Next November, Memorial Art Gallery is sponsoring a discussion on art in Rochester in the 21st Century. I’ve been invited to participate as a panelist and I need your help. I’m not particularly good at predicting the future so if readers out there have a line on this topic, will you please share that information with me? All I can really do is look at the 20th Century and try to weave together cause and effect that may prove helpful.
Undoubtedly, the single biggest influence here during the last century was Rochester Institute of Technology. When the School of American Crafts came to this campus in the 1950s, it brought an army of talented faculty and students who stayed in our community, exhibited and sold their art. The school’s fine arts, print and photography departments paired with the manufacturing technology already at work in Rochester created a marriage of art forms that gave a level of sophistication to visual arts here that few cities could match. Nearby, state colleges were booming and all added art departments. SUNY Brockport, for example, had an outstanding faculty and regularly graduated talented artists but such satellites always revolved around the RIT juggernaut.
Direct results? Shop One opened in the 1960s, one of the first fine craft shops in the U.S. Memorial Art Gallery’s annual juried exhibit had artists of the caliber of Frans Wildenhain, Wendell Castle and Albert Paley vying for entry space. Dean Johnson, head of the SAC program, taped a weekly television show on PBS in which he visited artists’ studios. He used his influence to convince area wide manufacturing and community leaders to commission and purchase art.
In the late 1970s, urban renewal was in full force in the City. The list of “bad decisions” associated with urban renewal is impressive but art influence was visible too. When the new Xerox Headquarters went up, it included a world-class art exhibition space. The Halprin-designed Manhattan Square was a coup. Architect Halprin had already designed Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco. The downtown waterfront was envisioned as a pedestrian walkway with serious art spotted along its bank.
The Gannett Newspaper Headquarters was designed to include major commissions from Rochester artists and that corporation purchased and installed a serious photography collection aided by the Eastman Museum curator. The City actually conducted a competition for artists’ designed street Christmas decorations!
By the early 1980s, there were at least a dozen commercial art galleries within the City. I opened Dawson Gallery in the Southwedge in 1982 next door to Zaner Gallery and a block away from Hoppers, Wildroot and Shaheen Raquesh Sculpture Gallery. On Park Avenue, the Wilson Gallery had recently closed but Oxford and 696 were still going strong. ArtWork at Sibley’s gave salesperson Roz Goldman her entry to the community and upstairs; the Ward Gallery generously provided exhibit space for all the regional art clubs as well as the annual Scholastic Art Show. Along Main Street, Barry Merritt opened The Gallery of Contemporary Metalsmithing. George Frederick was around the corner.
Except for Oxford Gallery, every one of these is gone. A few new galleries have opened; just as many have closed. Why? What’s made the difference?
I think the biggest catalyst was RIT’s withdrawal from the City both literally and figuratively. The new campus built on the outskirts of Henrietta removed students and faculty from any commitment or interaction with city life. It took some years to filter down but the change is nearly complete and now with a commercial “campus town” being erected, the disconnect is even more obvious.
Broader economic trends must be factored into the equation and Rochester’s economic health has steadily eroded over the past thirty years or more. Hardly any retail exists downtown and few corporations are expanding and building new art filled headquarters. Even when they are financially healthy, these companies emphasize social investment rather than cultural investment. No wonder! The demands of an expanding poor population with all the inherent problems are swamping our city, county and state.
Art, especially public art, became a political liability during the conservative upsurge of the last decade of the 20th century. This community has not recovered and may never on any appreciative scale.
Finally, young professionals are not staying in Upstate New York and their migration to hotter markets extends to the arts as well as other fields.
So my analysis: Rochester may limp along but will probably not be anything but artistically lukewarm for the foreseeable future. I hope somebody will argue against my premise. I’d like nothing more than to be persuaded that my insight is wrong.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
What Goes Around Comes Around and Around and Around In Rochester
Have you ever wanted to turn back the clock? Take one more stab at something that was hard and somehow got messed up? If you live in Rochester, the answer is easy. Yes! You might want to return to the mid-1980s when downtown was nearing the end of a major Main Street facelift and the deputy mayor’s favorite project, the rehabilitation of Brown’s Race, was getting underway.
