The distinguished culture critic Max
Wyman spoke at the Art Underfoot exhibition on July 21, 2004 in Vancouver. His
address touched on the broad community response to the Art underfoot
competition, and the necessity or art in everyday situations. Mr.
Wyman's latest book, "The Defiant Imagination/Why Culture Matters" was
published earlier this year by Douglas & McIntyre.
Ah, the humble manhole cover. It's the Rodney Dangerfield of public
furniture. It gets no respect. If it isn't being welded shut to protect
the security of visiting royalty, it's exploding unexpectedly and denting
someone's undercarriage.
But what a minefield of metaphorical potential for the unwary critic.
Like art itself, the manhole cover provides access to a world unseen
- a porthole onto a parallel universe just below our daily journey through
life . a veritable subterranean equivalent to the social subconsciousness
.
You know what's great about this project? Well, a number of things.
It puts a few dollars in the pockets of a couple of artists, which
is always good.
It will make our streets more fun to be in - which, according to some
reports, is always a challenge in Vancouver.
But most of all it says we believe that art belongs to everyone.
We don't say that enough.
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Predictably, this project didn't win instant, unanimous approval. The
usual spitballs were thrown. Some people saw it as a waste of public
money when other needs are more pressing. Some people thought we had
no business prettying-up the sidewalks.
What is it that they don't get?
The value of pools and parks (not to mention schools and libraries)
is well understood, and no one complains about their inclusion in the
tax base. Yet somehow, different standards apply when we assess the
value of our creative community.
The plain fact is, funding culture is neither an imposition of taste
nor an act of charity - it is an investment in the health of the community,
in the same way that building roads and hospitals is an investment in
the health of the community.
It's not a matter of either/or - health is necessary for life; the
arts and culture are reasons for living. Culture isn't something we
consume, it's something that's part of the fabric of our lives.
It's an integral element of memory, community, identity . a way to
finding meaning in the chaos that surrounds us.
And it can be just plain fun: part of the gaiety of being alive in
a great city.
How can you argue against something that makes you feel glad to wake
up in the morning?
And where better to find it than in the streets?
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You might look on decorated manhole covers as found art - or perhaps
more accurately, foundry art.
They are an unremarkable part of daily life in many cities around the
world. They have no economic pay-off. But they are part of the quality
of the life that is lived in those communities.
In Bratislava , for instance, I saw a manhole cover that was a life-sized
cast of the top half of a man emerging from the hole: from the look
of him, a drunk who had fallen in the night before. Talk about humanizing
the cityscape .
In fact, Vancouver is filled with public art - you could spend a couple
of days doing nothing but wandering around the city looking at it: city
hall issues a convenient guide.
And it comes in all forms -
Not just the traditional bronze statues and winged angels, but text,
light, mosaics . even a piece that uses the ocean's currents to create
calligraphic interpretations of weather and tide changes on a website.
The mosaic, Community Wall/Community Voices, on the concrete retaining
wall between 16th and 18th Avenues on Commercial Drive , is a specially
interesting example of art in the community.
The Native Education Centre sponsored it, and groups like Youth Against
Violence and the Trout Lake Seniors created 28 mosaic panels - 200 people,
all told, making an artwork on the theme of origins.
That broad public engagement is one of the things I like most about
this project. The proposals for these manhole cover designs come from
right across the community - professional artists, amateurs, school
kids . over six hundred of them.
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What I specially liked was the way so many of the designs were site-specific
- they speak about here. Crabs, whales, aboriginal issues, the rain
- even the Olympics.
It's public art that speaks to us where we truly live. It puts art
where it truly belongs - at the heart of our life together. Money down
the drain? I hardly think so. For myself, I wouldn't mind having some
of these designs on my wall.
Let's face it, a lot of us are put off the experience of art by all
the paraphernalia that we've built up around it. We don't feel comfortable
with the institutional settings we put it in, so we don't go to them.
Having art right in front of us in our daily lives is a useful reminder
of the fact that we all own culture.
A reminder, too, about how important it is to incorporate cultural
expression in all we hope for in this country in this new century. Elections
come and go; the politicians won't be there for ever, not even Jim ,
more's the pity - but the bureaucracies will.
If we can root the importance of culture deep inside the thinking of
the bureaucrats - if we can establish a clear, across-the-board policy
that recognizes the intrinsic value of culture to the individual - then
it becomes impervious to changes in style and even changes in power.
It becomes a principle as basic as justice, as basic as social equity.
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I understand the city will soon be inviting artists to decorate city
vehicles, buildings, sidewalks . even fire hydrants.
Meanwhile, we have decorated manhole covers - artwork that is going
to decorate the city's streets for decades to come. Like the mosaic
on Commercial, it will be a memory that visitors will take away, and
part of the experience of growing up for future generations.
You could even call it a cultural legacy to the future. But one we
can all celebrate now.
And those who don't like it can exercise their right to be critics
by walking all over it. If that's not cultural democracy in action,
I don't know what is.
