The demarcation of Public, and Street Art is set upon the thin line between its legal or illegal operational-process within definitions by the appointed Authority. On the other hand, this situation indicates a signal, of how dominant the Local Authority is within the process of Art-Making, in particularly 'Public Art'. In similar fashion, optimistically the concept 'dominant' (Power) in a romantic notion is viewed as 'With Great Power comes Great Responsibility', where its origin passage appeared from the collection of decrees by the French National Convention in 1793.
"The people's representatives will reach their destination, invested with the highest confidence and unlimited power. They will show great character. They must consider that great responsibility follows inseparably from the great power. To their energy, to their courage, and above all to their prudence, they shall owe their success and their glory" - French National Convention, 8 May 1793
In other respect, albeit of political system, the Government which grants 'Power' upon Authority to enforce laws of social-control, oughts the highest responsibility upon the well-being of those (Society) which complies respectively. Furthermore, 200 years later, Michel de Carteau demonstrated this concept in his book 'The Practice of Everyday Life (1980)'. Carteau conceptualised the dispute of power between the locus of attention in his concept of 'Strategies' and 'Tactics'. More to the point, he remarked 'Strategies' as the dominance of the city (Authority), and 'Tactics' as the dominance of the citizen (Society) in making ends meet accordingly.
On the other side, Carteau saw the unbalance conflict of interest dominating the former and latter, where apparently there is a possibility of Equilibrium in granting 'Mutual Favour', or technically a 'Win-Win Situation'. On one side, this apperception does require initiatives from one of the upper hands, which by system practice, is the Authority.
However, in the American Art Society, this sort of 'Equilibrium' was not merely a vision of 'Utopian Dream', oppositely became a mission embraced in the name of the 'New Deal', ironically 50 years before 'The Practice of Everyday Life (1980)' was wrote. What matters worse, the situation carves its part at time of 'The Great Depression (1930)', which marks one of the great downfall of American and Worldwide Economy, after one another, the nations biggest stock market crash 'Wall Street Crash 1929' (Paul, 2005).
President Herbert Clark Hoover's 'Laissez-Faire' economics theory of Individualism was replaced in favour of a 'New Deal', which was rather inclusive between the government and nation, in an approach of Collectivism as opposed to the former. The New Deal was a moment-breaking proposition which broke silence, out of the devastating conditions, and eventually led Franklin D. Roosevelt as the President of America on the 1932 election. More significantly, Roosevelt as recorded by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), acknowledged the Federal Art Project (FAP) as the artist who portrays the expression of his fellow countrymen.
"Art in America has always belonged to the people and has never been the property of an academy or a class . . . The Federal Art Project of the Work Progress Administration is a practical relief project which also emphasises the best tradition of the democratic spirit. The WPA artist, in rendering his own impression of things, speaks also for the spirit of his fellow countrymen everywhere. I think the WPA artist exemplifies with great force the essential place which the arts have in a democratic society such as ours" - May 11, 1939, MoMA
More notably, The Work Progress Administration (WAP) responsible to reinstall recovery (3R) for employability of The New Deal (1933-1943), initiated Federal Art Projects (FAP) which engaged positive relationship between the Artist and Society in producing Artworks which most in practice are considered among the earliest modern 'Public Art'. On this account, the Public Work of Art Project (PWAP), organised by the American Businessman and Artist, Edward Bruce unprecedentedly emerged. Subsequently, bruce led the Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture (Section of Fine Arts) and the Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP).
(One of the Coit Tower Murals, 1934)
The superseding Federal Art Projects of the New Deal emphasised themes of social realism, regionalism, class conflict, proletarian interpretation of 'Laissez-Faire' and the audience as subject towards the whole experience. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) created the Public Works Administration (PWA), which by 1933 until 1935 alone, spend $3.3 Billion Dollars in collaborations with private companies on building over 34, 599 large projects (Leuchtenburg, 2005)
In spite of everything, the Federal Art Project initiated fundamental significant Art Projects which promoted the collaboration between Public Art and Architecture. This ground-breaking program was named Art-in-Architecture (A-i-A), which on the upper hand developed percent for art programs, which existed as a structure for funding Public Art still practiced to this moment of time. In conjunction with this, the program allocated one-half (1/2) of one percent of a total construction cost of all government buildings to the purchase of contemporary American Art to be integrated altogether as a whole process. For that matter, A-i-A helped to reinforce the Policy that 'Public Art' in the United States should be truly owned by the Public (Knight, 2008).
As a result, site-specific Public Art were acknowledged, which further escalated in a new form of so-called 'New-Genre Public Art', where the emphasis is less on the artistic product itself but 'On collaboration, and collective dimension of Social Experience' (Lacy: 1995, Bishop: 2006). In the same vein, murals of Public Art flourished under the Art's Program, where in the Washington State, post offices become home to works that arouse the 'Aesthetic Emotions' for moment in time, dispatching and distracting interest of the nation from the hardship of economical conditions, and moving forward as of the approaches taken by stoics in the fall of Classical Rome. Zoos, high school, and hospitals hosted public displays and exhibitions. Over and above this, Artist at all stages of their careers benefited from the program with opportunities and a steady pay check as means of recovery.
In good measures, despite any political, economical, or societal crisis a Nation is addressed in particular time of hardship or at ease, relative to the above case study of the 'Great Depression', in the United States (USA), the Government (Authority) fundamentally plays a dominant role, apart from being dominant in terms of 'Power'. Having said that, A 'Power' in the Government to seek and provide solutions collectively, rather than A 'Power' to disapprove and disregard solutions especially those of the fellow Nation (society).
In nature, it is easier to blow things out of the context, rather than putting things in their respective order. By contrast, the Malaysian Authority has done well in maintaining the importance of art genres in particular Public Art. Nonetheless, Public Art itself is a huge genre, and one hand does not posses the means in tackling the issues regarding the needs of the Authority/Artist/Audience at a holistic and heuristic level. Public and Private bodies which appeals with the same interest on sustenance, development, and participation of such Art acquires 'mutual respect' from the Government (Authorities) in a positive collaboration upon a healthy-bright future of Public Art Scene in Malaysia.
Thank You
MUSADDIQ MOHAMAD KHALIL
Department of Liberal Studies
UiTM Alor Gajah
PACAQ- UITM RIG 2020
References:
Certeau, M. de. (2011). The practice of everyday life (S. F. Rendall, Trans.; 3rd ed.). University of California Press.
Knight, Cher Krause (2008). Public Art: Theory, Practice, and Populism. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4051-5559-5
Lacy, S. (ed.) (1995), Mappingthe Terrain: New Genre Public Art. Seattle: Bay Press.
Leuhtenburg (2005). Jason Scott Smith, Building New Deal Liberalism: The Political Economy of Public Works, 1933-1956
Paul N. Hehm (2005). A Low Dishonest Decade: The Great Power, Eastern Europe, and the Economic Origins of World War 11, 1930-1941. Continuum. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-8264-1761-9
Roosevelt's address on the Museum of Modern Art, as printed in the Herald Tribune on May 11, 1939
Retrieved: https://www.moma.org/research-and-learning/archives/archives-highlights-04-1939
1793 May, Title: Collection Générale des Décrets Rendus par la Convention Nationale, Date: May 8, 1793 (Du 8 Mai 1793), Quote Page 72, Publisher: Chez Baudouin, Imprimeur de la Convention Nationale. A, Paris.
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