Bad Urban Design and Public Art Installation: the MMFA's Homogeneous Plastic Yellow Poles and Night Guard Protect Their Failed Sidewalk

Last month the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts opened a new building, a new curatorial plan for its Canadian collection and a new sidewalk/sculpture garden (which, as the press release happily stresses makes it "one of the largest collection of public art in Montreal" - Montreal being really well known for its public art this is really thrilling).

Hence to enlarge its sculpture garden and create spaces to reflect and observe it, the Museum commissioned marble steps, platforms, columns and benches for its main sidewalks - on avenue du Musée and rue Sherbrooke. As the images show, today these designs are angular, of different hight and slanted (not totally unlike the ideal skatepark) and are meant to "create a high-quality urban environment for the Museum complex that is both distinctive and homogeneous, [as well as] improve the comfort and aesthetics of the outdoor spaces, integrate public artworks, [and] improve pedestrian safety in the vicinity of the Museum."

Well it seems like the Museum has been caught off guard by how much Montrealers have found these new urban props comfortable and safe. Skatboarders, in particular. But sadly these types of pedestrians are deemed unwelcome by the Museum and so the institution has hired a night guard to make sure only their ideal art lovers come enjoy their sculptures (with their eyes only). But this wasn't enough to deter the normal human pedestrian from touching and interacting with these public installations so the MMFA has added extra yellow plastic sticks to most marble corners making sure no one ever goes near their "high-quality urban environment". (I'm guessing this yellow plastic repetition is to maintain the aesthetic homogeneity mentioned in the press release.)

It seems obvious that the Museum and its favoring of what they wish their backyard looked like rather than what the reality of urban space is, are the only ones to blame for the sidewalks' current absurdity. And as a pedestrian it's hard not be saddened about 33 million dollars that were put into what the field of yellow poles is trying to protect, in particular while budgets in the arts throughout the country are being cut.

Update of 26/11/11: After the night-guard and the plastic yellow polls, the MMFA has now invested in the panoptican power of the surveillance camera to insure the peacefulness they intended for their newly developed sculpture park. Brilliant. 

The Exclusive Look of Indie Music - Tribal Beats and Possessed Singers

The launch of The Dø's latest video Slippery Slope happened yesterday at noon (very exciting says the web). And I thought the greatness of the web was it's so-called un-exclusivity. If the song itself sounds like M.I.A. meets Beach House, the 'exclusive' video reminded me of the other dozens of videos illustrating the recent material coming out of 'indie rock' (heavy beats, fragile voices and vintage tones): the ethnic 'tribal' looking thing, the geometrical prints, the monochromatic backgrounds for the choreographed scenes, the victimized yet praised singer, the coloured tinted screens, that regal animal set free and the intricate costuming of the main character pouncing around like a wild sorceress. Needless to say the video's creative sensibilities leave me speechless:

Two examples of the same successful recipe: Florence and the Machine's The Dog Days are Over and Yeasayer's Ambling Alp.

Hell No? The New Museum's latest use of 'we'

"Hell No!" was taken in March 2010 in Williamsburg, NYC

The New Museum opened its latest show Free tuesday night. It's hard to judge an exhibition during an art opening, mostly because it's a party and not a time to look at a new hanging (interestingly the after-party is the only part of the night that suggests the true purpose of such gatherings). Anyways, because of that I wouldn't judge the curating but I will judge the curatorial statement.

Inspired by “ Dispersion” (2001–), an essay by artist Seth Price, the show brings together works that tackle "the increased dispersion of culture, by examining how its circulation and reception has changed across mediums from print, to video, and to the web. In light of the way we now experience political events and pop culture, Price offers a new description of public space and questions the viability of public art as we understand it."

So Free is about the increasingly free-flowing circulation of information in 'our' day and age, its implications and how it has affected 'our' relation to and in public space. While this is definitely a theme worth an exhibition (and many more), there's a disconcerting use of all-encompassing words - such as we, culture, pubic space, dispersion, information - that dilute these complicated realities into smooth processes and make the art/show difficult to take seriously.

The most obvious of these vacuous uses is of the term 'we'.

Who is 'we'? Is it the artists' and New Museum staff's class and generation? People born between the Oil Crisis and the fall of the Berlin Wall, with high degrees, a certain creative edge and all living in NYC (12 out of 21 of the artists) or at least a Western metropole (all artists)? If that is the case, then yes that 'we' does have a different way of exchanging information and experiencing the public realm, otherwise the 'we' must be nuanced - put more bluntly exchanged for "the New Museum's target audience." It isn't a question of how the 'we' excludes those who do not own a computer, do not speak English or are living under the level of poverty but rather considering the people who are part of the Western 'popular culture' and 'public space' are not necessarily following youtube trends, responding to Yahoo! answers, staying updated on their urban landscape via Google Maps and socializing on chatroulette.

In a way the use of 'we' illustrates the paradox of the net art community: they make claims and believe they are asking questions on the  popular while dialoguing only with a niche of people who aren't part of the popular.

If this is what defines an avant-garde I think the show would have been better off reconciling the popular this avant-gardism claims to embody with the popular of the 'we' the museum says it wants to explore.

This video accompanies this post just because it's web related, and it sums the both very popular (we've all seen at least one of these) and very exclusiveness (who has seen all of them) of 'web' culture.

L'américain in Paris

I've been in Paris for 24 hours and there's a shocking quota of Americans (and perhaps, but honestly not so sure, anglo peeps) that can't switch their thank yous for mercis. Come on everyone knows merci. Maybe it's particular to the Marais and les Halles but come on, even the daftest of Frenchies is able to switch his native semiotic reflexes for a thanks when in an English speaking country.

I'm not a puritan but I'm all about integration - so if you loved all that Hemmingway and Shakespeare and co. give more than the muted buildings a chance. merci.