Stories indexed with the term ‘public art’

Ann Arbor Public Art Commission (Sept. 8, 2009): Herbert Dreiseitl, the German artist recruited to design three art installations at the city’s new municipal center, is coming to Ann Arbor next week to answer questions related to his proposed nearly $800,000 project, which has not yet received approval from the city.

Unlike his previous trip, Dreiseitl won’t be meeting with the public. His agenda includes meetings with businesses in Tecumseh and Hammond that might serve as fabricators for his artwork. That includes a large illuminated water sculpture for the plaza facing Huron Street, and two smaller wall installations inside the building. He’ll also be meeting with city staff and architects for the municipal center, among others.

Katherine Talcott, Ann Arbor’s public art administrator, said the city hadn’t yet paid Dreiseitl for his design work, and that they wouldn’t deliver the $72,000 check for that work until they received more information from him, including detailed cost breakdowns for the project. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Public Art Commission (Aug. 11, 2009): The art commission made no decision at its monthly meeting on whether to recommend German artist Herbert Dreiseitl’s proposed art installations at the new municipal center, saying they need more details, including cost estimates. However, they debated another aspect of the center’s public art: Whether to put out a nationwide call for artists to compete for additional art installations there. Some commissioners spoke in favor of supporting local artists instead, and others were concerned about spending another $225,000 on municipal center art – in addition to nearly $800,000 budgeted for Dreiseitl’s work. [Full Story]

Although he was born there, Herbert Dreiseitl doesn’t belong to Germany. He doesn’t belong to Norway, Australia or Singapore either. He belongs to the planet.

That’s what Dreiseitl – the artist the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission hired to create a public art installation at the new city municipal center – told the audience at a presentation on Monday morning at city hall.

“As a person, I always feel home where I am,” Dreiseitl said.

The controversy over the municipal center project – especially the fact that AAPAC isn’t using a local artist for the nearly $800,000 project – drove Dreiseitl to make those remarks as he presented his designs for the artwork during his recent visit to Ann Arbor.

He spent most of the day on Monday in public and private meetings about his work, including a morning session with city staff and art commissioners, a public reception and a formal presentation to city council. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Public Art Commission (July 14, 2009): A big chunk of Tuesday’s art commission meeting focused on the upcoming visit of German artist Herbert Dreitseitl, who’ll arrive in town this weekend. Where will he stay? When can the public see his designs for the municipal center? How can you score one of the buttons shown in this photo? Our report on Tuesday’s meeting will provide answers to all these questions, and more.

The meeting also introduced The Chronicle to a new vocabulary word – “scuppers” – and included a talk by Susan Pollay of the Downtown Development Authority. To find out which piece of public art she describes as a “sad little sculpture,” read on. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council meeting (July 6, 2009): The word “public” covered much of the ground of this past Monday’s meeting: public art, public land, public input.

The council got an annual report from the Public Art Commission highlighted by a reminder that Herbert Dreiseitl will be visiting Ann Arbor on July 20 to introduce plans for the storm water art he’s been commissioned to design for the new municipal center. The designs have not yet been accepted.

The council also heard a report from the Greenbelt Advisory Commission on a slight strategy shift in the use of $10 million of public money so far to protect 1,321 acres of land. The  council also approved a resolution to preserve the First & William parking lot as public land.

The discussion of another parcel of public land, the library lot, led to long deliberations on the wording of a resolution to establish an RFP (request for proposals) process for development of the site – below which an underground parking structure is planned. At issue was the timing of the RFP and the explicit inclusion of a public participation component in the process. The deliberations provided some insight into how councilmembers work together when the outcome of their conversations at the table is not scripted or pre-planned. [Full Story]

Strolling through Ann Arbor’s Kerrytown area, you might notice the large, erratically structured arch standing on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Catherine Street, in the plaza known as Sculpture Park. Whether you’re on the way to the Smoothie King or are searching for place to sit down for a moment at one of the surrounding tables, this cubist entryway merits a closer look.

The Kerrytown Arch was created by University of Michigan graduate David Heberling in 1977. According to “Public Art in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County” by Martha Keller and Michael Curtis, it serves as a “symbolic gate” between the downtown business district and Kerrytown, akin to “triumphal archs” the Romans constructed to mark their conquests in ancient Italy, France, North Africa and Asia. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Public Art Commission meeting (June 9, 2009): Ann Arbor Public Art Commission members spent their regular meeting this month discussing their annual plan and budget, as well as hearing reports from their public relations, planning and projects committees. They also discussed German artist Herbert Dreiseitl’s upcoming visit to Ann Arbor, during which he’ll discuss his plans for the municipal center with AAPAC and the city. [Full Story]

On May 26, the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission spent several hours focused on developing its plan for the coming year. This included a joint meeting with the Downtown Development Authority about collaboration between the two groups, and a planning meeting later in the day with just AAPAC members to decide which public art projects to include in its annual plan for the next fiscal year.

