Who really owns our so-called public art?

If you buy new wallpaper for your living room, how long do you have to leave it there?

The obvious answer is, as long as you want. When it gets a little worn, or you just don’t like it any more, you can peel it off or cover it up.

But what if that wallpaper is on a public wall, like the back of the Memorial Arena? Well, then, you’re into a new kettle of fish.

Now we’re talking bureaucracy, and consultation, and artistic integrity. When the taxpayers buy a piece of public art, they don’t really own it. They’re sort of leasing it.

Last November I wrote about the eyesore graffiti mural on the arena, noting that it’s 10 years old and looking bad — and it didn’t look that good when it was new.

The mural could be painted over or replaced with a war-veterans theme appropriate for the building. There’s funding available without using tax money, there’s moral support from veterans, and the man who coordinated the artists who worked on the graffiti mural agrees its time has come.

Not so fast. According to City CAO Randy Diehl, with whom I discussed the matter some time back, there’s “no traction” for doing anything about that ugly mural.

Removing public art without the artist’s permission “is not an insignificant public policy issue,” says Diehl.

“I do feel that it is wrong to cover up ‘public art’ without the permission of the artist, simply because it is old, no longer the flavour of the month or because we don’t like it.”

In other words, the artist has complete control over what is essentially a paint job, forever. If a community commissions a piece of art, it better be sure it likes it, because it’s not going away.

I suppose removing the mural might be viewed by some as a form of vandalism, which, considering that most graffiti is created as intentional vandalism, is a bit ironic.

Vandalism of public art has been around as long as public art itself. Somebody lopped off the Sphinx’s nose. What if he’d succeeded in getting rid of the whole thing?

If we wouldn’t allow a stranger to deface a piece of public art under stealth of night, why would we be OK with government doing it?

The short answer is that government, on our behalf, owns it.

Artists are sensitive types, we all know. They regard themselves as the interpreters of truth, and if anyone fools with that interpretation the whole universe could be thrown out of whack.

Barb Berger, the City’s arts and community development manager, concurs with Diehl about the sensitivity of fooling with what artists render. In fact, the arts commission is about to tackle that very issue as part of a reworking of its arts policy.

“There needs to be some policy around public art,” she says. “At what point do you say, it’s had its life?”

For example, if a metal statue is rusted out and falling apart like an old beater (like, say, that coyote thing up at TRU in about 30 years), does the artist still have a right to “protect” it from intervention?

Even then, it doesn’t answer the question of who can decide what happens to art if, as Diehl puts it, it simply falls out of favour. When I buy something — including art — I’d like to think I can do what I want with it.

Bottom line might belong to Diehl when he says, “Who needs the fight between the artists types and their medium?”

In other words, so-called public art doesn’t really belong to the public at all.