RECAP: PUBLIC ART PARTY 3!

What a night!! The third ever PUBLIC ART PARTY was jam packed: with wonderful panelists, excited guests, insider information, cocktails, laughter, and community. In fact, it was so much fun, dozens of artists, fabricators, curators, public art administrators and more chatted late into the night at a nearby bar. Don’t just take it from me: check out the beautiful feedback from attendees…

“I had many energizing conversations both before and after the panel. The ‘party’ part was an excellent addition to that kind of event, you are doing something truly special. Opening lines of communication between artists, fabricators, city/state institutions and programmers…it’s incredible. What a perfect storm!”

Over 90 people traveled from around the five boroughs, the Hudson Valley, upstate, New Jersey, Connecticut, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Saxtons River (VT), State College (PA), Cleveland, and Philadelphia. 

Audience members included folks from Creative Time, MTA Arts and Design, City of Seattle’s Office of Arts and Culture, the New York Botanical Garden, MoMA PS1, Public Art Fund, the Brooklyn Museum, and many fabricators and architecture firms. Not to mention over 50 artists!

“I came by myself and everyone that I met was very friendly and open.”

First, my deepest thanks to Yayoi Shionoiri, VP of External Affairs and General Counsel at Powerhouse Arts, who offered to host the PUBLIC ART PARTY in their gorgeous space, and helped organize it behind the scenes. Check out our recent interview here. Her enthusiasm and professionalism is off the charts! I am so grateful.

Thanks to Powerhouse’s team, it was also the first time I didn’t spend the entire day singlehandedly catering the event, shopping at Trader Joe’s, schlepping huge bags of food and drinks, and plating snack trays. Amazing!

People began to arrive right as the doors opened, received their color/shape/career-coded nametag, and got right to meeting each other over Powerhouse’s delicious cocktails. I always love this “warm up” before the panel! Let’s face it, many of us are introverts, or as I like to say, “socially ambivalent” (me!), and it helps to have a moment to get acclimated…

Around 6:15pm, with a critical mass of people buzzing in Powerhouse’s gorgeous space, we kicked off the “Hot Topics in Public Art” panel focused on FABRICATION. This is the first time I’ve asked panelists to present slides, and I gave them an almost impossible task: pick ONE project and present 5 slides, showing the artwork from idea to process to installation. Oh, and keep it to 5 minutes or less! I’m happy to report that our intrepid panelists rose beautifully to the challenge. 

Here is a link to the entire slide presentation, so you can play along from home.

Erica Behrens from Mayer of Munich began with Nick Cave’s amaaaazing mosaics in the Times Square subway station. Somehow their artisans took his incredibly colorful, intricate and textured sound suits and turned them into two dimensional mosaics that retain all of their irrepressible energy and movement. There have to be like 12 gazillion tiny pieces of glass (my scientific estimate) in this eye-popping installation, and it shows that almost anything is possible…if you have the right fabricator.

One thing that stood out to me is how Mayer of Munich works with artists to translate their ideas into glass or ceramic tile, often for free, for proposals and presentations. Their investment of time and energy on behalf of artists–and public art–is truly generous.

Next up was Xenia Diente, Public Art Deputy Director, Design and Construction Excellence for the NYC Department of Design and Construction. I was blown away to learn that her department is made up of only TWO full time staffers—working on over 70 projects at a time! Does she ever sleep??

Xenia (who heroically volunteered at the first PAP one year ago), explained how she helps shepherd artists and their projects through many layers of bureaucracy and red tape, which can take years. She presented Hank Willis Thomas’s sculpture UNITY in downtown Brooklyn, a 22.5 foot high bronze arm (cast from a professional basketball player) that the artist describes as “an homage to and celebration of the unique and multi-faceted character of the borough of Brooklyn. The spirit of Brooklyn has always been about upward mobility and connection to roots.” Her presentation shows how much invisible labor, care and attention goes into making public art possible–often with very little credit.

