218 FRANCES POHL

What I think is the future for w in terms of education is figuring out

how to approach in a con.nected W;J.y what an-making is about-conneaed
to the source ofyour own culture or ethnicity, connected to the geographic
place that you came from. People would criticize that by saying, ·You're
10C3lizing and. therefore reducing the dWogue. You're keeping people
from approaching global culture,· and so forth. But in tru!h global culture
is coming back to the same kind of solutions that we need at a localleveI.
We bave to work again in groups ofcollective consciowness. I would take
our univrnity system and teach kids cooperation. I would teach them re-
latednes.. I would honor where they came from. I would teach them to
stay sourced in wbat they know and their own cultures, and we that as the
basis for teachiog. And by doing that you do a number ofthings. You teach
them that achievement does not mean ignoring issues ofhomdessness or
gang warfare or the failure to educate large mass.. of people. It doesn't
require looking down on the work ethic of the working class.
This is asmming that these students are coming from backgrounds that
allow them to think of those things as imporlanL
RighL And I think rm talking about the majority here. rm not talking
about the tiny, select number ofpeople who go to university who are white
and upper-class or upper-middIe-class. I guess rmjumping a step ahead
here to parity and to equity. We're wing a tax base for our educational sys-
tems that comes from the majority/minority and whether i(. in the
California State University system or the University ofCalifornia system or
the community college system we bave to educate those people or our de-
mocracy will fail. You can't any longer in good conscience continue to re-
cruit from the majority/minority group without addressing this issue.
When you say "majority/minority," are you saying that '~orities" are
actually the majority?
TItat's righL Lo. Angeles, for example, is seventy percent people ofcol-
or. We bave to begin to address educa,ting according to the tax base or we
are stealing money from the people. And it is my opinion that we are steal-
ing money in an incredible way from the Mexican population. We have
reauited for the University of California system-all nine universi-
ties-2,889 Chicano students. We bave graduated over two million Chica-
no students from California high schools. These statistics are for 1993-94.
They are alarming. I don't think we can swtain any longer these highly
rugged individualist notions. We can't. We have to cooperate because. we
can't live here together anymore.
 JUDITH F. BACA 219

It seems rather than cooperating in the face of shrinking resources,

people are diggingin and becomingvery resistant to sharingthose dim in.
ishingresources.HowdoyouthinkmoreofthepeopleofcolorofC~or_
ni.a are going to make it into a university system that is state-run when the
state itself is becoming increasingly reactionary in its attitude towards
people ofcolor? Are more people ofcolor going to be allow~ in or do you
see that if they do come in, they're going to be turned into these individu-
alistic kinds of people? Do you think that there's something much more
radical that needs to bappen, in terms ofedncational systems in general?
Are they salvageable ordowe really baveto look atsome otherwayofedu-
eating people for community-oriented ways of tb.i.n.ki.ng?

I think all of the above. Every aspect has to be dcalt with. I think univer-
sity systems ~ a whole .will come under greater and greater fire. This last
year alone Cornell University, Stanford and the Unive...ity ofCalifornia at
Santa Barbara bad hunger strikes and walkoutsjust for the Chicano popu-
lations. These twcuty-year-olds now are getting in there and they're say-
ing. "Wait a minute." They're becomin~much more nationalistic. They're
coming now wi~ a very sa-ong resistance to being assimilated and what I
think is a very hcalthy rage. At the politica11evel we are not making great
strides, but we are getting people into key positions. What is going to bap-
pen is we're going to take the money away from them. The same way we
had to do it with the arts councils and with the National Endowment. We
had to attack the very premise of their funding to make them opeo it up.
An African Atnerican scholar and organizer years ago told me, judy, you
keep expecting justice bere because you think that if you are just logical
enough and you convince people .ofwhat is just, they will simply open up
the doo.... They're never going to give it up easy. It has to be a struggle."
So I think there's a two-prong approach. One is to start attacking the
funding base of the university system and the educational system in gener-
al, and the other is to start organizing at the student leveL Now the count-
er-move of those opposed to change will be that they will abandon
education, which is what is now bappening within the local schools. The
Save California Bill, sigoed by 600,000 people, basically says that any child
ofan immigrant wbo is now illegal cannot be educated. It also says they are
not eligible for health care. People are running for political office 00 the
basis of taking away those immigrant rights. Essentially that meam that
there will neve:T be another Amalia Mesa·Bains [California educator and
artist]. Th"':"'Itne~et be another Judy Baca. We're looking at now an en-
Ore generano~
220 FRANCES POHL

Oleay, now take that logically to the next step. We have eighty percent
Latino school children entering into the Los Angeles city school system. A
healthy number ofthem are not documented. I don't know the. percentage
exactly. I guess we cait't measure it. But eighty percent ofstUdents enter-
ing kinderganen and elementary school right now are Latinos. Oleay,let's
not educate them. Let's cut them loose. Let's pu~ t.hcm all on the street,
even people who have been here twenty years-my grandmother was here
twenty-five yean and was never documented. You've got Chiapas in about
ten minutes. We're going to have a ~ mtStizD riot. We're going to have
armed resistance. How long do you think it will take these heavily armed
kids. who are now cut loose from the school system, to turn the guns away
from shooting each other and begin to come after those who are responsi-
ble for the conditions in their lives? That's what's going to happen. It's not
sman to do this. It's not smart. It's stUpid. If they really wanted to do
something about immigriuion problems, they simply would go after the
employers who have a great addiction to this cheap labor source.
So we are talking about three areas ofresistance: student protests, politi-
cians saying, "Either do this or we take away your money," and people as a
whole ""ring, "We don't want to pay for-your schools anymore and we'll
collapse the entire educational system." Reactionary people will say,
"Tough. We don't want to educate anybody." There will be a different kind
of opposition to educational institutions within the Latino communities.
People are saying more and more, -We .don't want to do this. You either
have to open it up or lose it." They have to see that they have access to
education and that it's part of what they can do with their lives. No one
should ever underestimate the commitment of the Latino community to
education. They believe that education is the ticket out and they're going
to be enraged as soon as they get that they can't have it. And it's becoming
more and more clear as the nu.mbcn become more extreme.
I've been thinking about why this is happening and I can predia a few
things. I think armed revolution is not out of the question if there is a deci-
sion to destroy the school system and not to have access for our people.
Recent repressive immigrant legislation, which will be eventually thrown
out as unconstitutionaJ. may just push people over the edge. Fifteen yean
ago I went before the Los Angeles city council and told them they had a
gang problem that they had to approach now, and they said, "It doesn't
effea us, we don't have gangs in the Valley.· The heads of the committees
were from the San Fernando Valley. I said, "You will." These San Fernan-
do Valley councilmen refused to 1001: at a city-wide problem. Los Angeles
is now the gang center oCthe entire United States and right now is putting
 JUDIlH F. SACA 221

sa~llite Crips in Arizona, for God's sake. We have satellites moving out to
Albuquerque. I was in Albuquerque last week talking to people about the
Crips and the 18th Street Gang. If you don't organize them and educate
them, then they will educate and organize themselves, because they are re-
sourcefuL And if you don't give them an alternative, then they will create
alternatives for themselves. Simple.
But giving alternatives to this many people means giving up some of the
power, access, education, wealth, and all those things that a small number
of people have been used to having all to themselves fa.; all these years.
Yes. Sharing resources, not getting to come to dinner and eat it all You
have very. very intense resistance to this. and I tliink that·s what you're see-
ing right now. Our major funders in America-<he Rockefellers, the
Fords-are all now taiking aboUl the civil society and saying, "Enough of
this ethnic identification, enough of this nationalism: becawe we're not
talking about what will create a civil society any longer. We want to now
fund people to talk about the spaces between us. We don't want you to talk
about your own identity any more, because once you get too far into that.
then there's no place for us."
Pdlike to retunl to an issue you raised earli= Manypeople argue thatthe
key to anistic or aesthetic greatness lies in transcending the material
world, which allows you to gain access to this notion of the "universaL"
How do youbegin to take that aparton a day to daybasis in teaching some-
body an making? How do you, instead, encourage connections with both
one's immediate family and a larger community?
In a certain way I think it's easier to teach them connectedness than the
opposite. When students come to the university they're in the process of
building self~teem. They're in the process of building an identity, and if
you honor the identity they come with, if you tell th~ ·Value what you
have in your own pocI:et." you aetually build a healthier hutnan being. For
example, a young Korean woman came in with a photograph. It was a doi-
sonne medallion given to the bride and groom of two stork figures, one
red and one blue, with a macrame cord. It's hung in the households ofKo-
rcan f3milies as a hridal gift to bring good luck to the bride and groom. For
the student, it was just an object, one from which she was completely disas-
sociated. She thought it was pretty but she didn't know the meaning of the
object. She was going to use it in a still life that she was constructing for
painting. I looked at the piece and said·, "You can't make anything until
you know it, until you understand its meaning. Have you ever asked your
222 FRANCES POHL

mother?" "No. I don't really know what it is." TI1at objea had hung in her
howehold every day and had been so devalued by the culture at large that
she never thought to ask the question ants meaning. So sending her back
home for an internew with her mother and a discussion of its meaning
made a far more valuable conneetion for her to that image. It became aero-
ally a reinterpretation of the American experience through a Korean posi-
tion, a one-and-a-halfposition (someone with Korean parents bom in the
U.s.). She could then we that image and aerually begin to understand the
power ofits sources and why it resonates. Why does it move her? Why does
that particular sound move you? Why are thowands of kids listening to
bantI4 music and dressing in western-like vaquero .oudits with the great big
buckles and the hats and the boots? Because it's a very nationalistic move-
ment. Because they say. -rbis music makes me cry." Why does it make you
1:Ij'? Why does it move your spirit?
So you need to do two things: number one, you need to affinn their own
experiences; number two, you need to te:aeh a respeaful honoring of
tradition. Now this is absolutely counter to everything we are taughL
Within the art world we believe that whatever is new is better. Innovation is
prized above all other things. making art about art with a new twist. The
standard way of teaching at the university is to ask people to source in
some other artist. Who is your influence? The references are usually to
white men. someone who's hot or current. Students are then taught that
they mwt follow in that line. So what if you said, as I have tried to do with
my classes, ·Forget thaL Make a tattoo. Study African scarification. Study
the aboriginal marking of bodies as imprints on their soul What would
you imprint on your soul? Make a piece of work that has function within
your daily life. Make it functional." That's another no-no. Ifit's functional,
it's not arL Set up problems, ask kids to take the resources of their own
culture and their own experience and bring them into the cbw and share
them. Talk about the experience ofothers, which is, interestiriglyenough,
a common experience. whether you're a dominant<U1ture person or an
ethnic person. Talk about the commonality ofimmigration and what that
means. Honor a traditional form that is thought ofas folk an or not serious
arL Look at tattoos and grafliti and spray can arL Look at spray can art
and see what these young people are making with those cans. which are
incredible pieces of work. Study popular art that has to do with low-rider
cars. By doing this you shift the emphasis from a world that is commodi-
fied and controlled, a marketplace. You take away the very hasis of art
making as commodification. a practice to feed an elite. and think ofit as a
practice of healing. Make no object at all, but simply concentrate on the
 JUDITH F. SACA 223

process. Devise a process that reminds you of the tradition of ritual sand
painting or that is sourced in that and then apply it to a contemporary ~e
and make no objea.
Do students sometimes respond, UBut how caD I support myselfas an art-
ist making this kind of.art?"
Sure. I thin!< there1s a great push now within the state univenity system
to give students praetical skills, to male them employable. But my beliefis
that if you want to be employable. then don't become an artist. Become a
graphic designer, become a dress designer, become a hundred other
things. Focus 0" those things that are practical skills that can be used. Aau-
ally. if you exercise yourselfand your intellect in these ways and also devel~
op more theoretically or conceptually. in the end you are much morc
employable as a fine artist as well because you are interdisciplinary. You
can address the most important issues ofour time. You are problem-solv.
ers based in reality. You are not carrying on an intellectual dialogue for fun
and your friends. You can talk to your mother and father and are, in the
end, a much better human being. You·have more practical knowledge with
which you can serve the community and make the arts relevant again. I
think artists have made a terrible mistake over the years. It never served us
to be "inspired by angels," to be mythological creatures who are somehow
touched by the gods. A dealer said to me once, "I only want to show artists
who are touched by the gods." I remember her telling me that I wasn't
touched by the gods. So I thought, "How do you get this touch by the
gods? Who are these gods?" Then I realized it was probably some white
critic and if that white critic liked you, then you were touched by the gods.
So I began to value. instead, what I understood and knew. I was terrified
to death that I was going to be completely unemployable and completely a
failure. There were no models for me to look. at as a woman artist, as a Lati-
na, as a person related to community, so therefore I figured maybe I wasn't
an artist. TIlat was aetually incredibly liberating because then 1 could in-
vent myself. These kids have got to invent themselves.

What about you own community, the one that has allowed you to survive
as an artist?
On a spiritual and emotional level there has been a community of
women, some within my own culture but many not. Donna Dieteh was in·
credibly important in the process ofme growing up to be an artist. She was
doing the same thing but came from a completely different experience ofa
very wealthy family..And Christina Schlesinger. Both taught me something
224 FRANCES POHL

incredibly important. They taught me to perceive myselfas entided. I stu-

died entidement with those women, because I had never seen anybody
who felt like they deserved to have things. They really knew about enter-
taining themselves, getting what they wanted, feeling that they deserved to
have those things, and I learned that from them. -
The womell's community at critical points throughout my life has been
really, really important-all of us struggling against male identities within
the arts, there not really being places for us. And then parallel struggles.
I've always been v~ connected to the African American community be·
cause of being bom in Watts. I grew up in African American and Chicano
communities and developed very close relationships with key African
American women who made present the parallel struggles ofother ethnic
groups so that I could see things rationally. It widened my world. And then
most imponandy has been an intergenerational connection with women
and men older than I, liIr.e [actor] Gilben Roland. He was absolutely an
amazing model for me.

How did you meet him?

