December 19, 2003
Early Reaction To The Mayor's Murals Proposal (And Some Additional Thoughts)
There's some newspaper coverage today of the Mayor's new proposal for the City's murals which fleshes out some of the early reaction. Over in the Portland Tribune article, there's response from Commissioner Leonard, Metro Murals (who I guess doesn't bother to check email very often), and one of the owners of Mirador:
"If we had a first choice, it would be to take the murals out of the sign code and have them handled in a whole separate category," said Lynn Hanrahan, who with her husband, Steve, owns the Mirador household goods and gifts store, at 2106 S.E. Division St.
...
"Ironically, I think the mayor’s strident position on this allows billboards to proliferate," [Leonard] said. Clear Channel "consistently wins their case in court," he said. "I just think it's a huge, huge, strategic mistake for people who want to reduce billboards."
...
"By opening up this process, obviously a group like ours is going to make a push to create more murals," said Rose Griego, co-chairwoman of Metro Murals. "You can make large-scale murals, pay your one fee, and have the support of the city and not be afraid you’re doing something wrong."
And today's Oregonian article adds reaction from Clear Channel:
Clear Channel representative Len Bergstein and Leonard said the mayor's proposal doesn't address Clear Channel's $1.3 million court judgment against the city and also is a roundabout effort that will run up against court rulings restricting the city from imposing regulations based on content.
Then again, I don't think the Mayor's proposal was ever intended to address this dispute. My impression from when talks with Clear Channel were scuttled is that the Mayor believed those negotiations would have given up too much unnecessarily -- even if ditching those discussions ultimately would mean the City would have to pay the court judgment against it.
Elsewhere in this article, Leonard expressed some concern that the Mayor's proposal creates a "system where art is judged by an entity to be OK where commercial signs are not OK." According to the article, however:
Katz emphasized that commercial as well as noncommercial work could seek public-art status. She said that meets constitutional tests because the approval process would treat both similarly and does not distinguish on content.
And this, utlimately, will be the test. Since commercial work would be permitted to apply for status as public art. According to the article, City attorneys "shared Katz's confidence that this proposal would meet constitutional tests that derailed past efforts."
But public art's defintion under this proposal would include such elements as "community support" and "originality" -- and if the latter is defined at least partially in terms of uniqueness, mass-market billboards simply will not meet the criteria.
Granted, this perhaps is a thin line that must be walked carefully, but it's only a great concern to those who find more interest in relatively unrestrained commercial signage than they do in controlling visual urban blight. I, for one, will shed no tears if the latest and greatest mass-market billboard fails to receive status as public art because it fails a uniqueness test.
On the other hand, I do think there are potential examples of commercial works which could reasonably be considered public art. One hypothetical I created yesterday could play out as follows.
Suppose a single branch of the regional Burgerville chain decided to take an exterior wall and paint a mural celebrating the company's use of regional goods and suppliers. If the work indeed was unique, and not something the company intended simply to replicate at other locations, it doesn't seem, to me anyway, that there would be any serious problem with considering it to be a mural under the new proposal, despite its obvious commercially-related intent.
But if, say, Nike wanted to plaster its latest mass-market billboard advertisement across dozens of signs or walls owned by Clear Channel of any other communications company, that clearly would fail the originality/uniqueness test at the very least.
And I fail to see how either of these situations would present some sort of great difficulty or loss for the City of Portland.
As near as I can tell from what's known of the proposal and the reactions its generated thus far, I have to say that Mayor Katz appears to be one the right track, and her proposal is leaps and bounds beyond the defunct settlement negotiated by Commissioner Leonard.
Comments (9)
Jack Bog on 19 Dec 2003
Originality and uniqueness? As judged by some bureaucrats in the Portland planning gestapo?
Bwaaaaaaahahahahaha! Not only is that unconstitutional, it's stupid. Vintage Vera.
Noah@Alliancewatch on 19 Dec 2003
Jack obviously misses the important part about who will be doing the judging of the merits of the mural. It won't be "some bureaucrats in the Portland planning gestapo". The determination of whether a mural is public art will be done by the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) which is a independent arts agency serving the entire metro area. They do assist the city in administrating the city's 1% for public art program, but they are not a city agency. The group at RACC who make the decisions about public art is 10-person public art advisory committee made up of artists, architects, art critics and RACC board members.
Rose Griego on 19 Dec 2003
Okay I'm sorry, I have been pretty busy and haven't had a chance to answer all my emails. In fact, I have received so many responses from mural supporters weighing in on the Mayor's proposal, it blew out my cheap little yahoo mailbox; I apologize to anyone who may have had emails kicked back, please resend.