Next up was yours truly: I represented the artist's perspective, and to show a different type of public work: a 69 foot tall suspended sculpture called BRUSHSTROKE that I created for a shopping mall in Zhongshan, China, in collaboration with UAP Shanghai in 2021. This entire project was made remotely in the depths of Covid, first from a tiny Catalan village in my brother-in-law’s unheated garage that I used as a makeshift studio, then via Zoom between Brooklyn and Shanghai with a 12 hour time difference. Somehow, despite all of the lockdowns, supply chain disruptions, travel bans and other obstacles, UAP Shanghai was able to use their technological wizardry to turn photos of my very rudimentary physical scale model into, eventually, a gigantic sculpture. A sculpture I still have never seen in person!! Maybe I need a “send Mia to China” donation box at the next event…

Mike Price from UAP NY took us behind the scenes of Jeffrey Gibson’s Metropolitan Museum of Art facade project, “The Animal That Therefore I Am,” which is both monumental and incredibly detailed. Months of engineering, astonishing labor with dental tools to fashion tiny beads and textures, welding, finishing and no doubt a huge amount of money went into realizing this ambitious effort. 

Mike also spoke very eloquently about the intent of the fabricator: to stretch every dollar to the limit in order to help the artist realize their vision. It can take time, and trust, to find affordable ways to reach aesthetic goals. As I think we all know, there are easier ways to make money than to put up with artists and our whims! In my experience, great fabricators love the challenge of helping us make our work, and are very proud of their role. As they should be!

Full disclosure: I made three projects, UPLIFT, SOAR and THE FLYING TIDINGS WHIRLED, with Polich Tallix before they were purchased by UAP, and BRUSHSTROKE with UAP Shanghai. All were wonderful experiences. In my opinion, finding the right fabricator is as much a matter of chemistry as money or materials. It is crucial to find people who understand your vision, who speak your artistic language…or are willing to learn it!

Our final presentation was from Brittni Collins, Director of Public Art at Powerhouse Arts, about Pamela Council’s “A Fountain for Survivors,“ a commission for Times Square Arts she oversaw while working for that organization in 2021, fabricated by Powerhouse Arts. From the Times Square Arts website: “Adorned with a handmade mosaic of hundreds of thousands of acrylic fingernails, a massive cocoon-like structure houses a tiered water fountain inside a warm, welcoming, and enveloping space.” There are many elements to this sculpture, which includes music, bath bombs, scent, and much more, but what stood out to me in terms of fabrication was the mind-boggling labor, the R&D involved in figuring out how to realize the artist’s vision, and figuring out how to construct something strong out of fragile materials that could last outdoors for two months. 

We also discussed the challenges of what to do with a temporary public artwork afterward: finding storage, showing it elsewhere, reconfiguring it, recycling it into new art. As any sculptor will tell you: when you work in three dimensions, storage is a nightmare!

To allow attendees time to tour Powerhouse’s fabulous public art fabrication shop and grab a snack, the Q&A was short. Before I knew it, dozens of us were rolling to a bar down the street (for once I didn’t have to stay and clean up!) where we hung out for HOURS. 

It gave me so much joy to see people from every part of the public art ecosystem, as well as assorted family members and friends, building community, telling jokes, sharing stories, wisdom and book recommendations, and generally having a grand old time. Pizza was delivered, drinks flowed, and I personally did not get home until almost midnight.

“I loved the Public Art Party!!!”

Thank you to our amazing panelists, to Powerhouse, to everyone who traveled from afar, and made the effort to meet new people and forge new connections. The public art world can be lonely, but it doesn’t have to be.

The PUBLIC ART PARTY was originally a one-off event at my solo exhibition, but from the first moment people asked “When is the next one?” 

This is my labor of love: the love of public art and community building, which is why I keep the ticket price so low, and am grateful for the unbelievable panelists who donate their time for free. And I will continue doing it! Because it is so much fun…

Over the next months I hope to write more articles on aspects of public art that interest me, from the political to the aesthetic. I’ll also be interviewing people, and reporting on events and news. This will all be done in my copious “spare time” (lol what is spare time??), but I promise, I will try.

I’d love to hear your feedback, questions and ideas! Please sign in and leave a comment!!

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com