His wife called me. I had just done that Bill Moyers television piece and I
was working on The Great Wall of Los Ang.1es (Figures I, 2, and 3) and Gia
Roland called me up and said, "I want to work for you. I want to take
photographs. Can I follow you around? I'm interested in what you're do-
ing." I dido't know who she was, and so she showed up and literally every
day of my life for nearly ten years she was with me. She cooked, too. Not
only could she take photographs, but she could make wonderful memuJo.
She fed me and fattened me up all ofthese years, making wonderful Mexi-
can food. Then, ofcourse, I met Gilbert. Gilben was the VlUfl"TO' the ulti-
mate VlUfl"TO. He had grace and was a man who refused to depict the
Mexican people in a denigrated way. He was the "Cisco Kid." So many
people later modeled what it was to be a Latino by vinue ofactions he took
in his early films. His favorite words were honoT. dignity, courage. He was
stalwart, patriotic. All tho,e things.
So I had friends who were eighty. And then I had friends who were four-
teen, who gave me a sense ofthe range ofthe world I lived in. They really
gave me a sense of perspective. I think thatnunured me. Jane Rule [Cana-
dian writer] was the only lesbian I ever met in the early 1970, who was to-
tally connected to community. notjust an isolated women's community but
a community filled with all ages and types ofpeople. All these people had
in common an incredible grace. Minnah [Agins] had the same grace. You
.know, this is really making me emotional because so many of them are
JUDITH F. SACA 225
226 FRANCES POHL

.'_..
'." ," ..

"."
 JUDITH F. SACA 2Zl

dead, the eighty·year-<>lds and the fourteen·year-<>Ids. I feel such a sense

of loss for Gilbert. He died the way he lived, too. Right to the end he
wouldn't take his damn boots oil! Minnab was important, too. She gave me
a sense of a historical contexL She told me about the hunger strikes and
the bread strikes and the Detroit auto workers and I felt like I had met all
these cbaraaers. I Could see first·band what they went through to do the
most basic things, like.get us unemployment insurance.

Was this in the 1930s?

Yes, 1930s, the intelleaual Left of the thirties. Minoah was the continua-
tion ofa long line of people who used an. When I put together her retro-
spective for her memorial I looked over the range of all these prints. It was
an absolutely wonderful chronology of Left an making and issues that
ranged from the 19305 or late 1920s to the 1980s, when she died. You
could see the preoccupations of the Left. through all these different de·
cades. I learned strategies for survival from the fourteen-year-<>lds and
eighty-year-<>Ids, and also from staying connected to the humblest people,
people who would not necessarily do good for your career, and with my
&nU~ .
Have your experiences with these people affected the way you approach
your own work as aD artist?
Cenainly. One thing they have taught me is to recognize the unrecog-
nized seats of power. like the woman who looks out her window and
watches the kids at the hus stop. That's a key role in the way that communi-
ty moves. She keeps them from jumping out into the streeL The gang that
occupies the park, even if it's usually only a few little guys. Some of them
are often much more harmless than they're perceived as being. Acknowl-
edging these people. It's just the same as saying, "That tree is there." You
doo't pretend that the tree's not there.

And you don't try to cut it down.

No. You don't say, ·Well. everything would bejust great about this piece
ofland if the tree wasn't there... Instead. you come into a space and begin
to figure out who's who. You look at the synagogue down the street, the
passage of these p~ple on a weekly basis past the site where the mural will
be. The school. a!If the movement in and out of people who come from
some distance. The local people across the street and their investment in
being middle-class. Understanding what it is that they value. who they are.
228 FRANCES POHL

Recognizing those with·the power and recognizing who's there. And then
recognizing what is under the surface, almost like a spirirual half-life in the
ground. Why do people get drawn, for example, to those exquisitely beau-
tiful sites along GaJiano', Coast where the Haida have been coming for
potlatches for a few thousand years. People are drawn to tho,e places and
they have a certain presence in the world by virtue ofthe spiritual invest-
ment of people for centuries. That's why you need to know what has hap-
pened there. You need to know who was there, who's there now and what
is operating on them from another time. It's like digging up, revealing,
digging away layers of information to the source ofit.

Your words remind me of the series ofmurals you did for the farmwork.
ers' community of Guadalupe, California.
Yes. The imagery in those four murals is an uncovering of the roots of
the place. The ethnic contributors panel shows the Chinese as well as the
Mexicans. A Swiss-Italian marble angd from the town's cemetery is the
,ource of the central image in the Futun 4/ Gtwdnlupe (Figure 4). Yet Gua-
dalupe is also like every farming area. Farmworkers' issues are interna-
tional issues. I respect both the -local issues and their international
ramifications. I want to build associations, relationships. I was taught to
make family and to honor the family and that's what I do with the 'ite, I
make it family. I tty to create order within that family, to develop some
kind of community in order to approach the issue OT the site and to be-
come makers and problem·solvers together.

Do these families ever become dysfunctional?

Always is probably the case! Of course. that assumes that there is a per-
fect family out there som~where. '

Then there is that other "family" setting, the classroom or university,

where conflict and dissention has increased as increasing numbers of
people are coming in who want to see their identities reaffirmed and their
cultures studied? How do you deal in a constructive way with this inevita-
ble confiict?
Well. right now there isn't really any resolution except that if you're in
charge, you win. People are not ,aying, 'Okay, how do I make room for
inclusion?" University professors often suffer from the same absence and
poveny of thought that OUT students suffer from when we don't teach
them relatedness. We don't teach them to connect. So who we have reach..
 JUDITH F. SACA 229

Figure4 1'1u Fuluru{Cu.4IltJ.upe, 1988-90. acrylic on wood. S' x 7'. One aCthe fourpan~
cis on the history and futureol'Cuadalupe. CA. Municipality ofGuadalupe. Photo: Cia
Roland.

iog and who we have as models are people cra.ined in the old system. who
really believe that individual achievement is to be valued above all things.
'0
We should begin as scholars address in our writing, in our thinking, how
we're going to move into this 21st century. into a really different time. I
mean it's astOunding how different it is. I have an incredIbly difficult time
keeping up within my own culture, with the changes. as it becomes ·Lati-
no" as opposed to "Chicano" and Chicanos come into positions of power
and they have to reevaluate themselves becawe they can', speak for El Sal·
vadorans. I don',
the whole.
to'"
• .
'0
if one of w can ever begin speak any longer for

,
230 FRANCES POHL

Where do yon see a commonality coming into play? Is it possible?

I guess what I'm advocating, for the most part, is working in smaller
groups. We have to go down to smaller groups and <hen we have to make
<hese liule pods that have to make a relationship with another pod and
then you start to create spaces"between you. And I think the spaces in be-
tween have to do with our incnrporation ofeach o<her. 17le Gnat Wall is a
pretty good example of this process. It was important for me when I got
<he group together to represent each of the e<hnic groups and then put
them into a whole, and to move <hem between learniog about.each other's
cultures so <hat Chicano kids were not encouraged to work only on Chica-
no history. In a similar way, our edlnic studies departments need to make
relationships between each o<her. Every edlnic studies department should
have within its core curriculum requirements that are relational studies.
What is common about African American and Chicano history? Where do
<hose relationships really make sense? You can build that into curriculum.
You can build it into committee structures. It allows people not to fear a
kind ofcentrality within each culture. I used to really believe in integration
in totality and I don't think I believe that anymore.

You want relationships but DOt iDtegration?

Yes. Not integration in the total sense, all ofus together, one planet, one
people, all hnlding hands I don't think we wiD. Not in my lifetime. I've
worked really hard for twenty-five yearS to make things different and I've
watched most of the gains rolled bad.

What about these gains? You've done local work, but you're also out there
on the national level, dealing with the National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA) and with national commissions. There appears to have beeD, at
least until recently, an iDcrease in NEA funding for community organiza..
tions. Is this good or bad? Where do you see it going?
I think the NEA is not a good example because you probably would not
see more money going to community groups from the NEA. But you do
with organizations like the IJla Wallace Foundation.- the e. e. cnmmings
Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation,
<he Warhol Foundation. The James Irvine Foundation is on <he cutting
edge for its funding of community-initiated projects.
I'm working in a group now called <he Tourism Industry Development
Council, which comes out ofLocal II of the restaurant and hotel worken
union. This group formed to change the tourist industry vision ofLos An-
 JUDITH F. SACA 231

geles. It is the opposite afthe Convention Bureau, which puts out videos
that say you can come to Rodeo Drive and to Universal City and they don't
show one person ofcolor. OUT program is very different.· It takes tourists
around the city to places like The Gnat Wall. People are .enraged about it.
We got calls all the way from the U.S. DepamnentofCommerce. They fear
that community-based people will destroy the tourism industry in Los An-
geles, which means, basically, that we will share part of the wealth. You
want to know what happened to Rodney King? Let's go out to Pacoima
and the Foothills Division police station and hear the perspectives ofcom-
munity leaders. People are being given an alternative for the first time.
And all of the tours are sold out during the World Cup soccer games. Yes-
terday I addressed a group of American Stuclies scholars from Syria, Is-
rael, all over the world. There were forty chairs of American Studies
Departments in various universities all over the world at The Great Wall.
They want to know about race relations in America. They want to know if
there is apartheid here. They want our perspective on what is happening.
It's pretty exciting. There are spaces in between being made.

Do you see any down side to the increase in funding for community-based
ventures by the foundations you just mentioned?
Absolutely. The Lila Wallace Foundation bas been the most problematic.
They've been giving major amounts of money-5 million dollars-to the
Mark Taper Forum to expand their audiences. Not to build a Chicano the·
ater in Los Angeles. but to put Chicano theater under an all-white board of
directors that comes from the very basis ofpower and authority in Los An-
geles,like the Chandlers of the LosAngtUs Times. You're never going to get
that board ofdirectors to change. So what do they do? They go to a Mo:ica-
no, Jose Luis Valentino, who was at the Los Angeles Theater Center
(LATC) with the Chicano theater. Mind you, he's Mai<mw. That's very
critical becawe a Chicano would never have done it. A Mtri&anc will. Be-
cause they're not born, raised here. They don't know the politics. They al-
ways feel like they can make an alliance with the Anglo. They don't have
the history of racism from birth, so they're a little more negotiable. So
instead of giving him the LATe when it goes under, the Mark Taper Fo-
rum says, "Hey, there's a talented young guy. Let's get him.· So they got
him. They bought Chicano theater. Five years from now there won't be a
Chicano Theater Center. There won't be a parallel group to the music cen-
~er that is ethnically run and governed and developed. There will be an
inCorporation within the music center ofChicano Theater. When he leaves
they'U just get a replacemenL Maybe at the end of five years they'U have
232 FRANCES POHL

one Chicano on the board. They'll have all of our mailing lists. They'll
have Latino theater withQut the control of the Latino population. There
are many examples ofthis kind ,offunding, which is not about self-empow.
ermenL Now, people would argue with me vehemently about this. But I
honestly believe that the only thing to do in terms of cultural development
in Los Angeles is to develop parallel institutions of equal size and stature
for the ethnic populations.
But wouldn't you end up still having to accept money &om these same
institutions? I ha'I'C another quote I wanted to read to you from Octavio
Pars recent collectiou Essay. on Maican Art (1993): ~'The idea ofpuhlic
art strikes me as a sentimental nostalgia and a dangerous anachronism. .•
Public art has invariably been the religious an ofa state oro!a church as
powerful as a state. By definition, there is uo such thingaspuhlic art made
by isolated individuals or private groups•••• The phrase 'revolutionary
public art' Dot oaly contains a coD~dictioD but is, in fact, meaniDgless
.•• only through an abuse oflanguage ••• is it possible to speak ofa rev0-
lutionary art sponsored by the state."
Well, there's some validity to what he 'says. Yet if you look at The Gmu
Wall, it received a certain amount of public dollars but it also received such
a patchwork offunding from so many different sources that no one source
could control the conten"t of the piece. American philanthropic giving is
not the same as Mexican philanthropic giving. They have no philanthrop-
ic giving in Mexico. They have patronage and they have government
sponsorship, which is very direcL We have this other thing called nOD-
profit giving. I think it's still possible, with multiple funding sources and
with an artist who is uncompromising, to create work that does challenge
the status quo. I think my Baldwin Park Metrorail Project is quite revolu·
tionary (Figures 5 and 6). It really challenges the whole colonial mission-
ary system.

Did the people in charge know what you were doing?

Absolutely. Because I explained it to them. And because there were
enough Latinos in that group. There were also people from Arkanqs
There was an African American woman who came from the oldest black
family in Baldwin Park. The head of the Department of EdUcatiOD for
Baldwin Park was Latino. The mayor himself was a twenty-four-year-oJd
graduate of Harvard. a Latino. There was a Chicana. a working<lass
woman from the faaory region. on the commission. I had four or five solid
people behind me who said, ·Yes, do iL It's about time somehody talked
 JUDITH F. SAGA 233

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about the whole issue of the m<stiftu or mixing ofraces. The only problem I
had was with one of the Catholics. The woman was working<1ass and vely
Catholic. She just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to offend the padn
from the local mission. And then when I turned him upside-down on his
head in one of the images, I said, "You know, Lupe, I'm turning him up-
side-down and, I'll tell you the truth, in native sign language it means
'not'." And she said, "They shouldn't have done what they did."
Who, the padns?
Yes, the pad.... That's what she said,linaiIy. Right on, Lupe! But I gave
them a complete an historical lesson. I brought the research in. Th,ey were
with me through the whole process.
-so they were not only engaged through the whole process, but had decl-
siODamalring power, rather thaD simply beiDg in aD advisory position.
That's right. It was remarkable. Not to say they were all h1leral and in-
credibly progressive thinkers. They said, "We want you to do something
on the missions," and I think they thought "Taco Bell" They wanted my
name recognition too. They wanted to say they had Judy Baa in Baldwin
Park. It's interesting. They didn't really get what that meant. They just
knew that I was a famous mural painter and I was a Chicana and had
worked on projects with young kids. When they told me the subjea was
the missions, I said, "Okay, I'm going to do the missions but I have to tell
you, I'm going to do the truth." 'Well, we wouldn't expect any less; they
said. So when I started developing the information I started bringing it in
because they met with me as I was progressing to the design. I started to
tell them the numbers ofpeople who were murdered, the numbers of na-
tive people lost. the loss of their names. It was really also about my passion
for what I was doing and my belief system.
I brought in Vera Rocha, the chiefofthe Gabrieliiios who lives in Bald-
win Park, as an advisor for the project. And they know her. They've always
known her because she had pow-wows in their parks. And she has tweney-
twO grandchildren who who are all native people there. Her fu.mily grew
up in a mission. Her great-grandmother made candies. She hates the mis-
sion. She wouldn't even step on the ground. She stood on the outside wait·
ing for me when I went there to pick up niaterials. So convincing people
was a combination of my passion and my abiliey to articulate it and Vera's
ability to speak to what it meant to her. The mission father's didn't partici-
pate except to impede the informational Bow. But I had historians who,
helped me and I just started bringing in material I said, "FIrSt let me tell
 JUDITH F. BACA 235

r.gu", 6 &UJw;n.- Sl4tWn. 1993. Loading platfonn. parking lot with plaza
in background. sle-'COlor Plate 11.
 236 FRANCES POHL

you what I'm going to do. Do you know what an archaeological dig looks
like?" "No," they say. So I had to go through all these photographs ofar-
chaeological digs. That's how I began. I showed them photographs ofar.
chaeological sites. I really like the way they look. "I think this should be like
an archaeological site," I said. "We're going to dig it up. We're going to dig
it up and we're going to putit back in the ground. We're going to puJI away
the layers of the earth, IiteraIly, and see." Then the forms in the ground.
the shapes of the mission, the native village, became the design in the con-
crete. And they really liked that. I was listening to Lup~ talking to SOme
kids on the dar of the dedication. She said, "Well, just think ofit'this way.
It's like she took a big steam roller and she smashed everything flat,"which
was a pretty dose description ofwhat I didl I wed the language ofthe red-
neeks in the piece: "It was better before they came." And then there's GJo.
. ria AnzaIdl1a sandblasted into the big arch: "This land was Mexican once,
was Indian always and will be again." And the words of this extraordinary
young Asian woman, who said. "You know, it's not the adults leading only.
it's the youth leading too." And so I wed that too.
I had such a good time doing it. It was diflicult working with the con·
traaors. And the commjssion.fough~me on a couple ofthings. which I lost.
I lost the benches in the plaza area. I wanted people to be able to sit in the
plaza by the monument. And I wanted them to be able to cut 1IDfI4liIDs. I
wanted edible food in the planters. I did get the oak tree. which represents
the indigenous people. and I got the cactus. but not edible cacrw. and I
didn't get the benches because they didn't want people hanging out. So I
didn'twin everything. But I really felt like it was successful. And they seem
very happy with it. The mayor told me. "I go to the Metro station and I sit
on the bench and look down at my feet and it says 'memory' and 'will pow-
er' and I remember what myjob is today." That's how you preserve a cul-
ture. It can still happen.

