in Vietnamese or Khmer?
Most of the public art from the previous centuries was bought by rich patrons. They made sure the art looked good or they were not going to pay for it. But also they could express their point of view, they could force their narrative on the masses, because they were rich and the public didn’t have a choice. They didn’t have to be as caring of public opinion, they just had to look good to their circle of friends.
I think Piper and Will and those types, miss the old days, where Rich People bequeathed their type of art on the masses, not some committee.
And in fairness, I miss the old days when art had to look good.
So if Taxpayer funded art is bad, then the only good art is Free art, Advertising art or Rich People art?
@18
I wasn’t bothered by the signs, but I’ve just never seen a language like that (and I am familiar with other obscure written languages). I thought it was one of SeattleJew’s comments. :)
Just kidding Steve…
When evaluating the quality of art one does not need to be told by critics what is good or bad. Because good art needs no explanation except to those who have lost access to their intuition.
@22
Just to play devil’s advocate….
There has to be a common language, shared common cultural cues to tell if art is “good”.
One person’s great art is another person’s travesty.
Is it intuitively obvious that a Japanese Opera is good or bad?
Is it intuitively obvious that a German Opera is good or bad?
Is it intuitively obvious if a Square Dance song is good or bad?
Is it intuitively obvious that the round black tire sculpture in Volunteer Park is good or bad?
Is it intuitively obvious that the camel sculptures in Volunteer Park are good or bad?
—
At one point in history, Impressionist art was HATED by the “traditionalists”. Now it is beloved and a stable of photo calendars. Who’s to say, some of the stuff we hate now, won’t be come admired in 100 years.
The idea of using the native language is great but I agree with Will that it looks like some crappy class project (or an Evergreen mid term). there is precious little good art around Seattle and some very high profile crap.
The Sand Point Sound Garden and bridge with rhyme of the ancient mariner = good
the “what the hell?” sculptures in the arboretum on either side of 520 = bad
Hammering man = bad, hammering man with ball and chain = good
There are two issues running in this thread: (1) Whether the two signs are, in fact, “art,” and (2) Whether same or anything that passes for “art” ought to be publicly funded.
Whether “art” is “art” is a fairly subjective thing, the truth of which cannot be proved scientifically, technically, logically or any other way. Why Moliere was great isn’t subject to 2 + 2 = 4; the truth of beauty isn’t derived by an equation.
It’s perfectly fine for some to contend that the two signs are “art,” and it’s equally fine for others to contend to the contrary. Again, again, again…it’s a free country.
But when the issue boils down to whether the it’s OK for the tax dollars of someone who’s offended by so-called “art” to be used to not only subsidize its creation, but also effectively rub the taxpayer’s nose in it, then that’s another.
Yet we’re told that this has to be otherwise all we’ll get is corporate and rich-owned art.
I don’t know…Mozart came out of just such a system. And you can’t complain about guys like the one in this NY Times obit: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f.....#038;spon=
I can’t remember their names, but I remember reading a few years ago in the WSJ about a NYC couple of very modest means – he was a public employee and she a teacher, or something like that – who’d been collecting for decades the works of modern painters who represented a particular school of work to the extent that their modest little NYC apartment was jammed floor to ceiling with canvases that were then worth vast sums of money.
As I recall, the couple – still in their mundane work-a-day-world jobs – were highly respected by artists, gallery owners, museum officials, and others in the NYC arts community for their taste, accumen, and ability to score a bargain on a canvas. What they bought, they bought out of their own pockets.
I’m not suggesting that all forms of public art are inappropriate; there is a legit argument to be made for community esthetics. What I do object to, though, is the demanding tone of those who think they have a right to a public subsidy for drivel, crap, and the offensive; let some other sucker pay for it, not the taxpayer.
Enjoy what you wish, patronize what moves you, support what you believe in…but don’t demand that your personal taste be institutionalized at public expense.
Those who object to complaints about publicly funded art are usually those who object to art that’s more publicly acceptable. If that’s not a disconnect, then what is?
The Piper
I agree with Piper here:
If I could find a way to nailing down what was drivel, crap, and the offensive, I’d love to get rid of it. I find statues of Ronald Regan made with public money offensive, can we get rid of those?
Chief Sealth is okay, but dated; maybe they should replace him with a statue of Dear Leader. http://tinyurl.com/2vessm
Stick to politics which you know something about and not art which you know nothing about.
Since IIRC the late 1970’s, the City used to have to budget “2% For Art”, later amended to “1% For Art”, not sure what the percentage is now. Like, if a substation was built, 2% of the Capital costs were required to be budgeted to supply some form of artwork. Many of the pieces (for better or for worse) landed on the walls of Your City Light Building, they had to find SOME PLACE to stick ’em.
I remember about 1987, there was a framed picture entitled “Beavers” on the hallway wall @ C.L. Curious and rather interesting, in colored pencil sketches it showed beavers moving from one place to another. Chewed trees, beaver dams, gave a commentary of the history of the Beaver. On the outset of that main area were smallish pictures of beavers in various poses. One of which was a small, probably 2 inch x 3 inch picture of women sitting on a bench. ‘Front on’ drawing, one woman slightly spreading her legs. So subtle. The MBAs (Mgmt System Analyst) women were checking out this art piece, seemed to be enjoying it, and THEN OMG! $hit hit the fan. You never saw a piece of art yanked down so fast! Took less than an hour before the Arts Commission was “de-commissioning” (we weren’t allowed to handle the “artwork” ourselves).
Always wondered what basement in the City Sewer System that piece of “Art” may still be hanging? The so-called “Artist” was probably laughing all the way to the bank, he’d likely already been paid.
@21
Which Japanese Opera?
Which German Opera?
Which Square Dance Song?
Black Sun, Isamu Noguchi (1969), Volunteer Park, Seattle Very Good
Ming Dynasty Camel Replicas (Priceless)
The reason it took so long for “traditionalist” to accept impressionist art was because they were “traditionalist”. Implying people whose minds were closed to anything new or who relied on critics to tell them what was good instead of relying on their own intuitive feelings about what they were experiencing when gazing upon this new form of art with their own eyes.
whoops that was actually @23