READING RESPONSE

Pasternak & Eccles // bottom pg 87 - top pg 88

Pasternak talks about how there were “other goals” than just giving artists new opportunities “beyond the galleries white cube.” Two examples of these goals he gives are “urban agendas” and working to “counteract a kind of visual bankruptcy” in daily city life that seemed devoid of creativity. 

To highlight the first urban agenda, Pasternak references Times Square as a site that before it was redeveloped during Gulliani’s maryoralty, was a seedy, dismal spot within the city that was a focus for trying to install public art. During the 70s and 80s, Times Square had become a hub for crime, drugs, and dingy sex clubs. This lasted through the 80s into the early 90s. 

America underwent a major recession from 73-75, and New York like most of America was hit hard.During the 70s, New York City on a whole was much seedier and poverty stricten, even as the nation’s economy boomed during the 80s. (http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/14/business/economic-scene-puzzling-poverty-of-the-80-s-boom.html). And this is the environment Pasternak is describing when he says that there was a push to counteract the “visual bankruptcy” of the city. Furthermore, he says that as “artists’ interests, the economy, and the city itself changed, our programming necessarily changed.” Art during that time, like any time in history, had broad scopes of artist influence separated by smaller movements within the collective whole. Andy Warhol was an art celebrity in New York, and in the 80s Jeff Koons began to rise to fame. Art influences varied from Postmodernism to Deconstructivism to Figuration Libre to others. As the nation’s economy fluxuated, so did New York’s. As a result, funding for public works fluctuated and so organizers both wanted to, as members of zeitgeist, and were forced to push for art that would actually get funded. This is always true.

In Eccles response he continue Pasternak’s coment on urban issues by calling into focus that in the 80s and 90s the center of attention in New York was urban planning. Since urban planning often operates on a massive scale within massive governmental organizations, he talks about how this framework posed extremely challenging for artists to work within. Project may not be completed for half a decade. All of this is related to the economic state in which New York was living at that time. The 80s brought prosperity, despite the huge economic gap in society, and the 90s brought Gulliani. Despite controversial tactics and legacy, crime was brought to an all-time low, and places that were seen as dingy began to be “cleaned up.” (http://www.gothamgazette.com/commentary/91.tierney.shtml) I personally might argue that in the example of Times Square, these types of places were Disney-fied. This is the time period in which Eccles notes that “in the mid-1990s there was a complete realignment of strategies. The idea,” he says, “was to commission great artists and try to get great work in the public realm.” It seems that there is a fundamental shift in the language he is using here than in the previous comments made by Pasternak. While Pasternak’s comments were focused on how the programming of public art commissions fluctuated with the eb and flow of artistic taste, economic prosperity, and urban life, Eccles comments seem to focus on the artwork itself. 

The Wall. Forest Meyeres 1973

Crack is Wack. Keith Haring 1986

Metronome. Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel 1996