To elaborate on my comments from the papers, and in agreement with Bix, I too think Mayor Katz's proposal is on the right track. Approaching it by taking murals out of the sign code now puts the burden on advertising companies, like Clear Channel, to prove that what they create fits the criteria as public art. Our whole point was that mural art is inherently different than commercial advertising and should never have been lumped into the sign code in the first place. The proposed process is not going to be discriminatory towards commercial art, and in that sense it will raise the bar, and if they come up with some really beautiful and original pieces of "advertising" then it has as equal an opportunity to go through the public art process as a mural. Of course there will be a lot more details to tweak as the public gets to put their two-cents worth in, but that is why we are going the public art route. We want this to be a completely transparent process, from the input we will be soliciting from the Neighborhood and Business Associations, to the RACC proceess which has artistic peers and everyday citizens as the judges, to the testimonials before the city council when it comes to that. When we prove to the advertising companies that we aren't just a few people here and there that are fighting this issue, we can show them that we truly are a city that values art over advertising and livability over visual pollution. Metro Murals appreciates all the support the community has voiced and we are looking forward to greeting you all next summer, paint brushes in hand, to help us create a more beautiful city.
Rose Griego
Metro Murals
Jack Bog on 20 Dec 2003
"The determination of whether a mural is public art will be done by the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) which is a independent arts agency serving the entire metro area. They do assist the city in administrating the city's 1% for public art program, but they are not a city agency. The group at RACC who make the decisions about public art is 10-person public art advisory committee made up of artists, architects, art critics and RACC board members."
Who's that -- Jonathan Nicholas, Neil Goldschmidt's wife, and a guy from Wieden + Kennedy?
Unconstitutional -- and dumb.
The One True b!X on 20 Dec 2003
Where, exactly, is the content-based restriction which is going to make this proposal unconstitutional?
Rose Griego on 20 Dec 2003
If Jack has a better proposal, then now is his chance to present it. I readily admit that the Mayor's proposal is not going to please everyone, but at this point (5 years and no significant murals created) this is huge leap forward in addressing the issue. And at least it is approaching it from an art standpoint, as opposed to the other ideas which were coming at it from a business standpoint and did not exactly encourage mural creation. And this proposal is by no means final and ironclad, it's a living breathing idea that is going to need everyone's (constructive not destructive) criticism and concrete applicable ideas in order for it to work. You'll all have your chance to have your say, I fully expect to see all of the mayor's critics at the public meetings regarding this issue to hear your ideas presented in public.
Believe me, I have heard all the reservations about the involvement of RACC from my own Board members, many of whom are working mural artists. The Mayor's committe has included not only the City folks, but several artists, an arts lawyer, and 3 other MM board members aside from myself, so the voice of the mural community is being heard. RACC is not some "evil bureaucracy" intent on squashing artistic freedom, it wouldn't exist if it went around dissin' the same artists they are trying to help. And there will be mural artists and people like me (who is not a mural artist, I am in fact an accounting geek but a dedicated volunteer for the mural cause)on the mural review committee, so it will not quite be the "art gestapo" of Jack's imagining. And from what I understand, even Jack could be on the RACC board if he applied.
And as far as the unconstitutionality, I too would like elaboration on that point, if Jack really has a valid issue, then I will gladly bring it up with the committee if it is something we haven't addressed. There are several people who are filing actions in regards to the unconstitutionality of the original judgement (which is in appeals) which is a whole different issue than what the Mayor is doing here. That fight is going to be lengthy (going on 6 yrs now) and costly (something Metro Murals had neither time nor resources for) whereas the purpose of this proposal is to address the issue in a way that gets the artists back to work painting more murals.
Feedback people, give me constructive feedback!
Rose G.
Metro Murals
Noah@Alliancewatch on 22 Dec 2003
Jack said:
"Who's that -- Jonathan Nicholas, Neil Goldschmidt's wife, and a guy from Wieden + Kennedy?"
From the RACC's Annual Report
(with brief bio's by me from google)
Public Art Advisory Committee
Lois Allan (contributing editor for Artweek)
Robert Calvo (Portland artist)
Stephen Hayes (Portland artist)
Terri Hopkins (curator "The Art Gym" Marylhust University art space)
Bruce James (no bio info found)
Shelley Jordon (artist)
Mike McCulloch (architect, principal at WaterLeaf Archictecture)
Randy Miller (state senator?, RACC Treasurer)
Alice Norris (RACC Board Chair)
Ron Paul (Portland Chef)
Melody Teppola (NW Natural Board Member)
So let me see, 3 artists, 1 museum curator, 1 art critic, 1 architect, 1 chef, 2 board members, and 1 member of a major corporation. That seems like a pretty good mix of people and doesn't seem overy beuracratic. It also doesn't seem to be to "artsy" or impractical.
Jack Bog on 23 Dec 2003
This is so ludicrous. No one in the history of Western Civilization has ever come up with a satisfactory definition of "art" -- yet this group is going to do it? Laughable.
Randy Leonard had a proposal that at least had a chance to be workable.
Vera should quit now, before she embarrasses the city any further.
The One True b!X on 23 Dec 2003
Thing is, however, RACC already has a definition of "public art" -- it's just that murals would be folded into it, perhaps with an additional criterion or two. So that's a non-issue, unless we're going to undo RACC's entire public art program in the process of bitching about this proposal.
Meanwhile, I know you're smarter than this, Jack. It's one thing to just smack something because you don't like it, but it's another altogether to seemingly avoid giving any specifics on why you seem to think it's untenable.