Fogurc7 (Top) 77>t WoridW"u,A y.......f "";w.,. W...... _.1987-92.AaylicoDCID.

"*So 10' x SO" panels. ~:J~ IamDarion at SaDIa Buban County Courthouse.
!D additiDDlD tbcfour paucbbyllaa~of"'H...u.-, Triua(>Aoftlw
H.n. and N".".w.lm Ilcrir m). chis imnlbtiOn included anistA1aci BegWs pazu:l71w
E"".ftlw n-N<4 e - , (1990) 00 lhc brld'taod the paoc1Dio/Qp<ofA1umDlioc (I1lllO)
00 tho brrigluby FuuUsh_JuhaSaslO.sab-Uisa Loob,aodAno MatioIauri. Soda!
and Public: An Resource Ccmcr. Photo: Bob deBris.
Fogur. 8 (BollDm) T..""",,"'f""Hum. 1987-89,AaylicoDCID.... 10·x!O·. Socia1aod
Public Art Resource Center. Photo: Gia Roland.
 1\
JUDITH F. SACA 237

CONN.CTlVE AESTHETICS, AIllT ",'TEIll INOIYtDlI"'lISI'I } Sill. G.ifi4
As a critic in the nineties, I am not really interested in writing catalog
essayl or art reviews. what I am concerned with is understanding the
nature of our cultural myths and how they evolve-Ihe institutional
framework we take for granted but which nevertheless determines our
lives. One question that has preoscupied me, for inStance, is what it means
to be a Msuccenful" artist working in the world today, and whether the
image that comes to mind il one we can suppOrt and believe in. Certainly
it seems al if that image is undergoing a'radical re-visioning atlhis lime.
The dominant modes of thinking in our society have conditioned
us to characterize art primarily as specialized objects, created not for moral
or practical or.social reasons, but rather to be contemplated and enjoyed,!
Within the mo"ern era, art was dcfined by its autonomy and sclf-suffi- •
ciency, and by its isolation from the ren of society. Exposing the radical
autonomy of aesthelics 11 lomtthing thu is not "neutral" but is an active
participant in ca iulist ideolo has been a rimar accomplishment of
t e aggressive ground-clearing work of deconltruction. Autonomy, we
now see, has condemned art to social impotence by turning it into just
another clan of objecu for marketin and conIum tion.
anlc production and consumption, competitive self-asscrtion, and
the maximizing of profiu are all crucial to our society's notion of luccess.
J;,
These nme assumptions,leading to maximum energy now and mindless
waste at the upense of poorer countries and of the environment, have also
become the formula for global destruction. Art iuelf is not some ancillary
phenomenon but is heavily impl,icated in this ideology. In the art world,
we are all aware of the extent to which a power-oriented, bureaucratic
professionalism has promoted a one-sided, consumeristic attitude toward
art. InSiitutional models based on notici~s of product development and
career achievement echo the stereotypic patriarchal ideals and values that
" "
hIve been intern.lind by our whole culture and made to pervade every
experience. It is nOt hud to sec how the inl1ituliorn and praClices of the aft
world have been 'nodded on the same configurations of power ana profit
that support '1a maintain our socie~Y'1 dominant worldview. This -busi-
ness as usual" psychology of affluence is now threatening the ecosystem in
which we live with its dysfunctional values and way of life; it is a single
system manipulating the individual into the spiritually empty relationship
of the producer to the product.
Many people arc aware that the .ystem isn't working, that it is time
to move on and 10 revise the destructive myths that guide us, Our entire
cultural philosophy and its narrowness of concern are under intense scru-
tiny. Among artists, there is a greater critical awareness of the social role
of a~t, and a rejection of modernism's bogus ideology of nClllrality. Many
artists now refuse the notion of a completely narcissistic exhibition prac-
tice as the desirable goal for art, For inua'nce, performance aTlist Guillenno
G6mez·Pena nates: "Most of the ...ork I'm doing currently comes, I think,
from thc realiution that we're living in a state of emergency. , .. I feel that· -.
............ ....
morc than ever we must step ouaide the strictly art arena; It i. not enoucii
to make art. MIn a similar vein, arlS administrator Linda Frye Burnhamna
-
claimed that gallery art has lost ill resonance for her, especially gallery art
by what she terms "white yuppies. - -There is too much going on outside, ~
she says. "Rcallife is calling. I call no longer ignore the clamor of dius-
ter-economic, spiritual, environmcntal, political disaster-in the ....orld
in which I move.- Perceptions such as lhese are a direct challenge to the
artist's normative .ense of his or her role in the world: at stake is one's
personal identity in relation to a particular view of life that our culture has
made available to u~,
That the art world's values, structures, and behaviors arc in great
,~ ferment has been evident for some time, and the deconstructions of the
eighties continue to reverberate profoundly. A climax in these upheavals
was reached for many with the controversial 1993 Biennial at the Whitney
Museum of American Art-the first multicultural and political Biennial-
which dcmonstrated that the art world is·undergoing a dismantling of ill
professional elitism and that its closed, scM-referential ranks arc under
!uiC.blj!t.
heavy siege. Much of the new art focuses on social creativity rather than on
self-expression and contradicts the myth of the isolated genius private...
subjective, behind dosed doors in the studio, separate from others and the
world. As I shall argue in this !Sa creativit in the modern wor
gone an In an with individualism and has been viewed strictly as an
indiviCluaJ phenomenon. 1 believe Ihi. conception of art i. one of the things
Il1"at are now changing.
As the work of arlisu who are disculSed in this book makes clear,
there is a distinci .hift in the locus of creativity from the autonomous, self-
contained individual to a new kind of dialogical structure that frequently is
not the product of a single individual but i. the result of a collaborative
and interdependent procen. As anists step out of the old framework and
reconsider what it means to be an artist, they arc reconstructing the rela-
tionship between individual and community, between art work and public.
Looking at art in terms of social purpose rather than visual style, and
setting a high priority on openn~SJ to what is Other, causes many of our
cherished notions to break down: the vision of brisk sales, well-patronized
galleries, good reviews, and a large, admiring audience. A. Richard Shus-
, ~
terman write. in PrlfgmlftiJt Atsthetia. "The fact that our entrenched
institutions of an have long been elitist and oppressive does not mean
that they must remain such.... There is no compelling reason to accept
the narrowly aesthetic limits imposed by the established ideology of
autonomous art.·
In February 1994, I had occasion to tape a conversation with
the an dealer Leo Castelli. in which he commented about the Whitney
show: "It was a sca change, not just any change. Because I had to accept
the fact that the wonderful days of the era that I participated in, and in
which I had played a subllantial role, were over.· In HIfJ ModeT1liJm
Flfi/ed? I wrote, "Generally speaking, the dynamics of professionaliu-
tion do nOt dispose artists to accept their moral role; professionals arc con-
ditioned 10 avoid thinking about problems that do not bear directly on
their work." Since writing this a decade ago, it seems as if the picture has
changed. The polilics of reconcepNalilltion has belun, and the search
for a ""' aceRda for art hn become. coftKious RITCh.
eOHHlellVI UITHIT,CI, AU AOlU ,.. O,VtOIlA~"H
.In considering the implications of this "sea change," one thing il
cl~arl·to be able to see current aeSlhetic ideology as actively contributing .to..
the molt seriou. problems of our time means breaking the cultural trance
and requires a change of heart. The whole framework of modcrnist ae.-
thetic, was tied to the objectifying consciousness of the .cientific world-
view; like scientists, artists in our culture have been conditioned not to
worry about the applicationl or consequence. or moral purpose of their
activity. It is enough to generate results. But just as the shortcomings of
"objective· scicnce are becoming apparent, we are also bcginning to per-
ceive how the reductive and neutralizing aspect. of aesthetics and "art for
art's sake" have significantly removed art from any living .ocial context or
monl imperative except that of academic art hinory and the gallery sy.-
tern. We are beginning to perceive how, by disavowing art's communal
dimension. the romantic myth of autonomous individualism has crippled
art's effectiveness and influence in the social world.
The quest for freedom and autonomy has been nowhere bette~
marized for me than in these comments: by the painter 1&!iI1ue1itI
published in the catalog of hil exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery
in London in 198]:
The /lrtiu if not wpomible to /llIyanr. His focilll roft is /lJociII1; his only wpon-_.
Jibiil'l)' comists in 1I11lfltitNdr to tht work ht dOrJ. Thtrr if no rommNllic,dion
with Any pNhlic whA(Jotvrr. Tht Arl;ll clln 11111 /10 qNtJfioll, A/Ill hr milk" 110
JIAtrJllelll; hr offrrlllo jnformilliotl. lind hif wor" ClfnnOI br Nltd. II if Iht rlld
prodNct which CONIIU, in my Clflt, Ihr picturt.
1
More than I decade old, these commentl by now may sound hope-
leuly out of date. but in a more recent interview in Art NewJ, it was dear
that the artist had in no way altered his views. ·The idea of changing or
improving the world is alien to me and seemsludicroul, ~ Basclitz said.
·Society functions, and always has, without the artist. No artist has ever
changed anything for better or wone.· Hidden Inhind the.e commen" i.
modem _ .... ..,..01....
the penonal and cultural mylh th.c hu formed Ihe artial'S idencity in the
 _......
Plaubm wnItt' ar the tJ.Fnni"l 01 the modem .,... -tJw one can "Ply hMr
;1 by avoidi", it. And that an be done byli.lnl in tho world of art.· POt
]e..n.Paul S.nte, Ihe exillcnli,1 truth of thCl hum.n .iNltion wu ill can·
tingeRer, mIn', .en.e that he doc. not belong-i. not ncteJury-lo the
universe. Since life wu arbitnry and meaninglclI, Satire advised thai we
must allicarn to Jive without hope. and Ihe English writer Cyril Connolly
summed up. whole cultural elho. of alienation wilh Ihne now legendary
commenl!: "It i, clo'ing time in the garden. of the West. Prom now on an
artist will be judged only by the reJonance of hi••olitude and the quality
of hi. despair." Wriling about ,hi. form of.~ntological distrust, this VOte of
"no confidence" in the universe. Colin Wilson in An lntroduction to the
NnJ.J Ex;,untiAlism refers to the paradigm of alienacion,u the "fulility
hypothesis" of life-che nothingneu, estrangement, and alienation thst
have formed a considerable part of Ihe image we have of ourselve•.
My friend Patricia Catto, who teaches at the Kan.,u City Art
In.titute, now refers to this particular mind-.et as "bad modernism," tn a
course she gives on reframing che lelf, her nudents are instruct~d about the
danger of believing that humans (whether they are artim or not) are some-
how ouuide of, or exempc from, a respon.ibility to .ociety, or to Ihe envi-
ronment. We have been taught to experience the .elf at private, .ubjective.,
.eparace, from others and the world. This nolion of individualism hat so
compJecely ltNctured artistic identity and colored our view of art that even
for an artin like Christo, whose public projecl' such II Running Fenet snd
the more recenc Umbrelttu require the participation and cooperation of
chousands of people, inner con.ciousnen is 1Ii11 dominated by the feeling
of being independenc,.olitary, and 'eparate. tn an interview in FLuh Art,
.........-d1
The work of'ft i, irr.tiollAl"."d perh.pl ir:re!pon,ible. Nobody nteds i,. The
_Tk il. huge individu.liflk ,tlluTt th.t k:inrirely dedrieri b, me.. " One
ofthe greolttll contributions ofmoriern .rt i. the notio" 01inrii",iJullli,m. ..•
I thi"k the .rti.t e.n do .nything he w.ntl to do. Tbi, i, why I U!"ufd never
IIrxtplll commiuiorr. Irrdepe"ric"et i, molt import."t to mc. The work 0l.rt il
" l(Team offreeriom.
" "
" ChriMo'. M:fUIII of Ir'MISom" dw unw..verin.. C"t~t rnonl
imp«ative dlat continua to be brand..hed pollde..l1y at welt ..a ph.ilo-
sophieally in all the modern traditions of Weatern thought. It reverberated
loudly in the intense conuoverty thai raSed for Ieveral yeus o\ler the
proposed removal of Ric:hud Serra's comminioned sculpture Tilted Arc
from itl 'ite at Pedenl Piau in downtown Manhattan. Although con-
ceived specifically for the site, the seventy-three-ton leaning CUrte of
welded lICel, which Wat installed in 1981 by the lilovernmem'l Art in Ar-
chitecture Program, pro\led 10 unpopular and obstructive to local office
workers that they petitioned to have it removed. As one employee of the
U.S, Department of Education scated at tbe time: "It has dampened our
spirill every day. It hu turned into a hulk of rusty Iteeland dearly, at )eut
to UI, it doesn't have any appeal. It might have artistic value but just not
here, .. and for those of u. at Ihe piau I would like 10 say. pleue do u. a
favor lnd cake it away, ~
Serra', response, 'wash in the .pirit of ~bad moderni.m,~ Was 10 .ue
the government for thirty million dollar. bee,u.e it had "deliberately
induced ~ public hostility toward his work and tried to have it forcibly
removed. To remove the work, according to Sern, was to dellroy it. Serra
sued for breach of contract and violation of his constitutional righu: ten
million dollars for his los. of nle. and·commiuion, ten million for harm to
his artistic reputation, ,nd ten million in punitive damages for violation of
hi. righll. In July 1987, the Pederal.Dinrict Court ruled again$! Serra, and
in March 1989, the sculpture was removed from the site.
What the Tilud Arc controversy fortes us to consider is whether
art that il centered on notions of pure freedom and radical autonomy, and
subsequently insened into the public sphere without regard for the rela-
tionlhip it has to olher people, to the community, or an, consideration
eJlcepc the pursuit of art, can contribute to the common good. Merely to
pose the question, however, indicate. that what hu most distinguished
aesthetic philosophy in che modern paradigm i, a desire for art thlt i.
ab.olutely free of the preten.ions of doing the world any good. ~I don't
know what public itt ii, rcally, ~ the sculpcor Chris Burden once said. "1 . -. ••
JUII make arl. Public arc il something else, I'm not sure it'. art, I think it's

