Downtown Concord was created with public art in mind, but without a proper process to select that art or a clear idea of what the city and its residents want their choices of art to say.
On Monday night, the city council selected two works that will be leased for display for one year. One work will be on view in front of Bagel Works, the other in front of Live Juice on South Main.
The choices are a small sculpture of a young boy in a face-off with a turtle, and a tall gate of granite, bronze and copper that looks like it came from the set of an Indiana Jones movie.
The turtle in the sculpture selected by the council will be the second on public display in Concord. The other, a large stone turtle in Bicentennial Square created by Canterbury’s Chance Anderson, often includes a real little boy or girl and is an icon of sorts.
Art can be, and even in Concord has been, controversial. Old-timers will remember the Swenson Arch, a gateway created from large slabs of coarse-hewn granite that was first moved to a less conspicuous spot and then destroyed by vandals.
Elected officials should be the last group to be in charge of selecting public art because they could pay at the polls if their selections are too daring. The current setup guarantees safe art when art should also provoke thought or even, at times, indignation and anger.
Before the next round of selections, the city, not just the council, should decide what it wants to accomplish with its public art program.
Is it enough that the art is decorative? Should preference be given to local artists? Should the art say something about Concord or New Hampshire as sculptor Antoinette Prien Schultze’s “Mill Girl” does for Manchester or the Hannah Dustin Monument does in Penacook? In fairness, works that are place-specific are usually commissioned.
Should the goal be iconic, like the great statute of “Rocky” on the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum or the Alice in Wonderland monument in Central Park? There would be no more iconic a work for Concord than a publicly displayed Concord Coach, a void hotelier Steve Duprey has stepped in to fill.
He is working with the company that makes reproductions for Wells Fargo to display a coach in a glass case in front of the Smile Building. With reproductions, Duprey said, there is less worry about sun and humidity damage than with an antique coach, and presumably the insurance costs are lower.
Should some of the works ultimately selected for lease, assuming the program grows to fill all 14 of the approved display sites, complement the coach or Concord’s history? It’s a city routinely visited by presidential candidates, the stage on which much of the drama of presidential elections is played out, and the state’s Legislature is famous – and not only because of its massive size and low pay.
Much of what happens going forward will depend on who picks the art works and how they in turn are chosen. We do know that the group should include Concord-area artists whose own work should not be considered while they serve on the committee.
Should some years have a theme, like the famous painted cow exhibits that turned up in cities around the world? Should public art be permitted to make political statements and reflect the great debates of present and past? Should it include displays of light, motion and sound? We hope so.
These questions should be broadly discussed and answered before the art program makes the next round of selections. The public arts program is off to a start, not a particularly good start, but a step in the right direction.