Transcript of: Moderated Discussion: Session Three (Art, Race, Space Symposium, January 25, 2013)

Linda Duke with panelists Mindy Taylor Ross, Fred Wilson, Erika Doss, Bridget Cooks, Dell Upton, Renée Ater, Prichard Pierce, and Paul Mullins.

Recording available from: https://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/media/d278812v2z

I would like to prompt or prime the pump for this discussion by posing two questions to the group. And in both cases, if you pick one of these questions to respond to, I'd appreciate a sort of concrete example. The first one is, what? What did you find? What did you learn today that had value for you? What does it take away? And again, a specific example. And the other question is, what did you hear today that changed? In a pretty important way, your understanding of this whole conversation? Did you hear something that that has caused you to change the views you came into the room today carrying? No, I should have set in the middle on the takeaway. Actually, I think maybe the thing I would say is that I think part of what I've been impressed by today, it sort of knew before anyway, is that the university has to be, like many of these state and city institutions, has to lead the way and we have to create a welcoming environment to have these kinds of discussions on campus and makes sure that community scholarship is valued and it's part of campus. And the IT folks in a variety of communities know that. I don't think my vision is changed at all. I still think this is another ethnographic failure to talk across in along the color line. I feel the same way as I did yesterday. Down the line. I think Paul's comments in his paper about the materiality of black subjectivity in the landscape was really important for me to hear today. That synched. It's something that I've been thinking around the edges on, but there's just the way that you framed it for me made me really think about, particularly as I'm working on a book around slavery and the memorialization process of the slave past that conceived very broadly. But what happens when eraser in the landscape takes place? What I would actually say that that's my real concrete takeaway. And in fact, I wanted to say so I can think about it even more. I think that I had already thought this, but it was reaffirmed today. Public, the public consensus around public art is almost impossible. And that's what I come away with. That it is that we all have different ideas of what public art should be and what it should do, and who should be represented and what we think art is or isn't, and how that's realized in public spaces, particularly in cities and towns. But for me, I think this idea that there's, there's going to be consensus. And having lived in Washington around the Martin Luther King discussion on clipping every article in the Post, there still isn't consensus about what that monument should be, right? Even now that people are gathering in that space and visiting. But still continued battles over the inscriptions in particular, but also still conversations about the social realist program of it. So I think consistent, it's hard. So how to have public participation around topics when consensus, we know from the start it's not going to be possible. I guess there are a couple of things that struck me. One going going back again to pause paper and this issue of material presence, I started working on monuments. Actually, this began as a project on black main streets and the South. And on the, the dual downtowns that grew up during the period between the Jim Crow and civil rights. And noticing that in many cases, the black main streets, or in almost all cases the blacks main streets are no longer there. One of the things I tell people which they think that, which, which, which sounds like a joke, but it's actually very empirical, is if you want to know where the black Main Street is, look for parking lots in federal buildings, knocked down, turned into parking lots as part of redevelopment. Federal buildings built there because they found out that no one would redevelop it. So the Fed's redeveloped it. So these monuments, in a way, I was a kid during the civil rights movement. And one of the reasons I'm interested in this issue is that it really struck me then and still does, is sort of the great moral moment of American society in the 20th century. So much of it as, as you've heard in Renee's papers and others. So much of it revolves around our memory, photographs and TV. And so much of that revolves around the settings of those photographs and TV. In the urban areas than the Civil Rights Movement was fought in the territory of the New South city. The city that was, that was born, built in the early 20th century as part of the industrializing and the South. The New South City is what was destroyed by urban renewal in the '70s and '80s. So the settings are not there. So the monuments are really, they carry an even greater burden than they might otherwise have. The second thing is that I get, that I take from the conversations is that there is in general, in the whole sphere of public art and commemoration. I think a three-part confusion. That is, there are three poles that are confused about another. Fred talked about trillions worrying art in public versus public art. Art in public as expressive art. Public art is art which is expected to carry some sort of didactic burden to teach people something. And I would put memorialization and commemoration at a third point because memorials traditionally shouldn't be didactic. They should add, invite you to reflect rather than tell you what to think. And more and more. In the past 20 years, 30 years, people who have put up memorials have treated them as public art. They wanted to tell you what to think about the subject rather than asking you to reflect on it. And so, so here's some of that in the