S,,~i C••liA
about a social agenda.· Just at di.interested and -val.ue-free- science con-
tains no inner rettnint within iu methodology that would limit what it
feel, entitled to do, ·value-free- aesthetici.m reveal, nothing about the,
limiu an should respect, or the community it might serve.
Modernittaestheucl, concerned with itself as the chief source of
value, did not in.pire creative participation; TIlher, it encouraged distanc-
ing and depreciation of the Other. hs noorelational, noninteractive, .
nonparticipatory orientation did not easily ICcommodate the mort femi-
nine value. of ca,..asld compu.ion, of .eeing and ~e.ponding to need. The
notion of power th.t is implied by assening one's individuality and having
one's way through being invulnerable leads, finally, to a deadening of
empathy. The model of the ani.t'll a lone genius struggling against society
docs not allow us to focus on the bendicialand healing role of social
interaction, nor does it lend it.elf to wha~philosopher D.vid Mich.el
Levin c.lls ·enlightened listening," • listening that is orienled toward the,
achievement of shared understandings. As Levin writes in The U,tening
Self, ·We need to think about 'prlcticCl of the self' that Nnde1'$fo.nd the
essential intertWining of self and other, self and society, that are .ware of
the subtle eomplexitiu of this intertWining.·
Certainly the sense of being isolated from the world and alone with
one's creations is a common experience for Irtisu in our culture. the relult
of modernism's historic failure to connect with the archetypal Other. As
Nancy Pruer puu it in her book Unruly Pr.crices: '"The monologic view is
the Romantic individualist view in which ...• solitary voice [il] crying out
into the night againlt an utterly undifferentiated background.... There is
no room for a reply that could qualify as a different voice. There i. no
room for interaction.· ·The artist considers hi. isolation, his subjectivity,
his individualism almoSt holy.· States film director Ingmar Bergman.
-Thus we finally gather together in one large pen, where we nand and
bleat about our lonelinus without listening to each other Ind without
realizing that we are .mothering each other to death." • Art cannot be a
monologue,- the French writer Alben Camu. once wrote. ·Contrary to
the current presumption. if there is anY''P,ln who has no right to solitude,
it is the anisl."
..
" ~. ", '.
C<)NN'C~'V' A"''''TleI, An An . . 'NCl'VtClUA~IlM
,. ,.{;.~U' of ~hich bring. me directly to the que.tion of whether art can
build community. Are there viable alternative. to viewing the .elf in an
individuali.tlc manner1 And if so, how does this a((ect our notion of
·.uccess-l Can arti.ts and art institutlon.'redefine themselve. in less 'pec-
tatorially oriented way. in order to reg.in the experience of interconnect-
edneu-of .ubject and object interrwining-that was l~t in dualistic
.E~ligiitenment philosophic., w~ich construeg.the world at a spectacle
to be observed from afar by a disembodied eye1
. When California artist Jonathan'Borofsky and his collaborator,
Gary Glassman, tflveled in 1985-86 to three different prisons in California
in order to make their video d~cumentuy PrisOfltN, they did not go in the
mode of network reporten intending to observe It a distance Ind then
de.cribe the condition. they found. Instead they went to listen to the
prisonen in order to try Ind undentand their plight. They wanted to
understand for themselve. what it mean; to be a pri.oner in thb fodety.
to lose your freedom and live your life locked up in a cement box.
Borofsky and Glauman invited pri.oners to talk about their live. and
about what had gone wrong for them. In the video .ome of the prisoners
.hare poems they have wrinen or show. artwork. they have made. Con-
versing with the video makers. they describe the oppressiveness of life
inside. prison t where everything i. programmed and people never get to
talk spontaneously about themselv" bec.use no one is interuted. The
knowledge that one is being heard, according to Glassman, trcates a sense
of empowerment.
In SUl.lnne Lacy'. Th, CrystAl Quilt, performed in Minneapolis on
Mother'a Day in 1987, a procession of 4io older women. all dressed in
black, sat down together at table. in groups of four, to di.euss with each
other their ICcomplishmentsand di.appointments, their hopes and fears
about aging, in a ceremonially orchenflted artwork. A prerecorded sound
track of the voice. of .eventy-two women at the t.ble. projected their
renections loud e,!ough to be heard by the audience. ·We're no longer
litting home in the rocking cbair and knitting, like you think of grandmas
in the old day•. We grandmas aren't doing that Inymore,· comments one
of the women on the audiotape. '"I think 'a lot of .enility come. from the