Many of us sat through countless hours of “consensus building” and information sessions. We reviewed drawings and listened to both imported and homegrown planners explain how this historic district would attract tourists and city and suburban families. “Build it and they will come!” And there wasn’t much doubt that “they” were everybody!
We quieted those little niggling naysayers who kept whispering “wait, this sounds like a bushel of money to spend on a Disneyland dream. What about the railroad ugliness that forms a wall between Brown’s Race and the rest of civilization- as- we- know- it? What’s to bring people down more than once? How will they spend time and money? Is this a big dollar hole that we, the taxpayers, will forever be pouring resources down?”
At the finish of phase one of the project, we all gathered for a whoop and holler party at the exquisitely retrofitted Water Company. The architectural team of Durfee/Bridges with offices right across the alley did a first class job of capturing the essence of the historic building while infusing the interior with a swat of industrial chic. Outside, charming cobblestone streets and pedestrian friendly streetscape enhanced the living history of the place and of course, views of the gorge and falls were nature’s main attractions. Who could resist?
As it turned out, nearly everybody!
From the get-go, the goofy “history museum” portion of the restored main building was a travesty, a penny-anti attempt at what exactly? Then began the rush to turn the place into an “entertainment district,” parceling out fat checks to one barista start-up after another followed close at the heels with fees to entertainment management companies.
Today, nearly twenty years after the new and improved Brown’s Race opened, the City of Rochester has invested how many millions? $40? $60? $80? I haven’t added it up but I suspect that the investment makes the failed fast ferry investment seem like peanuts and the thing about Mill Street is: it isn’t over! The place is deserted. The pathetic city-supported gift shop and art gallery aside, very few private investors have come forward.
Was it predestined to fail? Actually, I confess that I was part of a group who urged a different course of action from the start. Way back in 1990 and before, we were pushing for assorted housing. Any time you get people to live in a neighborhood, they invest – financially and emotionally. Immediately the streets seem safer with the coming and going of daily life and pain in the butt though it is, they complain! About noise…about trash…about poor lighting. The result? A place where other people want to spend time without worrying too much about crime and grand theft auto.
On an even more personal level, I made an appointment with Deputy Mayor Chris Lindley and marched in naively one day with nothing but a good suit and a smile and offered to run a museum/art gallery based loosely on the 30-year-old Gallery of Contemporary Crafts in Pittsburg. That non-for-profit space opened in the middle of a warehouse district, has expanded several times and manages to stay a leading attraction to art patrons worldwide.
I actually had some experience and a fairly sound basis for my offer: I had run a similar private gallery on East Avenue for ten years, had a bushel of respect and national press but it was time for me to move on and this seemed like a reasonable, challenging option.
If Mr. Lindley had one of those trap doors in his office, he would have pushed the button and sent me sailing out to the sidewalk. The response I got was as though I had just farted in his face. Actually, his exact words to me were “I’m sure there are buildings for sale in Brown’s Race and any number of agents will be happy to show them to you.” In other words, the City was happy to subsidize a bar and grill but I was whistling quite the wrong tune.
Since that day fifteen years or more ago, nothing much has changed. Another Rochester rogue business owner offered to join the current mayor’s team and run Brown’s Race. Mayor Duffy I hear politely listened but never responded at all to the overture. The message seems to be: city administration does not trust for a minute independent
“little guys” but is happy to sign away tax dollars to out-of-town experts.
Or perhaps, it’s just artsy people that can’t be trusted with public money. At any rate, I hear somebody’s finally talking about condos down there and that’s a start.
Many of us sat through countless hours of “consensus building” and information sessions. We reviewed drawings and listened to both imported and homegrown planners explain how this historic district would attract tourists and city and suburban families. “Build it and they will come!” And there wasn’t much doubt that “they” were everybody!