discussion we have that everybody is starting from a different point about what so-called public art does. In part grows out of this confusion of three different poles. I would say that the complexity of racial conversations and the need for them, It's something that I understood and imperative for and I think even more so, I really am amazed at how many people are here. I don't know if we would have this many people if we had this problem in Los Angeles. And I am actually really encourage that so many people have spent a workday to come to this project, which I think is amazing that it's even happening. I think we should think more about the difference. Well, let's say the best way to say this, the differences between art and the public, public art and memorials. I think those terms have been used interchangeably in our conversations. When I think about first proposal, I don t think of it as a memorial. I think of it as public art. And so I think in future conversations it might be nice try to parse those things out and figure out what what kind of support can you get for materializing some sort of project for the cultural trail? Because as I go back to this idea of the burden of representation, right? And Fred is saying the same thing. One sculpture isn't enough. Could there be a plan for a memorial of some sort? Multiple memorials and public art and art that you will have to think about, maybe long-term, even a series of strategically placed images and objects and for different stories. I think that is a great idea. And I was hearing that on today in the conversation. I also learned a lot from Dell's presentation. I'll have to buy all your books because everything he said was fascinating to me. This idea of dual heritage is, I mean, it's gotta be more than dual. It's gotta be five or six or seven different kinds of heritages that we talked to each other and especially elders who are quickly disappearing. We can really think about how complicated the past is. It certainly wasn't any simpler in the old days. I also liked the things that error code is saying about memorializing or marking as an important place. Places of shame. How do you, how do you mark a place where an important race right? Happened in Tulsa. What kind of what group of people are going to count? What kind of conversations are you going to have, right? Because these are important moments of race riots, something I'm really interested in. And I was surprised the first times I was first going to the South. I was expecting to find markers of important moments in the Civil Rights Movement. And all I kept finding where these markers of the Civil War and having this moment of what century MIN. So there's, there's just a lot of work to do, but I am very much encouraged by the turnout for this event. I actually don't want any differentiation or distinction is made between terms like Memorial, monument, or public art. I think we should just muddy it all up. But because those distinctions are all almost impossible to keep. And I think labeling gets in the way. The point is if we're gonna make stuff in the public sphere, public space, even if it's on private lands and it's private and it's publicly viewed, then there are certain issues that come to the fore in terms of representation and accountability. The stories that are told and sort of the narratives that are presented. So I'm not one for distinctions here in terms of, in terms of labels. I think what I've, what I've learned today and like you, I'm, I'm impressed with the turnout, is there seems to be a hunger in this room for how do we do public art? And I don't want to be I don't want to suggest anything that you haven't heard before, but anybody in this room can get engaged and do public art. And I'm not trying to diss you as as, as an artist here. Sorry. No 50. I mean, seriously, there, there have been some great comments all day. Well, how do we do this and what's a better way? And how can we get this idea of sort of push? This is exactly what happened in Duluth. They didn't have a public art program. They didn't have a percent for our program. They just had a newspaper reporter picture of whom you saw in one of my slides, who kept walking past that place that she had heard about a lynching. It occurred decades earlier. She went to the newspaper, dug up in the archives the history of the event and said, how come there's nothing in Duluth history about this? And she realized to just putting a plaque there would mean nothing. Why can't we use this as a forum to talk about other issues? Again, it wasn't meant to be a memorial to appease what happened or are we did a memorial, we're done now let's move on to another project or another memory. But rather this conversational space which frankly, the citizens of that community put together. And they did a call for entries, brought in local artist. It went national as well, the woman who want it, I think it's from Wisconsin. But in any case, so I would just like to encourage the folks who are in this room are interested in public cultural projects, permanent or temporary, lasting, or a femoral. There's so many ways to go about doing it. One of the best organizations out there is called Americans for the Arts. They have a pre-conference called public art network that meets for 21 to two days before their annual meetings. You're usually in June. And this is a great place to go see what other communities in America are doing with equally fraught subjects. And the final thing I want to say is, I also believe in civic generosity. There are a lot of stories, there are a lot of diverse publics in this town, in this community. There is no single monument. Oh, is that the only one we're gonna get is sort of a failed question to begin with. I think there are multiple voices that can act in the public sphere and diverse publics. And I encourage all of you to, you know, what