08
Oct
2002
The name of the work is Gridmo, and artist Tim Prentice says it represents what you think it means. If it doesn't inspire you, "it doesn't mean anything," said Prentice, a self-described "kinetic sculptor" from Connecticut.
Art is always subject to interpretation by those viewing it, and there are no objective standards with which to judge its quality. Yet the reaction to Gridmo, the first of three permanent public-art installations at the Quad City International Airport, has been lukewarm. People are choosing their words carefully when discussing the project.
Based on Prentice's previous work, it's easy to see why the 14-person selection committee assembled by Quad City Arts chose him as one of its three finalists. But the final product is strangely lackluster, and it begs the question: What went wrong? The answer is that what the selection committee chose isn't what the artist delivered in terms of motion.
Conceptually speaking, Gridmo had the potential to be fascinating - an ever-changing work of art that would never be the same twice because of its dozens of pieces and constant movement (an integral component of "kinetic sculpture").
Yet it's largely static. Close to 100 raw metal strips hang motionless from what look like twisted coat hangers in a grid pattern that doesn't draw the eye like the artist's other public artworks. As a result, the installation is easy to miss. In its final form, the artwork arguably fails most of the criteria used to select it.
"It's doing nothing"
Gridmo includes 98 pieces of aluminum, weighted and suspended from the coffered ceiling of the 112-foot-long corridor between the main airport terminal and the concourse. Each three-foot-long piece is on a swivel and can rotate 360 degrees. The name is a combination of the "grid" of the ceiling and "mobile."
The abstract sculpture was installed on September 17, and members of the media had a chance to talk with its creator the next morning.
"Every time you walk through here it's going to be different," Prentice said. The artist likened Gridmo to "98 boats in the harbor ... affected by the wind." Unfortunately, the airport's enclosed corridor rarely has a current strong enough to move the Gridmo's components. That's arguably poor planning on the artist's part.
There seems to be little enthusiasm for the piece so far. Quad City Arts, which coordinated the Art at the Airport installation; Genesis Health System, which sponsored the commission; and airport leaders are measured with any praise.
Bill Bornhoeft, a commissioner of the Metropolitan Airport Authority and member of the selection jury, was short with his response to an initial inquiry last week: "No comment. I've just seen it for the first time. I'd like to talk to other people who were in that group."
A week later, after seeing Gridmo again, Bornhoeft was more open. "The thing is supposed to move around a lot, and it's not moving," he said. "It's doing nothing."
Megan Quinn, a local artist and arts educator who was also on the selection committee, said she hasn't seen the artwork but noted, "It's about movement. That's the primary interest. That's what's going to provide variety in the piece." Even with movement, she said, "This is a minimal piece."
Genesis spokesperson Kathy Horrell said the Genesis board of directors would be viewing the artwork as a group at an invitation-only reception October 17, but she did offer her own opinion: "It's a nice piece, personally," she said. "Art is subjective. Some people are going to like it, and other's aren't." She added that the work is "a good representation of the industrial aspects of our community."
"It greatly enhances that connecting corridor," said Judi Holdorf, Quad City Arts' executive director. "It's a real opportunity for people to pause and look at something interesting." Holdorf also said the River Cities' Reader - and not the artwork itself - was "creating concern" about Gridmo.
Lori Roderick, Quad City Arts' community arts administrator, praised the way Gridmo was tailored to the airport corridor. "It's built just perfectly for the space," she said when asked what she liked about it. "It's a much better place having it there than not having it there."
Roderick also said she looks forward to seeing how the airport will affect the piece. "The artwork was designed to change with the atmosphere in the airport," she said. "I'm excited to see how the artwork changes."
Roderick said she hasn't surveyed the various stakeholders in the Art at the Airport project - the boards of Genesis and the airport. "I haven't done a call-back to everybody," she said.
"Are you going to notice that there's art there?"
Because personal opinions on the quality of the artwork will vary, the most objective way to gauge the success of Gridmo is to look at the criteria used to select the artist and the piece.
Quad City Arts sent out a call for entries in September 2001 to 1,900 artists from around the country for the three public-art sites at the airport. Submissions for each site were reviewed and juried separately.
The review process began in December 2001, and a jury of 14 people reviewed submissions from 60 artists, representing 21 states. Applicants were asked to send résumés, slides of recent work, and an artist statement, among other materials.
