Los Angeles Per Cent for Art - John Collings
Los Angeles Per cent for Art
John Collings reviews the LA approach to public art and a contrary view expressed by Eric Owen Moss
"Junk !" - This from Culver City architect Eric Owen Moss when interviewed on the subject of LA's percent for art scheme. His views may seem extreme and of little relevance in a city where mandatory percent for art programmes abound. However he carries behind him the weight of legal exemption from the percent for art programme as his buildings are deemed to be art in their own right.
One of the first visual impressions of Los Angeles is the considerable amount of public art, in terms of murals and sculpture that can be seen across the city . Whether experiencing large murals while driving the freeways that crisscross the city, or casually taking a walk downtown, one encounters a lively and stimulating collection of public art. This richness in the public arts, and especially mural painting, has a history and tradition in California dating back many years, and is probably the reason that the administration of the city places so much importance on public art generally.
Socialist Origins of Public Art in LA
Public art in the city has its origins in the post revolutionary Mexico of the 1920's. The new socialist government which came to power in Mexico after the overthrow of dictator Porfiro Diaz initiated a programme of mural painting with the objective of cultivating a national identity which focused on the peasants and working classes of Mexico.
Jose Clemente Orozco (1883-1949), Diego Rivera (1886-1957) and David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974) were among many artists hired for workers wages to paint monumental mural decorations on walls of public buildings in Mexico City, expressing the social ideals of the revolution. Many American artists travelled to Mexico to assist on mural projects, and to study the processes and techniques of the art. A decade on and Rivera, Siqueiros and Orozco moved to California to work in turn with American artists, many of whom shared the politically radical ideology of the Mexican muralists.
The Great Depression which hit the United States in the 1930's affected artists as much as it did financiers and workers. In 1933 artist George Biddle (who had earlier worked for Diego Rivera as an apprentice in Mexico) and who was a former schoolfriend of President Roosevelt, wrote to the President suggesting that the government hire impoverished artists to create art for public buildings nationwide.
The project suggested by George Biddle was quickly taken up by Roosevelt and in 1933 he initiated the New Deal Art programmes whereby the US Government paid unemployed artists to decorate public buildings and to work with local people on community art projects. In 1941 the United States entered World War 2 and all arts funding by the US government ended in 1943. After the war and up to 1967 relatively little public art was funded.
From the late 1960's right through to the early 1970's many community activists and artists set up arts organisations and collectives throughout California with the purpose of seeking social change. In 1967 the political and social upheavals taking place in the USA sparked off an outdoor mural painting movement on a huge scale, both in Los Angeles and in other major cities of the United States. Black and Chicano population of L.A. began to use bare walls as canvases on which to visualise their demands for social change. Many of the murals carried out during this period promoted the artists own rich cultural history and traditions. They were a means of empowering a very large but disadvantaged section of American society who previously had had no voice or adequate representation.
In the early 1980's another variation of public art which had its beginnings in New York City is spraycan art which was soon taken up in Los Angeles. Part of the Hip Hop youth subculture along with breakdance and rap, spraycan or aerosol art was a direct development from graffiti art.
Statutory Percent for Art
 | A statutory percent for art scheme was first introduced into Los Angeles in 1989. and the percent for art programmes currently administered in Los Angeles make it overall the largest percent for art project in the United States. The main authority concerned with percent for art in L.A. is the 'City of Los Angeles' who have jurisdiction over approximately two thirds of metropolitan L.A., however there are also a number of smaller self-governing cities within the metropolis who operate their own percent for art programmes all of which which differ in various ways. |
| Dinosaurs Percent fo Art Project Santa Monica |
| The three major statutory authorities concerned with public art funding in L.A. are the Cultural Affairs Department of the City of Los Angeles, the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transport Authority. All three authorities have their own public art programmes. The Public Arts Division of the Cultural Affairs Department of the City of Los Angeles (CAD) administer two public art programmes applicable to all new (non-residential) construction citywide. The programme for public-funded buildings, the 'Public Works Improvement Programme,' includes libraries, police stations or any other public buildings, and the private Percent for Art programme the 'Arts Development Fee' applies to all commercial development over half a million dollars. The public art obligation is usually one percent of the total construction costs. All housing development is exempted. The Arts Development fee can either go into the City Arts Development Fee Trust Fund where it is assigned to a variety of art or cultural programmes, often benefiting the local community, or the fee will provide an arts amenity or service within the development site to that value. |  Chiat/Day/Mojo |
The second major percent for art authority in the city is the Community Redevelopment Agency. The CRA negotiate the public art requirement of one percent of all development costs on all projects above $250,000 (with the exception of low to moderate income housing). Sixty percent of the public art obligation goes to funding the art input for the development and the remaining forty percent goes to a Neighbourhood Trust Fund. The CRA's operations (unlike CAD) are not citywide and are limited only to redevelopment areas within the City of Los Angeles.
The third major percent for art programme in Los Angeles is the Metropolitan Transport Authority public art programme titled 'MetroArt'. This programme is associated with the bus and subway systems of the MTA.
Culver City - the Exception
The 'City of Los Angeles' authority is the largest statutory authority in LA, however, within the radius of metropolitan Los Angeles there are also a number of smaller individual cities who are self-governing and set their own percent for art programmes, one of these is Culver City, a district located a few miles from downtown LA.
