The Tyranny of Like/Don't Like

The Tyranny of Like Don’t Like

By Aida Mancillas


Introduction


The woman brought herself close to me. She was shaking with rage; an athletic woman; petite, chic, progressive, had sailed the world with her children and husband so that the children would have a different kind of growing up experience; other than the kind of slacker Southern California experience that can be so seductive. These were parents planning “peak experience” lives for their kids. I had played tennis with her Coronado. She and her husband were intense, but they were for Howard Dean. Right politics goes a long way in getting acquainted with new people.

Now she had cornered me demanding if I was responsible for the sculpture along the waterfront that had recently been installed. ISIS a loan to the city and port for one year and is the work of a major American artist, Mark DiSuvero .It was on loan from the Hirshorn Museum in Washington, D.C. In any other city it would have been considered a coup to acquire it; but this was San Diego, county and city. There would be the usual limitations set for the work. It would only be up a year and could be removed permanently after that; which as becoming a way to reassure folks that public art could be gotten rid of. We would, of course, plan in advance for any public art’s removal.

I had never been able to convince my colleagues on the Commission’s role as stewards of the people’s public art collection. Shouldn’t it remain up longer, a number of years that we could agree upon that allowed access year round for public art works? But this woman’s reaction was what the city and port had to deal with on an ongoing basis and so both agencies had prepared to support public art but in ways that gave them a way out of “controversy.
ISIS, the work which now occupies the corner of Laurel and Harbor Drive, had enraged this woman; had disrupted her usual, private walk albeit in the public realm. She wanted accountability She was used to getting it. . I explained to her that the decision making process for the acquisition and silting of ISIS had been transparent. It had involved months of work, meetings, reviews, open and noticed public discussion. The process was transparent. But today, buttonholed, I was the impediment to HER unequivocal right to have her very singular experience of morning walk. There was no public space, shared space issue. I had broken into her home (into her waterfront condo that I felt was the scar upon the landscape, cutting off both views and access to the bay for San Diegans and visitors and depriving us of our cultural landscape.) and my cohorts and I had made her good life less than.

It occurred to me that she and I entered into public space in very different ways. I assumed that the public space into which I entered did not belong to me or anyone else. It was held in trust together. But no, that’s not what was happening. People were entering public space e and thinking of it as quasi ownership. What happened in those grey spaces that are governed by downtown masterplans, CCDC, City master plans and the orphan spaces frequently found in urban areas?

My explanation of the process and my comments on the merits of the work did not assuage the rage. It was if I had done something purposefully to harm her peace of mind, her life. I wanted to shoot back that it was her horrible waterfront condo and all the condos and banality that it brought to the waterfront that was the real crime. They were stealing the waterfront, its views, and its public access, from the Citizens who had a right to them. THAT was the real crime here. But I said nothing more, just trying to be politic and reassuring, but I felt assaulted, and the disturbing quality of that exchange is still within me.

There was nothing I could do to break through the personalized anger she felt to a place where we might actually look at and talk about the work; its size, the materials, its relationship to the artist’s father and his life as an Italian seaman.

No entry in to any kind of dialogue.

I prided myself on my ability to engage people and turn them, at least to a place that we could agree to take a broader view. The rage coming off the woman was a force field.


I gave up.



Every day folks are more cultured than we believe they are, making culture choices that the culture mavens might deem lesser, or incomprehensible; but it is still culture they are choosing.

Some citizens have to get over that not everything that is in the public right of way is theirs for their living rooms. They try to stop the moving forward of public art or other initiatives. This is not how the arts work. Ultimately the arts are engaged with the notice of very small things. I found that these small things, small gestures, have contained an incredible richness of meaning, that I would not have know had some artist not shared that with me.

“Quirky, off beat ideas, are not something to be afraid of. They are the genesis of new, sometime more powerful ideas. Sometimes they don’t go anywhere, they just fall flat. And that is ok. The arts are about failure and risk as much as they are about success. Sometimes our paintings are crappy, things not turning out the way we thought. Oh well. Something else will come from that. Maybe not now, but down the line. That’s the whole reason for the failure in the first place. Take risks, and more risks. The mayor of Paris, a few years ago, covered the banks of the Seine a few years ago with sand. He wanted the workers to be able to go some place else while they worked in a shut down August to service tourists. How charming and delightful. How compassionate and humane. The citizens, not the elite, come first. It is their dialogue and delight and education that come first. We can do that here. It only requires vision and will. No grand flourishes. Just play. Be willing to play. It is essential in building great cities. Water the plants that are here, not on the leaves, but at the roots.”