Roderick said that the committee evaluated artists' work based on five criteria:
• Initial impact. "Are you going to notice that there's art there?" Roderick said.
• Interest level of repeated viewings.
• Technical workmanship.
• How well the work might match the Quad City International Airport site.
• Whether the work would give a unique and positive impression of the Quad Cities.
The selection committee ranked work and selected three finalists and three alternates, Roderick said. "It wasn't as if there was a giant clump ... that had to be fought over," Roderick said. "The six stood out."
The finalists were notified and given a $1,000 design fee to submit a specific proposal. The artists then gave presentations to the selection committee in February. The jury used the same criteria to evaluate the proposals, with the additional consideration of durability.
When asked how closely the proposal matched the finished product, Roderick said, "Exactly. They were very true." Prentice's proposal included blueprints and a video representation, while another finalist submitted a computer-generated model and the other offered a foam-core model. "It didn't take much imagination to blow them up to fill the space," Roderick said of the proposals.
Bornhoeft said Prentice's video proposal of other installations he'd done was stunning: "The presentation was beautiful. It was perpetual motion."
Quinn said that Prentice's work "looked pretty innovative and exciting in terms of movement and color."
Still, the work of the two other finalists was "more accessible and more decorative," Quinn said. "I was surprised the jury chose Prentice." (She added that she preferred Prentice's work over that of the other finalists.)
Shape, Color, and Movement
A look at Prentice's previous work shows why the jury was attracted to him. His Web site features animations of many kinetic sculptures, and they are striking. But the elements that distinguish those pieces are largely absent from Gridmo, namely shape, color, and movement.
It's interesting to see how Gridmo contrasts with Prentice's other sculptures. Michael Kimmelman, writing in the New York Times in 2000, said, "His works are pleasurable and meant to be surprising in the straightforward sense that hard materials are used to create soft, fluid, complex movement."
Prentice's works typically have colorful objects arranged in clearly defined shapes - circles, cones, or spirals. Those pieces that are less concrete - with the objects in a field rather than a specific shape - often have reflective surfaces or move as a whole, making them appear more active than they might actually be. In contrast, Gridmo, with its plain metal strips hung separately in a grid, simply doesn't have the compelling aesthetics and visual punch.
Another issue with Gridmo is that the pieces of the artwork are almost hidden. The coffered ceiling is two feet higher than the rest of the ceiling, so the aluminum strips are nearly flush; the artwork is easy to miss, because it almost looks like an architectural element rather than public art. (I didn't notice the artwork until it was pointed out to me.)
But the biggest problem is that Gridmo is designed on the assumption of movement, and so far the pieces just hang there. If the metal strips are in flux, the artwork would attract interest in spite of its visual drabness.
When Gridmo does move, it is a barely perceptible random swaying, like a wind chime without its tones. Other pieces on the artist's Web site are far more kinetic, moving as if they have a sense of where they want to go.
Prentice acknowledged that the piece might be most active during certain times of the year, when the air flow is greater, perhaps from the air-conditioning or heating systems.
In other words, although the concept has merit, the lack of air moving through the corridor results in a work that fails most of the selection committee criteria: It doesn't have much initial impact; it's too static to hold interest on repeated viewings; the materials and treatment lack a professional finish; and because of all of those things, the impression it gives of the Quad Cities is not necessarily positive.
One transportation-security employee said some people going through the corridor notice the artwork and look up, while others don't. She added that some people inquire about the installation and are surprised when they're told it's art.
When asked whether anything about Gridmo struck him, a passenger picking up his father shrugged. "Not really," he said.
But Prentice insists Gridmo is eye-catching. "There wasn't a soul who didn't look up" when he was installing it, Prentice said.
"A Good Process"
The call-to-artists pamphlet puts the "artist budget" for the corridor artwork at $25,000, although it notes that "precise artists' budgets [are] to be determined upon selection of finalists." Other sources confirm a gift from Genesis in the neighborhood of $60,000.
When asked by a reporter at the press event on September 18, Quad City Arts Executive Director Holdorf refused to say how much money Prentice was paid.
Roderick declined to supply the River Cities' Reader with the names of people on the 14-person jury. "We usually don't put out a list," she said. The group was made of local artists, arts educators, arts administrators, business leaders, and representatives from the sponsoring groups, she said.
