Art of the state

When Southwark Council first saw the designs for a series of road bollards shaped like penises and vaginas, it was sceptical. Even though the artist was Angel of the North creator Antony Gormley, the council feared a public outcry and a tabloid backlash, says Roger Young, coordinator of the scheme at Southwark.

But, in keeping with the principles of the 10-year renewal of the Bellenden district, the council took the designs to a meeting of 70 residents – who said they loved the bollards. The council took the plunge and installed 80 bollards along the streets, and then came the greatest shock of all: the media loved them, too. When four trial bollards were removed, the London Evening Standard was on the phone immediately, demanding to know where they’d gone.

Welcome to the unpredictable world of public art. It’s not just about bollards: public art ranges from Gormley’s iconic angel, in Gateshead, to the statues of local heroes that have been erected in town and city squares for centuries.

And now is a good time for developers who like a bit of culture. Last month, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport launched the consultation Culture at the Heart of Regeneration, which aims to persuade planners and developers that civic art is a useful tool in transforming communities. Meanwhile, government design watchdog the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment started a £500,000 initiative with Art & Business, a charity part-funded by the government, to encourage the use of art in housing market renewal and regeneration.

Embarrassment

It’s easy to get it wrong, though. A decline in national lottery funding for stand-alone pieces such as sculptures has resulted in a move towards less traditional forms and councils that pick the wrong piece may not only waste time and money but also could be forced to make embarrassing U-turns or live with vandalised and ignored statues.

Gauging the impact of a work of art on regeneration is difficult, but the easiest pieces to judge are the “statement” items such as Gateshead’s 20 m-high Angel.

This sort of work changes perceptions of an area – helping to “brand” it – and can increase tourism.

Before the Angel was unveiled in 1998, opposition councillors in Gateshead ran a Stop the Statue campaign. One warned it would cause chaos on the nearby A1, saying, “those who have voted in favour will have the victims’ blood on their hands”. Local papers even compared it to Nazi sculptures.

My favourite piece is the fountain outside the Pompidou in Paris. It's all that's good about modern art. My worst is the horse sculpture in Ealing but, then, kids love to climb all over it

Jon Rouse, Housing Corporation

Eight years on, it has helped put Gateshead on the map as a cultural centre, attracting tourists and investors. Councillor John McElroy says: “The benefits have been enormous – it’s increased confidence in the area and certainly improved knowledge of Gateshead as a destination.”

Emma Larkinson, director of the Public Art Forum, an Arts Council-funded organisation that promotes excellence in art, agrees: “Art can be a symbol of a place and the Angel of the North has become a symbol of change in that area.”

But while money may come into the region in the long term, the impact on local people is harder to measure. “Are people in Gateshead socially better off or do they have more pride? No one has a system for evaluating these things,” says Anna Douglas, who did a study of public reactions to civic art for the Arts Council of England’s West Midlands office.

And relatively few artworks have such a high profile as Gormley’s piece. The influence of art in places like Bellenden – which also boasts bus stops by fashion designer Zandra Rhodes and patterned paving slabs by Royal Academy artist Tom Phillips – is harder to judge, says Larkinson. “There are a lot of claims made about art’s role in regeneration, creating a sense of place and adding economic value and so on,” she says. “But it’s difficult to point to hard evidence.”

House prices

There are some signs of positive repercussions: the Bellenden renewal began in 1997 and has already been credited with increasing house prices by 15% on top of London-wide inflation, and helping the area win last year’s London Tourist Award. As Young says, estate agents now advertise properties as being close to Bellenden.

A more traditional piece is The River by Dhruva Mistry, a statue and fountain of a bathing woman in Victoria Square, central Birmingham. Anna Douglas says it contributed to the city’s regeneration in a different way: it’s become a reference point for everyone in the area, having become better-known as the Floozie in the Jacuzzi.

“That piece certainly contributed something to the square although people don’t necessarily view it as art,” she says. “They can’t help but be affected by how different this square is – with its fountains and places to sit – from the one around the corner. People now have a natural meeting place, which they didn’t have before.”