In 1994 the council in Culver City, amended their percent for art ruling by permitting architecture in certain circumstances to be considered public art. They added a proviso that the artwork should be clearly distinguished from the building architecture and standard design features. Developers are excused from paying the one percent fee if proof is provided to the council that the building is designed by an architect who has been recognised by the art world in shows, museums and publications and that the concept of the building design is more than merely utilitarian.Culver City Council is the only authority in the U.S. who have made such an amendment to their mandatory percent for art programme.
 | The ruling reversed an earlier percent for art policy amendment by the Culver City Council of the previous year which precluded architects (or any members of the building design team) to be artists on their own schemes. |
| Detail from Gary Office Building Lindblade Street Culver City, |
To substantiate his appeal to the Council Frederick Smith obtained the support of Frances Anderton, a well-known L.A. architectural journalist and editor of the publication 'L.A. Architect' and Elizabeth Smith, curator at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art who both made a presentation to Culver City Council underwriting Frederick Smith's position that architecture is art. Written endorsements supporting Smith were also submitted from Miguel Angel Corzo (Director of the Getty Conservation Institute), Richard Koshalek (Director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art), and the distinguished architect Philip Johnson.
The background to this watershed ruling began seven years previously when Frederick Smith and his wife Laurie Smith purchased a derelict fifteen-acre site in Culver City and offered architect Eric Owen Moss a commission to convert an empty warehouse into studio space. Still working for the same client, Moss has since converted eight large unused warehouse buildings in Culver City into a series of studios, offices and workshop spaces specifically targeted to attract L.A.'s brightest designers, film companies, craftspeople, record and media companies.
In these conversions Moss reorganises the interior spaces into complex arrangements of circulation areas and light courts. Openings are made in existing roofs to admit natural light through unusual rooflight structures. His designs retain much of the exterior of the existing buildings, to which he adds new components, sometimes using ambiguous historical allusions and constructivist elements in unexpected and unfamiliar ways.
The combination of the architectural aspirations of the Smiths and Moss over the past dozen years, have put Culver City back on the map both as a smart business address, and according to the Los Angeles Architectural Guide ".......as a major centre of Post Modern architecture in the Los Angeles area"
Architecture or Art?
A few weeks after the decision by the Culver City Council the Los Angeles Times Arts Critic Christopher Knight wrote:-
"............architecture is set up to replace public art - Culver City's percent for art program has given us a stingy choice. You can line up on the side of architecture or on the side of art, but you can't have both. It's time that we started to ask why not".
Tom Finkelpearl, the Director of the Percent for Art Programme at the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs said that he was thankful that the decision taken in Culver City had not yet begun to ripple through the percent for art world. He stressed that art and architecture were different professions, that both should have a voice and that both should be able to contribute.
Moss's own opinion is that most public art in Los Angeles is junk and he has never collaborated with an artist in any of his work. He believes that the percent for art ordinance is bad because the scheme creates art to compensate for poor architecture which he considers an absurd imposition.
The ruling that Culver City Council made by amending their percent for art programme was based on the ambiguous interpretation of the word 'art'. A personal view is that a distinction should have been made between the word 'art' and the word 'design', for what an architect does is not 'art' but 'design'. To say, for example, that an unusually-designed functional element of a building designed by Moss is 'art' because it is distinct from a plain functional element of a building is illogical, since by that argument one has to accept that a staircase designed by Moss is art, while a staircase designed by an architect such as Mies van der Rohe is not art because the staircases to his buildings are functional and plain.
What the Council considered as 'art' on an Eric Owen Moss building and therefore clearly distinguished from the building's 'architecture' are unusually-designed functional elements of the building, and not really separate in any way from the building's 'architecture'. Architects interpret their designs in their own way, and some are considerably better designers than others. To say that Eric Moss's architecture may be more interesting, more exciting, or more creative than another architect's work may be true, but surely there is a difficulty in elevating functional elements of a building to high art, which is what Culver City Council has in effect done.
Reactions
The Los Angeles Times Art Critic Christopher Knight wrote:-
"Instead of Culver City's atavistic view, consider this: If a work of architecture is good enough, it transcends its lowly status and becomes - yes! - good architecture. If a building is bad enough, it is bad architecture, and if its mediocre enough, its mediocre architecture. Never, however is architecture art. Architecture is architecture. And what is wrong with that? Why should it be embarrassed about its status and seek some holier-than-thou consecration as a work of art?"
To a certain extent Moss's hostility to being forced to work with an artist whose work he considers unworthy of his architecture is understandable, however in the percent for art programme architects do have a say in which artists they work with. The creative input of the artist, if well matched with the architect, would surely complement the architecture rather than devalue it as Eric Owen Moss obviously fears.
Good public art is as important as good architecture. Public art can humanise and enrich the urban landscape and does so all over LA. Generally it is rare for public art in the city to be vandalised, a fact that may be due to the considerable local community involvement and consultation when choosing a public art project for a given site.
One implication of the Culver City ruling is that public art is now only mandatory for lesser architects, the perception being that public art is to dress up mundane pedestrian architecture, that 'real' architecture by a 'famous' architect does not require public art.
Mark Johnstone, the Public Art Administrator for the Cultural Affairs Department of the City of Los Angeles states that the percent for art scheme was never intended to change architecture or to be confrontational, it was intended to be a collaboration between artist and architect, and that many equally creative architects in the city have welcomed the opportunity to collaborate with artists.
Now that Moss is gaining national and international importance as an architect, it will be interesting to see if he is offered any commercial commissions elsewhere in Los Angeles, away from the jurisdiction of Culver City Council. He would then be obliged to collaborate with an artist for the first time in his career. The eventual outcome of the collaboration should certainly prove interesting. #