Though no decisions were made, the meetings gave some insight into priorities for public art in Ann Arbor, who’ll be choosing and funding projects, and what’s ahead for the coming year. [Full Story]

A trio of women stood staring at the piece of paper on the wall, pencils and shiny star stickers poised in their hands. One of them announces she wants to mark somewhere with a bench. Somewhere she can sit and look.

The paper they’re looking at is a map of Ann Arbor. The stickers and pencils are tools to highlight places they think could use some artwork. On a bench below the map, there’s also a suggestion box, with squares of paper scrawled with the public’s suggestions for the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission’s next project.

The map was part of AAPAC’s open house, which the commission held Thursday evening at the Ann Arbor Art Center. The event, where commissioners entertained about 30 supporters and community members, featured a slideshow of public art – from the Arch in Kerrytown’s Sculpture Park to various pieces by Herbert Dreiseitl, the German artist AAPAC commissioned to work on the public art installment at the municipal center.

There were also sheets of paper with information about the commission attached to the wall, answering questions like “Why a public art commission?” and “Creating a public art plan: How do we get there?” While perusing the center’s Jewelry + Objects exhibition and enjoying wine, fruit and brownies, attendees told The Chronicle why they came and what they think of public art. [Full Story]

The sculpture by Doug Hollis outside the University of Michigan Hospital is a moving work of art. Literally.

Hollis – an Ann Arbor native and University of Michigan alumnus – described the piece as a “kinetic screen.” Located outside of the hospital’s main entrance, the sculpture is made entirely of stainless steel and contains rotating components that spin in the wind. Hollis explained that wind, water and motion are the main elements of his artistic vocabulary.

The university commissioned the sculpture, called “Rotations,” to honor the memory of the University of Michigan Medical Center transplant team who died when their plane crashed into Lake Michigan in June 2007. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Public Art Commission (May 12, 2009): Members of the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission spent much of their recent monthly meeting talking about their plan for the next year and projects they should tackle. They also discussed upcoming events, including AAPAC’s open house on May 21, a joint meeting with the DDA board on May 26, and the Golden Paintbrush awards on June 1. [Full Story]

As a student at Washtenaw Community College, I occasionally wondered about the story behind the large metal shapes leaning into each other near the school’s main entrance. Day after day, I took in the sculpture’s dominating presence as I passed it on the way to WCC’s Student Center. Standing 22 feet high, it’s hard to miss. In their book “Public Art in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County,” Martha Keller and Michael Curtis describe it as looking like “two irregular dominoes.”

To me, it just seemed like two giant rectangles propped up against one another, their meaning an abstract mystery I never bothered to solve.

Paul D. Zenian created the “dominoes” — titled the “Gateless Gate” — for the campus over two decades ago. According to Keller and Curtis, Zenian taught at WCC for 25 years before his retirement in 1994. The piece’s inscription explains that he intended for it to symbolize the “door to education” WCC offers. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Public Art Commission (April 14, 2009): Much of Tuesday’s meeting focused on issues related to communication, and in particular how it related to the controversial Herbert Dreiseitl project for the city’s municipal center.

And though his visit wasn’t discussed at length, the German artist is coming to Ann Arbor on July 20 to present his designs to the commission and city council. Using funds from the Percent for Art program, the city is paying $77,000 for his preliminary design work, but would still need to sign off on the entire project, which is estimated to cost around $700,000.

There will be a public reception for him, said Margaret Parker, chair of the art commission. It’s not clear whether the commission will see his designs before he arrives, but they might try to vote on the project and take it to city council for approval while he’s here, she said, adding that details about his visit have yet to be finalized. Before he arrives, the commission also plans to have an open house for the public on May 21, to talk about their mission and goals. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council Meeting Part II (April 6, 2009): We’ve already summarized council’s deliberations on the A2D2 rezoning effort in a previous report.

Here we focus on other business handled by council and topics raised during public commentary at that same meeting. Much of it was related to streets – whether it was vacating them, closing them for special events, or repaving them. The other major theme, as reflected in comments from the public, was public art.

We also include some evidence that the art of the handwritten thank-you note is not dead. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council meeting (March 2, 2009): Whatever chance for controversy that might have been present in the Ann Arbor’s City Council meeting agenda on Monday evening was eschewed in favor of values statements. These expressions of values were reflected in many of the agenda items themselves. We’ve organized our account of the meeting in terms of values related to the following topics: water, the arts, land, energy, history, and democracy. [Full Story]

Since The Chronicle launched last fall, we’ve been covering the monthly meetings of the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission. At that first meeting we attended in October, the group discussed a project to take inventory of all the public art in the city – the idea is to create a database that can eventually be accessed by the public, giving details of where each piece of art is located, who the artist is, and any other relevant information.

