To bicker over $4,800 in suburban development costs, when the city has $470,000 to blow on bad art in ridiculous places.
It seems all too fitting that Calgary’s latest public art project is a giant hole — it should serve as a symbol of money thrown away, for all the good it does us.
Not that there’s anything wrong with public art, when it’s done right, for the right reasons.
But there is something very wrong with art that Calgary is forced to buy, all because the rules are as rigid as this latest lame sculpture.
Anti-art? No: this is anti-giving-half-a-million-bucks to a German firm, to pay for something clearly sketched on a bierhaus napkin in a matter of seconds.
We now have a giant blue metal circle, 17 metres tall, standing on a road where the need for artistic enhancement is dubious, and the result probably distracting for drivers.
More fittingly called “The Big Owe,” the real name of this simplistic circle on 96 Ave. N.E. is “Travelling Light” — a title that works just fine, so long as it’s referring to taxpayer wallets.
“Travelling Light is a bold and innovative artwork, intended to capture the dynamics of Calgary on the move and create a lasting impression for all who experience it,” reads the city’s summary of the circle, built by the inges idee art collective of Berlin.
“This 17 metre sculptural ring will be integrated into the row of existing street lamps and allows a portal into the landscape and the environs. Seen from a distance, it forms a huge window framing the expanses of the landscape, and gives the 96th Ave. N.E. interchange a clear and unmistakable identity — both from far away and up close.”
Whoever penned that drivel worked ten times harder than the artist who drew a circle, then stuck a street light on top.
While it’s claimed “viewers may interpret the arches of the lamps as the handlebars of a high wheeler, the silhouette of a bird about to take flight or perhaps even a butterfly’s antennae,” what it looks like is a circle with a streetlight welded on top — because that’s exactly what it is.
“I’ve said I will never evaluate art, whether good bad or ugly, because it’s in the eye of the beholder, but I’m strong on value for money,” said Shane Keating, incumbent alderman for Ward 12.
“Did we get value for money spending half a million dollars on this? And that’s the question.”
The answer is no.
An opinion of course, much like any criticism of art, but one based on esthetics and wasted money.
When Naheed Nenshi’s entire re-election campaign based on a $4,800 per-house levy he wants to charge for new development in the deep suburbs, you’d think blowing 98 houses worth of cash on bad art would have the mayor and his aldermanic allies livid.
Of course though, they’re not — because this is money they approve of spending, unlike infrastructure cash for young families wanting a house.
Indeed, attempts to even slightly alter the rule, by which 1% of public project money is reserved for art, has been met by stern opposition from council.
Keating tried, but his motion to reduce the percentage set aside for huge projects like the West LRT was defeated.
“That why I wanted a review of public art, to look at this differently,” said Keating.
It’s a spend-it attitude that’s given Calgary artistic shockers like the $2 million sticks jutting out of Ralph Klein Park, and various examples of hidden art, like the ice cream cone sculpture erected behind the water building on 25 Ave. S.E.
Then there’s the debacle over the West LRT, which should have $8.6 million worth of art based on the 1% formula, but someone forgot to budget for it.
The desperate struggle to find that cash retroactively has the city planning to use three lions originally installed on the Centre Street Bridge somewhere on the line, in a bid to offset millions they must funnel from other projects to make the LRT pretty.
At least on the LRT, thousands of people a day will be able to stop and admire the art — unlike the big hole on 96th, into which $470,000 vanished
Calgary's New ~500K Big Blue Light Post
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