Weekend America

Please Don't Touch the Art

MARCH 24, 2007 Listen to this Story

A Public Art Sculpture

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In Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park this weekend, folks are trying to figure out the right way to interact with outdoor art. The pieces can get rained on, birds can do their business on them, and we don't want to know what the squirrels are up to. But no matter what, humans can't touch. Weekend America's John Moe talks to artist and art critic, Gary Faigin, Paul Klein, the operations coordinator at the park, and Emma, a 5-year-old girl, about appreciating art.

Notes From Senior Reporter John Moe

In Seattle, outdoor sculpture is a pretty big deal. The seminal Seattle grunge band Soundgarden named one of their most popular songs, "Black Hole Sun", after a piece of outdoor sculpture in Volunteer Park and the band itself is named after another sculpture in Magnuson Park. But art like this is so ubiquitous around here that there is no longer much of a distinction between "public art" and "public jungle gym". Many outdoor pieces get climbed on by kids and adults, hugged, kicked, picnicked under, and otherwise used as playground equipment. So when the Seattle Art Museum opened its new Olympic Sculpture Park, people naturally started to do those same things. That didn't fly with the museum, who were used to having art be something seen and not climbed on. Many of the pieces in the park are donations from wealthy patrons, many are quite valuable. There was concern that the natural oils from someone's hands would deteriorate the pieces.

But still, it's a park. It's a public space. If folks aren't allowed to touch or climb the art (many do anyway), how could they interact with it and make it part of their lives?

Not long after the park opened, some folks found a way. They built response sculptures. Near Alexander Calder's Eagle, someone snuck in a nest full of miniature versions of the piece, meant to be eaglets. Near Split, the big metal tree, someone placed something called Splinter, another mini version. Then someone else put a driftwood moose in among some plants. That one wasn't derivative of any other piece. It was just a driftwood moose.

And what's interesting is that the museum staff, so nervous about someone touching a metal sculpture, seems to not only tolerate but enjoy the response sculptures. They don't take them down. They think it's kind of cool. Ultimately, they seem to disappear on their own anyhow (the eaglets and their nest blew away in a wind storm, someone stepped on Splinter, the moose just up and vanished) and the staff hasn't come up with any policy about who's allowed to leave what where because frankly they weren't expecting this would happen. So the park has become this kind of communal art space, a big fridge door for the whole city to express themselves through sculpture.

I wanted to do a story on this place for a while but I didn't want to just do a standard profile. So I hit upon the idea of interviewing an art critic (Gary Faigin, who runs his own art academy and also does criticism for public radio station KUOW in Seattle), an operations manager at the park (Paul Klein, who knows a lot more about art than I ever will), and a kid (I went with Emma, a 5-year-old girl who lives a few doors down from me). Their multiple and often surprising perspectives give a glimpse into the complex ways we experience art in the public space.

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