In Cape Town for a short visit, it was a must-do for this writer to take a walk along the Sea Point Promenade to check out Michael Elion’s recently installed – and already much derided and ridiculed – sculpture, ‘Perceiving Freedom’. So far, much of the criticism of the work has focused on the rather secretive manner of its commissioning and design, the obvious commercialism in the shape of the work, and the fact that its out-of-scale intrusiveness has been imposed on the popular seafront park’s generally advertising-free public space.
All of these criticisms are interesting, and they may or may not be fully true, but they are also largely irrelevant to any judgement about the aesthetic quality and appropriateness of this piece of installation art. The real problems with Elion’s new work are that it is boring and banal and makes no cogent artistic or intellectual message, placed where it is.
Photo by EPA.
This sculpture is now an unpainted object, buffed to a rough metallic polish that is obviously a much-magnified version of the iconic version of a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses, the ubiqutious Wayfarer model. With the bottoms of the frame resting on the ground, it is about two metres tall and a bit longer than that from the front to the tips of the two temple pieces. While it doesn’t specifically say Ray Ban’ directly anywhere on the sculpture itself, given the absolutely globally recognisable, idiosyncratic shape of this sunglasses model, it does takes very little imagination to recognise the product as an interpretation of the black plastic of the original item when it comes in the human-sized edition.
Art critics have virtually lined up to castigate this work, and its installation on the beachfront has angered artists and civic activists alike. Given all the negative vibes, the writer was predisposed to embrace the contrarian position, as if to say, if enough of all those uber-taste makers dislike so much, there must be something to admire in it. Or, at a minimum, he was prepared to wait until he had a chance to experience it first-hand, unmediated by others, before he joined in the general chorus of hissing and boos – or even more snobbish, sneering disapproval.
After all, many of the 20th century’s truly iconic pop art sculptural works such as Claes Oldenberg’s giant eraser (the kind featuring the circular rubber wheel atop a cleaning brush that was a staple of office typing pools everywhere for decades) or Jeff Koons’ oversized balloon dog-style sculptures had their detracters initially. But these same works have come to be embraced by the public at large, partially in response to their demonstrations of technical and metallurgical virtuosity and in part due to the exuberant, cheery good humour of works like these. This has been in addition to the instant recognition factor, the ‘aha!’ moment, that comes from an appreciation for the works’ knowing mimicry – with a wink and a nudge, so to speak – of such quotidian objects. And even Alexander Calder’s more abstract stabiles (as opposed to his more famous, signature mobiles suspended from the ceilings of large indoor, public spaces that move gently in the airflows in the buildings) placed in front of various modern buildings – often painted bright orange – have, after a little getting used to, similarly been endorsed and appreciated by the public.
So, why the difference with Elion’s creation? Are Capetonians just too unsophisticated to appreicate a really interesting piece of brash, big conceptual/pop art suddenly placed in their midst? Are they just too tradition-bound for something new that tweaks the sensibilities in unfamiliar ways? Or, perhaps, is it tht Capetonians are such sensitive sorts that if the city’s aesthetically aware community was not intimately involved in the selection of the work and the idenitification of the artist to receive the commission, there will never be any real hope for its acceptance?
It is true that Cape Town is the design capital of the country with all its designers of interesting, quirky fashion, furniture and furnishings. Moreover, it is home base for a distinguished architectural tradition that melded together Dutch stylistic devices as well as Southeast Asian artistry and aesthetics into a style that now has some three centuries-worth of standing. And the local architectural tradition includes more recent add-ons from the neo-classical, Victorian, Edwardian British traditions, as well as some interesting examples of global contemporary architectural styles.
Still, the city has also allowed some true architectural and artistic monstrosities to be foisted upon itself like various big box buildings in the area around the Artscape Theatre and those three odd, tube-shaped apartment buildings – the colloqually christened ‘Three Toilet Rolls’ perched on the slope of Table Mountain that are so obtrusively visible for many kilometres. And, of course, there is that startling shorefront highway that just, well, stops in mid flight – virtually daring local imitators of Steve McQueen to test their fortitude in one last, final drive.
Simultaneously, as far as other residents of Cape Town are concerned, while they are often known for a laid-back, relaxed attitude to many things, Capetonians are also seen as notorious (or celebrated) for a kind of feisty engagement in protecting their natural endowment – including its geology, flora, fauna and seas. This is, of course, unless such instincts get in the way of a really expensive, over-the-top residence on the crest of a hillside, right along the coast.