We quieted those little niggling naysayers who kept whispering “wait, this sounds like a bushel of money to spend on a Disneyland dream. What about the railroad ugliness that forms a wall between Brown’s Race and the rest of civilization- as- we- know- it? What’s to bring people down more than once? How will they spend time and money? Is this a big dollar hole that we, the taxpayers, will forever be pouring resources down?”
At the finish of phase one of the project, we all gathered for a whoop and holler party at the exquisitely retrofitted Water Company. The architectural team of Durfee/Bridges with offices right across the alley did a first class job of capturing the essence of the historic building while infusing the interior with a swat of industrial chic. Outside, charming cobblestone streets and pedestrian friendly streetscape enhanced the living history of the place and of course, views of the gorge and falls were nature’s main attractions. Who could resist?
As it turned out, nearly everybody!
From the get-go, the goofy “history museum” portion of the restored main building was a travesty, a penny-anti attempt at what exactly? Then began the rush to turn the place into an “entertainment district,” parceling out fat checks to one barista start-up after another followed close at the heels with fees to entertainment management companies.
Today, nearly twenty years after the new and improved Brown’s Race opened, the City of Rochester has invested how many millions? $40? $60? $80? I haven’t added it up but I suspect that the investment makes the failed fast ferry investment seem like peanuts and the thing about Mill Street is: it isn’t over! The place is deserted. The pathetic city-supported gift shop and art gallery aside, very few private investors have come forward.
Was it predestined to fail? Actually, I confess that I was part of a group who urged a different course of action from the start. Way back in 1990 and before, we were pushing for assorted housing. Any time you get people to live in a neighborhood, they invest – financially and emotionally. Immediately the streets seem safer with the coming and going of daily life and pain in the butt though it is, they complain! About noise…about trash…about poor lighting. The result? A place where other people want to spend time without worrying too much about crime and grand theft auto.
On an even more personal level, I made an appointment with Deputy Mayor Chris Lindley and marched in naively one day with nothing but a good suit and a smile and offered to run a museum/art gallery based loosely on the 30-year-old Gallery of Contemporary Crafts in Pittsburg. That non-for-profit space opened in the middle of a warehouse district, has expanded several times and manages to stay a leading attraction to art patrons worldwide.
I actually had some experience and a fairly sound basis for my offer: I had run a similar private gallery on East Avenue for ten years, had a bushel of respect and national press but it was time for me to move on and this seemed like a reasonable, challenging option.
If Mr. Lindley had one of those trap doors in his office, he would have pushed the button and sent me sailing out to the sidewalk. The response I got was as though I had just farted in his face. Actually, his exact words to me were “I’m sure there are buildings for sale in Brown’s Race and any number of agents will be happy to show them to you.” In other words, the City was happy to subsidize a bar and grill but I was whistling quite the wrong tune.
Since that day fifteen years or more ago, nothing much has changed. Another Rochester rogue business owner offered to join the current mayor’s team and run Brown’s Race. Mayor Duffy I hear politely listened but never responded at all to the overture. The message seems to be: city administration does not trust for a minute independent
“little guys” but is happy to sign away tax dollars to out-of-town experts.
Or perhaps, it’s just artsy people that can’t be trusted with public money. At any rate, I hear somebody’s finally talking about condos down there and that’s a start.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
If a tree falls in the forest...and other art questions
April 9, 2007
My talented friend Judy and I somehow got caught up in a philosophical discussion via long distance and within a matter of a day or two, I sensed that we were falling over an email cliff. It all started innocently enough. She's working on a new sculpture; I found myself wide awake at 3 A.M. and came up with brilliant conclusions about its meaning (Obviously! All 3 A.M. conclusions are brilliant!). I promptly sent my thoughts off to her.
Bad idea. First, I should know better than to analyze any art work after dark without reviewing my conclusions by the light of the sun. And secondly, no artist wants to know too much from an outsider about a work in progress. It's just bad karma.
So Judy wrote "There are three elements at work in every piece: the piece itself, the artist's input and the reaction of the viewer (without which the work simply becomes therapy for its creator).i.e. 'If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?'
