$500,000 taxpayer dollars to make a graven image of a murderous pagan god.
And it's ugly, too.
Posted on 08/02/2015 12:38:54 PM PDT by WilliamIII
A legal battle has broken out in Oakland, California, over whether construction companies should be forced to pay for public art in building projects.
An alliance of firms in Oakland is suing the city over laws that came into effect in February forcing them to spend between 0.5% and 1% of any project’s budget on public art.
There are more than 200 such public art ordinances across the United States and construction bosses will be closely monitoring the outcome of the lawsuit. Artists in Oakland, meanwhile, are fearful that a victory for the firms will be a defeat for culture in a city which has seen an influx of artists in recent years, and damage its status.
The Building Industry Association of the Bay Area (BIA), a group that represents about 300 builders, contractors, suppliers and others within the Bay Area housing sector, claim the rules violate the first amendment and the fifth amendment protection against “uncompensated takings”.
“Public art adds value to our life,” visual and performance artist Johanna Poethig said, describing the lawsuit as a “backwards step”. She said: “Any sophisticated city has art and the amount spent is not a lot … and [art] makes people want to live there.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Defeat for culture...
What a lie.
What they are afraid of, is that developers will get to keep their money, and the artists won’t be gifted with it instead.
Public Art, especially in affordable housing projects provides a venue for taggers to practice and perfect their own public art.
If it ads value then the market would demand it.
Those places that have such ordinances are usually festooned with very mediocre art, but a number of artists who don’t need to work very hard.
>>Artists in Oakland, meanwhile, are fearful that a victory for the firms will be a defeat for culture in a city which has seen an influx of artists in recent years, and damage its status.
If you need the government to force people (ultimately at gunpoint) to use your art, then your art is crap.
“Public Art, especially in affordable housing projects provides a venue for taggers to practice and perfect their own public art.”
How true. Of course, the builders won’t eat this, they will just pass it along.
So, effectively, this is a tax to support starving artists. But that doesn’t seem as palatable, does it?
$500,000 taxpayer dollars to make a graven image of a murderous pagan god.
And it's ugly, too.
Artists who use canvas to display their art pay for it out of their own pockets.
> “Public art adds value to our life,” visual and performance artist Johanna Poethig said...
...meaning that it adds to the income of self-described artists, while putting the gubmint imprimatur on what is and isn’t art.
“Public art” should just be abolished
Oakland will have a Kim Jong-Un statue any day now
Don’t they just pass the costs on to the customer? Any fool that wants to build in these liberal fiefdoms deserves to pay through the nose.
Why don’t these developers get smart and set up shell companies to do the artwork?
Reminds me of that scene from the Charlie Sheen/Angie Harmon movie in where the "artiste" fills himself up with paint, and blasts a canvas in front of a live audience.
For the same reason you don’t hang art in a home that’s just been built. The new occupants will.
For the same reason you don’t hang art in a home that’s just been built. The new occupants will.
That may been somewhat simplistic, since some developers will likely manage the property.
At some point they may put up art. If they don’t wind up being the managers of the property, why should they put something up.
This make work for those the local libs want to keep on the reservation.
Patrons of this creepy "art" typically justify the edginess or downright offensiveness of the pieces by saying that the purpose is to make people think, even if it makes them uncomfortable.
Of course, it's typically the lefty stuff that we are supposed to "think" about.
Johanna Poethig in Public Space
Imagine a bright-blue-eyed four-month-old baby girl traveling with missionaries to the Philippines. Picture her growing up and attending an alternative school in Manila filled with many friends who encourage her to engage in the vibrant art community. In her teenage years, she returns to the United States to learn as much about muralism as possible in Chicago, later venturing to the West Coast and settling in the Bay Area.....
-- snip --
a giant turd???
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