Crimes of the Art

Our city deserves magnificent public art, but we're stuck with dreck. Could trading bronze for ice help?

By Thomas M. Keane Jr.  |  February 12, 2006

Boston's system for designing and placing public art is broken, producing in the last few years a slew of pieces that are mostly mediocre and sometimes awful.

The Ted Williams statue next to Fenway Park (2004) is a bad action figure. The police memorial (2005) by police headquarters in Roxbury is an uninspired derivative of the firefighters' memorial (1997) on the Commonwealth Avenue mall, which itself imitates the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.A Globe critic derided the Commonwealth Avenue women's memorial (2003) as a "merry-go-round, with an awkward emptiness at its center." The Irish Times castigated the Irish famine memorial (1998) in Downtown Crossing as "a monument to kitsch." And the Art Wall (2004) at Massachusetts College of Art isn't even recognizable as art; it's just a fence.

For a capital city given to pretensions of being world-class, it's an embarrassment. And the explanation most commonly advanced for this sorry state of affairs has to do with the Boston Arts Commission.

The commission, a quasi-independent government body created in 1890, is supposed to be the clearinghouse through which all public-art proposals pass. Never a powerhouse, for the last decade it's been largely inactive - "dysfunctional and non-functional," says Ricardo Barreto, director of the Urban Arts Institute at MassArt, which advocates for public art. The too-frequent result has been that public-art decisions have been directed by those with power (developer Thomas Flatley and the famine memorial), influence (the Red Sox and the Williams statue), or political connections (firefighters and their memorial).

The good news is that this may be changing. Boston has finally reconstituted its Arts Commission, and architect Carol Burns, its chairwoman since 2003, promises thorough documentation, competition, review, and extensive public input. A strong process, Burns says, should "stop the dreck and advance the arts." Yet, even so (and the recent resignation of the city's cultural affairs chief has left many wondering), that doesn't necessarily mean we'll get inspirational or cutting-edge art - and that goes to the nature of public art itself.

For the most part, public art is permanent art, which is why a thorough review process is so crucial. Yet such an exhaustive process has a downside: While garnering consensus, it can snuff out the singularly brilliant. Rather than a unique vision of an artist, public art becomes the product of a committee. Indeed, Barreto says, most successful public artists are those who are skilled at negotiating and compromising - not the attributes one normally associates with the best art. A case in point is the women's memorial, which had plenty of public input but still is a dumbed-down artistic failure.

So why not make public art temporary instead of permanent? It's not a crazy idea. During the summer and fall of 2000, for example, the city was awash in fiberglass cod; this summer, it will be cows. On First Night of each year, downtown is transformed into a giant temporary art exhibit, including works made of perhaps the most short-lived artistic material of all - ice.

These temporary works may not be masterpieces, but - fun, creative, provocative - they're more interesting than much of the recent permanent stuff. Sarah Hutt, director of visual-arts programs for the city, says it's her intention to push for more.

Take that one step further. Barreto points to London, which has reserved the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square for temporary art. On display now is Marc Quinn's massive sculpture of a naked, pregnant, and disabled woman. Love it or hate it, it is there for only 18 months, after which it will be followed by something else.

Boston could do the same. Rather than create public art and then figure out where to put it, do the reverse: Designate prominent sites for art (City Hall Plaza? The Rose Kennedy Greenway?) and give artists largely free rein. Instead of another dull statue of a politician (and - yawn - one of former mayor Kevin White is in the works), we could get creations of real interest. London's experiment could well serve as our model.

Except for the naked part, of course. After all, this is Boston..

Thomas M. Keane Jr. is a partner in a private equity fund and former Boston city councilor. E-mail him at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.