The latest in a series of Harbor Art Gallery Art/Talks presented by Arts On the Point took place on Wednesday, February 12 and featured Carole Ann Mehan, the curator of Boston’s chapter of the Institute of Contemporary Arts [ICA]. The ICA has been introducing Boston to the most important artists of their respective eras for over 65 years. According to Mehan, one of the ICA’s primary concerns is to “democratize” art and “bring it to the people.” The actions made towards enhancing the aesthetics of some Boston’s landmarks are generally taken for granted. Mehan’s presentation was done with the aid of slides and centered around a set of public projects. The name of this set of projects is “Vita Brevis” (life is short), which, as Mehan explains, refers to the fact that most art outlives the people responsible for it, and its impact has a sort of permanence that most human creation lacks.
The ICA website (http://www.icaboston.org) describes Vita Brevis thusly:
:The program, founded in 1998 on the premise that it is vital, healing, and urgent to bring the creative process and the contemporary art that results from it back into the fabric of urban life, presents at least one major project a year in a setting outside of the ICA. Unusual settings are used for these project – public parks, historic sites, rooftops, riverbank – resulting in works that encourage people to experience Boston’s environs and history with renewed meaning and focus.”
The first Vita Brevis project Mehan showed and discussed was a 1998 collaboration of 4 artists who picked out locations along the Freedom Trail and added pieces to them that either amplified their historical significance or brought a sense of contrast and irony to make people see them in a new light; the overall theme was freedom and tyranny. For example, Barbara Steinman created a fabric piece to place at the bandstand on the Boston Common. This piece contained both rubbings from various sculptures and monuments around the Common, which are generally celebratory of war and victory in bloodshed, as well as verses from a poem written by Steinman herself, which was promoting peace and optimism. Jim Hodges placed wind chimes among the tree branches in the courtyard behind the Old North Church in an effort to subtly but effectively complement the experience of the church by adding a sonic factor. Mildred Howard took on the Old South Meeting House, installing an arrangement of rail tracks, mirrors and cannonballs to signify the journey, self-discovery and struggle that comprise the search for freedom – more specifically, the Underground Railroad. Krzysztof Wodiczko contributed to the endeavor with a very poignant public projection onto the Bunker Hill Monument that depicted several testimonials from families of homicide victims whose cases had gone unsolved, so as to bring to light some of the more flagrant faults of the American justice system.
Another Vita Brevis project Mehan described to the gathering was “Art on the Emerald Necklace,” which was started with the goal of enhancing Frederick Olmstead’s (who designed the Emerald Necklace, a set of five public parks) idea that experiencing nature has restorative effects on the human body and soul. Most of these undertakings were very subtle. The most visible was Barnaby Evans’ attempt to revitalize the stagnant Muddy River by pumping almost 150,000 gallons of water from the Charles into it. James Boorstein did a piece titled Emanations, wherein he placed vibrating devices below the surface of the water of Ward’s Pond that created ripples along the water that gave the illusion of stones being dropped into it. Nari Ward, an artist with an interest in restoring derelict pieces from historic sites, restored a discarded bear cage from the Franklin Park Zoo (Franklin Park having been dubbed the “jewel of the Emerald Necklace” in years past) and turned it into a “hugging post” for humans, beautifying the surroundings by planting flowers. Sheila Kennedy and Frano Violich, upon learning of Olmstead’s original plans to turn what is now the Casey Overpass into a greenbelt, set up a series of garden potted plants along the edges of the overpass.
Olafur Eliasson is another artist who has contributed work to Vita Brevis. His piece involved placing a barge filled with Icelandic lava rocks by the waterfront outside the Moakley Courthouse. The object was to raise people’s awareness of their surroundings by including a rough, organic piece that was constantly shifting its balance (being on a barge) in the context of such an otherwise manicured and artificial setting. People were allowed to step aboard the barge and play around with the rocks, and really get a feel for the very rugged and natural landscape of Iceland, and how it contrasted with the synthetic downtown Boston area.
Further information on Vita Brevis and other ICA Boston projects that Mrs. Mehan discussed (including “Conspire,” which is a program that involves local artists from the Boston area) can be found on the organization’s website. As a whole, this Art/Talk provided an in-depth look at public art as a whole, and sparked a lot of discussion amongst the audience as to the significance of many of these works.