Separately, we were later contacted by a Chronicle reader who said she’d like to see a series about public art in the city – essentially, the same kind of thing that AAPAC is compiling. So until their project is online, The Chronicle will be taking up our reader’s request in an occasional look at this city’s public art. In our definition, we’ll look at art on public and private buildings, as long as it’s visible to the public. We’re starting with something that’s connected to the field of journalism: the Art Deco reliefs on the Ann Arbor News building. [Full Story]

Public Art Commission (Feb. 10, 2009): With two new commissioners and a newly-hired administrator on board, the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission spent a good portion of Tuesday night’s monthly meeting discussing the need to  communicate better with the public and to educate them about the value of public art in Ann Arbor. That issue was in response to a Feb. 3 Ann Arbor News article – and the comments posted after it by eight readers – about the commission’s decision to enlist German artist Herbert Dreiseitl to design a waterscape installation at the police-court building, which will begin construction in April. The comments from News readers weren’t exactly supportive of that choice, or of the $72,000 that Dreiseitl is requesting for his initial design work, which represents about 10% of the potential $700,000 total price tag. [Full Story]

Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners (Jan. 21, 2009): A light agenda for the county board on Wednesday included the presentation of a major art project, a report on efforts to partner with other municipalities for shared services, and appointments of commissioners to various committees. Rolland Sizemore Jr. led his first full board meeting as its new chair, and Kristin Judge led her first meeting as the new vice chair of the Ways & Means Committee – Conan Smith, the committee’s chair, was absent. [Full Story]

Public Art Commission (Jan. 13, 2009): Tuesday night’s meeting of the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission covered a lot of territory, from updates on specific projects to concerns over a contract delay for the newly hired administrator, and the as yet non-appointment of Cheryl Zuellig to the commission. But commissioners spent a small portion of their meeting deciding to hold two parties – and who doesn’t need a little party planning to heat things up on a cold winter night? And if you stick with this article, you’ll also find out which artist is a direct descendant of Ann Allen. [Full Story]

Editor’s note: We’ve retooled our Meeting Watch headline format. The previous template was “Meeting Watch: Public Body Name (Date).” Headlines for these articles will now follow common headline conventions. To make up for whatever was lost, we’ve created a category called Meeting Watch. Clicking on the Meeting Watch category label at the bottom of an article or in the footer of the page will give a chronological sorting of all Meeting Watch articles. We’ll begin applying this category to previous Meeting Watch articles as resources permit.

Public Art Commission (Dec. 9, 2008) Tuesday’s meeting of the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission was the last one for two of the members. John Hieftje, the city’s mayor, dropped by for a brief visit, and the group discussed the recently hired administrator and got updates on several ongoing projects. [Full Story]

A major step forward on a public art installation for Ann Arbor’s new municipal center was among several updates at Tuesday evening’s meeting of the Public Art Commission. Another potential project – called SoundFall – is moving ahead with a formal presentation planned in December.

[Full Story]

Ted Kennedy bought his house on East Kingsley in May, and is interested in how people react to the stuff he puts in his yard. He’s hung empty picture frames from trees – you know, that kind of thing (more on that later). On Wednesday, he did a performance art piece that involved a petting zoo, which looked a lot like … just a petting zoo.

Now, if you’re driving or walking through downtown Ann Arbor’s residential streets, you might not expect to encounter, say, a Clydesdale – especially not in someone’s front yard, with an alpaca, two goats, a duck, chicken and Shetland pony named Bronco. You’d probably stop to look. You might think, “Huh?” Or you might take some photos and send them to The Chronicle, which is what Ari Sussman did.

People were pretty confused by it, Kennedy says. Which was sort of the point. Plus, it was fun. [Full Story]

The Ann Arbor Public Art Commission held its monthly meeting on Tuesday, with much of the group’s discussion focused on setting up a process for handling projects. That includes AAPAC’s first large project: public art for the new municipal center. [Full Story]

The alley next to Michigan Theater transformed pretty quickly over the summer from a colorful, artistically-coherent mural to a colorful collage of random graffiti – prompting Mr. Limpet to ask, “Where’s the Art?”

In early July, someone painted a swath of white over part of the mural called “Infinite Possibilities,” which had been created there in 1999. The Ann Arbor News ran an article about the incident, interviewing the artist, Katherine Tombeau Cost, who now lives in New Orleans. She said it had taken her five months to complete, but she wasn’t ticked off by the graffiti: “The thing about public art it is an exercise in letting go. You put it out there and you know it is not forever. I have to remind myself this isn’t my family room. That is the element of public art. It will be great and it will be gone.”

And now it’s really gone. [Full Story]

For folks passing through Kerrytown – whether to Zingerman’s Deli, Kerrytown Market & Shops or the farmers market – it’s easy to overlook the backside of Community High School. But two new banners that now adorn its outer back walls aim to bring attention to the school and add some public art to the Kerrytown district.

Ansted Moss, a Commie High senior, designed the two 24-foot by 12-foot vinyl pieces, which are stretched like a canvas over metal bars facing South Fifth Avenue. They were hung over the course of two days – using a cherry picker lift – just before school started.

Kris Hermanson, who taught art for 30 years at CHS before retiring two years ago, describes them as “elegant, yet edgy and original.” [Full Story]