A boomtown like this and Atlanta doesn't have one iconic piece of public art —- the stuff of postcards, snapshots and shore-to-shore recognition. Maybe it never will.
But for a handful of the city's neighborhoods, the story may be about to change.
Next week, the Office of Cultural Affairs' Public Art Program will announce its selections for the Neighborhood Gateway Project. Three of the city's parks or neighborhoods are going to get permanent public works of art, albeit on a small scale. Each sculpture is supposed to reflect the "spirit" of the neighborhood and, in the best of cases, become a signature for the surrounding area.
At least that's the hope.
"If it does a good job of saying what a neighborhood is, has some intellectual content and gets people thinking about their relationship to their neighborhood and what that means, then it has a chance to be provocative," said David Hamilton, board chairman of the Metropolitan Public Art Coalition, an advocacy group.
The project is rooted in a 2005 parks and recreation improvement bond. About $500,000 was earmarked for public art, including 12 temporary installations around the city and a major mural across from the King Center.
About $150,000 will be used to commission three artists selected from six Gateway finalists. Those finalists, winnowed from 24 who responded to an open call, were chosen by a panel including representatives from Atlanta Beltline Inc. and the cultural affairs office, said Eddie Granderson, director of the city's public art program.
As far as locations, it's down to these parks: Adair, Isabel Gates Webster, Candler, Southbend, South Side and Peachtree Hills.
To capture the soul of a neighborhood without it being banal or inappropriate —- that's the challenge the six artists faced.
Birmingham artist Chris Fennell bid for South Side Park and its baseball fields, and created what appears to be a 12-foot arch constructed of more than 600 used aluminum baseball bats. The arch is meant to stand for one of the two undulating pieces of leather that when stitched together make the cover of a baseball.
"The scratches and writing on the bats is what gives it this power," Fennell said.
But as is often the case with public art, as well as neighborhood politics, building consensus around a particular proposal can be difficult.
The proposal for Candler Park, by artist David Landis, is a nearly 7-foot sphere of bronze castings of hands from people in the neighborhood planned for the park's southwest corner. Landis talked with park users and neighbors to refine the concept.
But before the final proposals were selected, the Early Edgewood-Candler Biracial History Project came out against the sculpture. The group has been dedicated to preserving the early history of the neighborhood, when working-class African-American families lived there. To them, that history was not reflected in Landis' submission.
"It was not informed about the history of the land it was proposing upon," said Edith Kelman of the History Project. "We're interested in getting some historic markers."
Kelman and other members eventually met with the artist to express their concerns. They came away feeling they'd been heard, she said.
Granderson said the selected artists are required to meet with neighborhood associations before actual work on any piece begins. But which three artists and parks will be picked is under wraps until next week.
The winning submissions should be in the ground by December.
By Rosalind Bentley
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/22/08
Posted By: Daniel Moss
Thursday, June 18th 2009 at 1:55PM
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