San Diego Public Art A standard lament in the visual arts community is that San Diego is fated to be a perpetual Jersey-on-the-Pacific, with art remaining the odd duck out in a region known for its theatre and physical culture. The artists tend to blame this on the weather, without considering that the problem may be their art. San Diego has beautiful light, and people are outdoors enjoying it. For art to be an integral part of the regional culture, it needs to follow the people outdoors. To a remarkable extent this has already occurred: art's outside in San Diego, thanks to community action, private foundations, and city art programs. But the region also has a history of civic controversies over public art: several high-profile proposals have crashed and burned, and in a few cases installed work was removed. Sometimes the fault seemed to lie as much with the artist as the unhappy public. Artists and audience alike need to learn: good art is hard, good public art harder. And even the controversy itself needs to be put into perspective: about the proposed Statue of Liberty, the New York Times opined that "no true patriot can countenance any such expenditures for bronze females in the present state of our finances." Parisians hated the Eiffel Tower. Veterans hated the Vietnam Wall. To date most media coverage of San Diego public art has been event- driven, focused on proposals, installations, and any ensuing controversies. What's been missing is a directory of public art: something that not only helps interested viewers find the community gems and learn more about them, but also shows just how much good public art there already is. This The links in this book jump to Safari or the Maps Click on the image above to view the artwork locations book reviews selected works from around the region, with the criterion for inapp Google – to return,Maps (along switch with back a tolist the of artistsBooks app.and titles) X inclusion being that the work be worth the trip. David C. Freeman Memorial Artist: Paul Sibel Walk the walk from Children's Pool to La Jolla Cove, and just before the Bridge Club you'll see a metal box encrusted with barnacles. The barnacles are letters, and the box is actually three things: an emergency phone for calling the lifeguards; a marker showing the location of Boomer Beach (a world-renowned bodysurf break); and a memorial to David C. Freeman, a master bodysurfer and Boomer local who died young in 1994. The San Diego bodysurfing community wished to remember a friend, and the lifeguard phone at the time was rusting out, so someone put two and two together and this memorial was born. Look closely and you'll see David's name among the letters. o Night Vision Series I Artist: Roberto Salas Between Presidents Way and Upas, Park Boulevard has fifty-one traffic signs. The general pattern (if you try counting) goes something like this: Parking, No Parking, Parking, No Parking, No Parking, No Parking, No Parking, Zoo Place, what, what? The what's are art – traffic sign art – and they're doing what the best public art does: paying attention to the surroundings, finding a niche, and settling in. The signs are notable for a couple of reasons. First, unlike most art (which assumes the long look) but definitely like most billboards, they're designed to be seen at driving speed. Second, they were the City of San Diego's first-ever public art purchase, back in 1989. o Pacific Union Artist: George Trakas Paris and Manhattan are famous (among other things) for their pocket parks: tiny oases of urban public space too small to be called parks. It turns out La Jolla's got one – courtesy of the museum – at the corner of Coast and Cuvier Street. Look for a narrow pathway leading up from the sidewalk, follow it up, and you're there. While the park offers the usual grass and benches, its most notable feature is four small shelters which resemble Zen huts, but with whitewater views. These are fantastic places to sit, meditate, and watch the whales and tourists. If at some point you wonder where the art is, you're in it: the whole park's the artwork. oo Euclid Tower Artists: Cynthia Bechtel, Mark Messenger, Christina Montuori Drive east on University and you won't miss this. Where did it come from? First came the tower, part of a drive-through burger joint. Then some artists and paint turned the tower into a beloved community symbol. Then the tower started leaning and was torn down. Then the community worked with the city to rebuild it. And there it is: beautiful. o El Cid Artist: Anna Hyatt Huntington This occupies such a central location in the Park that it's easy to assume it's Balboa. The man on the horse is actually El Cid, legendary warrior of medieval Spain. The horse is Babieca. Huntington studied with sculptor Gutzon Borglum (of Mount Rushmore fame). She made five versions of this statue: the others are in New York, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, and Seville. o Nikigator Artist: Niki de Saint Phalle A stone's throw from El Cid, Nikigator ranks with The Bean as one of the world's great kid magnets. The same could be said of most playground equipment, but then most playground equipment doesn't offer a visuo-tactile feast of tile, stone, and mirror. The only way to fully experience this artwork is to give it a climb – the pedestal's padded for safety. o Nexus Eucalyptus Artist: Roman de Salvo Two things are clear about Caltrans: • They are the true form-givers of our age, creating structures that millennia from now will be held in the same regard as the Parthenon, Colosseum, or Great Wall. • In the past two decades they entered their Rococo period, melding forms of breathtaking scale and complexity with close attention to decorative surface. Given an organization with such a self-consciously artistic approach to their public works, it can't be surprising that the art in the plaza of their San Diego office is a scale model of a freeway interchange, beautifully rendered in milled tree trunks. o Chicano Park Murals Artists: Salvador Torres and many others The best public art in San Diego can be found in a neighborhood park next to the Coronado bridge. The park is home to one of the world's largest outdoor public art galleries, with over 70 murals by the region's finest artists, and visitors from around the world – proof positive that San Diego has culture. If you haven't visited the murals, plan a trip: have lunch at the Old Town Mexican Cafe, then head over to the park and take in the sights. o The Head of David Artist: Jeff Sale Driving north on I-5, you couldn't miss it: a two-story mural of David – Michelangelo's David – painted on the side of a pink apartment, and dedicated by the artist to the city of San Diego. This was back in '84. Now, almost 30 years later, David's still there. But a Marriott went in next door, then Caltrans widened the freeway and put in a brick wall. So now when you drive by, the head appears for just a split second. Blink and you'll miss it. o Farm Workers Artist: Ricardo Breceda In 1950 the Di Giorgio Fruit Corporation shipped 149,000 packages of grapes from Borrego Springs. These sculptures – sited on one of the former vineyards – remember the people who picked them. o El Camino Real Bells Artist: Mrs. A.S.C. Forbes The bells are all over town – this one's at the corner of Laurel and Pacific Highway. They were originally created in 1906 as roadside markers commemorating El Camino Real, the trail built by Spanish missionaries to connect the California missions. Hundreds of bells were placed along roads from the border to Sonoma. In San Diego, Pacific Highway is the designated El Camino Real, which is why so many of the bells can be found there today. But they are also popular decorative items (explaining their appearance in places like Fashion Valley and Vacation Isle) or in some cases refugees, such as the one on North Torrey Pines Road which apparently got transplanted after UCSD was built on top of the old Pacific Highway. o The Mothership Artist: Invader Space Invaders is one of the earliest and most famous video games. First developed in the late 1970's as an arcade game, its most distinctive visual feature is the pixelated "aliens" that were a byproduct of the stone- age digital hardware of the time. Invader is a French street artist with an international reputation for re-creating the Space Invader aliens in public places, using colored mosaic tiles to represent the pixels. The result is graffiti, but the genius of the approach is that by careful siting of the artwork, and by using tile instead of spray paint, Invader's art integrates so seamlessly into its urban surroundings that it appears as if it had always been there. Over twenty of Invader's artworks landed in San Diego as part of an exhibition at MCASD. This one is on the Art Center building downtown. Note that the abstract shape to the left of the alien is not itself an alien, but rather a temporal singularity. o Sun God Artist: Niki de Saint Phalle In form and scale monumental sculpture is meant to mean, deploying awe in the service of history, memory, and social or political significance.