fact that nobody uks you .nYlhing,~ Slates another. ~Nobody uks you to
speak. Pretty soon, you lose your memory. I suffer a lot from people not
listening 10 me.~
Empathic liSlening makes room for the Other and decentnli:.r.es the
ego-self. Giving each penon a voice is what builds community and makes
art socially responsive. Interaction becomes the medium of expression, an
empathic way of seeing through another's eyes. NUke a subjective anthro-
pologist, _ writes Lacy, M[the artin enters] the territory of the other, and ...
bC(:omes a conduit for {their] experience. The work becomes a metaphor
for relationship-which hu a healing power." When there is no quick fix
for some of our most pressing social problems, according to Lacy, there
may be only our ability to witness and feel the reality taking place around
us. -This feelingnest is a service that artists offer to the world," she says.
Mter Mierle Laderman Ukeles became the unsalaried, self-appointed
artist-in-residence at the New York City Sanitation Department in 1978,
she went on rounds with sanitation workers and foremen from fifty-nine
municipal districts, talking widi them and getting to know them. Her first
pitee of art wu a performance work called TOllch Sliniflltion, which went
on for cleven months. During that time s.he visited the five boroughs of
New York and shook hands with 8,500 workers. ~It was an eight-hour-day
performance work,~ she states. "I'd come in at roll call, then walk their
routes with them.... I did a ritual in which 1 faced each person and shook
their hand; and I said, 'Thank you for keeping New York City alive.' The
real artwork is the handshake iuelf. When I shake hands with a sanitation
man ... I present this idea and performance to them, and then, in how they
respond, they finish the art." TOllch $lInitlltion wu Ukcles's first attempt
10 communicate as an artist with the workers, to overcome barriers and
open t~e way to understanding-to bring awareness and caring into her
actions by limning.
Art that is rooled in a "listening- self, that cullivales the intertwin-
ing of self and Other, suggestS a flow-Ihrough experience which is not
delimited by the self but ektends into the community through modes of
reciprocal empathy. Because this art isliuener-centcrcd rather than vision-
oriented, it cannot be fully realized through the mode of self-expression; it
" II
"0....." ..... ~,,,_.,,"" u, .",_ ,....,.. ,..........
can only come into its own through d;~logue, as open converution, in
which one listens to and includes other voices. For many artists now, this
mnnslening previously excluded groups .peak directly of their own
experience. The audience becomes an active component of the work and is
part of the process. This listening orientation challenges the dominalll
ocu[arcentric tradition, which.suggests that art i. an experience available
primarily to the eye, and represents a rnl shift in paradigms. As David
Michael Levin states in Modtrnity lind ,h~ H~gtmony of Vision, ~This may
be the time, the appropriate historical moment, to encourage and promote
a shift in paradigms, a cultural drift that, to some eXlent, seems already to
be taking place. I am refernng, of course, 10 the drift from seeing 10 listen-
ing, and to the historical potential for a paradigm shift displacing vision
and installing the very different influence of listening."
New models pUt forward by quantum physics, ecology, and systems
theory that define the world in terms of interacling processes and reladonal
fields call for integrative modes of thinking that focus on the relational
nature of reality rather than on discrete objects. Lacy states, "Focusing on
aspects of interaction and relationship rather than on art objects calls for a
radical rnrrangement in our expectations of what an IItist docs. ~ It calls
for a different approach to making art an·d requires a different SCi of skills.
To transcend the modernist, vision-centered paradigm and its specutorial
epistemology, we need a reframing process that makes sense of this more
interactive, intersubjective practice which is emerging. We cannot judge
the new art by the old standll.rds. "Informed by an interactive and receptive
normativity, listening generates a very different cp;lttmt and ontology-a
very different metaphysics," write. Levin.
Modernism's confrontational orientalion resulted from deep habits
of thinking that set in opposition society and the individual as two con-
trary and antagonistic tategories, neilher of which could expand or de-
velop except at the expense of the other. The free and self-sufficient indi-
vidual has long been the ideal of our culture, and artist. especially have
Seen themselves as quintessential free agenu, pursuing their own ends.
But if modernism, and the art that emerged with it, developed around the
notion of a unique and separate self, the art generated by what I have called
SlIli G.bliJr
"connective aesthetics 6 is very different. As I have argued in The Reen-
chrllltment of Arl, radical relatedness has dramatic implications for our
understanding of art and conlTibutes to a new consciousness of how the
self is to be defined and experienced. For one thing, the boundary between
self and Other i, nuid ralher than fixed: the Othtr i. included wilhin Ihe
boundary of selfhood. We are talking about a more intersubjeClive version
of the self that is attuned to the interre1a~i~nal, ecological, and inter.lctive
character of reality, "Myself now includes the rainforest,6 writes Austra-
lian deep ecologist John Seed, "It includes clean air and water."
The mode of dillanced, objective knowing, removed from moral or
social responsibility, hn been the animating motif of both science and art
in the modern world. Objectivity slTips away emotion, wanu only the
facu, and is detached from feeling, Objectivity serves as a distancing de-
vice, presuming a world that stands before us to be .een,surveyed, and
manipulated, How, then, can we shift our usual way of thinking about art
so that it becomes more compassionate? How do we achieve the "world
view of attachment"-atlachment to and continuity with the world-that
archetypal psychologist Jame. Hillman talks about1 To see our intcrdepen-
dence and interconnectedness is the feminine perspective thal has been
mining not only in our scientific thinking and policy making but in our
aesthetic philosophy as well. Care and compusion do not belong to the
(a1se "objectivism" of the disinterested gazei care and compassion are the
tools of the soul, but they are often ridiculed by our society, which has
been weak in the empathic mode. Gary Zukav puts it well in The Sedt of
the SaKI, when he .tates that there i. c\,l.r.~ently no place for spirituality, or
the concerns of the heart, within science,'politics, business, or academia.
ZuklV doesn't mention an, but until recently there hu bun no particular
receptivity there either,
Not long ago, I had occasion to share a lecture podium with the
critic HiltOn Kramer, who proclaimed, with the force of a typhoon, that
art i. at its ben when it serves only itself and not some other purpose,
Things that in his opinion have no relation to art are now being accepted
and legitimized as art when, according to Kramer, art is incapable of solv-
ing any problems but aesthetic ones. I would aTKue that much of the work
eO ..... CflV. MU""llCl, H1 ~"". '''O'V'OU.~I1''
included in this book contradicts, absolutely, these comments. However,
there is no denying that the art world subtly disapproves of artists who
choose interaction as their medium, rather than the disembodied eye, Just
IS crealivity in the Western world has been based on an understanding of
the self as autonomous and .eparatt, the hegemony of the eye is very
Itrong in our cullure. We arc ob.essed with the gaze. At this point, 10
challenge the vision-centered paradigm by.undermining the presumed
spectatorial distance of the audience, or by empowering others and making
them aware of their own creuivity, is to ris.k the complaint that one is
producing not an but social work. Personally, I have never heard of a
.ocial worker who wu interested in shaking hands with 8,SOO sanitation
workers, or who tried to orchestrate a public conversation among four
hundred older women about aging. Social workers proceed quite differ-
ently from artists in what they do.
To all these objections, I can only say that comparing models of Ihe
self based on isolation and on connectedness has given me a different sense
of an than I had before and has changed my ideas about what is important,
My conclusion is Ihat our culture's romance with individualism is no
longer adequate, My own work and thinking have led me 10 a fieldlike
conception of the self that includes more of the environment-a selfhood
Ihat releases us into a .ense of our radical relatedness. It stems that in
many spheres we have finally come up against the limits of a worldview
based only on individualism, In the field of psychotherapy, to give jUst one
example, James Hillman, in his book We've H.d II Hundred Yellrs of
Psychotherdpy-And the World's Getting Worse, casligatCi therapy for
encouraging us to disengage from the wor!d. He maintains that therapy
increases our preoccupation with individual fulfillment and personal
growth at the expense of any concern forcommunily or the communal
good. Many hackles have been raised in the therapeutic community by
Hillman'sassertion that therapy has become a seU-improvement philoso-
phy which turns us inward, a....ay from the world and its problems, Psy-
chotherapy is only working on the -inside 6 soul, according to Hillman,
while outside, the buildings, the schools, the streets, are lick-the sickness
is out there. The patienl in need of healing is the world.
 s,,~, G"blilt
Conneclive aesthetic. 'lrikel at the root of this alienation by dis-
solving the mechanical division between telf and world that has prevailed
during the modern epoch. World healing begins with the individual who
welcomes the Othcr. In Ukeles'. work, for insunce, empathy and healing
are Ihe parameters, the test of whether the work is, in fact, being carried
out paradigm:uically. The open hand, extended to each worker, evokes
qualities of generosity and care. We neea to cultivate the compassionale,
relalional self as thoroughly as we have cuhivatea, in long years of abstract
thinking, Ihe mind geared to scientific and aesthetic neutrality. As more
people acknowledge the need for ~ new philosophical framework, we are
learning to go beyond our culture of separation-the gender, class, and
racial hierarchies of an elite Weltern tradilion that has evolved through a
process of exclusion and negation.
With its focus on radical individualism and its mandate of keeping art
separate from life, modern aesthetics circumscribed the role of the audience
to that of a detached spectator-observer. Such art can never build commu-
nity. For this we ~eed interactive and dialogical practices that draw others
into the process and challenge the notion, in the words of Gary Snyder, that
~only some people are 'ulenled' and they become Itlists and live in San
Francisco working in open and ballet and the ren of us should be satisfied
with watching televi.ion. ~ Connective aesthetic. sees that human nature is
deeply embedded in Ihe world. It makes art into a model for connectedness
and healing by opening up being to its full dimensionality-not just the
~e. Social cOntext becomes a continuum for interaclion, for a
process of relating and weaving together, cruting a flow in which there is
no speclatorial distance, no antagonistic imperative, but rather the reciproc-
ity we find at play in an ecosy.tem. Wilhin a linener-centered paradigm, the
old specializations of atlist and audience, creative and uncreative, profes-
sional and unprofeuional-disti!tCtlons between who is and who is not an
artist-begin to blur.
To follow this pach, I would argue, is more than just a maner of
personal lute; it represents the opening of an experimental space in which
10 institute and practice a new itt that is more in tune with Ihe many inter-
. "
"o..... ""v•• " ... ",'" .....". '''D'V'D'''''t.
active and ecological models emerging in our culture. I belie~e we will lee
over Ihe ncxt few decades more art that is enentially locial and purposeful,
and that rejects the modernist myths of autonomy and neutrality. This
book bean witness to the increasing number of anists who are rejecting
Ihe product orientation of consumer culture and finding ever more com-
pelling ways of weaving environmental and social responsibility directly
into their work. In this complex and worthy endeavor, I sincerely wish
them well.
... llOGIl"'HY·
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~
C" A . . . . , TO IIUt" '01 ... , GOOD A"D "HI" "AT".
'0 "AOCH ' 0 ' ' " ' GOOO ANO Mm "M"no) E",I/. C,•• W ""j...
To search for the good and make it matter: this is the real challenge for the
artist. Not simply to lransform ideas or revelations into matter, but to
make those revelations actually matter. This quesl is measured as much in
the truths we IIIcmpt to cnncsh as in the clay we might aesthetically de-
~lbell.,rr;r$tic work. not only inspire the viewer but give evidence
of the artist's own struggle 10 achieve higher recognition of what it means
to be truly human. The works arc.testamentS to the artis!'s effon to con-
vert a particular vision of truth into his or her own marrow.
As I meditated on the theme of th,is book, I found myself thinking
about territories. both public and private..:.:aboul politicalll1rf and defini-
live lines, those that exclude and those that include. 1 began to reflect on
the tarth and all the redrawn borders that we who are involved in public
art must bring to the map if there are to be positive new directions for the
world's cultures. I found n'yself contemplating, as any anist might, the
corresponding territory-the terrain of the soul, that sacred space within
the self that must be acknowledged and tended, that dream space where
Eden and womb are ritualistically related, where conception is possible,
where we can receive in order to give again.
The dream space of the soul is the real terrain that we should map.
If not, then nothing else that we are fighting for or against has any possi-
bility of transformatiol): not the militarism that we resist, not the oppres-
sion we deplore, not the toxic waste dumping on the land of the poor, not
the racism or the sexism that we expose. None of these concerns can be
taken on unless they are examined, acknowledged, and confronted within
the inner territory of the seU, the earth that, in fact, we are.
The soul is the seedbed of our actions. Everything that we concep-
tualize, crute, or deuroy has its In:ginnings there. What we see cultivated
and thriving in the outer terrain is a ma~ifestation of our inner creative or
..
destructive impulses. There is connected'ness between what we sce in the
F.,,~/{. c .." ..ilf MJj..."
world and whowe are, between who we are and what we do. The artist
tends the private garden of the soul and gives evidence of this process pub-
licly through the art that, in turn, inspires others to tend their own gardens.
The often-asked question as to liow one moves from being anist to
activist I find interesting, because I do nOt make the separation in my own
mind. For me, the twO roles exist as a single entity: the artist if the activiSt.
Indeed, within the African tradition, the anist's work has a function jun
like everything ehe in the world. As the mask is for feuivals, and the
ground-drawing for marking a ucred space, and the dance for healing and
drawing energies to oneself, so, too, the ritu'!s that' we perform and the
monuments that we make have a function: the transformalion of self and
community, which is the extended self. Art is a necessity, II the poct Audre
Lorde says, not a luxury. The assumption that art could be something
separate from the life that sustains us, that art is indeed a luxury, is as false
a theory as the notion that the OUter terrain can undergo transformation
without affecting the soul. And yet, many believe that the places outside,
in the world, are the true sites of change. Notions of separation and other-
ness are ingrained in Western thought, and it is this very way of thinking
that has wreaked havoc on the cultures of the world.
..
While no .ingle culture has a copyright on truth, perhaps embn.cing
an African view of the intrinsic connectedness of all things would help us
to recan the mother from whom we have'all come. And in remembering
her, perhaps we can begin more profoundly to ~re-member~ ounelves.
This charge of remembering the mother is important because without it
our cultural and cross·cuhuralamnesia is never lifted; our common hu-
manity is never fully acknowledged. We never know who we are, and
having no true identity, we end up like a person who suffera amnesia,
fearing every face that is not the exact replication of our own. And some-
times in our desperation, we even fear our own face. We never develop a
sense of continuity or wholeness among people. The cultures Ihat remem-
ber this connectedness are recalling the crucial element thai has been part
of our survival since our beginning.
The artists who remember our'common humanity and instigate
recognition of OUf true nature are those like Anna Halprin, who would
have people Iivin. with AIDS Ind thON' who ar. nor afl1icl«l cin:lc die
• ~.CM 'H' ~ ~,.u
e,,~I1~ C"".",'II "'~/"."
urlh in a dance in an attempt to break down the barriers of fear. They are
those like Suzanne Lacy, who would produce a'cry.tal quilt of women'
whose choreographed laying on of hands helped change the patterns of
their Ijvu and make visible the bonding and power among them. They are
Ihose like Mel Chin, who would move us into the mystery of metaphor by
working with .cientists to develop hybrid plantl that ablorb poisons from
the earth into leaves which can be plucked from our children's surround-
ings. They are those like the husband and wife team Newton and Helen
Mayer Harrison, who have collaborated for over twenty years, and Mierle
Laderm~n Ukeles, artist-in-residence of the New York City Sanitation
