art in the morning

There's been a big rush of public art--both permanent, temporary, and completely ephemeral--in the past decade, likely the biggest explosion since the large metal sculpture that proliferated starting in the 1960s and last through the early '80s. Much of this new guard is good and it used to be what excited me most in contempoary art--the site specificity, the opportunity for unique engagement outside of the whitebox, the potential unexpectedness. Though my perspective has changed now (perhaps because of the proliferation?), really good pieces are still environment and vision-changing.*

I drive past this piece often while in LA and I just love it. I love it in the morning and I love it at night. It's hard to keep driving straight as I crane my head to catch it from multiple angles. It is among the most outstanding pieces I've seen.

Chris Burden (of shoot yourself fame)
Urban Light, 2008
202 restored cast iron antique street lamps, 320 1/2 x 686 1/2 x 704 1/2 in.
The Gordon Family Foundation's gift to "Transformation: The LACMA Campaign"

*I need to write a whole post on MIT's amazing job Percent for Art program, where a percent (1-3%, I believe) of the budget for any new building is put toward a new site-specific commission for the Institute's public art collection. New pieces by Cai Guo-Jiang (for Sloan!), Anish Kapoor (Stata Center), and Richard Fleischner (Media Lab) will be unveiled this fall. YAY! There's much to say here--there are a few existing pieces I just love (hello Sol Lewitt) and am paritcularly excited about the new Cai piece (such a good conception of public space and how the piece can change over time)--but it will wait.