does Gandhi said Be the change that you want to be. I really enjoyed so much of what went on today and I have a really bad memory. So I'll have to rethink and I'm trying to call back a lot of things, but I think you took what I was going to say. This notion of dual heritages was a really just the aha moment. For me. This sort of New Jim Crow of the mind, that it explains a lot and it goes through a lot of different situations as well as the sort of stark ones that you, that you spoke about. I just to disagree with you slightly about notions of monument and memorial and public art. Sometimes R has no story, is completely abstract. So there are distinctions. It means that it's going to be there. If you want to, you know, more than more than something that's just there for a little while, It's going to be there. And that's kinda where we're, you know, the broadest basis of notion of public art and that there's a sickness in that it's hopefully public money and we all share in that. But, you know, the subject really can really be different from a memorial or maybe there's no subject. The other thing I reflected on us that, you know, I might work was not considered a memorial or a monument like my project mining the museum was not a museum exhibition. It mimicked a museum exhibition. This mimicked a monument to talk about, monuments to reveal the things that these things we're not talking about. The same with mine in the museum. And this is a conscious effort to take this project is that I had in my museum practice and look at another form of visual. Visual display that has really not been looked at in that way. But I don't understand it because it looks like that. It gets, you know, for some I'm just splitting hairs. But in fact, in my mind, it was created to kind of reflect back on the original monument and the city of monuments. And what does that mean for the city? So I realized that it's, you know, I'm making a complex on purpose and that's where that's where it goes. It's great. So I have to just kind of admit that I can't well, I can answer what I'll take away, but I can't be I'll be specific about one thing. But I just have to say that this is the only the second time in a year that I've spoken about the project publicly since it was canceled. Because it was very meaningful to me. The biggest fear that I had being a member of this community is that by it being canceled, is that this conversation would exactly end. That was my biggest fear as a member of as a Hoosier now and as a member of the Indianapolis community, that the cancellation of the project was in fact a way to not have this conversation. So my one takeaway is that I'm incredibly pleased that even though we are not blessed with the object, we are blessed that we're continuing to have the conversation. And so I hope that that continues. But I'm still digesting it all to be perfectly honest. I just wanted to say that had this crowd morning crowded and this crowd bid at my first meeting before, when it was just a nascent idea why this didn't happen in 2009. We would be having a different conversation in a different situation today. And I think the project would have been different. And I pose that question sort of offstage because somebody mentioned to me is the first time they had heard me state publicly that members of the African American media here had actually received information about Fred's project proposal in 2009, but it was never released by the members of the black media here. For whatever reason. I mean, you know, it's busy news day or they thought it was big a art and not for them or their constituents or something. I don't know whatever editorial decision was made, but yeah, I just I wish we would've been able to have this conversation in 2009 when we released the proposal. Hindsight. You just made the comment that that you intended your work to be sort of to prompt reflection on the original that that you took it from. And you had made the comment in your talk, Bridget, that without a piece of public art, there is no public commentary on that figure, on the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. And I'd love to hear what people have to say about that. I was about to say something that's sort of just lost. It. Asked me that question again about whether or not your piece was conceived in some part to be a commentary or to prompt reflection on the original figure. Well, yeah, of course. And also, you know, it it was basically an open an open question that would hopefully be discussed and played over and over. Not just about that 111 image, but the fact that it was the only image and it was downtown and, and, and hopefully spur on more activity, more action to create works that were really important to people who've been the Indianapolis African-American community means Annapolis. Since I'm not from here. It was just a way to kind of reflect back. Reflect back. And, you know, I think that's what's happened in, in, you know, a year later after the thing was killed. It's happening right here. Yes. So, you know, that thrills me a lot. I mean, I've always I came back because I've always every time I have come, no matter what, you know, what environment that I was in, I've always enjoyed them and thrilled by the conversations of head width, the people of Indianapolis. And this is, you know, wherever these conversations went there are quite exciting and quite creative. Ideas came out of evenings. Conversations even came out of, of, of a negative discussion of my project. Ideas of projects and other works came out of that, which, which really was thrilling. And this kind of civic dialogue around imagery and identity and representation came out of that. Now we're having, now we're having some really serious and nuanced conversations with which all of you have been able to give this incredible background in all different ways for and So I'm