Roderick also said she would not discuss the size of the gift from Genesis Health System or the amount of money the artist was paid. Holdorf also declined to give figures, saying that Genesis' gift was "very significant to the arts."
Horrell also did not want to talk about the monetary gift. "I'm not going to give you an exact amount," she said when asked about Genesis' gift. "They don't think it's important. ... They don't want to say how much they gave."
What's most distressing is that a disappointing result for the first commissioned artwork for the airport has the potential to hurt gifts to future public-art efforts community-wide. Genesis and the airport together provided the money, space, and vision for public art, and that commitment cannot be taken away. But the generosity of sponsors such as Genesis might not continue without safeguards to ensure that artists deliver on their promises, and that sponsors are pleased with their investments.
But Holdorf defended the selection system as "a good process," and one that doesn't need to be changed. Now that Gridmo is hanging in the connecting corridor, that's a determination all visitors to the airport can make for themselves.
Sidebar: Other Planned Public Art at the Airport
Tim Prentice's Gridmo is the first of three planned pieces of permanent public art at the Quad City International Airport.
The Art at the Airport program includes several components: the three juried installations, the Art at the Airport Gallery (co-founded by MidCoast Fine Arts and Quad City Arts and now managed by Quad City Arts) showcasing local and regional artists as well as works loaned by corporations. The goal, according to an Art at the Airport brochure, is to "enhance the visitor experience by exhibiting a unique blend of art and design."
Tim Prentice's Gridmo was the first finished product of the juried process, and the second piece will be installed later this fall, a heritage-themed mural by Joe Hindley of Michigan. Roderick said it will be installed in November on a 26-foot-wide area of wall in the new concourse. Modern Woodmen of America is sponsoring the commission. According to the call-for-entry pamphlet, the artist will be paid $22,000 for the work.
The third site, a 220-foot space above the ticketing counters at the airport, has gone through the jurying process and has three finalists, but "we have not gone to the proposal stage," Roderick said. The piece is not yet scheduled for installation. That artist will be paid $190,000, according to the pamphlet, with the commission sponsored by The Figge Foundation.
Other contributors to the Corporate Art program for Art at the Airport are ALCOA, Califf & Harper, Deere & Company, John Deere Foundation, and the Moline Foundation.
Art is always subject to interpretation by those viewing it, and there are no objective standards with which to judge its quality. Yet the reaction to Gridmo, the first of three permanent public-art installations at the Quad City International Airport, has been lukewarm. People are choosing their words carefully when discussing the project.
Based on Prentice's previous work, it's easy to see why the 14-person selection committee assembled by Quad City Arts chose him as one of its three finalists. But the final product is strangely lackluster, and it begs the question: What went wrong? The answer is that what the selection committee chose isn't what the artist delivered in terms of motion.
Conceptually speaking, Gridmo had the potential to be fascinating - an ever-changing work of art that would never be the same twice because of its dozens of pieces and constant movement (an integral component of "kinetic sculpture").
Yet it's largely static. Close to 100 raw metal strips hang motionless from what look like twisted coat hangers in a grid pattern that doesn't draw the eye like the artist's other public artworks. As a result, the installation is easy to miss. In its final form, the artwork arguably fails most of the criteria used to select it.
"It's doing nothing"
Gridmo includes 98 pieces of aluminum, weighted and suspended from the coffered ceiling of the 112-foot-long corridor between the main airport terminal and the concourse. Each three-foot-long piece is on a swivel and can rotate 360 degrees. The name is a combination of the "grid" of the ceiling and "mobile."
The abstract sculpture was installed on September 17, and members of the media had a chance to talk with its creator the next morning.
"Every time you walk through here it's going to be different," Prentice said. The artist likened Gridmo to "98 boats in the harbor ... affected by the wind." Unfortunately, the airport's enclosed corridor rarely has a current strong enough to move the Gridmo's components. That's arguably poor planning on the artist's part.
There seems to be little enthusiasm for the piece so far. Quad City Arts, which coordinated the Art at the Airport installation; Genesis Health System, which sponsored the commission; and airport leaders are measured with any praise.
Bill Bornhoeft, a commissioner of the Metropolitan Airport Authority and member of the selection jury, was short with his response to an initial inquiry last week: "No comment. I've just seen it for the first time. I'd like to talk to other people who were in that group."