Department, and Sheila Levrant de Breueville, and Peter Jemison, and
many more who recognil.e the illusion of du~lity, the miracle of coll~bora·
tion, and the beauty of making truth mauer.
None of this is to suggest that the aesthetic quality of any work
need ever be sacrificed. 1 say this knowing that it is a critical issue of public
art proiectl involving community participants who Ife not necessarily
artim. Somehow, it is feared, the partieipanll' aesthetics will bring down
the quality of the work. But since the aen.hetic is determined by the artist,
perhaps this is not the ultimate fear of thoie 'who are leery of the new,
more collaboradve public art. Perhaps the greater fear is that elitism will be
destroyed, that the function of art will once again be recognized, that
frecdom of exprcssion will carry the impulse and stark beauty of our first
breath, and that our own relevance as human beings will come to be seen
in the meaning of our acts. If this is what is.o furful, then we must con-
tinue to make such art and 10 redefine the way. in which the making is
itself a celebrated process.
In deciphering the mystery of this process, the blues form, or for-
mula, from African American culture can provide insight. As ethno-musi-
cologists tell us, the blues has three lines: the first line is the call, Ihe second is
the response, ~nd the third is the release. The second line might be the same
as the first but with some slight variation, and the last is adeparture. The last
line rhymes with the first and, essentially, set. you free. The whole notion is
transcendence, as exemplified in this stanza I composed for illumation:
. "
." ""~~ . " . . . . . " " " " ·>00 . . . . . " .......
WtderWII"'1oUllin't,oblu"c '.t·· ." .
I '"1, WilIer WilIer 10U IIin't so blUt
I done ch,de,d for m1s,lflind ther,', .. ,lty in 'ON.
'. Thil form--call,. answer, and r~lease-is a metaphor for art iuelf
and the potenlia! that it hold•. T.h~ ca.lI is iry,cited by the experiences we
havt wit/1 the world, by the ~uman condition. and predicament. within
our terrain thai arouse our interest or eon.ciou.ness. Next comes the
response, the artist's creati!,n-th~ attempt to name, recognize, and insti-
gate change through his or her creative .expression. But the artist's crealion
is not the,end of the prt,lcess, as it.is often thought to be. The process con-
tinues u member. of Ihe community experlence the release, the inspiration
that allows them to enflesh the meuage and begin activating change in
their own terrain,.
This basic huma,n-to-hu.man interaction signals the symbiotic rela-
tion.hip among human beings. When we understand this, we can go on to
better appreciate Ihe brealh dynamic between ourselves and the trees. We
can und~rstand our relationship to oceans and ozones and other zones
within the universe.
The blue. form is not about being down and OUt. The blues calls 10
and Ifltnsform. Ihe hollerer, and continues on to transform the community.
It makes those tingers willing to "work the .ound" inlo new and knowing
people who go about the business of making the truth matter. Bessie Smith
could nOt leave halfway through a concert. We, as the communal singer,
cannot afford to do it eilher. The P0l;t Maya Angelou reminds us that our
depth of erperiencc is in direct proportion to the dedication of our artistS.
Indeed, we artim have to sing the second line in such a way as 10 .ignal the
possibility for variation in the song. We have to create relevant art, art that
invites its audience into the creative process and empowers them. We must
sing in suc~ a way as to promise our lis,tener. who would become singers
that the third line is a breakthrough, proclaiming without a doubt Ihat "I
done checked for myself and there's a sky in you. ~
It 'eems to me that in order for this lransformation 10 happen, we
artists must prepare ourselves to respond crealively and appropriately 10
I
f:'Jlcll~ C''''will M,;joXll
the calls in our environment. This is no small chore, especially for those of
us in Ihe public realm, who find ourselves taking on challenging, often
emotionally draining issuu; writing and rewriting proposals to obtain
funding for projects; meeting for what seems like an entire lifetime with
artistic collaborators; addressing community participanlS and relentlessly
rallying their interest in the projeCti gelling no funding at all, or just
enough 10 prescnt only hdf of the envisioned project; meeting agaIn with
collaborators about the meeting on the meeting; cncounlcring those critic.
who thc:msc1vcs haye not decided 10 be imaginative in their own work;
and, lut but nOf IUSI, never finishing because we arc still actively linening
10 Ihe communilY's response and remaining sensitive to Ihe sounds and
feelings in both Ihe inner and oUler life.
To be an artin amid all these currenlS is demanding. How is the
arliSl to prepare~ Devclopmenl of one's craft and keen awareness of one's
surroundings are imporlant but arc hardly enough. To be able to make
truly visionary an, we artius must have in our lives the crucial element
e~lled <lre"m time. that is, time when we lcave Ihis world and go inlO our
own sacred space, seeking the grace needed 10 create our work. Dream
time holds the turmoil and trauma of the world at bay and 1\lIows Ihe
vision 10 be jiranted .nd the healing notes 10 attune us.
Some sound levels in the world's chaos can be deafening. Our work
in thc OUlcr terrain can become so demanding thaI we think we cannot
stall 10 meditate. BUI this deliberate pausing is also part of our work, and,
in realily, it may be the only thing that distinguishes us from those com-
munity members who simply cannot make the time to lake Ihis inner
~p~ce. Yet they arc depending as much on us 10 hear the calls and to sound
the fim responses as we are depending on them to (arm a chorus for the
song in order to release Ihe healing and magnify the trlnh. And as odd as it
may sound, this is the native territory of the public artin. It is a space to
which Ihe community, time and time again, banishes us for ilS own salva-
tion. a .~pace that we ourselves evenwally choose as 1\ healing haven "nd
h"lInwing cave. The soul. a difficult bUt n«:euary terrain of (ctreu, holds
the hllleprinl, or one mighl say the ·blues-print,· of the world we inhabit.
c·. . . . " ,
.0 lIue .. '0. ,,,I 1l1l01l ."0 "HI" .... " .
Though the encounter wilh dream time is enlivening, it can also be
frightening. The problem is not our descent into the soul; il is our emer-
gence. or coming forth. Once we emerge, we must begin reconciling what
we have come to know wilh what we still sec in Ihe world. We tell our.
selves there is no time to retreat; we tell ourselves anything to keep from
repeating the ritU1\1 of deparlure. But if we do succeed in avoiding future
deseenu into the soul, we will more than likely faU inlO the trap of making
aff Ihat is simply creative rather than truly visionary.
There is, indeed. a distinction between creative art and visionary art.
It parallels the difference between the artist who is an observer. or reporter.
and one who is a participant in the creative process-a mailer of invest-
menl or soul involvement. Quite simply, Ihe visionary artiSI has not
merely sight but vision, the light the soul makes to illuminale the palh (or
us all. This notion of the visionary being aparl from life, going inlo his or
her dream space, is not synOnymous with the Western notion of the
mYJlic's separation. The visionary anist in Ihe communily works in the
Ilelds of the personal self, dreams lime tmd engagement Wilh others.
All artists are able 10 display their craft without the exertion and
engagement Ihat marks a performance from the soul. An artin can simply
project his or her persona while remaining detached (rom the performance
and the audience. But if you are ·working Ihe sounds·-if you are in-
volved in something that engages you; confronting your own prejudices.
fear., and limitations, father Ihan merely presenting what yOll already
know, feeling your own discomfort and taking that discomfort into Ihe
lCrrain where the truth exposes you-then you arc quilC possibly in Ihe
lCrritory of the vision. You arc close to grasping the mystery of the heal-
ing. You are then, only theil, within reach of Ihe gift that you can bring
baek to the world.
Once you have glimpsed this vision, then you arc indeed a panici.
pam. And the dualilY between you and your audience, you and your
work, becomes "n illusion. And you have wril1en a poem. You have done
a performance. You have enncshed the beaUlY. You have made il nlaltcr.
And the community, laking part in the an, complctes Ihe laSt line of the
blues refrain, initiMing a Ilew reality.
...... 'N.... ",,~ .. _~ ... _•• " -~ ... -. "'.. "'~ ••
 c w ......
lOOKING "1I.0UNO: ) canh, and treat it badly. Lacking a sense of microcosmic community, we
WMUE WE "II.E. WMUl WE COULO IU I.ucy R. Lipp.rd
LOOKING "1I.0UNO
I've spent a lot of my life looking, but len of it looking around. Art hinory
and the art world ~ make progress, focusing on an invented vanishing
M conventional art forms and the reactive function of much aClivist art.
point, losing sight of the eydic, panonmic vie...... And of course iI's not
easy to be visionary in the smog. Meanwhile, Huel Henderson's ~think
globally, act locally ~ has become a lruism-an overused idea important
enough to remain true, The notion of the local, the locale. the location. the
locality, thepllfce in an. however. has not caught on in the mainnream
because in order to attract sufficient buyers in the curren! system of distri-
bution, art must be relatively generalized, detachable from politics and pain.
The social amnesia and an!ihistor;cal attitudes that characterize our
society at large affect the art world as well. ~Change increasingly appears
to be all that there is, ... There i. no .ense of progress which can provide
meaning or depth and a sense of inheritance.~' But, perhaps because we are
at a retrospective moment in hillory-nearing the end of a millennium and
iu.t past the five hundredth anniversary of the mon heralded point of
colonialism-many of us are looking back to find solid ground from which
to leap forward. into the shifting future. It seems significant that what the
hinorian Lawrencc Grossberg call. the ~vet'y comentones of historical
rescarch~ can also be called the very cornerstones of the art to ....hich this
book is devoted: ~appreciation of difference, undemanding of context.
and ability to make critical comparative judgmenu 00 the basis of emp:uhy
and evidence.~l
Ecological crisis is obviously responsible for the current preoccupa-
tion with pbce and cOntext, as il an ongoing noualgia for lost connections.
The Greek rOOt of thc word ~ ecology~ means homc, and it's a hard place
to find these days. Precisely beeau.e so many people arc nOt at home in the
world, the planet is being rendered an impossible home for many. Uecause
'"
'''CO.'N" ....~M .. _N", -, '" -~,., -, '-.. ~' .. ~;- ;;;W
we have 1011 our own places in the world. we have 10lt respect for the
fail to protect our macrocosmie global home. Can an interactive, process-
based art bring people "closer to home" in a soeiClY characterized by what
Georg Lukacs called "transcendental home1essness"?
Not since the regional art of the Ihirties have so many people looked
~round, recorded whatlhey see or would like to see in their own environ-
menu, and called it arl. Some have gone beyond the reneclive function of
Those who have been at it for a long time arc represented individually in
this book. BUI they also havc heirs and colleagues among younger artists,
writers. and activists who regard Ihe relationship between people and
people unlike them, between people and place. between people, place.
flora. fauna, and now. necessarily. even atmosphere, as a way of under-
standing hislory and the fmure.
The growing· multicultural ~ (and cross-cultural. intercuhural)
contributions of the lUI decade have opened up fresh ways of undemand-
ing the incredibly enmplex politics of nature. Culture aud the conecpt of
place are in fact insepllrable. yet people (and ideologies) are often Jeft out
of art about land and landscape. As Kenneth Helphand has observed.
landscapes (which I would dehne as place at a dinance) ~carry legacies
and lessons~ and can create "an informed landscape citizenry.-}
National, global. collective narratives arc especially accessible
through one's family history-by asking simple quenions ahout why we
moved from one block or city or Slate or country to another, gained or Ion
jobs. married or didn't marry whom we did, kept track of or lostlrack of
certain relatives. A starting point. for example: simple research about the
place where you live or were raised. Who lived Ihere before? What changes
have been made? have you made? When was the house built? What do the
deeds in Ihe county records have to uy about il and the land it sunds on?
I-Iow docs it hi into the history of the area~ Has ill monetary value appre-
Ciated or depreciated~ Why? When did your family move there~ From
where1 Why? What Native peoples hm inhabited it1 Docs your family
have a history in the area, or in any area? 00 rclativulive nearby? What is
'"
LkC)' H.. L''''MiI
different now from when you were young~ Why? How does the illlerior
of your house relate to the exterior? How does ill style and decoration
reflect your family's cuhural background, the places from which your
people came? Is there a garage? a lawn? a garden? Is the flora local or
imported ~ Is there water to sunain it? Do any animals live there? And on
a broader scope. are you satisfied with the present? If not. are you nostal-
gic for the past or longing for the future~ And so forth.
Questions like these ean set off a chain of personal and cuhural
reminiscences and ramifications, ineludinlliines of thought about inter-
linking histories, the unacknowledged American class system, racial,
I;cnder, and cuhural divisions and common grounds, land usc/abuse, geog-
raphy, environment, town planning, and the experience of nature that has
made a ~return~ to it so mythical. When this kind of research into social
belonging is incorpor.lled into inleractive or participatory art forms, col-
lective views of place can be arrived at. It provides ways to understand
how human nccupallls are also part of the environment rather than merely
invaders (but that 100). According to Wendelll3erry, the most consistently
inspirinll writer nn American place, Nl'he concept of country, Ilomeland,
dwelling place becomes simplified as 'the environmenl'-that is, what
surrounds us. Once we see our place, our part of the world, as JHffOHnding
us, we have already made a profound division between il and ourselves. N'
Real immersion is dependent on a familiarity with place and its
history thaI is rare today. One way to undemand ....here we have landed is
10 identify the economic and historical forces that brought us where we
arc-alone or accompanied. (Culture, said one contemporary ;lrtist, is nOI
where we corne (romi it's where we're coming from.) As we look at our-
selves critically, in social conlextS, as inhabitants, users, onlookers. tourists,
we can scrulini:r.e our own participatory roles in the natural processes that
arc forn1il11: our fUlures. Similarly, Ihe study o( place offers access to expe-
rience of the land itself (an<! what we call • n~ture~) as well as to current
ceological politics and a sense of responsibility to the future.
Jeff Kelley has distinguished the notion of place from that of site,
made popular in the late sixties by Ihe term ~site·specific" sculpture:" A
sile rcprescnts the constituent physical propertics of a place ... whilc
'00", .. (1 .-ou..o, W~Il' w, ...
~ W~'" w, eOUlO ..
places are Ihe reservoirs of human content.~) Whilc place and home arc
not synonymous, a place musl have something of Ihe home in il. In these
chilHng times, the concept of place has a warm feeling to it. The implica.
tion is that if we know our place we know somclhing about iti only i( we
"know~ it in the historical :tnd expericntial sense do we truly belong there.
But (ew o( us in COntemporary North American sociely know our place.
(When I asked twenty universilY studenu to name "their place, ~ most had
none; the ClCceptions were 1Ilol0 Navajo women, raised traditionally, and a
man whose (amily had been on a southern Illinois (arm for generations.)
And if we can locate ourselves, we h~ve not necessarily examined our place
in. or our actual relationship to, that place. Some o( us have adoplcd places
that arc not really ours except psychologically. We have redefincd place as
a fclt but invisible domain,
[n contrast 10 the holistic, earth-centered indigenous peoples of this
hemisphere (who, over Ihousands of years, had also made ch:tnges in thc
land), thc invading Europcans saw the natural world M an object of plun.
der to be conquered, cxploited, and com·modificd. They imported denial,
still a prevalent disease among their descendants. The causes of thc ex.
hauSled resources, the scarcity of wood and arable land in an "old world ~
were nevcr acknowledged; old habits were silnply reasserted in the ~new
world, NAlthough a sense of collective 10llsprcad through this country at
the end of the nineteenth CCntury, when mon of the arable land had ~en
parceled out, most people in tile United Stales today nill want to believe
that our resourcC$-watcr, topsoil, forests, fuels, oxygen-are infinite. Not
unrelated is the scant attcntion paid to tile ways rural and urban spaces arc
structured and how thcy affect our national psychology. (HistorinnJohn
Stilgoe uys that in colonial New England, lo....ns planned in odd shapes
were seen as disordcrly and were "more likely to harbor civil and ecclesias-
tical unrest.")'
Today, according to Rosalyn Deutsch, space as a reflection of power
rcluions (produced by social relations) ~is on Ihe political agenda as it
never has been before. ~'This is true for artists who have been ~framing~
landfills, shopping malls. parks, and other social Contcxts for many ycars
now. Yet the ovenlllOnc is nOI exuberant. I've been struck by (hrce receO!
I."r.~ /( /"1'"",,1 "><>~ ..,,. ~~o"~,, "'~ .. , "" ... , ",~ •• , "" C,,""'" ..

