Port District Again Awash With Controversy Over Plans for Public Art Projects

Vito Acconci, an artist of national fame, didn’t intend to thrust San Diego into the public arts crucible earlier this year when he proposed to turn part of Spanish Landing into a park with 40 dug-out boat-shaped seats and large airplanes rising from the earth. But he has.

Roberto Salas, a young local artist, had no idea his concept of building an 18-foot blue concrete palm tree, with water cascading down from the top, on Harbor Island near Acconci’s piece would cause a furor. But it has.

If all this seems reminiscent of the debacle two years ago that ended with New York artist Ellsworth Kelly refusing to proceed with his $450,000, 65-foot stainless steel spire sculpture in Embarcadero Park, that’s because it is.

Once again, the Board of Commissioners of the San Diego Unified Port District is cast in the role of judge and jury, as it tries--in the end, with little more than instinct and personal opinion--to decide the type of public art it wants on the highly conspicuous waterfront.

At a hearing Tuesday, the commissioners will hear from the artists themselves--Acconci is traveling from his home in Brooklyn--and from the Art Advisory Committee, the volunteer group composed of professional artists, designers and museum directors and curators.

It was the committee which earlier this year recommended the works by Acconci and Salas, after a long and rigorous series of competitions, meetings and debates.

Criticism Rolled In

Almost immediately after the committee selected Acconci--at a commission of $325,000--and Salas--at a commission of $75,000--last April, criticism of the contemporary sculptures began rolling in.

Though Salas’ “Victory Palm,” has taken some hits, most of the sniping, by far, has been directed at Acconci’s sprawling “Sea of Green.”

After pictures of the sculpture were printed in newspapers, the Port District received several letters protesting the selection. And some members of the Board of Commissioners were repelled by the surreal quality of Acconci’s work--with its planes coming out of the ground, to be used as a sort of playful monument that could be climbed upon and lit at night.

The detractors said the piece resembled more a crash scene and a graveyard than a park--an inappropriate connotation, it was said, given the closeness of Lindbergh Field and PSA air disaster of 1978.

Dan Larsen, chairman of the board of commissioners, said he had hoped for something more traditional, like a sculpture of a man on a horse.

Perhaps the most biting criticism, though, came from Don Nay, Port District executive director, who lambasted the committee for “perpetrating a fraud” on the public, a comment for which he later apologized.

In the ensuing months, opinions don’t appear to have changed much.

Said Larsen on Friday: “From what I’ve heard in informal discussions, it doesn’t sound like very many commissioners are in favor” of the Acconci sculpture.

Throughout, the Arts Advisory Committee has held firm--in part because up until now, its recommendations had yet to be formally presented to the commissioners. “We stand behind these works 100%,” said advisory committee chairman Gerald Hirshberg, vice president in charge of design for Nissan Design International.

Though opinions about the art works have not changed significantly, it also appears the situation may not be an all or nothing one either. The artists say they are willing to make changes.

Could Be Something Else

“I didn’t think of it as a piece about plane crashes . . . I didn’t want it to be a joke about plane crashes,” Acconci said.

“The planes could be something else, but I’m not sure what I’d change them to.

“What I made was a proposal and a general adaptation can be made. This is not this inviolable thing,” he said. “But I don’t want to change (it) so much that the piece is killed.”

Says Salas: “I don’t feel that I need to defend the piece. It needs an explanation . . . explaining the inspiration why I decided on this particular piece.”

There is, however, a fine line between change and compromise, and no one has yet been able to define where that line lies.

Overriding the debate is the larger question about San Diego’s support for controversial pieces of public art--one which has generated negative nationwide publicity for the city.

The main example, for course, is what happened two years ago with Ellsworth Kelly, the internationally recognized minimalist artist. His proposal for a stainless steel sculpture along the waterfront evoked months of furor. In the end, the Board of Port Commissioners approved the sculpture on the condition that Kelly modify the piece, which the artist agreed to do.

But then Kelly decided he couldn’t go along with the change and dropped the project.

Though San Diego’s angst about public art is not unique--other cities around the country, including New York and Philadelphia, have from time to time been caught up in heated battles over controversial art pieces--the city’s lack of contemporary public art has placed each new offering under intense scrutiny.

The cure, according Russell Forester, a member of the advisory committee and an artist himself, is for San Diego to commission four or five large public art projects. “So if one is not liked,” he said, “a person has the choice of viewing something else.”

Hard to Fathom

Forester, who said he was speaking as an individual and not as committee member, finds it hard to fathom why the support extended to contemporary theater in the area--such as that showcased at the La Jolla Playhouse--doesn’t extend to contemporary public art.

“It astounds me that you can do experimental theater and be supported but you do experimental art and it’s not supported,” he said.

“I think,” Forester says, attempting to explain the dilemma, “the city is a very conservative community and has been run by very conservative people for a long time and they haven’t kept up with what’s going on out there culturally.”

Hirshberg, the committee’s chairman, differs somewhat from Forester’s assessment. “You should know about the heated battles at the La Jolla Playhouse . . . where there are arguments not to do controversial plays,” he said. “But they have a strong (artistic) director, Des McAnuff, who pushes” for contemporary plays.

But there is another difference between the support for theater in San Diego and public art, Hirshberg said. One is that people choose to buy a ticket and attend performances without knowing how they’ll feel until they’ve experienced the play or concert. Another is that, as the words make clear, public art is just that, public.

“Public art is placed in a setting that can be seen by everyone . . . it becomes everyone’s business and everyone has an opinion,” he said. At the same time, he said, “art isn’t about popularity contests or voting.”

“I think it will be devastating,” he said, “if we allow public criticism to stop the arts. I think we’re going to have to go through a cumbersome and difficult period.”

Port Commissioner Louis Wolfsheimer resents the image that port commissioners are a bunch of ham-fisted philistines unwilling to accept controversial public art pieces.

‘A Lot of Guts’

“In my opinion, the board showed a lot of guts (in the Ellsworth Kelly decision). We showed a lot of courage. It’s Kelly who showed a lot of cowardice by backing away,” said Wolfsheimer, who says he has an open mind about that the Acconci and Salas pieces.

“There’s a certain faction that thinks their type of art is the only one that should be in public places,” he said. “There’s room for everything. Look, you’re never going to get unanimity in a community about what good public art is . . . whatever decision we make, half the people are going to be angry.”

Wolfsheimer says he has doubts about whether “great art or mediocre art for that matter is done by consensus.”

Taking a sarcastic jab at the commissioners critics, Wolfsheimer says, “The commissioners are a group of lay people not up on what is au courant in New York or Paris.”

And so the scene is set, and the outcome could have reverberations in the artist community for years to come.

“Every community gets what it deserves,” says Mary Beebe, a member of the advisory committee and curator of UC-San Diego’s outdoor Stuart Collection. “If they want quality, they’ll get quality . . . it will get a man on a horse or a Vito Acconci.”

“I think,” she said, “this is an important moment for San Diego.”

Staff Writer Hilliard Harper contributed to this story.