A week later, after seeing Gridmo again, Bornhoeft was more open. "The thing is supposed to move around a lot, and it's not moving," he said. "It's doing nothing."
Megan Quinn, a local artist and arts educator who was also on the selection committee, said she hasn't seen the artwork but noted, "It's about movement. That's the primary interest. That's what's going to provide variety in the piece." Even with movement, she said, "This is a minimal piece."
Genesis spokesperson Kathy Horrell said the Genesis board of directors would be viewing the artwork as a group at an invitation-only reception October 17, but she did offer her own opinion: "It's a nice piece, personally," she said. "Art is subjective. Some people are going to like it, and other's aren't." She added that the work is "a good representation of the industrial aspects of our community."
"It greatly enhances that connecting corridor," said Judi Holdorf, Quad City Arts' executive director. "It's a real opportunity for people to pause and look at something interesting." Holdorf also said the River Cities' Reader - and not the artwork itself - was "creating concern" about Gridmo.
Lori Roderick, Quad City Arts' community arts administrator, praised the way Gridmo was tailored to the airport corridor. "It's built just perfectly for the space," she said when asked what she liked about it. "It's a much better place having it there than not having it there."
Roderick also said she looks forward to seeing how the airport will affect the piece. "The artwork was designed to change with the atmosphere in the airport," she said. "I'm excited to see how the artwork changes."
Roderick said she hasn't surveyed the various stakeholders in the Art at the Airport project - the boards of Genesis and the airport. "I haven't done a call-back to everybody," she said.
"Are you going to notice that there's art there?"
Because personal opinions on the quality of the artwork will vary, the most objective way to gauge the success of Gridmo is to look at the criteria used to select the artist and the piece.
Quad City Arts sent out a call for entries in September 2001 to 1,900 artists from around the country for the three public-art sites at the airport. Submissions for each site were reviewed and juried separately.
The review process began in December 2001, and a jury of 14 people reviewed submissions from 60 artists, representing 21 states. Applicants were asked to send résumés, slides of recent work, and an artist statement, among other materials.
Roderick said that the committee evaluated artists' work based on five criteria:
• Initial impact. "Are you going to notice that there's art there?" Roderick said.
• Interest level of repeated viewings.
• Technical workmanship.
• How well the work might match the Quad City International Airport site.
• Whether the work would give a unique and positive impression of the Quad Cities.
The selection committee ranked work and selected three finalists and three alternates, Roderick said. "It wasn't as if there was a giant clump ... that had to be fought over," Roderick said. "The six stood out."
The finalists were notified and given a $1,000 design fee to submit a specific proposal. The artists then gave presentations to the selection committee in February. The jury used the same criteria to evaluate the proposals, with the additional consideration of durability.
When asked how closely the proposal matched the finished product, Roderick said, "Exactly. They were very true." Prentice's proposal included blueprints and a video representation, while another finalist submitted a computer-generated model and the other offered a foam-core model. "It didn't take much imagination to blow them up to fill the space," Roderick said of the proposals.
Bornhoeft said Prentice's video proposal of other installations he'd done was stunning: "The presentation was beautiful. It was perpetual motion."
Quinn said that Prentice's work "looked pretty innovative and exciting in terms of movement and color."
Still, the work of the two other finalists was "more accessible and more decorative," Quinn said. "I was surprised the jury chose Prentice." (She added that she preferred Prentice's work over that of the other finalists.)
Shape, Color, and Movement
A look at Prentice's previous work shows why the jury was attracted to him. His Web site features animations of many kinetic sculptures, and they are striking. But the elements that distinguish those pieces are largely absent from Gridmo, namely shape, color, and movement.
It's interesting to see how Gridmo contrasts with Prentice's other sculptures. Michael Kimmelman, writing in the New York Times in 2000, said, "His works are pleasurable and meant to be surprising in the straightforward sense that hard materials are used to create soft, fluid, complex movement."
Prentice's works typically have colorful objects arranged in clearly defined shapes - circles, cones, or spirals. Those pieces that are less concrete - with the objects in a field rather than a specific shape - often have reflective surfaces or move as a whole, making them appear more active than they might actually be. In contrast, Gridmo, with its plain metal strips hung separately in a grid, simply doesn't have the compelling aesthetics and visual punch.
