Posts Tagged With Richard Serra
Friday, January 27, 2012 / 12:51 pm
Reason No. 147 Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Arts Commissions
They would have denied the Watts Towers if they’d had the chance.
by Rebecca Schoenkopf
Tags: art | Richard Serra | Anita Garouni | folk art
You know what I hate? Besides the rest of it? Arts commissions!
“But Commie Girl!” you’re whining in your usual fuddle, “Arts commissions are full of people who care about art and want to beautify our city! How could you take your usual shiv to them?”
Easy! Arts commissions are full of stuck-up bureaucrats enforcing their staid aesthetic; they’ll approve just about any twisted hunk of metal if it’s got the name “Serra” attached; and they would have denied the Watts Towers if they’d had the chance. They don’t get folk art, and never have. In Fullerton, the arts commission that oversees the small percent of developer money that must go to public art has approved hideous statues of girls doing rhythmic gymnastics, and I think that in itself should DQ all arts commissions for good.