Anyway, to return to the scene of the crime, Elion’s commission (including its partial underwriting by Ray Ban) for those big spectacle frames has been the recipient of some withering criticism – presumably drawing upon all these feelings, and some protest graffiti as well. In recent days, the sculpture was defaced with the words ‘Myopic Art’ written on its lenses, along with the words ‘We broke your hearts’ spraypainted on them as well, referring to those killed at Marikana by police, as well as a stencil of the image of ‘the man in the green blanket’ from that police massacre.
For some people, the clincher for their feeling of annoyance toward the glasses was that Elion’s work displays a fatal dose of rank commercialism, the flaunting of a particularly expensive, popular sun glasses brand as an excuse for art. Left unanswered is the question of how his aesthetic significantly differs from Andy Warhol’s now-revered (and damn near impossible to buy) Campbell’s Soup can works, or his Marilyn Monroe images. An answer to that question is not immediately clear from the critics of Elion’s sculpture.
For others, it seems that the evident lack of a large and comprehensive process to solicit public commentary and recommendations before this work was installed was the straw that broke the metaphorical camel’s back. Of course, as with so many other world artistic treasures, Pope Sixtus IV didn’t create an all-Vatican City, popular consultative process when he decided to commission Michelangelo to paint what became known as the Sistine Chapel. There is no guarantee that broad consultation generates the best art – or vice versa. And, in fact, throughout history, the best work, work that has stood the judgement of centuries, has usually been the result of one person’s vision, rather than that of a big committee. As a result, the case for that all-inclusive, broad-based community consultation on art is not necessarily a given.
For yet others, perhaps, the core of their annoyance with ‘Perceiving Democracy’ seems the impudence of appropriating the mantle of the late Nelson Mandela with the self-evident intention of flogging a brand of sunglasses through some below-the-line branding. (Nevertheless, so many others – his family included – have tried to profit off the man’s name, image and reputation, it hardly seems fair to pick on a pair of giant spectacles as the avatar of evil in this regard.) And there have already been a series of not particularly artistically effective statues of the man installed in public places – as with the rather pedestrian versions already in place at the Union Buildings and Mandela Square in Sandton, among others. (The Mandela capture site’s arresting installation in Howick in KwaZulu-Natal, by artist Marco Cianfanelli is, of course, a work of a very different calibre.) If that’s true, why should Mandela’s sun glasses have to bear all this opprobrium now being heaped on them?
So, to test out how well the installation works, without regard for the criticisms of it, the writer took a walk to this new installation to see it for himself, to look at it only on its merits with his own eyes. The first thing clear about ‘Perceiving Democracy’ was how lonely it was on the promenade. A few metres away, literally hundreds of children were playing on swings, slides and other playground equipment, whooping it up, running, laughing and screaming, but they were totally ignoring Elion’s sculpture. Strollers walked past it without a second glance. It wasn’t that it was violently out of place as much as it seemed without any connection to its place of installation.
The narrative underscoring the work is supposedly to offer an observation of Nelson Mandela (and by extension everyone else) looking through those glasses towards Robben Island, as if to contemplate the nature of imprisonment versus freedom. Of course, fully thought through, the logic of the thing would have been to put the sun glasses on Robben Island looking back towards Cape Town – speaking from the reality of imprisonment to the idea of freedom. But that would not have been as easy to accomplish as dropping it on to a bit of lawn on the Sea Point promenade, given that island’s heritage status as a kind of secular holy space. Critically, however, placed on the island’s shoreline, many fewer visitors would see it every day – thereby presumably wiping out the advertising value for those sunglasses merchants.
The promoters of ‘Perceiving Freedom clearly have in mind the kind of open air sculpture gardens that exist in so many other great cities around the world. And, yes, the Sea Point promenade would seem to be a perfect place to build one. But the real challenge is to make the location, the sculptures and the surroundings talk to each other – and not past each other with little or no connection. Done right, the statuary, buildings and natural features of the land all come together to make a conversation – but that must come from a thoughtful designer of urban open spaces – someone, say, like Frederick Law Olmstead (the man who created Central Park in New York City), Pierre L’Enfant (the man who largely designed Washington, DC) or Georges-Eugène Haussmann (the architect and city planner who redesigned Paris on behalf of Napoleon III).
Ultimately, it all comes down to a real understanding of the purposes of public art in a landscape. Rather than enobling the public space as the city planners clearly intended with this nod towards South Africa’s first citizen, to this writer at least, Cape Town’s giant Ray Ban Wayfarers recalled that looming, ominous image of the pince nez on the warehouse wall in F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the picture that seemed to say to Fitzgerald’s characters: whatever you do, someone is watching you. But, given the way South Africa’s political world has been evolving recently, perhaps this unintended and distinctly less-than-appreciated message is, sadly, right for our times after all. DM