Another issue with Gridmo is that the pieces of the artwork are almost hidden. The coffered ceiling is two feet higher than the rest of the ceiling, so the aluminum strips are nearly flush; the artwork is easy to miss, because it almost looks like an architectural element rather than public art. (I didn't notice the artwork until it was pointed out to me.)
But the biggest problem is that Gridmo is designed on the assumption of movement, and so far the pieces just hang there. If the metal strips are in flux, the artwork would attract interest in spite of its visual drabness.
When Gridmo does move, it is a barely perceptible random swaying, like a wind chime without its tones. Other pieces on the artist's Web site are far more kinetic, moving as if they have a sense of where they want to go.
Prentice acknowledged that the piece might be most active during certain times of the year, when the air flow is greater, perhaps from the air-conditioning or heating systems.
In other words, although the concept has merit, the lack of air moving through the corridor results in a work that fails most of the selection committee criteria: It doesn't have much initial impact; it's too static to hold interest on repeated viewings; the materials and treatment lack a professional finish; and because of all of those things, the impression it gives of the Quad Cities is not necessarily positive.
One transportation-security employee said some people going through the corridor notice the artwork and look up, while others don't. She added that some people inquire about the installation and are surprised when they're told it's art.
When asked whether anything about Gridmo struck him, a passenger picking up his father shrugged. "Not really," he said.
But Prentice insists Gridmo is eye-catching. "There wasn't a soul who didn't look up" when he was installing it, Prentice said.
"A Good Process"
The call-to-artists pamphlet puts the "artist budget" for the corridor artwork at $25,000, although it notes that "precise artists' budgets [are] to be determined upon selection of finalists." Other sources confirm a gift from Genesis in the neighborhood of $60,000.
When asked by a reporter at the press event on September 18, Quad City Arts Executive Director Holdorf refused to say how much money Prentice was paid.
Roderick declined to supply the River Cities' Reader with the names of people on the 14-person jury. "We usually don't put out a list," she said. The group was made of local artists, arts educators, arts administrators, business leaders, and representatives from the sponsoring groups, she said.
Roderick also said she would not discuss the size of the gift from Genesis Health System or the amount of money the artist was paid. Holdorf also declined to give figures, saying that Genesis' gift was "very significant to the arts."
Horrell also did not want to talk about the monetary gift. "I'm not going to give you an exact amount," she said when asked about Genesis' gift. "They don't think it's important. ... They don't want to say how much they gave."
What's most distressing is that a disappointing result for the first commissioned artwork for the airport has the potential to hurt gifts to future public-art efforts community-wide. Genesis and the airport together provided the money, space, and vision for public art, and that commitment cannot be taken away. But the generosity of sponsors such as Genesis might not continue without safeguards to ensure that artists deliver on their promises, and that sponsors are pleased with their investments.
But Holdorf defended the selection system as "a good process," and one that doesn't need to be changed. Now that Gridmo is hanging in the connecting corridor, that's a determination all visitors to the airport can make for themselves.
Sidebar: Other Planned Public Art at the Airport
Tim Prentice's Gridmo is the first of three planned pieces of permanent public art at the Quad City International Airport.
The Art at the Airport program includes several components: the three juried installations, the Art at the Airport Gallery (co-founded by MidCoast Fine Arts and Quad City Arts and now managed by Quad City Arts) showcasing local and regional artists as well as works loaned by corporations. The goal, according to an Art at the Airport brochure, is to "enhance the visitor experience by exhibiting a unique blend of art and design."
Tim Prentice's Gridmo was the first finished product of the juried process, and the second piece will be installed later this fall, a heritage-themed mural by Joe Hindley of Michigan. Roderick said it will be installed in November on a 26-foot-wide area of wall in the new concourse. Modern Woodmen of America is sponsoring the commission. According to the call-for-entry pamphlet, the artist will be paid $22,000 for the work.
The third site, a 220-foot space above the ticketing counters at the airport, has gone through the jurying process and has three finalists, but "we have not gone to the proposal stage," Roderick said. The piece is not yet scheduled for installation. That artist will be paid $190,000, according to the pamphlet, with the commission sponsored by The Figge Foundation.
Other contributors to the Corporate Art program for Art at the Airport are ALCOA, Califf & Harper, Deere & Company, John Deere Foundation, and the Moline Foundation.