That's about the time I dropped the subject but the question arises to tickle my brain tissue. Does art in fact need "feedback" to raise it from self-indulgent therapy?
The whole tree in the forest thing has always seemed to me to be the height of egoism. The suggestion is that nothing really matters if I (you, we) haven't personally been involved somehow in the process. (I'm sure there are scientists out there who will tell me the reasons why sound waves sent out require...blah, blah, blah. Nobody really wants that information this time, so please sit down.) So now, what about those primitive cave paintings? Were they less "art" because they rested undiscovered for generations? What about the ones we have yet to find? Are they less important? (Ooops..."important"...There's a judgement-laden word we need to keep out of the discussion. Now I've tread into the breach of a value system as applied to art. And that is not my intent here.)
I'm currently reading "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" by Annie Dillard and stopped in my tracks at a passage. The book's narrator tells of watching a mocking bird dive bomb off a four story building and at the last minute, before slamming into the ground, spreads it's wings and lands instead gracefully on all two feet. She's stunned at the sight, realizes she's the only observer to this amazing performance and brings up the old "tree falling" business.
Then she thinks "the answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there."
My talented friend Judy and I somehow got caught up in a philosophical discussion via long distance and within a matter of a day or two, I sensed that we were falling over an email cliff. It all started innocently enough. She's working on a new sculpture; I found myself wide awake at 3 A.M. and came up with brilliant conclusions about its meaning (Obviously! All 3 A.M. conclusions are brilliant!). I promptly sent my thoughts off to her.
Bad idea. First, I should know better than to analyze any art work after dark without reviewing my conclusions by the light of the sun. And secondly, no artist wants to know too much from an outsider about a work in progress. It's just bad karma.
So Judy wrote "There are three elements at work in every piece: the piece itself, the artist's input and the reaction of the viewer (without which the work simply becomes therapy for its creator).i.e. 'If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?'
That's about the time I dropped the subject but the question arises to tickle my brain tissue. Does art in fact need "feedback" to raise it from self-indulgent therapy?
The whole tree in the forest thing has always seemed to me to be the height of egoism. The suggestion is that nothing really matters if I (you, we) haven't personally been involved somehow in the process. (I'm sure there are scientists out there who will tell me the reasons why sound waves sent out require...blah, blah, blah. Nobody really wants that information this time, so please sit down.) So now, what about those primitive cave paintings? Were they less "art" because they rested undiscovered for generations? What about the ones we have yet to find? Are they less important? (Ooops..."important"...There's a judgement-laden word we need to keep out of the discussion. Now I've tread into the breach of a value system as applied to art. And that is not my intent here.)
I'm currently reading "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" by Annie Dillard and stopped in my tracks at a passage. The book's narrator tells of watching a mocking bird dive bomb off a four story building and at the last minute, before slamming into the ground, spreads it's wings and lands instead gracefully on all two feet. She's stunned at the sight, realizes she's the only observer to this amazing performance and brings up the old "tree falling" business.
Then she thinks "the answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there."
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Thoughts on Public Art
Poor Richard Margolis! In an effort to explain why Rochester’s art community hasn’t cheered for Renaissance Square, he’s dredged up old airport art news when there is so much new art muck to smear around. And the most recent airport mess – “the mysterious disappearance of site specific art pieces” – is only history repeating itself. In 1991, Monroe County purchased one sculpture and was gifted another for Highland Park. Both have disappeared from view and at least one of those pieces, I’m pretty sure, went directly to a landfill.
Rochester is about to land smack into its next art dilemma: what’s to become of sculpture hanging in Mortimer Street Parking Garage after the tear down to make way for Renaissance? What’s to become of the artwork that the City will suddenly own that’s now hiding in the caverns of Midtown Plaza? (And I refer to more than the Clock of Nations that apparently has a cue of people lining up to suggest its new home.)
I was tickled when Lois Geiss announced that the City would (has already?) adopt a new art policy, setting aside a percentage for art on all construction projects and if I may paraphrase her, “with pieces like those sculptures of Susan B. Anthony, done by Rochester’s own artists.” This statement contains the seeds of nearly everything wrong with our public art policy to date.
