Page 125 - David Bermant Foundation

PUBLIC ARTGEORGE RHOADS Windamajig 1991 180”H x 76” diameter Goleta, California“George Rhoads is the most appropriate work for public spaces . . . it makes a better day for people no matter who they are—rich or poor, educated or not. They get enjoyment out of it, talk about it, and then others come out to see it too.” —DWB124(continued)However, describing this art form as technological is taboo when it is included in publicly owned places, as the museum world (whose approval is needed before panel participants choose art in public competitions) recalls the technological and kinetic art movements of the past as failed. Therefore, a new label has been suggested by Tom Finkelpearl: P.U.L.S.E. (People Using Light, Sound, Energy). The art world seems to require short labels to designate the art movement of the moment. It provides the curator, the art writer, and the art historian with a simplified code— to this writer a form of intellectual laziness, if not arrogance. Hence, the new name which I shall define as the use by artists of those forms, objects, materials, theories, etc. that come out of the technology and science of our day and are transformed by them into aesthetic expression.The fact that such scientific origins produce movement in most cases—not all—is most felicitous for publicly placed art, since the viewer sees a different aspect of the art at each visit. Nam June Paik’s television images are ever changing, and the colors and exact forms are never identical. This characteristic of P.U.L.S.E. keeps it fresh and new, eliminating the need to replace the art piece after it’s been on display for a time. Go test it yourself. Go to the Bus Terminal in Manhattan at 42nd Street and 8th Avenue and walk until you see a crowd of people (all day long) gathered around a glass cube designed by George Rhoads, containing the traveling billiard balls producing sounds and movement. We all recognize billiard (continued on page 126)GOlEtA bEAcH