I think the trick is to make sure that there is enough “small culture gesture” sprinkled liberally throughout the city. Like a big discovery of small presents everywhere, an Easter egg hunt. Everyday you discover your old favorites, but you can also find new ones. Maybe that way people would feel that they were not being forced to eat their broccoli, get all cultured up. But they could find their own special present made for them, everyday. Perhaps that’s a bit of public art. An artist garden set in a public part. A film festival set on the lawn bowling courts. Like throwing a dinner party on the Vermont St. Bridge. A moonlight dance on the redwood circle of the Marsten house. The stage is all here. The players are here. Let them create and don’t stand in their way with preconceived ideas. Give it enough time to work and root!

People have culture. They are savvy culture consumers. Unfortunately culture produces junk and we seem to be eating a lot of junk. But we don’t have to keep eating it. There are good people here is SD using there considerable resources to make what is here happen, and to stabilize what is already here. I honor them for their devotion. My suggestion is to create new metaphors for this border city, for this city that shares a border with Mexico. One of my suggestions is SD as city of museums. But the kinds of museums that are experiential, discovered by a little walk… perhaps a storefront museum of keys that takes place in a “vitrine”. (A glass case or storefront window.)(A glass case or storefront window. Full of the most interesting installations (Paris). It could also be the city of interlocking gardens. Some public, private, viewed over the fence, for having your coffee in and for playing soccer in. They could have their own artistic component. In Rome I played the game of re naming piazzas to suit what was happening in them. I was proposed marriage in the piazza of wild horses, but it’s just a piazza outside Trader Joes. It is a lovely activity to see what is there and restructure it, so that it fills space with a different kind of meaning. The purpose of all the reimagining SD is not about money, prosperity, or economic engines (all those Calvinsit bags we bring with us). It’s about the people who live here: the old, students, children, artists, immigrants, differently-abled, married, single Any time you leave your home you should feel enveloped by it’s excitement… its possibilities. It is not about filling the potholes or decorating the city so that it is “pretty” like some HDTV special. It must be authentic. No gimmicks. Gimmicks are like sugar, Quick rush, a crash, and then bad headache.

We must search out what is authentic and not bring in Mr. Marstens squirrels. When we plant even the stick of a native oak we see native birds we rarely see come back. It is immediate. I imagine this is true in the arts as well. We can look to the lighthouses of Paris and NY, but what shines for us is here in SD that is what brings people here as well.


The woman brought herself close to me. She was shaking with rage; an athletic woman, progressive and adventurous. She had sailed the world with her children and husband, living on their sailboat visiting many countries and ports.. I had played tennis with her.
Now she had cornered me demanding if I was responsible for the sculpture along the waterfront that had recently been installed. ISIS is on loan to the city and port of San Diego for one year and is the work of a major American artist, Mark DiSuvero.

ISIS, the work which now occupies the corner of Laurel and Harbor Drive, had enraged her; had disrupted her usual walk. She wanted accountability. I sat on the Commission for Arts & Culture and we had, indeed, been part of the review and decision making process. It had involved months of work, meetings, reviews, and public discussion. The process was transparent.

My explanation of the process and my comments on the merits of the work did not assuage the rage. It was if I had done something purposefully to harm her peace of mind, her life. I wanted to shoot back that it was her horrible waterfront condo and all the condos and banality that it brought to the waterfront that was the real crime. They were stealing the waterfront, its views, and its public access, from the Citizens who had a right to them. THAT was the real crime here. I said nothing more, just trying to be politic and reassuring, but I felt assaulted, and the disturbing quality of that exchange is still within me.

There was nothing I could do to break through the personalized anger she felt to a place where we might actually look at and talk about the work; its size, the materials, its relationship to the artist’s father and his life as an Italian seaman.

Unfortunately, I was unable for find an entry i to any kind of dialogue.

I prided myself on my ability to engage people and turn them, at least to neutral—the starting point of conversation, but this was hard. I was feeling assaulted, so I did what I rarely do at these moments. I gave up, said a few “uh huhs, and said goodbye., my regards to your husband.”.


How do you change peoples fear? How do we change ourselves so that we can lead with open hands and heart?

The thing is how do you move people to this place of pause and evaluation? How do you get them to engage their delight? How do you get them to be curious and not angry when they don’t know or recognize something immediately? Something they don’t already know or understand. they take as an insult. They project ELITISM on the idea, project, person delivering the message, etc. They are not willing to wait to see what unfolds and consequently just reject the whole thing. So Instead of dialogue and mature democracy one gets “The Tyranny of Like Don’t Like”

You cannot keep art away from people by presuming that they like what you like. You can be sure they’re not going to like something. Those things need to come out and be debated or talked about or engaged in some way. No one individual or agency should stop that from. But no one individual or agency should hamper an organic dialogue. Instead, the support of the arts needs to be an ongoing commitment with plenty or time and room to learn from failing and odd tangents and experimentation.

Aida Mancillas
San Diego, CA
Wed. Feb21 2007 6:00 am