Rochester has had – off and on again – a percent for art but first we need a complete inventory of what’s already owned, it’s condition, history and value, where it rests today and a policy in place for removal when necessary. (Come on Arts Council! Earn your keep. And, by the way, where is the visitors’ brochure mapping these pieces?)
Next we need to take the parochial blinders off, adopt a professional way of calling for entries and judging art works that encourages worldwide competition. Yes, we have talented artists here but not nearly as many of some of us think we do and not many with technical skills sometimes required for sophisticated installations. And I feel compelled to add, we have enough junk on the streets, thank you very much.
And we need a way of “banking the money.” When some of that percent isn’t spent (many reasons: too few entries to make good art selections, site really isn’t conducive, funds just aren’t enough to buy something really worthwhile), we need a mechanism in place to add it to funds for another site or another project. And by the way, this is a way to begin a “Trust for Art.” When I die (gasp!), I don’t want flowers. Perhaps my friends will send their $10 to such a fund instead.
Which brings me to another little piece of mud: Rochester does not want anything even remotely controversial – ever! We (the pro art group) beat the horse into the ground and the anti-art group decides the best way around the whole mess is never to take a step off the path in the first place. Shame on all of us! One result? I know a couple who offered to purchase and gift public art to the City/County to be installed along a hiking trail near where they live. The C/C representatives couldn’t get out of the room fast enough and to this day have not responded to the overture.
I’ve spent my adult life in service to our art community. I’ve written about these issues repeatedly. To date, it hasn’t seemed to matter. But a few of us – Richard included - can’t help continuing to try.
Start the discussion. What do you think?
Rochester is about to land smack into its next art dilemma: what’s to become of sculpture hanging in Mortimer Street Parking Garage after the tear down to make way for Renaissance? What’s to become of the artwork that the City will suddenly own that’s now hiding in the caverns of Midtown Plaza? (And I refer to more than the Clock of Nations that apparently has a cue of people lining up to suggest its new home.)
I was tickled when Lois Geiss announced that the City would (has already?) adopt a new art policy, setting aside a percentage for art on all construction projects and if I may paraphrase her, “with pieces like those sculptures of Susan B. Anthony, done by Rochester’s own artists.” This statement contains the seeds of nearly everything wrong with our public art policy to date.
Rochester has had – off and on again – a percent for art but first we need a complete inventory of what’s already owned, it’s condition, history and value, where it rests today and a policy in place for removal when necessary. (Come on Arts Council! Earn your keep. And, by the way, where is the visitors’ brochure mapping these pieces?)
Next we need to take the parochial blinders off, adopt a professional way of calling for entries and judging art works that encourages worldwide competition. Yes, we have talented artists here but not nearly as many of some of us think we do and not many with technical skills sometimes required for sophisticated installations. And I feel compelled to add, we have enough junk on the streets, thank you very much.
And we need a way of “banking the money.” When some of that percent isn’t spent (many reasons: too few entries to make good art selections, site really isn’t conducive, funds just aren’t enough to buy something really worthwhile), we need a mechanism in place to add it to funds for another site or another project. And by the way, this is a way to begin a “Trust for Art.” When I die (gasp!), I don’t want flowers. Perhaps my friends will send their $10 to such a fund instead.
Which brings me to another little piece of mud: Rochester does not want anything even remotely controversial – ever! We (the pro art group) beat the horse into the ground and the anti-art group decides the best way around the whole mess is never to take a step off the path in the first place. Shame on all of us! One result? I know a couple who offered to purchase and gift public art to the City/County to be installed along a hiking trail near where they live. The C/C representatives couldn’t get out of the room fast enough and to this day have not responded to the overture.
I’ve spent my adult life in service to our art community. I’ve written about these issues repeatedly. To date, it hasn’t seemed to matter. But a few of us – Richard included - can’t help continuing to try.
Start the discussion. What do you think?
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