Arts on the Point of...?

ARTS ON THE POINT IS THE MOST AMBITIOUS PROJECT THE BOSTON ART WORLD HAS SEEN FOR A DECADE. ARTS ON THE POINT ALREADY HAS WORKS BY WILLEM DEKOONING, SOL LEWITT, DENNIS OPPENHEIM AND OTHERS LINED UP AND READY TO GO. ARTS ON THE POINT WILL BE BOSTON'S FIRST SCULPTURE PARK-IF, THAT IS, THE HATE MAIL, VANDALISM AND THREATS DON'T STOP IT DEAD.

"We're in a current nascent state," declares art historian Paul Tucker, squinting wishfully against the sun. The University of Massachusetts professor is shadowed by an I-beam mass of welded steel that looms 55' tall above a campus soccer field. The construction, a piece by sculptor Mark diSuvero, is entitled "Huru," a word that means both hello and good-bye in an aboriginal Australian language. Appropriately situated to greet incomers from University Drive, "Huru" was the first piece of artwork in Arts on the Point, the public sculpture park at UMass Boston and a gargantuan contemporary art project that arguably borders a renaissance.

The sculpture park is the brainchild of its director, Paul Tucker, an art history professor at UMass Boston, a recent recipient of UMass's Distinguished Scholarship Award and an internationally renowned expert on Impressionism. With characteristic fervor, Tucker curated the 1998 Monet in the 20th Century show at the Museum of Fine Arts, setting a new attendance record for the museum. At UMass Boston's pre-Commencement dinner this year, Chancellor Penny declared the establishment of the Paul Hayes Tucker Endowed Chair for the Arts, which was facilitated by $1 million donations from members of the Arts on the Point advisory committee, Barbara Lee Fish and Ellen Poss of the Poss-Kapor Family Foundation.

Tucker's dream for Arts on the Point was to establish the 200 harborside acres of the UMass campus on Columbia Point, in Dorchester, as the city's first collection of large-scale outdoor sculpture. The campus's bland "prison-like" facades and vast open spaces screamed potential to Tucker. He desired to raise Boston's profile in the world of contemporary art while renewing public appreciation for the challenges and beauties of modern sculpture. Admittedly an idealist, Tucker nevertheless realizes the difficulties of his pursuit: "When works of art are challenging and in a public space, it raises people's awareness and concerns. The arts have always been lightning rods for opinion."

The proverbial lightning struck UMass this spring, when vandalism, community conflict and miscommunication between the college and neighborhood groups halted further installation. The Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association, a residents' group in Dorchester, specifically opposed plans to place a grand Sol LeWitt sculpture on the entrance road to the school, off Morrissey Boulevard. LeWitt's piece, entitled "100 Columns," is site-specific for the entrance median and consists of 8200 concrete blocks ranging from four to 30' in height. Reminiscent of skyscrapers or a series of musical notes, the sculpture would pay homage to the Boston skyline while greeting visitors with an illusion of syncopated harmony. But to Annissa Essaibi, president of the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association, "100 Columns" represented discord more than harmony.

"Our overriding concern was that it was taking away from the open space," claims Essaibi, arguing that the sculpture's unwieldy height would block the bayside view. Neighborhood groups, local high schools and businesses contributed to the overwhelming opposition, with additional concerns about kids climbing on or graffitiing the piece. More importantly, local community groups were outraged at having been snubbed and excluded from the decision-making process concerning the publicly visible land. Essaibi claims that UMass, when it was founded in the late '60s, signed a memo agreeing to discuss any exterior aesthetic changes of the public grounds with the community. "We became very defensive when we found out that there was a whole process going on that we weren't included in," she recalls.

Tucker empathizes with the disenfranchised group, but waves off some of their logistical concerns. In his eyes, the LeWitt piece is not a concrete wall, and merely punctuates the harbor view. He dismisses some worries, noting that none of the pieces have been climbed on or graffitied yet. With this piece as the target of contention, however, it has been taken off the Arts on the Point discussion table: "It is more important to move ahead in dialogue with the community rather than keep ["100 Columns"] as a point of argument," concedes Tucker.