very I'm I'm, I'm, you know, maybe I'm just always pulling it Pollyanna, but I really think that this is a great push off to do something really terrific here on a grand scale. Other last two reflections from speakers. I have a question. Yeah, but I wanted to be a citizen. I have a question from my colleague, my colleague Erica, because I never see you at Notre Dame at all. So you mentioned manias and crazes. And I wanted to know, I have two questions. This is the first. Other common elements that accompany these mini isn't crazy, isn't it? How do we see them coming or how do we enjoy them in the moment? That's one. The second I was really struck with your discussion about shame in Duluth, because shame is such a temporal emotion. And what we find shameful now is not what they found shameful then and maybe vice versa for future generations. So how can we construct something using shame as a, as a trope? Not knowing what the future says about chain and what about that event will shame us at all. So mania as well, like you, Richard, as an historian, I'm not sure we can see the manias in our midst. We have to wait 20 or 40 years. It's a, it's a sort of sexy term to go with memorial, memorial Mania. But I'm not sure that I'm not sure that there are any shared characteristics so much as qualities that we can look, I see I've shamed do to come up here. Sort of shared character of what I was talking about in terms of deep interests widespread in memory, history and identity, identity politics, perhaps it's not necessarily com, can't be single, singly described. And it is infectious. And I'm not saying it's necessarily bad either. Simply pointing out that it is manic. And to your second point, I don't believe shame is temporal. I think many of us carry shame or the nation's certainly should carry shame about its transgressions. And I don't believe shame is something that we have one day and it goes away the next. And in fact, maybe that's part of the problem. Differing understandings of shame and what I'm talking about is national and civic shame. I'm talking about transgressions that have occurred in this nation that we talk about when we talk about it on the best possible terms. As an idealized place, a better place. We're constantly comparing ourselves to others. And yet we have done these things and we need to be accountable for them. I think it is incredibly difficult to get a nation, particularly in this day and age that is so much about its exceptionalism and it's supposedly better than anywhere else in the world. Think about those transgressions, but I do think that there are critically important in a lot of this is coming out of trauma theory and simply understanding that if we don't reckon with the traumas of our past, we certainly will continue to live with them and create new traumas as well. I'd like to just ask for further reflections on this idea of shame because I wonder if the capacity to sincerely feel shame is necessarily engendered by shaming. And I think Martha Nussbaum, the philosopher, has written some really interesting ways about the negative reactions that most people have to being shamed and the resistance that, that builds and how little place shaming really should have in education, e.g. So, I mean, anything anyone would like to say about the difference between cultivating our capacity to be genuinely regretful and ashamed of what happened versus much easier to shame people and to create humiliating, shaming situations for them. When I listened, Erica talked about shame. I think back to a very old book that was current when I was in graduate school by kayaks and a sociologist who talked about the difference between guilt cultures and shame cultures. And he said a guilt culture was widened where you do something wrong. Say you've embezzled from your body. You, even if you never get caught, you feel bad about it. The shame culture is one where it's okay until you get caught. And what shame, shame in his, in his analysis is really about face. You're only ashamed because it damages your social position and your social reputation. And, and what I think monuments like the one Erika was talking about. And then some of the civil rights and African-American history monuments do, is to try to instill guilt and shame culture. And I think they've, some of the resistance to them, particularly among whites, is just for that reason that they see, you see any kind of admission of past wrongs as a loss of social Face and obey. So, so it's, it's, uh, it requires a very skillful person to create a monument that's capable of doing that. Any further reflections? Wanted to take a moment to ask the panelists. One of the classic admonitions of American style racism is to know your place. And part of what e pluribus unum did was to mess very forcefully without ever being created materially with those charged racial boundaries. I'm wondering if maybe it would fire anyone's imagination and some comment on what is the place for art, for provocations of racial boundaries? And must they be temporary or can we look and find places on the map of our contemporary city where we could imagine permanent installations that would somehow not lose their edge over time. Or maybe we should expect them to lose their edge. And not unlike some of the memorials we see in Germany to the Holocaust, the disappear over time or are very transitory. I don't think you should say that they get their message gets diluted the best, the best art. It changes, it stays around. The issues are different. It goes through time. And as we know of all of our lifetimes, we have gray hair, you know, you know, it changes, it morphs. And they're ideas that come from left field like your children and that are totally, you know, you're surprised to hear this. Come, come out. And you just see, well, wow, that's a different thought. I hadn't I didn't think that was ever