'1.1ming phenomen~: First, the postmodernist impulse (now ~t least a de- by modeling themselves on lndians even while wiping them OUt.' The
e~de old, ~nd supremely ~etroactive in its own right) has spawned ~ resurgence of mainstream interest in Native culture in the htst lew years
I)lethor~ of el<hibitions, articles, and books called re-viewing, re-visioning, (A process that began in the sixties) is partly due to Indians' grass-rOOts
re-mapping, re-thinking, re-photographing. Second, the tides of exhibi- strength and pride at having survived, partly bolstered by their rage at the
tions ~bout bnd ~nd n~ture are becoming melancholic and even apot~lyp. cost in Native culture, health, and land. But it is also a product of the
tic for instance, Against Nature, The Demoraliud lA.ndsolpe, The growing recognition among Euro-Americans that the five-hundred-year-
Unmaking of NiltMe, Lost Illusiom, and Utopia, I'ost-Utopia. Thir<l, the old dream went awry. The search for plate is the mythical search for the
terms ~territOry," "bnd," ~ earth," "terrain," and" mapping" are also axis mundi, for some place to stand, for something to hang on to. (Seneca
ubiquitOus in both thcory and practice. The map ~s a micro/macro visu.11 artist Peter Jemison has said it is nm the flag but the pole and cagle on top
concept has lonl; becn of interest to Artists, And puticuhrly to "concep- that mean something to his people; they connect earth and sky, body and
tual" and "e~nh" artists from 1?65 to 1975. On one hand, mapping the spirit.) At the same time, a de-idealization of nature and of Native attitudes
turf can be seen as abetting surveys, fences, bounduies, zoning, And other toward nature is necessary bee~use anything sel on a pedestal eao so easily
instruments of possession. On the other h~nd, maps tells us where we arc be undermined.
and show us where we're going. A responsible art of place must be part of a centering process. Wave
Understanding our cultural geography will be a necessary compo- after wave of exiles is still coming through this land, and we have made
neOl of the reinvention of nature. We need to stop denying difference And internal exiles even of those who are its natives, The immigrant population
pretending a woozy universalism thM mas~s,and maintains deep social in the United States (all of us) has no center, no way of orienting itself. We
divisions. We have to know more about our rehtionships to each other, as tend to presume our ancestors had one, but my family, for example. con-
part of the cultural ecology, to know where we stand as artists and cuhural standy moved around; from the 1700s on, few generations stayed in the
workers on homeless ness, racism, And land, water, euhural, and religious same town. When a place-oriented sculptor SAyS, ~Plaee is what you have
rights, whether or not we ever work directly on these issues. l3ec;tuse they left, ". I'm not sure whether she means "atl thAt remains" or "that which is
arc linked, to be ignorAnt of one is to misunderstand another. Yel such left behind."
awareness demands extetlsive visual and verbal (and local) research that is Although art has often been used in the past as propagandA for
nOt included in tr~ditional art education. Multicultural studies especially colonialism and expansionism (especially during the nineteenth· century
need to be incorporated into art about history and phtcc. If only white movement west), and much contemporary public art is still propaganda for
history is studied, the plate remaills hidden. For instance, when I taught a existing power structures (cspc<:ially development and banking), no better
seminar on land in Colon.do, I found I had to include the way land was medium exiStS in this society to reimagine nature, to negotiate, in Donna
used and conceptualized by the original inhabitants, the tragic histories of HarAway's words, "the terms on which love of nature could be part of the
Native lands and lives and of the continuing struggle on Mexican land solution rather than part of the imposition of colonial domin~tion and
grants, the roles of bhck farmers and cowboys, Chinese railroad ~lId environmental destruction. "10
agricultural workers, and the desert internment of Japanese Americans The upper middle class (from which the majority of artists emerges)
during World War II. tends to confuse place with nature, because it has the means and leisure
White America h~s been deeply affected (so deeply it doesn't often time to indulge its wanderlust, to travel to sites of beauty, difference, curi-
show on the surface) by the land-based traditions of Native and mestizo osity, to have second homes on shores, in mount~ins, on abandoned farms.
cultures; colonists inherited agricu1tur~1 sites and techniques and survived

