Glebe garage to get public art, but which public art?
Peter Simpson, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: November 18, 2014, Last Updated: November 18, 2014 4:24 PM EST
Is there a public building that’s more drearily utilitarian than a city parking garage? A bit of original art is just the thing to brighten up such blandness.
Citizens are invited to an open house Nov. 24 to see art proposals for a new parking garage to be built at 170 Second Ave. in the Glebe. There’ll be information on five proposed installations by artists including Karl Ciesluk, Christopher Griffin, Michael Kinghorn, Amy Thompson and the team of Anna Williams and Erin Robertson.
The City of Ottawa has a policy that requires the tiniest sliver of development-project spending to be saved for art, and to give life and character to otherwise be non-descript buildings. The art budget for the Second Avenue parking garage is $43,000, which, as the city’s call to artists notes, includes “all costs required to design, fabricate and install the project.” Anything left over will be actual income for the successful artist(s).
Here’s a quick look at each proposal, in no particular order:
Title: Skid-Blow Out
Artist: Karl Ciesluk
Karl Ciesluk’s series of aluminum plants are installed in the median that runs along King Edward Avenue, though many drivers may have not noticed the tall, thin structures, as one’s focus tends to be on the thoroughfare’s still-horrendous traffic.
For the Glebe garage Ciesluk wants to install two, 16-foot-high metal sculptures that represent in one case a long skid and in the other case a tire blowout. The project will create “a visual connection to the purpose of the building — a place for cars,” Ciesluk wrote in his proposal to the city.
BB opinion: The proposal may lack for subtlety, as there are sure to be plenty of real skid marks in the garage. More critically, there’s nothing about skid marks that says “Glebe.”
Title: Untitled
Artist: Christopher Griffin
Christopher Griffin noticed the Glebe has four distinct bodies of water — the Rideau Canal, Dow’s Lake, Brown’s Inlet and Patterson Creek — and the garage will have four levels. Griffin is well-known for etching images and shapes into wet stone, and on each level he would cover a large pillar with concrete that is then decorated with petroglyphs. Each column represents one of the four bodies of water. “These waterways will provide the local fish/amphibians and bird sources as subject matter,” Griffin proposes.
BB opinion: The columns, with their ancient-looking petroglyphs, would create a pleasing contrast of materials and architectural styles, and the project is a rich reflection of the neighbourhood.
Title: The Explorer
Artist: Michael Kinghorn
Michael Kinghorn is a “blacksmith artist,” and his installations at two new fire halls in the city’s south and west ends are engaging abstractions made of scrap metal. For the Glebe garage Kinghorn would create a spaceship, approximately 12 feet tall, from recycled steel, glass and bronze. “The Explorer is a whimsical story of a resourceful astronaut who has travelled far in search of a great place to visit and resupply,” which he does in the Glebe, Kinghorn writes.
BB opinion: Spaceships are fun, but the idea is generic and doesn’t meaningfully relate to the neighbourhood.
Title: Tributaries
Artist: Amy Thompson
Amy Thompson would make a canvas of the more than 600 square feet of glass that will let light in upon the garage’s stairwells, covering it all in pleasing colours and willowy designs.“The blocks of colour allude to stained glass and the clergy reserve the area was named after,” Thompson writes, “while the weeping willow represents the green spaces and water in the area.”
BB opinion: The dreariest part of a dreary parking garage is the stairwell, so some colour would be welcome. Also, Thompson’s panes would echo artist Adrian Göllner’s coloured-glass facade at the Shenkman Arts Centre in Orleans, and artist Hal Ingberg’s Papa installation in Gatineau, creating a city-wide triptych of coloured glass.
Title: Way Station
Artists: Erin Roberts and Anna Williams
Robertson’s and Williams’s public-art installations in the city include the bronze border collie herding sheep at Longfields Transit Station, and the bronze fox playfully chasing a ball at the Richcraft Recreation Complex in Kanata.
In the Glebe the pair would install 75 life-sized goldfinches, each uniquely cast in bronze and covered with a golden patina, and each either flying about the garage or landing on bronze branches. “We aim to create an environment with a subtle, contrasting connection between the strength, beauty and function of the building and that of the natural world,” they write.
BB opinion: Goldfinches are plentiful in the neighbourhood in season, and Robertson and Williams create harmonious art that enlivens whatever structure it’s in.
You can
see photos of all the proposals online, and vote on which you prefer. See more at ottawacitizen.com/bigbeat.
http://ottawacitizen.com/entertainme...ich-public-art
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