gonna be thought and are taken for granted. So, so the best art, it doesn't have the same meaning. Well, that's if you go to any museum, there's these incredible works of art from the Renaissance or, you know, much earlier. Those things where especially in the Middle Ages and wherever the really powerful meaning in Africa objects extremely powerful to a community. Through time and history and situations. Some of those meanings are no longer, say, understood by the general populace. By specialized people call art historians, but not the general populace. However, there's something else in it that really you cannot let go of. And that's the human spirit of the person who made that thing. And you feel it through, through the object, through the image, and it takes on other meetings, but just spent, that's really great art. And that's why i'm, I'm an advocate for anything that's a memorial or a monument, or public, or public art that has a strength of aesthetic and very, extremely, um, well as strength of the aesthetic quality of the work. But also where the individual who made that puts so much of themselves into that thing. That even if the subject changes, it's this voice from the, from that person coming through the past. I mean, great novels are the same way. So yeah, that's what I say, but I think I agree with her, but I think monuments are mutable and we have to keep that in mind. And I think this idea that they stay stationary and constant and meeting never shifts. It's problematic. The minute they go into a public space, they've already changed, right? And that has to do with the way we've moved through cities, the way we interact with that space, what our concerns are for that moment. And I think the Lincoln Memorial, e.g. is the perfect example of the changing monument when it was the bacon and French design of that monument, part of the McMillan Plan of the city. It had a very particular kind of narrative it was trying to tell. And part of that is about reconciliation. Part of that is about Lincoln, the great civil war president. But think about when Marion Anderson sang on the steps of that, it forever changed that monument, right? And then we had. King. And then we had Obama and then we had Glenn Beck try to actually usurped the meaning of the monument from the Silver Rights moment. So for me, that's always, that's the liveliness of the monument and the space around it and the way in which we can interact and have this kind of constant shifting that happens at least that's how I see it. Now, some ligaments just are not successful. I think you showed that monument and savanna, which is one of my least favorite monument lists because I think it just was not well conceived. And thinking about what slavery means and Savannah, Did you show who showed that was that? You did. And you know that monument, the monument, I dislike of this nuclear family dressed in 1950s garb with shackles around their feet. What is that about? Right? So that is a monument that, yes, that's a monument that is that actually a lot of neo Confederate response to it, which has revealed a whole nother kind of aspect of Savannah society as well. So I do think that they're mutable and we can't control their meanings over time. It also, you know, I'm, I'm, since I'm an artist, it's also aesthetically really bad. Oh, it's aesthetically, it's also it's really bad. No, I agree with you. What's really don't. But that's just an aside that is done inside. That is the, that's the whole thing. I mean, besides this kind of symbolism that is problematic. What engagement with engages you with the Lincoln Memorial? There's lots of depictions of Lincoln everywhere. Yeah, that's right. But this particular one, which I forget who was speaking by the way, he's saying No Chester for you. You spoke about somebody. Alright. But anyway, the way oh, yes, you did? Yes, I was seated. And also the quality of the stone, the quality of the carving makes it exists for a much longer period. You're engaged with it in a very different way. The scale of all the things about a really thought out very, very well. And so it's not, if you're not engaged with aesthetics in the same way, you may not notice that. It may not, you know, but but you're being affected by is what I'm saying. And so, so a great, a great work of art could be a monument, could be a memorial. But it has to have all these qualities that make us it endure, endure it in time for the long term. That's an interesting issue because when I, when I give talks in art history departments, I always get the question, but are these good art? And my answer is always a, who cares? B is by whose standards? I think that for the most part they do what the people who commissioned them wanted them to do. The monument. And Savannah is pretty insipid, but it was forced to be in, submitted by the city. Who wanted it to be hopeful. So it's a hopeful sign. And the woman who was its chief driver will also, for her own reasons, wanted it to be hopeful. I've mentioned there's another monument made out of paper machete by, by an artist from a poor neighborhood of Savannah. It's just displayed next to his house. It shows us a nude slave family in gold chains. And he said to me, This is what life is really like for black people in Savannah. Not like the monument downtown. So the meanings do change their read differently. I mean, I would say that the great example of that is the Soldiers and Sailors monuments here. I think it's a wonderful monument. He's the guy put in everything that ever cross his mind. Every animal, every. But it tells us certain narrative which was meant to be read in a certain way in which the passage of 100 years and with the help of friends and other people, we can read it as a completely different narrative. But it's still a very eloquent narrative of American history at that time. And it could be shane Monday. I was thinking when Erica was talking that, wouldn't it be wonderful if Confederate monuments got Greek houses, shame monuments. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's kinda my point. I'm not advocating Confederate War Memorial vandalism or anything like that. Although that is gonna be part of a forthcoming book I'm working on, but I think it's important to realize once you put something up, conversations already in process and we'll continue. In fact, James Young who writes on memorials and monuments, says, forget about building anything. Just have the conversation that whatever you are memorializing are thinking about in terms of memory work, it should be an ongoing conversation that never stops. He was writing specifically about Holocaust memory, but it's worth considering, of course nothing would get made and artists would be out of jobs and we would just sit around in conferences all the time. But the point is that something goes up, that doesn't mean that it can't be changed, at least in terms of our interpretation and understanding of it or as I think Fred's work and bodies, the response to it in the form of other stuff. So again, we don't need a moratorium so much as we need more public art. Because we need more public's involved in public conversations about the matters, about the things in matters that are most meaningful to them. I do just want to underscore again, which Fred said about the aesthetics should do and should matter. I mean, it has to be aesthetically rigorous as well as conceptually rigorous. I mean, like you said, you said who cares? Right? He's like Who cares well, but perhaps when they're not aesthetically pleasing, I mean, maybe that's why these monuments are really dead to people quite literally. And y, when we did have meetings about Fred's project and the people who did come early on. I remember at the IMA meeting, a 63-year-old African-American woman standing up and saying to you, thank you so much for doing this proposal. I have lived in Indianapolis my entire life. I never knew that man was they're not made up true story. That wasn't the only time that happened and that wasn't right. But, but aesthetically, successful public art has to have lot of portals of entries for people. That's how they last through time. There have to be many different levels where people can approach it and understand it and we can't lose aesthetics and formal rigor as part of that. But I would like to actually add one more thing in response to your question because I just wrote a piece on the African-American Civil War Memorial in Washington DC. And it's an interesting monument because it's in, on the U Street Corridor and historic. What was his dark black neighborhood, which is under extreme duress, a neighborhood that's really transformed into $1,000,000 home. So it's a very different kind of space, but it was put there deliberately off the memorial landscape. But it's an interesting piece of public art because it was conceived with the museum across the street to give it meaning and historical context. And that is really an interesting idea to me. So that you can go to the monument and experience the monument and read the names of every soldier, soldier, sailor that was in the Civil War, African-American soldier. But you can go across the street and see displays and go to public talks and you can retrieve their working with the National Archives retrieved family history about perhaps an African-American soldier who was in your family that you didn't know about. So you can start. So it has this incredible interaction that happens and it's a monument I've also spent a lot of time in. There are constant bus tours to that space where people are both experiencing the museum and the monument. And it kind of history as, as very lived in the now for them as well. So that's just 11 example of thinking about how public art or could work as well. I was completely thrilled, you know, on the flip side is thrilled to see that sculpture, nelson savanna, because there was nothing else. Yeah. So I was photographing the hell out of it because it existed. Yeah. That's not to say that, you know, it's going to last the test of time because it's not, it doesn't engage you, it doesn't, you know, doesn't have that. But you look at the worlds of of this kind of statuary and they're all, you can replace one for another except when you get to certain ones. Why, why certain ones still memorable? The Statue of Liberty or certain other ones? Besides their particular subject matter. There is something to this, the aesthetic issues that go into making, making art, making art and also making monuments and memorials. Okay, let's, let's take two questions and then and then I'm going to tell you that earlier sometimes are too polite here in Indianapolis and yeah. I mean, I can't even believe that we would talk about as thick or aesthetic rigor. Without asking by whose standard? By what standard and what criteria are you talking about? Aesthetic rigor. And when you've referred to earlier about the idea that different communities were approached through the black media as if there's a homogeneity in black media. We have community centers where the idea was not brought and talked about in all parts of the city. We didn't not here, public opportunities for comments and feedback in lots of different places so that people who are low-income, moderate income, all kinds of issues of race, class, and gender intersect it. And it was not taken to lots of different communities, were not a whole list of one group of black people. To even talk about an aesthetic rigor without talking about WHO standards you're going to talk with and engage in critique is it's just, it's like an insult. Well, first, I will apologize. I'm not meaning to insult anyone and I didn't mean to imply that by going to certain black media that we're going to reach the entirety