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Aug 22

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The Spectrum of Art

By Scott Burkholder | Art & Social Change, Of Love and Concrete | No Comments

Agnes Denes is one of the featured artists in the current exhibit Expo1 taking place at PS1 through September 2nd. Denes is an environmental artist. Her canvas is literally the world around us. The work on display at PS1 was documentation (photos) of a piece she created in 1982; Wheatfield – A confrontation: Battery Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan. It is a powerful work of art! It is a work that calls for change as it exemplifies beauty, calls for hope, and explores the human condition.

From an aesthetic standpoint, the photographs probably do not do the piece justice, but what they show is nothing short of breathtaking. Remember the context is 1982. The Battery is not a lush green environment; it is barren. Also recall that 9/11 is unimaginable. A wispy rural wheat field, two acres of wheat growing in a near desolate environment. Golden rods of grain flitting in front of skyscrapers. The image that resonates for me is the amber grain waving in front of the Twin Towers, “America the Beautiful” to a T. The aesthetics of the piece left a tingling sensation in the body.

Webster defines hope as “desire with expectation of obtainment.” When Denes was inspired to do her work, the Battery was a desolate canvas. Two hundred truckloads of dirt were trucked in for the installation. She toiled with the soil for months to ensure that the plain was fertile. In the end, a bountiful crop displayed the amazing opportunity. An empty landscape can be so much more than blight. The opportunities with creativity and hard-work cannot be contained.

Two acres is not a lot of grain in the grand scheme of things. It does not feed many people, and it does not generate a lot of revenue, particularly considering the resources invested into the production. But Wheatfields explores something far more meaningful. According to Denes,

Planting and harvesting a field of wheat on land worth $4.5 billion created a powerful paradox. Wheatfield was a symbol, a universal concept; it represented food, energy, commerce, world trade, and economics. It referred to mismanagement, waste, world hunger and ecological concerns. It called attention to our misplaced priorities.

The field was more than just the beautiful landscape it created. It was even more than just the fruits of someone’s labor. It was a statement to one of the most powerful streets on the planet.

Things have changed in the 30 years since the field. Battery Park is a lush tourist destination containing many new symbols of hope. The Towers have fallen. Some things have not changed, hunger still exists and Wall Street excess still persists. I think there is room for many more installations to make bold proclamations like Denes’ two acres of wheat. There is still room to show us beautiful things in everyday surroundings. There is still a place to show opportunity. There is still a place to show us what really matters in life.

IMAGE CREDIT. [Agnes Denes, “Wheatfield — A Confrontation” (1982), two acres of wheat planted and harvested in Battery Park landfill, Manhattan, New York (© Agnes Denes, via theecologist.org)].

Feb 21

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Classic Concrete: Why Art?

By Scott Burkholder | Art & Social Change, Of Love and Concrete | No Comments

Editor’s Note: Our resident bard of Love & Concrete is recovering from his all-consuming labors in birthing the latest incarnation of CreateBaltimore. So in the style of vintage summer re-runs, we present a classic installment of his column.

A typical conversation:

“What do you do?”
“I promote art in Baltimore.”
“That’s interesting. Did you go to MICA?”
“No I went to Johns Hopkins.”
“Did you study Art History?”
“No, I studied engineering?”
“Why would you promote art?.”

Sometimes I am surprised by my transition, but I know that this is where I was destined to be.

My junior year of college I was living with several roommates in a typical Baltimore row house. One evening my housemate exclaimed that his sister had just won a prestigious poetry prize. Having no interest in poetry, I asked to read the work only reluctantly, out of politeness. I was appalled. It had no logic and made no sense. I proceeded to voice my opinion and thus begun a furious debate about the merits of art. I on the side of “what value is gibberish?” and he on the side of expression and new analogy. That was my engineering perception of the world. If it could not be explained scientifically what value did something have?

After graduating with two engineering degrees from Hopkins, and spending two years studying lung cancer, I put on an entrepreneurial hat. I began painting living rooms and bedrooms for upper- middle-class Baltimore. A painter with a degree from Hopkins became a hot commodity. The list of clients grew and I started hiring. Did you know that the most flexible, and surprisingly dependable, work force is artists? My crew had two writers, two visual artists, a musician, and an aspiring architect. Needless to say, our days were spent talking philosophy. Our clients frequently joined the banter much to their own surprise. My crew exposed me to a new type of intelligence. They didn’t know an integral from a derivative, but they knew the classics and understood the world in a different light. They started to shift my sense of value.

