Tilted Arc was one of the most unpopular pieces of public art to grace downtown Manhattan: I remember commuters hating to have to walk around it to get to work. They had a nickname for it, which translates into ********** here at the Fray. The piece was moved to the Holland Tunnel entrance at some point in the 80s, where it made more sense visually, even if its purpose was neutralized because no one could legally hop into the neutral ground to walk around it and complain.

The new location also had the advantage of being much closer to Puffy's Bar (and McGovern's, and the Raccoon Lodge and every other dive populated by Tribecasoho artists like Serra, John Chamberlain, Tom Woodruff, that creepy fish lady (ok, Marisol), their offspring, and their hangers on. And they were spotty tippers, too.

I guess that's why DIA decided to buy the building across the street from Puffy's and fill it with (I can't remember if it was dirt, brass rods, or what. It was the 80s). They must have known that the drunken trek from the Village to Canal Street and the Tilted Arc, down to that bar way down by West Street that got torn down in 82 would naturally have to pass them, and no minimalist fan could possibly walk by an unmarked building with an occult front entrance without hoping that something almost nonexistent lurked artfully within. If not DIA space, then maybe a model bar full of foxes in brown leather YSL pants with puffy white shirts and lots of aubergine eye shadow. Or even better, a pool table and cheap beer.

I had a chance to take a long gander at the Tilted Arc installation before it was dismantled, and although my instinct is to protect artist's rights, in control of content and how it's handled after the work is completed and delivered, I found myself sympathetic with the grousing over the monolithic presence. A large conceit on the part of site-specific artists and architects is to act as philosopher-teachers and ersatz gods of a kind in their percieved need to force people to relate to their landscape or cityscape in different ways; bolstered by soggy progressive notions that the mass of us are encased and buffeted by material objects and the desire to garner more material things before they die, Serra, at turns brilliant and magnificently literate, falls in line with an elitist notion that we need to shaken up and made to see things as they actually are, according to his script.

Often times this succeeds, and a community experiences the marvelous, if somewhat puzzling experience of seeing familiar spaces transformed into something else altogether; hardly so with Tilted Arc, which transforms it's original space for sure, but at the sacrifice of wonder or the desired revolutionizing of the senses.It was an intrusion, an obstacle of arrogant mass, impeding rather than improving the city space it sat upon. Immensity alone, sheer volume of scale, seemed enough for Serra to deliver his metaphor with. It actually diminished one's capacity , whether they be worker or visitor, to enjoy the city scape, as winds got sharper, colder, shadows were longer, the work rested in became darker longer, sooner.

His work seems more successful to me when it's placed so that it becomes incidental to the landscape, rather than the reason for it.

For many years there was a large, two part piece (the title escapes me) on display on the concrete plaza that leads to the Dallas Museum of Art. Visually, it was unavoidable - it was the only thing on the concrete and so unmissable. On the other hand, it was dwarfed by the surrounding buildings and the mass of concrete surrounding it.

Since it was in a large open space, it was easily avoided. You had to walk past it to get to the doors, but you didn't have to walk anywhere near it to get there.

Almost invariably, people would walk either beside it or through it. I'd like to think that they weren't taking that route because it was the only shade in the block.....

Often times this succeeds, and a community experiences the marvelous, if somewhat puzzling experience of seeing familiar spaces transformed into something else altogether; hardly so with Tilted Arc, which transforms its original space for sure, but at the sacrifice of wonder or the desired revolutionizing of the senses.It was an intrusion, an obstacle of arrogant mass, impeding rather than improving the city space it sat upon. Immensity alone, sheer volume of scale, seemed enough for Serra to deliver his metaphor with. It actually diminished one's capacity , whether they be worker or visitor, to enjoy the city scape, as winds got sharper, colder, shadows were longer, the work rested in became darker longer, sooner.

I think I'm becoming more accepting of contemporary art, including Serra's sculptures. To me, "an obstacle of arrogant mass" with its "sheer volume of scale" that diminishes "one's capacity...to enjoy the city scape" is a valid artistic experience.

Of course, I admit I never "experienced" Serra's Tilted Arc, so I may be just whistling Dixie. However, I do think art can do more than inspire wonder or revolutionize the senses. (But I wouldn't have said that five years ago). I also think that my experiences last week with the large Dearborn Street sculptures in Chicago has influenced my thinking.

Mary Ann

in Central Park better embodied your ideal than Serra's (especially 70s) stuff, which, like Woodruff's, often left people scratching their heads. The Central Park flags made wonderful a dreary winter parkscape, without obstructing it, by catching the winter sun and setting it on fire daily. At sunset the things were magnificent (granted on some days they did look a bit like a drying rack full of giant racing shorts). Serra's pieces in the 70s, like Woodruff's, often evoked puzzlement if not outright irritation, depending on the location, but their size was a great germ of an idea. I do agree with you that immensity alone isn't everything, even in landscape-size art, but Serra's work needs size to communicate its message. Like the Stone Henge of This Is Spinal Tap, size is the difference between the cosmic and the comic. On the other hand, one sometimes feels oppressed by the neo-Mussolinian bleak hugeness of some of Serra's pieces. Others become almost forces of nature as you approach them. I guess you have to be in the mood to feel Serra, otherwise it's going to be a pain in the ass. Does this make him the John Phillip Sousa of minimalism? Don't quote me.

Someody in another thread mentioned that an installation worker was killed by one of Serra's pieces, back in the 70's. Tragic, but it reminded me that when I was a painting student, one of my teachers blurted out, apropos of nothing, that "art never killed anyone!", and the very next day some unfortunate person was killed by one of Christo's errant, windblown umbrellas in the Cajon Pass. Now that I think of it, my favorite piece in the Serra show at (Gagosian?) in 2001, was the two big squarish chunks of steel titled "Ali- Frazier"

One major difference between Christo & Co's Central Park piece and Serrra's Tilted Arc can be expressed in a word: temporary.

If Tilted Arc had been a transient mounting, meant to engage the citizenry for some fixed period of weeks or a few months, I doubt there would have been a problem. It was the intended permanence of a piece which dominated a public space, obviating the space's other uses, that made it intolerable to both the local citizenry and the city's population at large (there weren't many defenders outside of the arts community). Without that political context and brouhaha, perhaps more people would have had the opportunity (and more relaxed mental state) to appreciate Serra's work.

For that matter, if the Christo banners had been planted as a permanent addition to the parks, there would have been blood in the streets. Instead, we had a lovely break in the bleakness of the seaon; people had a fine time arguing over aesthetics; and before you knew it, it was gone like an Andy Goldsworthy piece, intended to pass away.

Those orange flags would have looked like hell by June, but the sight of them against the bare trees, ablaze with sunset, will never leave me. Also the gym shorts thing.

Serra's pieces age more gracefully, so I don't have real objections to their outdoor permanence except when they interfere with, well, commerce. Tilted arc was less intrusive at the Holland Tunnel, but rendered impotent, because it wasn't really "anywhere" (in New Orleans we'd call that location the "neutral ground"); it didn't really mean anything anymore. Had it been placed among the elms in the Central Park mall, it might have profited from its context more fully. The space and surroundings would have framed it better, contrasting its otherworldly curves with those of elm and walkway. Out of reach but still in the middle of things.