of the black community. That was not at all what I meant. I just Meant that I questioned why this information was provided to members of the media and it wasn't shared. But those very same members of the media helps create a controversy. Two years later. That was the only point I was making it again, sorry if I came across the wrong way, that was not my intention in terms of aesthetic rigor, I guess what, what I'm talking about is kind of a formal understanding about scale and materiality. Subject matter, ways that you sort of look at art, ways that artists are creating art. Different sort of formal considerations that they're thinking about. Like I said, you know, scale, materiality. I mean, these were all things that when we was working with Fred and with all of the artists on the cultural trail that were being thought about site specificity, how one thinks about context. So these are all sort of formal considerations. And so that's what I meant when we're talking about this or when I was talking about aesthetic rigor of a question, briefly. I was part of the group Cassie, that was against the alright work. Basically because a person that is that image of a person without shoes, without shirt, basically you cannot go anywhere it gets. So looking like that too, that images are the most powerful ways in which the brain identifies. When I say orange, I'm pretty sure the word orange is not spelled out in your mind. You see that image of an orange. So that image with layers for what, another 6,000 years at a time when we have the first African-American president. So it seems that the view of those who choose public art, as my professor was saying about the class structure, It's like a racialized view. They have the resources and the money and those that don't have it don't not able to come to the table. And it appeared that those that are making those decisions are not culturally competent. Meaning that they may not consider other cultures. They see it one way. So my question is, when they do decide to choose public art, like the gentleman said over here today, how many of the people know that the room and building we're standing in today, what was the land of African-Americans? Okay. It's like you don't take that in consideration. The respect the honor. At the beginning of these kinds of panels and groupings. And of course you can get us to discuss how these are organized. Who organizes the reason? A conversation has to ensue, led by someone about to raise consciousness about these issues as well. Before one goes into the choosing of art That's going to be put in the public so that everybody is on this. Just as I'm, as I'm advocating for, for discussion around art and aesthetics. There should be a discussion around culture and everybody should, should have knowledge and understanding of the issues that and histories of that, that community or that area. And the only way to do that is if you have people from various diverse communities and scholars who can engage in and make this dialogue so important to the project that what comes out is reflection of those, those datas and an understanding of what is going to be put out there. It can be left-sided one way. Either way. Just looking at something for aesthetic issues. You know, putting it in the public sphere without discussing the cultural context is completely, you know, it makes no sense. Now, not that that ever happens except that sometimes on these groups of people that get together to choose. And I'm speaking not about here necessarily because I wasn't involved with with that end of it. But nationally, those kind of conversations don't happen. And those community partners, R can be a minority within that, within the group. And because they're not at first about art, the conversation can shift them out of their reach. And because those who are, who are adverse about art but not involve knowledgeable of the cultural aspects and the communities aspects and the struggles and histories of various communities that are that this thing is being chosen for. That they're not on the same level. So the conversations never really gel. And of course, there's a lot of goodwill. It's not like there's no goodwill, but there needs to be. Before these things are chosen, a kind of conversation, that deep conversation about all these issues. And because there's going to be on a panel, it's gonna be diverse opinions about all these things. There's no way that you're going to have one set of opinions, but people have to understand where people are coming from and have a strong conversation about that. So going forward, any kind of dialogue around a particular artwork, because artwork can be, or as an artist where it can be complex and difficult or just complex. And aspects are not understood by everyone. There has to be a conversation on like this on a small scale for anything that's chosen. Yeah. Let's have yes. Then we're going to have to bring this to a close and move into the public conversation phase. I know there are a lot of people who have ideas to contribute, and that's gonna be our next activity. So let's hear a final comment. I think what what disturbed me was when you said versed about art. And then you started saying site specificity, scale materiality, formal considerations. And then I realized what you were saying was historical amnesia. When you have historical amnesia, you can't even begin to address issues of the importance of art culturally as a process. And so when you come and say this formal process and the way that the aesthetic is conceptualized than what you've done is caused the historical amnesia that scholars like medieval is mid-April. Give me your name correctly. We do pay is trying to make sure that we reconnect with. And so project is created, it's called public art. But the historical information that was necessary that Marsh Creek is talked about earlier wasn't