The painting business was going great but I had recently married and the future was becoming a reality. As only a spouse can, Jenn expressed that my talents and my personality were not being used to their full potential in my painting business. Shortly after our wedding an employee was injured on the job. The experience shook not only my business but my own outlook. I needed to move on, but to what? I had been reading a book on hope. One of the chapters focused on art. It suggested that art is one of the few places we can honestly explore the reality of the world and, more importantly, that art is a place to express the hope of the world. Could art have value beyond meaningful conversations?

A former employee had been working for a summer to launch a “small” public art project. He could not find traction. He needed a skill set beyond his own. Now, as friends, he expressed his needs and asked if I might use my entrepreneurial skills to do the business side of his art. Looking for a change, and with my growing understanding of art, I agreed to take on the role. Besides, my not-entirely-reconstructed-engineer’s-mind thought, I was now planning to attend business school, so this would also look great on my resume. We began creating a plan to paint 20 walls with the word ‘love.’ I was now commissioned to express the value of art.

Four years later, we have completed 14 Love Project murals. I have got my business education without a degree (or the debt), and I can tell you art is the most valuable thing in the world. It changes people.

I recently visited my college roommate. We certainly touched on art. This time it was I showing him this “amazing” installation that challenges the notion of place, and he wondering if I was crazy! If art can change me, I can only imagine what it can do for the world! In this space, I look forward to exploring that extraordinary power.

IMAGE CREDIT. Baltimore Love Project

Nov 29

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The Corner: A Drug Market or A Concrete Gallery

By Scott Burkholder | Art & Social Change, Of Love and Concrete | No Comments

I have lived in Baltimore for 14 years. I have been an avid advocate of Baltimore for four years. I have NOT watched David Simon’s “The Wire”. Over the recent Thanksgiving holiday I started reading the book that lead to the HBO series that defines Baltimore for many. I delved into Simon’s 500-page tome on west Baltimore’s infectious drug markets. I can honestly say I am lost in The Corner. Read More

Nov 15

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Process is Part of the Art

By Scott Burkholder | Art & Social Change, Of Love and Concrete | No Comments

“The process is part of the art.” ~Christo

I can not think of an artist more qualified to make that statement than Christo. He and his life partner, Jean-Claude, have produced some of the most grand art of our time. When your work requires millions of yards of fabric, when your canvas is miles of coastline or the most powerful building in a country, and when the crafting takes months, certainly the way you produce your finished product says something. Process is part of the art.

Understanding that the process is part of the art is challenging for artists and for the audience. An artist is challenged because it requires thoughtfulness throughout the journey of creation. The audience is challenged because they are not usually exposed to the entire process. They miss part of the art. However, if both parties embrace the challenge, art becomes much more powerful.

How is an artist to be thoughtful throughout the creative process? This has been a very important question for the Baltimore Love Project, a city wide street art project. First and foremost it is a recognition of what we are. We are a public art project. We maintain design and implementation control so that the original aesthetic vision is cast. Our idea of loving is to use our skill sets to the best of our abilities. This means delivering the highest quality art that we can. It would be hard for us to do that if we gave everyone a brush. We are also frequently asked if we can change the color or the design to cater to an individual neighborhood. Love of self and individuality are important but we think love is more meaningful when it connects rather than divides.

Beyond the aesthetic vision there is a philosophical vision. Because the finished “product” is love we must embody our understanding of love throughout. Our project explores the notion that love is for everyone, and that regardless of circumstances love is possible. The project must live this out even when it is extremely difficult – When we are critiqued for the way the image looks, for the process we are using to make things happen, and even the partners we have worked with on making love happen. We must respect, seek to understand, and honor the dignity of contrary perspectives. Love is tough particularly in the midst of a marathon public art project. But without it, our project losses its message and its power.

How do we share the process with the audience? Information! As artist we often believe that the finished work itself is enough. Unfortunately not all people are as experientially minded as most artists. We must offer information to our audience the entire way. Let the audience decide if they want to be informed prior, during, after or not at all. I can not tell you how many perspectives of our project have changed once people are provided even nominal information beyond our four silhouetted hands spelling out love on the wall. For many people, the availability of information is an invitation to experience the art in a richer way.

As I have explored public art and worked to create an installation, I understand that our strategy of implementation MUST be in line with the aesthetic and philosophical vision. The mechanisms we choose to put our work out there says something about the work itself. And of course we are always willing to share it. When art is more than a finished product, it becomes bigger than itself.

Oct 04

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If Public Art Can’t Reduce Crime, What Good Is It to Society?

By Scott Burkholder | Art & Social Change, Of Love and Concrete, Social Media | No Comments

Recently the Social Enterprise Alliance hosted a summit on metrics and impact. The day-long event featured speakers contemplating how to measure change. More specifically the event asked how we determine if an organization is creating the change that it purports to be making.