,"
I.Hey R. 1.,pp,,,J
!'lut urh~n environments ~re also places, ~Ithough formed differently, more
likely 10 spawn Ihe multiple selves th~1 cue cross-cultural communica-
tioru, th~t in fact arc the result of cross-cullUrAI communicAtion. Those of
us living in any bi" city IOd~y are confronted by A vaSl mirror whenevcr
we step oludoors. [t refl~lS us and thosc who, like us, live on Ihis com-
mon I;round; our appearam;;cs and livcs often differ, but we can 'I look into
the Illirror without seeing them 100. The reciprocal nature of cultural
communicAtion is the nail James Baldwin hit on the heAd when he Solid,
Kif I .lm nOI who YOlllhought 1 w~s, then you arc nm who you thought
you were either.-"
The <haleclic between pb'e :md ,hanl:e is a ,rcative crossrcmb. I'm
experimenting with thc ide~s skelche(l above as teaching tools, AS ways in
whi,h tuchers Anet students call collaborale to find thcir places; ~n increas-
inf; numbcr of ani~ts He becomitll; involve!1 in .~imilar ideas. Innately
imenliseiplinuy andmultieultllul, this line of inquiry and production
relates to context.' and content uther than to uyle And Hends. My models
arc the artislS whose concepts of place :tnd history include people and form
Ihe I:r,15S roots of milch inteNelive or "new genre" ut-from Judith Baca's
Crtllt Wflll of LOJ Angdcs, which brings together tcens from different
wltma! b:tckl:roun<ls to create a mllr:tl on the nonwhite history of C~liror­
nia, to Mierlc Lader",an Ukc1es'.' work with the New YOI'k Cily S~nit:ttion
J)cl'anmem expos;lll; how we m~illt~in oU1'$elves and manage Ollr waste
(aml wilh whom); ft'OIll John Malpede's smail-scAle examinations of
homelessness to Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison's large-scale ellviron·
mental rescue attempts. Artists envision (~verb that embraces a noun) a
proccsslh.lt resultS in an artwork.
W"'(I1~ W( AIl[
I've heen slruhblinl; with these q\lenions for a lnng lime. In 19(,71 WfOtc
thAt visual an WH hovering at a ,rnssroal!s "that may well turn OUltO bc
two ro~ds to Olle place: Ht a.~ ide:t and art as aet;on .... Visual Ht is still
V;SIl,ll eVl'1l wilen II i~ invisible or visionary."" In 1980 [ Wl'Ot(':
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AllY "tw ltind 0/ art prll(ti(r is going 10 ba'Ur to take plAct At leal/ p/l.rt;ally
olllJ;de of thr ,m world. And hard liS it is to eJttlhlill, oJ/tIrlfin thr art world,
leu drcumlCribrll urritor;es arc IIIl thr mOrt f'Aught wilh prril. OUI Ihere,
molt Mtim Me Ilcilher we/(ome nor C'!ferli'Ue, bIOI i" lurr is fl pOlrntially
lU//ocAI;ng (0("0011 ill which IIrtim Arc drludrd into [('('ling impO,'"111 for d(mrg
ollly whlll is tltptcll!d o[ thclIl. We colllinlic to l<tllt aboul "ncw [m'mJ· bccflrllc
Ihr nC'w hal bren thr fmifizing fCliJh of rhc aV/l.IIt-garlic Jinct ;t del/I.Chd illrl[
from Ihe i"[flnlry. 8/11;1 lIlay hI! lhaltbC'le nctl! forml art on(yto be 10Hnd
burled in lod/l.' cnl!rglCS nOI yel rl!cogniud III tin"
Not all the varied (bUl still not varied enough) rorms that have come
to be Col tied "public Art· deserve the Ilame. I would ticfine puhlic an :ts
accessible work o( any kind that cues about, challenges, involves, and
COIISUltS Ihe audience for or widl whom it is made, respecting eOlllmtlllilY
and environment. Thl' other stuff is still priule an, no matter how big or
exposed or intrusive or hl'ped itlllay be. In order to SOrt out wherc lYe
SUtl<!:tt the moment, I've made a necessarily tentative list of the elCisting
genres or ~outlooking· art ~boUl place. Thesc arc not intended as froun
eategoril's, and Olany obviously overlap:
I. Works prep:tre(! for conventional indoor elChibitioll (innartations,
pholographs, eoncepllIal ~I'l, and projeCt proposals) that refer' 10 local
communitie~, history, or envirOllmelllal issues. Eumples arc Debor~h
Ihight and Nancy Gonehar's Chicf/go Stories, NeWlon and Ilelen
Mayer Harrison's prOflosed Boulder Creek Project, and Richard
Misrach's Bravo ]0: Thr Bombing o/tht AI/ftrj(f/n Well.
2. TrAditionAl omdoor public art (not "plunk Ht," IYhich has simply becn
enlarged and dropped on the sitc) that draws attention to the speeif1e
charactel'isties or funeliolls of the places where it intervenes, either in
predieuble locations such ~s parks, bank pb1.u, muscum I:M'dens, and
college campusl'S (slleh U Andrcw Leiccner's mining memori~1 in
Frostburg, M:tryland; Athena Tacha's Memory P/II/' in S.1runt~,
""e')' N. ,.,,,,,~,.,,
rlorid~; ~nd BubarA Jo Revelle's People's History of ColOY<ldo, in
Dellver), or in untJrpeeted and sometimes inaccessible loc~tions. such
as streclS, store windows, a cabin in the wooos, a laundromat, a golf
course, an office, a supermarket, a crater in the desert, a residential
neighhorhood (such as Charles Simonds's imaginary b.ndscapes and
civilizations for Little reople~ and David Hammons's House of the
R
Fllture in Charleston, South Carolina). This group would also include
innovative and officially funded public art and memorials with social
agendas and local references, such as Maya Lin's Viel11am Veleu.ns
Memorial and Barbara Kruger's Little Tokyo mural at the Museum of
Cnntemporary Art, Los Angeles.
3. Site-specific outdoor arlworks, often collaborativc or collective,
that significantly involve the community in execution, background
information, or ongoing function. Examples arc officially condoned
graffili walls; Joel Sisson's Green Chair Project in Minneapolis; Olivia
Glide alld Jon Pounds's Pul/man Projecu in Chicago; the Borda Art
Workshop in San Diego and Tijullna; Dr. Charles Smith's African
Alneriean Heritage Museum in Aurora, Illinois; and works by many
progressive nwralislS.
4. Pennantnt indoor public installations, oflen with some function in
regard to the community'S history, such as post office murals across
the eoulltry and Houston Con will, Estella Conwill Majo7-0, and Jo-
seph De [l~ee's The RwerJ at the Schomburg Center for Research in
Black Culture in New York City. This group ~Iso includes history-
specific communi' y projects thai focus on ongoing educational pro-
ceues, such ~s the Chin~town History Projeet in New York CilY and
lhe Lowell, Muuchusem, national industrial park.
s, rer'fonmnces or ritu~ls oUlsi{le of tr~dilional ~rt spaces th~t call aHell'
tion to pl~ces and lheir hiSlOries and problems, or 10 a larger commu·
nit)' of idemity ~nd e~perience. Like streel posters, slencils, or stickers,
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these works ohen funetion as "wlke-up art,· a eaulySl \0 collective
action, Examples are Suunne Lacy's Three WeekI in M<l)' in Los An-
geles, and Guillermo G6me7.~Pei\a and Coco j:UKO'S Tht Year of Ihe
While BelAr at several siteJ in Ihe Ullited Sutes and Emore.
6. An thM funetions for environmental awarencss, improvement, or
reclamation by lransforming wastelands, focusing on natural history,
opera.ting ulilitarian sites, making parks, and cleaning up pollution. An
example is Alan Son fist's TIme I.a'llluttpt ofNew York Cit),.
7. Direct, didactic l'olitic~l;ln that eommentS publicly on loeal or na-
tional iUlles, espeeially in Ihe form of sign age on transportation, in
p~rks. on buildings, or by the ro~d, which marks siles, events, ~nd
invisible histories. Examples are REPOhislOl'y'S sign project in Lower
Manhman, D;lvid Avalos, Louis I-lock, and Eli'l.aheth S;sco'.~ San
Diego bus projeCl, ~nd H~chivi Edgar He~p of Birds's Host projects
at muhiple sites.
8. Ponable public-aecesJ radio, television, or prinl Illedi;l, such a$ ~udio­
~nd videolapes, postcards, eomies, guides, manu~II, artists' books, and
posters. Examples are Carole Cond~ and Karl Ueveridge's bnok and
poster work wilh Canadian unions and Paper Tiger publie-aeeess
television, demonstration art IUcl, ~s the AIDS quilt, alltl the SptrlllC/e
of Trtlmfnrmation in Washin~lOn, D.C.
9. Actions and chain ~ctions that tuvel, permeate whole lowns, or appe~r
~fI over the commy simultaneously to highlighl or link eurrelll issues.
Eomples are Joh" Fellner's stencils in the Bronx, New York; the
Shadow Project, ~ nationwide commemoration of Hiroshim~ D~y;
antl Lee Nading's hillhway ideograms."
ror decades tlOW a few artists have ventured out lmo the public
cnTlfext and tllade interactive, IMrticipatory, effective, md affective art
rebting to places and the people in thcm. Since .he hIe fifties there have
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process of recognizing both limitatiOns and possibilities. We need to
labonte with snulland luge social, politic~l, specialized groups of people
already informed on and immersed in the issues. And we nted to teach
them III welcome artists, to understand how art un concrelize and envi·
silln their I:oals. AI the samt time wt nccd to colbborale wilh those whose
b~ck~roumls and nltybe foregrounds arc unfamiliar to us, rejtcling the
insidious lIotions of"diversity ~ thal simply neutraliz.e difference. Empathy
and exchanj\e arc key wonls. Even for interactive an workers who have
all the right ideas, elitism is a hard habit 10 kick. Nothing that excludes the
places of people of color, women, lesbians, gays, or working people can be
called incltl.~ive, universal, or IIl:aling. To find the wholc we must know
and respect aHtlle p~rts.
So we need to weave a relationship and rel:iprocal theory of multi·
plicity abom who we are, what is our place, and how our culture affects
{Hlr environlllcnt. We nccd to know a lot 1110re about how our work affects
ami dis~ffecls the people expose<lto it, whether and how it docs and docs
nil! COllHllunicate. This too can be btlilt into experimelltal education in
both an hislory and studio courses (the twO remain absurdly separated at
lllOst schools).
To return to the notion of place, an cannot be a centering (ground·
ing) device unless the artin herself is centered and grounded. This is not 10
say that the alienated, the disoriented, the deracinated. the nomadic (i.e.,
mmt of us) cannot make an. But some pOrlable place must reSt in our
souls. Perhaps we arc lucky enough to have some sust~ining chullk of
~n~ture~ to nourish us. Perhaps the city is iusl as satisfying. Perh~ps the
studio is the den where we lick our wounds, dream up im~ges, pl~n new
stralegies, gather the strength 10 go out ~g~in. Perhaps the limiutions of
the ivory &~lIery and the pages of art magazines ue stunting the growth of
.,n ~n th~1 dreams of striding fearlessly into the streets, into the unknown,
to meel and mingle wilh others' lives.
As "etlv;sionafie.~," artists should. be ~blc 10 provide a way to
work ~~~inst the dominant eulture's rapacious view of nature (" Manifest
J)e~tiny"), to reinstate Ihe mythical and cultural dimensions 10 "public"
expel'ierlce and atlhe same time to become conscious of the ideological
...
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col· relalionships and historical Constructions of place. We need utists to guide
us Ihrough the sensuous, kinesthetic responses 10 topography, lO lead us
into the archaeology and resurrection of bO(~·bued soei~l history. 10 hrin~
out multiple readings of places thatlllean different things to differellt people
~nd at different times. Anllthere is mucll we can le~rn from the ironically
labeled "prinlilive~ cuhul'es about underst~nding ourselves H part of
nature, interdependent with everything in it-hecause nature includes
everything, even technology, created by humans, who ~re part of n~lure.
What would it be like, ~n art produced by the imagination ~nd
responses of;tS viewers or users1 How can art activate local activities and
local values? With adequate funding resources, pulllic artists might set lip
social ~nd political sp~ces in which energies could come together, dialogue
and ~lternAlives or opposition could be eoncretizcd. These might be seell
in rel~tion to the (~lnil;Ar "framing" strategy, in which what is alre.,dy
there is pUI in sharp relief by the addition of an ~rt of cal1in~ 1((entiOll.
.. Parasit;e" art forms, like corrected billboards, can ride the dnminam
culture physically while challenging it politically, creating openly con-
tested ternins that expose the true identities of existing pbces ~Ild spaces
~nd Iheir function in social control. Another set of possibilities is art Ihat
activates the consciousness of a place by subtle markinli.~ without I~;sturb·
ing it-a booklet guide, walking lOUrs, or directional signs captioning the
history of a house or a family, suggesting the depths of a landscape, the
character of a community.
Art is or should be generous. But artists can only give what they
receive frOm their sources. Believing as I do that comlection to pl~ce is a
necessary component of feeling close to people. to the earlh, I wonder whal
will make it possible ror aTlISIS to "give" placC5 back to people wlJoc~n no
longer sec them. Because land plus people-their presence and absence-is
what makes place resonate. Alternatives will h~ve to emerge organically
(rom the anists'lives and experiences. And they WOll't unless a broader set
of optiolu is laid OUt by tlH).Ie who arc exploring these ~nelV~ territories.
The artist hns to be a l'aTlicip:\Ilt in process as well as itS dircctor, has to "live
Ihere" in some w~y-physically, symbolically, or enlpntheticnlly.
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J'''''t/' t,: lI"u
r~markably like Ronald Rugan) soothed believing the war was a
U5 inlO
bloodless, complllcri7.cd science demonstration of gigamic proportions.
Youug American men with adroit rcflues trained by a video-gamc ,ullUTe
demonstrated our superiority as a nation over Salldam Hussein through
video-screen 51rau:g;c air striku.
From the triumphant bron7.t general on horscb~ck-thc public's
view of whidl is the underside of galloping hooves-to lIS more conlem-
porny corporate versions, we find cumplcs of public an in the service of
dOlll;nancc. By their daily presence in Ollr lives. these utworks intend to
persuade liS of the justice of the aclS they represent. The power of the
corporate sponsor is embodied in the sculpture standing in fronl of the
tnwering office building. These grand works, like their military predeces·
~nrs in the parks, inspire a sense of awe hy their se~le ~nd the importance
of the artist. Here, public art is unashamed in its intention 10 mediate
between the public and the developer. In a "things go down bettcr with
public art" menulity, the biller pills of development are delivered to the
public. While percent-for-art bills have heulded developers' creation of
amen;l.ulC public phces as a positive side effecI of "growth,M every inch of
urban space is swallowcd by sk yscrapers and priYlli7.ed imo the so·called
public sp;l.ce of shopping malls and corporate plaus. These developments
prelletermine the public, selecting OUI the hamden. vendors, ;l.doleseents,
urban poor. ;l.ml people of color. Planters. benches. and other Mpublic
amenities" arc suspect as potential huards or public loitering places. Re-
cent attemptS in Los Angeles to pass laws to StOp or severely resu'!cl push-
<:art vt'lltledorCI from sdling dOUJ,frllltU. pale/as, and raJpados made
;l.etivis15 of non~ggress;ve merchants who had silently appropriated public
spaces in hq::ely Latino sections of our cilY. VcnJedrm·J.lovcd by the
people for offering lUll only popular produclS but f;l.mili~r reminders of
their homelanlh, provide a Latino presence in public spaces. Any loss of
botanical, mercadoJ. t'endtdorel, and things familiar reinforces segrega-
tion. as ethnic peoplc disappear to another corner of the city.
Lo.~ Angeles providcs clear and abundant examples of developmenl
.1S a lonlto colnni?'e and d;~place ethniC communitics. Infamous dcvelop-
lIIenu abound ill public record. if 110t consc;ousness-Dod\;er Sudium,
/H.h,b I ",u~
,1
"'NOli "ONU""" PUIl'C U, , culfu •• O ,oc" ..
which displaced a historic MeKican community; Bunker Hill, now home
10 a premier arts CentCr, which displaced another; and the less well docu-
mented hinory of how four major freeways inlersected in the middle of
East Los Angeles's Chicano communilies. One of the mOJt catutrophic
consequCnces of an endless real estate boom was the concreling of the
entire Los Angeles River, on which the cilY was founded. The river, as the
carth's arleries-thus atrophied and hardened-crcated a gianl scar acrou
the land which served to further divide an already divided cily. It is Ihis
metaphor that inspired my own half-mile· long mural on thc hislory of
ethnic pcoples painted in the Los Angeles riVer conduit. Just as young
Chicanos UllOO battle scars on their bodies. thc Great Wtllf of LOJ AngeltJ
is a lallOO on a scar where the river once ran.' tn it rC;l.ppear the disap-
pured stories of ethnic populations that make up the labor force which
built our city. SUle, and nation.
Public art often plays a supportive role in developers' agendas. In
many instances. art uses beauty as a falte promise of inclusion. Bcauty
ameliorates the crasure of ethnic presence, serving the transformation imo
a homogenizcd visual culture: give them something beaulifullo sund in
for Ihe loss of their right to a public presence. Two New York-bascd
artists were seleetellto deconte the lobby of the new skyscraper of Fim
Internate Bank in downtown Los Angeles. To represent muhicull\lraliSIll
in Los Angeles. Ihey chose angels from the Basilica of Santa M;ui.~ rle~li
Angeli nur Assisi, Italy. They Ihen tacked ethnic cmblems Onto the
E'.urope~n angels, -borrowing- the pre·Columbian feathercd serpent
Quctu1coul from the A7.lees. the crowned mahogally headpiece (rom
Nigerian masks, and the eagle's wings from our Nalive peoples as ·cm·
blems of a variety of euhures.~ Thelc symbols replaced the real voices of
peoplc of color;n a city torn by the greatest civil disorder in the United
States in decades. At the dedication, which took place shortly after Ihe
rebellion (the Los Angele., riots of 1992). black and Lalino children un·
veiled the angels in an e1aborale ribboll·culting ceremony. Hailed by the
developers as a great symbol of ·unity.· these arlifacts st('lod in for the
real pcople in a city terrified of thc majority of its citizens. Tragic,~JJy, the
$SOO.OOO spem on this single work was more thall Ihe whole city budget
OM. M._' .... "v.... ,,,,,....
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10 fund public murals by ethnic artisu who work wilhin Los Angeles's
diverse Chinese, African American, Korean, Thai, Chicano, and Central
American neighborhoo<h.
No single view of public space and Ihe art th~t occupies it will work
ill ~ n\etropol;~ of multiple perspectivu. While competition for public
~pace v.rows daily. cultural communities call for it to be used in dr;unati-
cally different ways. Whal comes into question is the vcry different sensi-
bilities of ordcr llnd bellulY that operate in different cultures. When
C:hri~to. for eumplc, looked for the lirst time at EI Tejon Pass. he HW
potential. He saw the potenti11 to create beauty with a personlll vision
imposed on the landsc1pe-1 beauty that fit his individual vision of yellow
umbrellas fluncring in the wind. marching up the sides of rolling hills.
The bnd became his C;l.nvas,;I. backdrop for his personal aesthetic.
Native people might look at the S1mc landscape with II very differ-
ellt idea of heauty, a beauty without imposition. They might sec a perfect
order eKemplified in nnWre itself, integral to a spiritu~llife grounded in
place. Naturc is not 10 be umpered with; hence, a plant taken requires an
offering in return. Richard Ray Whitman. a Yaqui anist. sllid. ·Scientifi-
cally cohesive-I am the atoms. molecules, blood, and dust of my ances-
t(lrs-not as hislOry, but as a continuing pcople. Wc describe our cuhure
as:l circle. by which we mean that it is an integrated whole.'" Maintaining
a relationship with Ihe dust of onc's anceators requires a generational
relalionship with the land and a respcctful treatment of other life found
on the land.
Or perhaps Native peoples could nOt think of this area without
rccalling fori Tejon, one of the first California Indian reservations estab-
lished ncar this site in the Tehachapi Mountains, placed there 10 "protect·
Indians. rounded up from various neighboring HUS, most of whose cul-
tures have heen entirely deuroyed. In Christo's and the Native visions we
have tWO different aesthetic sensibilities. as divergent as the nineteenth-
century English manicured garden is from the rugged natur.11 New Mui-
can landscape of the S.1ngre de Criuo Mountains.
Perhaps a less benign impliution of Christo's idea is that landscape
unlouched by man i~ ·undeveloped land." This is a continuation of the
".
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concepl of "min over nature~ on which this country was founded. I heri-
uge of thought that hu brought u. clear·cuuing in first growth forellS and
concrete conduits that kill river. as an acceptable method of flood control.
These ideas nnd their parallel in the late modernist and postmodernist
cults of the exalted individual. in which personal vision and originality are
highly valued. As a .olitary creator the artist values self-expression and
~artiSlie freedom· (or separateness uther than conncctcdness). He is
therefore responsible only to himself rather th.1n to a shared vision, failing
to reconcile the individual to the whole.
When the nature of El Tejon Pass-a place known to locals for its
high winds-asserted iuelf during Christo's project and uprooted an
umbrella planted in the ground, causing the tragic death of a woman who
had come to see the work. Christo $lid. "My project imitates rcallife." I
couldn't help musing on what a different project it would have been had
the beautiful yellow umbrellas marched through Skid Row. whcre l.os
Angeles's 1<40,000 hornelen lie in the rain. Art can no longer be tied to the
nonfunctionalist state, relegated by an "art for art's uke~ tyranny. Would
it nat have been more beautiful to shelter people in need of shelter, a ges-
ture and statement about our failure as 11 society to provide even the most
basic needs to the poorl Why is it not possible for public an to do Illore
than ~imilate· life~ Public art could be insep..r..ble from the daily life of
the people for which it is created. Developed to live harmoniously in
public space, it could have a function within the community and even
provide a venue for their voices.
for the Melliean sensibility. an imponant manifestation of public
art is a work by Mellicao artist David Alfaro Siqueiros on Los Angeles's
historic Olvera SlTeet. This 19)) mural, paimed over for nearly sillty years
by city falhers because of its portrayal of the plight of Mellic1nos and
Chicanos in California. is currently in restoration. Siquciros depicted as
the central ligures a meni7.o shooting at the American eagle aod a crueilied
Chicano/Mellieano. While this mural is becoming mIHco-lied. with mil-
lions of dollars provided by the Getty foundation for iu preservation and
fe-presentation to the public. it is important to recogni?e that the same
images would most likely be censored if painted today on Los Angeles's
'"
jKJirh f: ,,~U
strC1:u. The subject maller is as rdevant now, sixty yurs later, as it was
then. Murals depicting the domination of 1nd resistance by Los Angeb's
L1tinos or other populations of color provoke the same official resina nee
15 they did in 19]]. Despite these struggle~, muuls h1ve been the only
intCTvenlions in public Ipacelthat articuhtl: the presence of ethnicity.
Architecturc and city planning have done liule to accommodlle communi-
ties of color in our city.
As competition for public space h1s grown, public art policies have
hecome calcified and increasingly bureaucr;l!ic. An that is sanctioned has
lustlhe political bite of the seventies murals. Nevertheless, a rich legacy of
Illuuls hu been produced since Amrriea Tropiea/wa.s pa.inled on Olvera
Succt by the maenro. Thousands of public lnurals in phces where people
live :md wOI·k have become tangible public monuments to the shared
experience of communities of color. Chicano munls have provided the
lcadership and thl: form for other communities to asSUt their presence and
anicuble their issues. Today, works appear that speak of children caught
in lhe cross fire of gang warfare in the barrios of Sylmu, the hidden prob-
lcm of AIDS in the South-Central African Amerie1n community, and the
struggles of immiRration and assimilation in the Korean community. Thesc
mural! have become monumellt'lhat serve as a community's memory.
The generations who grew up in neighborhoods where the land-
sca.pe was doned by the mural movement have been influenced by these
works. With few avenues open to lfaining.a.OlI art production, ethnic
teenagers have crealed the graffiti art that has become another method of
resisting privati7.Cd public space. As the fim visual ut form entirely devel-
oped by youth culture, it has become the focus of increasingly severe
rcprinls by .1lIhorities who spend fifly-two million dollan ~nnu1l1y in the
County of Los Angeles to abate what they refer to as the Mskin cancer of
society.M It is no accident that Ihe proliferation of graffiti is concurrent
with the reduction of all youlh recreation and aru programs in the schools.
Working with communities in producing public artworks hal put
me into COntut with many of the'e youths. On one occasion, I was called
to a local high school after h~ving convinced one of the young Great Wall
production tum members that he should retUrn to school. The urgent
-
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WooOIf MOHIIK!N' woo . . . . OIlU'C n l 'K. K..... C!... U . . D .OC""
message from the boy in the principal's office nid, MI need you to come
here right away because I'm going to get thrown out of school again.-
My dul with the boy, formulated over a long mentorship, W1S that he
would not quit school again without talking to me fint. I arrived to find
the principal lOwering over the young cho/o, who w~s holding his hud in
a defiant manner I had seen over and over in my work with the gangs.
This Stance, relniniscent of a w~rrior, c~l1ed unccremoniously Mholding
your mug, is about maintaining dignity in adverse circumstances. The
M
principal was completely frustrated. MYou've wrinen on the Ichool', w111s
and you simply do not have respect for other people's property. Tell me,
would you do this in your own housd- I couldn't help but smile at his
admonition, despite the seriousness of the situation. This boy was an
important graffiti artist in his community. I had visited his house and seen
the walls of his room, where every inch was covered wilh his intricate
writings. Two diHerent notions of beauty and order were operaling, as
well as a dispute about ownership of the school. The boy's opinion was
that he had aesthetically improvcd the property, not dcstroyed it.
At this time the conditions of our communities are worse than those
that prC1:ipimcd the civil righu activism of the sixtics and seventies. Fifty-
twO percent of all Afric1n American children and forty-twO percent of all
Latino children are living in poverty. Dropout rates exceed high school
graduation rates in these communities. What, then, is the role of a socially
rcsJlolllible public utili? As the wealthy and poor arc increasingly polar-
ized in our society, faee-to-hcc urban confrontalions occur, often with
catastrophic consequences, Clin public art avoid coming down on the side
of wealth and dominance in that confrontation? How can we as artisu
noid becoming accomplicCl to coloniution~ If we chose nOt to look at
triumphs over nations and neighborhoods 11 victories and advancemenu,
what monuments could we build? How can we crute a public memory
for a many-cultured society? Whose story shall we tell?
Of grutest interelt to me is the invention of systems of ·voice
M
giving for those left without public venues in which 10 speak. Soci11ly
responsible artists from marginalized communities have a puticul.r rc-
sponsibility to uticulate Ihe conditions of their people and 10 provide
Ii .'.. _"~~~W - -
catalysu for cllangc. since perceptions of us as individuals are tied to the
conditions of our communities in a racially unsophisticated society. We
cannot escape that responsibility even when we choose to try; we are made
olthe ~blood and dust ~ of our anceSlors in a continuing history. Being a
catalyst for change will change us lisa.
We can evaluate ourselves by the processes with which we choose
to make an. not simply by the lrt objects we crute. Is the artwork the
ruult of a privlte act in a public space~ Focusing on the object devoid of
the creuive process used to achieve it has bankrupted Eurocentric mod-
ernist and postmodernin traditions. Art processes. jun as art objects, may
be culturally specific. and with no single aesthetic. a diverse society will
generate very different forms of public HI.
Who is the public now that it has changed color? How do people of
various ethnic and class groups use public space? What ideas do we want
to place in public memory? Where does art begin and end? Artins have the
unique ability to transcend designated spheres of activity. What represents
somethiJlg deeper and more hopeful about the future of our ethnically and
class-divided cities arc collaborations that move well beyond the artist and
architect to the artist and the historian. scientist. environmentalist. or social
service provider. Such collaborations are mandated by the seriousness of
the tasks at hand. They bring a range of people into conversations about
their visions for their neighborhoods or their nations. Finding a place for
those ideas in monuments that are constructed of the soil and spirit of the
people is the most challenging task for public artists in this time.
NOTES
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........ ~,•• ~ h • <__ ";I"~"'" oI Io.. ""i.1 ,,,,,,,,,,,looo. <_-..;" •• ,1;."
~,,, I, [ .. ~ , ....1••,...... diff" " .f C.lfflI ~ ~ill..., 1.- ,h.l"'"P"C'i
.. _II 11<••O.....I<.M.I~. _ ..1...11 _ 1< i.,luIloo A",.k, 1'.oooI<_,rol <~
1 a"h"d a'r ... hi....... ~ ..... d i. lll.....".IV..,"" C.lif. Soci.l locll'ubli< A" I ......... C,."'. 1"1).
".
COMMON WOH) Jrfl Krllry
Over the pa" decade, those of us intereJ!ed in a serious and challen~in~
public Art have heard often of thc benefits of collaboration between artists
and archilccts. The ccmVentiollal wiHlnm is Ihal arlist~ brin~ a frcsh, unen-
cumbuccl sense of design 10 architectural projecu. and that Ihe peculiari-
ties of thc artin'~ ego-celllcr sl'lmehow enliven Ihe Cltherwise COllvelltional,
corpOratclqHe environments architects come up with too much of the time.
The artist is assumed to be freer than the architect. and freedom is usuOlcd
to be art. The archilect is regarded as a relative technician by comparison,
constrained as he or she is by the legal, fiscal, and material limitations of
Ihe trade. The idea is IhAt as artlsts and architccts ~coliabClrate~ architec-
ture will be made II1Me human, or M least morc art-like. Art-likeness i~
auumed to be more humalle.
CClnventil'lnal wisdom aside. true collaboralinll alllong afli~ts .,nd
architects rarely happens. Given the stereotypical ways in which we see
each othcr, it's no wonder. What passes today for collabontion lends in
faCt to be a frustrating process of compromise and concession. The archi-
tecl is almon always in charge, and artislS. who arc paid very little for their
services. often must fight for recognition u members of a ~ design team. ~
Moreover, in ou, society the conditions are nOI usually safe for coltabon-
tion to occur. The loss of professional identity is at stake, and in corponte
America. professional identity is often all one has. Given this territorial
l~"'"
" ;.";,, antagonism and the bureaucratic hassles of thc public seclQr (which i.~
_ 004
l.
usually the designated ~ elienl~ in a public artlarchitecture projcct), many
artists have simply given III' and gone back to the studio.
Perhaps the most typical misunderstanding architects have about :trt-
ists is that they want to build ~artM illlo the projcci. or Ihal they want to make
the architccture itsel'; that is, that artists want to pili' at being archilects.
There is ~ome truth to this. Perhaps the mosttfpical misullderuanding
'"