gathered. Where was the gathering of all of those different complex historical, archaeological things that would say, when we create this, we've got to be very thoughtful. It's not the only piece that we hope to ever create, but we're not going to just simply say it's about the formal aesthetic process. That's, I think that's important, right? And again, just to repeat what I said, I think successful public art has aesthetic rigor as well as conceptual rigor. And when I say that, I mean that it's, the underpinnings of the art are historically culturally consent. You like the concept is informed. So that's what I meant, is that in order for it to be a successful piece of public art, all of that does have to be there. And that's also what I meant by having those two underpinnings. It allows lots of different portals of entry for lots of people. You can approach the art from many different angles. I Can, I add something to that. Having said that, who cares, what is good art or not, I really did mean as a historian, I'm looking at it works that are already created. And I'm asking how they can be created, what they, what they meant, what they've come to mean. And as someone who was not trained as an art historian, I believe that you don't write our historic history by writing only the, writing only about the works of art you think are great anymore than you write history of presidents by mentioning only the ones you'd think we're good. So I feel like I have to have a inclusive view of works. And so I don't talk in, in, when I write about whether I think things are good or not. Although I have had my own opinions. But I think the, the, the issue of conflict here and it arises in a sort of a sociological view. In any profession. There are insider and outsider considerations. There are issues of making connection with one's audience, whether you do that well or not. And I think these are the issues that are coming up here about content. But also artists are architects already would have their own standards that they judge each other by of competence, quality, of particular technical ingenuity, aspects of technical ingenuity that other people might not even notice, but that the insiders, the members of the profession, are issues of craft or do you do what you do well, well or not? It may not matter to your audience, but if you're a musician, music, another musician would say, Wow, that person played 432nd notes in 5 s. But to show the audience, that might mean nothing. So I think what Fred is raising is at issue is that as an artist and as patrons of artists, you have to ask both of those things. Is, is the work connecting with the audience, but also is the working within, within the confines of the artistic world? Does the work meet standards you expect of a good artist? And those are things we all have our own our own areas of expertise that we would be very offended if somebody else says, I could judge that as well as you can. I can I can I can, I could paint that painting. I could I could design that house. And I think those are the kinds of issues that are coming up with in discussing issues of quality and so on. In the area of the debate are the balances. Spread said it can be lopsided sometimes between the artistic merit and the cultural competencies, if you will. That's always troubled me. I mean, I think ever since I was cognizant of the American Film Institute that continues to put the Birth of a Nation on a list of the top hundred because of its technical, artistic merit, not because of the sorted reconstruction history that it presents. It. I don't know how you separate those two. You can say the technical merits, great, but the message is what we see. And so like I said, this isn't second, almost everything Dell said, But I will say with this 11 more thing, one more kind of have to drag this out. If you have three forms and you don't get enough people, you got to have more forams. You gotta go get the people. You gotta go out and find them. You got to drag the man. If you must do, you must induce them in some way to get the commentary that you want before you move forward. This is a public art project, cannot be a checkbox thing. We had a forum checkbox. It's an evaluative thing. It has to be and I'm not saying it didn't happen here, I just don't know. But it appears that people said, well, they didn't have an opportunity to communicate their feelings and thoughts and impressions about this. If we don't have enough, do we need to go out and get it? You know, one of the things I think don't know, we haven't talked a whole lot about this. But one of the things we talked about as historians is the people who don't have, who felt they didn't have an opportunity to speak. Or this is more important, I think in Indianapolis contexts who felt that their voices when they've been heard anyway. And that if they had said something, it wouldn't have mattered because some somebody, some somewhere would have made a decision against their wishes anyway. So that's not a reason not to talk. It's a reason to talk louder and maybe a more concerted way. But I think that from your comments that historical remnant remains. Okay. I am really sorry to bring this part of the discussion to a close because obviously it's still very important. But we do have a public conversations scheduled. And since we've run a little bit over, what I'd like to do is ask you to take a five-minute break. And before you leave this room, I'd like to ask Carol white to stand up so that any of you who don't know Carol can see who she is. She will be meeting you after the five-minute break when you reassemble next door, there are tables set up. There are suggested conversation starters, but this is an opportunity for people to come together to make suggestions, to express ideas that will be recorded. And then we'll come back in here for closing discussion briefly.