Letters Letters (June 16, 2004)

The business of art

Editor,

I would like to thank Bill D'Agostino for his piece on the art/fountain brouhaha in Palo Alto, a city I learned to love and respect.

But I don't believe there is a conflict between the artist, on one side, and the developer, the business mogul, and the former mayor, on the other. I believe there is a conflict between public interest and private interest.

It also appears that the city's Public Works Department played some sort of trick on the Public Art Commission, bypassing it and managing to not install the sculpture by the due date (I understand it should have been installed before May 10).

The real story that remains to be written is this one: By what authority does the Public Works Department delay the installation of public art? And couldn't they at least come up with a better excuse than the "hard time to find a contractor" one? I'd really love to read what Palo Altans think about having their Public Works Department make public-art decisions.

The sculpture is a reality resulting from a decision made by the legitimate public body, the Public Art Commission; the plaza is a hypothesis apparently cherished by the Public Works Commission. If the two can co-exist in the future, as Roxy Rapp suggested, then let the proposed new landscape be conceived and built around the sculpture and not the sculpture be "inserted" in it.

The landscape for which the sculpture was conceived is already there. Let it be installed immediately, that is if Palo Alto respects at all its reputation for being an enlightened contemporary community, not some 19th century town where the owners of the largest herds equate public interest with their own business interests.
Leda Beck
Woodside Road
Redwood City

E-mail a friend a link to this story.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]