The event got me thinking about art organizations. Many creative organizations are designated as 501(c)3 non-profit entities. The status is given to a business based on it working for the benefit of the public not an individual. (Check out IRS language for specifics) I know that art is good for society but how does a non-profit arts organization demonstrate that the work that it is doing is good for society? What are metrics that we can use to demonstrate our impact?

Fortunately, the Baltimore Love Project, a city-wide street art project, has gone through many trials. One of my “fondest” memories made during the project was sitting in a prolific Baltimore foundation’s offices. It was one of my first pitches to a significant investor. He had the means to pay for the entire project. Trial by fire was an understatement. Despite our passion, we were not prepared to articulate a change that was of interest to him. He pretty much asked us how many kids would graduate from high school and go to college as a result of our work. We not only didn’t know the answer, we had no response. We learned that day that we need something tangible for people to see the value of our work. We needed metrics. We walked away with no money but an important lesson.

Since that conversation we have figured out what we are doing besides painting beautiful images on the sides of buildings. We have come to define our social value in three ways. First we are aesthetically changing the face of 20 communities. Second, we are putting Baltimore on the map as a destination to visit. Third, we are changing the philosophy of individuals.

The first change is obvious but important to note. We are physically changing the way our city looks. It is simple to measure. We can point to the mural on a wall or show photographs of the work. What is harder, and just as important, is to show that the change is positive. We have achieved that with thousands of people through social media and elsewhere espousing love for the murals. The second change is also important. We want people inside and out to see that Baltimore is more than HBO’s The Wire. Our metric for this comes in the form of content created. How many stories are being told about the Love project and where? We have a list of over 45 platforms that have shared our work. On top of that, we also have a catalog of responses from folks that are impressed with the city simply because something like the love project is happening here.

The final change is probably the most powerful. Art is meaningful because it can change philosophy. To measure this we are tracking two things in particular. The first is our presence at events in the community. We have explored philosophy on over 75 occasions in the past two years with over 3,000 people directly and 125,000 indirectly. The events range from large scale street festivals, to intimate three-hour conversations with a college class. You may be thinking that talking is not necessarily a sign of a changed mind. We agree. We are also tracking action that has happened as a result of the project. We have dozens of examples of individuals DOING SOMETHING as a result of the work. It is as simple as individuals empowered to tour Baltimore with murals as their beacons, or as intense as a couple reconsidering how they fight.

Over time we have learned how to describe our value. Our metrics are likely not complete nor perfect but have become very important to us. They help us understand the value of our project but more importantly they help others understand why a future where every wall is a canvas and every street corner is a gallery is a future worth pursuing.

Sep 06

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Public Art and Community Art – We Need Both

By Scott Burkholder | Art & Social Change, Of Love and Concrete, Social Media | No Comments

(Photo: Sean Scheidt)

When I started working on the Baltimore Love Project four years ago, lead artist Michael Owen and I defined it as a city-wide mural project. After several months of pounding the pavement and telling the story of a mural project we discovered that people were confused. We needed to express ourselves differently. We began to define ourselves as a city-wide street art project. We discovered that murals were often viewed as a form of community art, not public art. So what’s the difference?

We found that many communities strongly support murals. They were willing to let an artist paint on the side of their buildings as long as the community had control over the image and the process of painting the image. They believed in community engagement, particularly in the process of creation. This is community art.

The Love Project proposes painting on the side of buildings which communities supported. However, the definition of the project is to paint the exact same image on 20 walls. It does not cater to the specific aesthetic or story of a community. To maintain the integrity of the image and provide exceptionally high quality art to ALL communities the process is also tightly controlled. We believe in community engagement but it happens after the art work is completed. This is public art.

Community art AND public art are incredibly powerful!

Community art can provide the euphoric experience of creation to everyone. A child has the opportunity to hold a paintbrush in hand and see a product of their own doing at the end of the day. A citizen has the opportunity to tell their story and see the reaction of others to their experiences. Community art empowers people where they are at.

Public art provides the challenge of new perspective. A thoughtful and highly skilled artist can establish new analogies with provocative concepts and the stroke of a brush. The creator confronts individuals with a new way to experience the world. He can show the world not only as it is but also as it can be. Public art empowers people with new outlook.

A city with a litany of walls can and should be home to both community art and public art. There is enough room for everyone to express themselves. There is enough room for new perspectives. The combination of both will lead to a healthy city that knows and expresses its story but is also striving to achieve.

In future posts I will delve further into the specific value of the Baltimore Love project. Much like a great wine, the power is in the nuance.

Aug 23

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Why Art?

By Hasdai Westbrook | Art & Social Change, Social Media | No Comments