High costs often mean public art left to deteriorate
The dilemma of what to do with a $15 million Downtown subway mural raises questions about how to pay for upkeep and preservation of virtually millions of public art pieces scattered across Western Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
Some works, such as Port Authority of Allegheny County's Romare Bearden mural, were created by world-known artists and would sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars -- even millions -- at auctions.
"The mindset in general is, 'Let's commission the art and once it's up, it's done. Now we don't have to think about it anymore,'" said Jack Becker, a public art expert who publishes Public Art Review in St. Paul.
"They don't even think about maintaining it. A lot of cities don't insure the work because they're self-insured. A lot may do condition reports, but not necessarily appraisals. It isn't, perhaps, until a situation like this comes up until they do that. In most cases, they build it and forget that they need to take care of it."
The problem isn't easy to resolve.
Keeping the pieces requires money to preserve them. Selling or removing them risks robbing the public of free access to pieces intended for display in open settings for all to enjoy. Maintenance and restoration can be costly, depending on the artwork.
"You could go to any city across the country and because of homogenization, Fifth and Main in Pittsburgh could look like Fifth and Main in Wisconsin or Fifth and Main in Chicago," said Renee Piechocki, director of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council's office of public art, and formerly a facilitator for the Public Art Network, a national program.
"Public art is what helps to distinguish us," she said. "Public art is a vehicle for communities to express what is unique about themselves."
Others argue the cost of maintaining public art isn't always worth it.
"I don't have any objections to making the stations attractive, but to pay artists large sums of money to produce art that's basically exposed to the elements and graffiti painters, I just have my doubts about that," said Jake Haulk, president of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. "If it's inside a building and can be protected, then it might be OK."
Federal restoration of The Gettysburg Cyclorama is a $10 million project. It will preserve a valuable canvas painting of the famous Civil War battle by French artist Paul Dominique Phillippoteaux.
Officials at Pittsburgh International Airport recently said they intend to take down a piece called "Silver Grid Wall" by Peter Calaboyias to make room for advertising, which would generate money for the agency stricken by the loss of hub tenant US Airways this decade. They plan to move it elsewhere in the airport.
Pittsburgh art officials are attempting to chart a course for public art across America by forming a preservation program. Its genesis is in a recent $350,000 grant to restore works and assess the needs of 20 others.
"I'm hoping Pittsburgh will become a leader across the country," said Piechocki. "The situation is really serious across the country, and this is something that communities really struggle with."
Pittsburgh could become a benchmark for an arena that has no standards.
"The funny thing about public art is that, to this day, there's no formula as to how things happen and how it's received and how they're taken care of," said Wendy Clark, a visual arts specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts.
Most modern public art programs started after creation of the National Endowment for the Arts in 1965. Its first project was "La Grande Vitesse," a sculpture by Alexander Calder in Grand Rapids, Mich., in 1969.
Public works existed far longer in larger cities. Philadelphia crafted a model in 1959 that later was copied by most cities, setting aside 1 percent of its capital budget for public art. The federal government for several years required agencies to spend 1 percent of capital project grants on public art. The requirement has been lifted.
"Unlike many other public art programs in the U.S., which are primarily paid from capital dollars, public art in Pittsburgh is most often funded privately," Piechocki said.
Bearden's "Pittsburgh Recollections," located in the Port Authority's Gateway Center Station, was commissioned in 1984 for $90,000, and is a mosaic showing several scenes from the city's history. Bearden, a black artist best known for his mosaics, once lived in Pittsburgh. He died in 1988.
A New York appraiser valued the piece at $15 million, Port Authority officials confirmed last week. The agency is determining whether to insure the piece and estimates it could cost $100,000 a year. The piece will have to be moved because the T station is being replaced as part of the North Shore Connector project, but officials haven't decided what to do with the mural.
The piece was not an issue until its value was learned, said authority spokeswoman Judi McNeil.
"Now that it's a $15 million piece of art, it's a different story," she said. "It begs the question, is Port Authority set up to be a caretaker of a valuable piece of art?"
The value of most public art pieces isn't known because they weren't created for sales in commercial art markets, Piechocki said.
The Bearden mural has minor damage, some from water that leaked onto the subway wall. Authority officials were surprised to learn its value. For years, no one had a clue about its significance and the agency spent little to maintain it.
Other public artworks across Western Pennsylvania could be valuable, but haven't been appraised.
Those who use the Middle Road entrance to the Hartwood Acres park in the North Hills might know David Hayes' 17-foot-tall painted steel sculpture called "Large Escargot." They might not know Hayes has works in collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and New York's Guggenheim Museum.
Hayes' sculpture is one of 12 public pieces at Hartwood.
Virgil Cantini made the glass mosaic inside a pedestrian tunnel behind U.S. Steel Tower in 1964. Cantini worked at the University of Pittsburgh and chaired its art department, and is known nationally for his works.
Three murals by Vincent Nesbert decorate the lobby of the Allegheny County Courthouse, Downtown. Nesbert, once dean of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, started the murals, called "Justice," "Peace" and "Industry" in 1933, according to the Western Pennsylvania Historical Society.
Today, most public art is sought by officials wishing to shape a destination's image or revitalize a neighborhood.
"We don't look at them as a dollar asset as much as something we want to keep as a source of pride for each community," said Curt Gettman, public art program manager at the Sprout Fund, Downtown, which coordinates art projects annually.
The Sprout Fund links artists seeking to do public art pieces with communities wanting public art. The communities maintain the sites where pieces are located and the Sprout Fund maintains the works.
"We might have the next Romare Bearden among our ranks, but we don't have a Romare Bearden that we have to maintain currently," Gettman said.
The Sprout Fund helped create 38 public murals across the region, including works in redeveloping areas such as Wilkinsburg.
Allegheny County created an art commission in recent years but has not appointed members to its board.
Public art
Hundreds of works are publicly displayed across the region. Among them:
• Pittsburgh International Airport, Findlay: Alexander Calder's mobile "Pittsburgh," relocated from the former Greater Pittsburgh International Airport in Moon.
• Hartwood Acres, Hampton/Indiana Township: At least a dozen pieces, including David Hayes' steel sculpture "Large Escargot."
• Millvale: "A Walk Through Millvale," mural by S. Kessler Kaminski.
• Wilkinsburg: Untitled mural by Brian Holderman on Penn Avenue.
• Carnegie: "Rebirth" mural by Gregg Valley.
• Greensburg: Mural depicting the city's history by Raphael Pantalone.
• Downtown: Agnes R. Katz Plaza by Louise Bourgeois.
• North Shore: Painted aluminum "Pittsburgh Variations" done by George Sugarman.
• Downtown: Richard S. Caliguiri bronze statue in front of the City-County Building.
• Uniontown: Marquis de Lafayette statue in the Fayette County Courthouse lobby, carved out of poplar wood in the 1800s by Pittsburgh artist David Gilmour Blythe.
• Latrobe: "Here and Elsewhere," by Pittsburgh artist Norwood MacGilvary is part of the Latrobe High School art collection.