I like Gormley's bollards. They serve a practical purpose but they have that 'double take' quality

Tessa Jowell, culture secretary

Setting a bad example

When a public art commission goes wrong, it can have the opposite effect, as Walsall council found out in the 1990s after commissioning a series of concrete slabs to be used as seats in the city centre.

Bryan Pell, the authority’s general manager for property and development services, explains: “They had a steel motif on them, which unexpectedly went rusty almost immediately. The artist said it would have stabilised, but people were worried it would leave marks on them when they sat down.” After a vociferous public campaign, the blocks were removed.

And last week, Hartlepool residents won a battle to have nine 1.5 m high metal sculptures removed from a seating area close to the Headland town hall. Councillors admitted they hadn’t listened to local people’s views on what would be suitable.

Another Birmingham sculpture, Forward by Raymond Mason, suffered an even worse fate. It was meant to honour the city’s most famous sons but, Douglas says: “In artistic circles it was unpopular and thought to be old-fashioned. It certainly never managed to find a place in people’s affections like the Floozie in the Jacuzzi did.” In April 2003 it seemed an arsonist had finally had enough, as the piece was set alight.

Such a dramatic end may attract negative attention, but perhaps indifference is even worse. Maggie Bolt, director of development agency Public Art South-west, says: “Everyone knows of places where there’s a lone piece of sculpture sitting on a plinth and no one’s got any idea what it is.”

One of the dangers of bold pieces of art is that they are more likely to cause upset. They may also require a well-known artist and that will cost a lot of money, for which it has become harder to get grants.

“The multimillion-pound capital projects like the Angel of the North are not over, but different types of activities are being funded instead,” says an Arts Council spokesman. On 26 July, the body revealed that it has handed out £19.5m for festivals and cultural events across England.

I don’t like the statues Theo Crosby littered around the Barbican in a failed attempt to make the place more legible. Bad art does not improve bad architecture

Ben Derbyshire, HTA Architects

The safer alternative of incorporating art into architecture is likely to become increasingly common. CABE’s scheme will encourage the involvement of artists at the earliest stages of development alongside architects and developers. They could be integrally involved in a city square redevelopment or more subtly by designing details such as railings or lamp posts. This approach helps to ensure an artist’s creation stays faithful to its surroundings, says Richard Wilkinson, head of new partners at Art & Business. “Rather than just picking an unrelated piece out of a catalogue and plonking it down, there can then be more of a rhyme and a reason to it.”

George Ferguson, outgoing president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, agrees: “Bad art is usually the product of some political or corporate decree, like those ubiquitous, bronze life-size figures that pop up in squares all over the country,” he says.

Resident involvement is also a good guard against dissent later on. This was the approach taken by Optima Community Association in Birmingham, which commissioned three artists this summer to work with residents on five estates to develop a way of symbolically linking the estates.

So far, they have had four workshops to discuss tenants’ suggestions as well as a launch event when artist Lucy Orta dressed school children in outfits that linked up to form an architecure-style installation.

Such a process of consultation and art events can do more to draw communities together than standalone pieces on which residents have not been consulted – and it’s often better value for money, too. Douglas points out that £5000 might go a lot further on an event than an object – perhaps the Cow Parade, an art event in which concrete cows are taken around international locations to be decorated by local artists.

Treating public art in this way is still something of a new phenomenon, and there will always be a place for stand-alone sculpture, big and small. Other councils have tried to replicate the Angel’s success – North East Derbyshire is to build a £1.5m Solar Pyramid Sundial, which will dwarf the Angel and aims to regenerate the economy of a former coalmine area. On a more modest scale, the brilliant yellow Super Lamb Banana sculpture is brightening up Liverpool’s waterfront.

But while sensible steps can be taken to increase the chance of a warm reception, predicting popularity is famously difficult. Who could have guessed, for example, that Walsall’s £200,000 investment in several pieces of sculpture in the late 1990s would be eclipsed by a 1 m high concrete hippo installed 30 years ago that has suddenly become a local favourite?

Public art, it seems, is never going to be an exact science.