Similar worries surfaced about Tony Smith's "Stinger," a diamond-shaped, 6'6" prism that had been displayed at the 1968 Museum of Modern Art sculpture garden before traveling to Europe. "Stinger," suggestive of physical transition or spiritual passage through a portal, forms a cavernous 32' square, which raised concerns about public sex, in addition to distaste for its large steel presence. Demolition prevented "Stinger"'s installation the day before it was supposed to go up. On May 25, unidentified vandals smashed the cement mount supports for the piece, forcing Tucker to send it back to its Jersey warehouse via crane. The vandalism's $8000 setback is just the tip of the contention iceberg. Tucker has received hate mail, plus a threat from a woman who says she will throw herself in front of the bulldozer if the university continues with construction. At the request of residents and State Representative Martin Walsh (D-Dorchester), the dramatic smashing extended the project's moratorium, which had begun two months before the incident.

Arts on the Point's latest initiative has been to open lines of communication with the community to facilitate further installations. Wendy Barring Gould is the latest member of the Arts on the Point team. Since June, she has been working as the director of educational programs and community outreach, seeking to establish community discussions. Gould claims that when the sculpture park was launched, its directors assumed that a community liaison at the college would be handling such communication. Tucker reports that he did not originally know of the existence of the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association, but had deliberated plans with the merchant organization, Columbia Point Associates. And since controversy didn't explode until the second major outdoor piece was to go up, the deteriorating lines of communication proved to be a time bomb.

"I don't think it's so much about the art, but changing the landscape residents have come to know and love," claims Gould. After all, students at UMass Boston witnessed the installation of five uncontested pieces that have already elevated UMass in the contemporary art world. "Huru" was the only massive work on public grounds; the other pieces were set up within the university's bounds. "Steelworker," a figurative piece by Chicano artist Luis Jimenez, stands proudly in a Statue-of-Liberty-esque pose over the plaza. Though intended as a symbol of humanity against the bleak brick, "Steelworker" doesn't quite appeal to some beholders. Student Jeff Barret believes that the piece is "in keeping with the overall brutalist, industrial theme" of the UMass campus. "Looking at 'Steelworker,' I see something chrome, hard, cold. He doesn't look happy," comments Barret. "This whole place is brutalist. It could use a little levity," he adds.

The levity and aesthetic variation intended by Arts on the Point is more predominant in the organic forms of William Tucker, whose "Rhea," "Kronos," "Ouranus" and "Vishnu" sculptures dot the platforms by the Clark Athletic Center and McCormack building. "Vishnu," the most humanoid of his works, stands solo while the other three godlike representations are grouped together, as if involved in a secret dialogue. Dennis Oppenheim's playful pieces literally converse with each other. Located on the veranda of the Quinn cafeteria, "Black" is an installation of large pots and kettles that seem to have jumped straight out of Alice in Wonderland. With lids jutting out like pouting lips, the kitchenware sculptures resemble insulted individuals. The scene is narrated by a recording of Oppenheim's own voice muttering "B-b-b-b-black," a stuttered word that serves as social commentary and amusing dialogue as the all-black pots and kettles try to insult one another.

Alexander Calder, renowned for his kinetic sculpture, had his piece "Mobile" temporarily installed in the fifth floor atrium of the Healey Library. The lyric piece was loaned to UMass by the Fleet Financial Corporation before being sold a year later. The last series of installations is a group of 10 fantasy coffins from Ghana, on loan from the west Los Angeles gallery of Ernie Wolfe (Tucker's college roommate.) The coffins are an integral part of burial rites practiced by the Ga and other coastal Ghana communities.

Essaibi attributes the lack of contention over these pieces to their inconspicuous placement; they did not require public deliberation. The community group is not picking on the artwork itself, but on the infringement of public space-the association is likewise upset about the university's building of a campus center and acquisition of a pump house. Gould emphasizes the artistic strength of the Columbia neighborhood, calling it a "hip community" replete with artists and art-appreciation projects of its own. "I would 100 percent support a piece of artwork, whether I liked it or not, if it was preceded by a community process," states Essaibi herself.

In light of such feelings, a community advisory committee has been established, effectively breaking the silent spell with a community meeting on Oct. 19. The 15 members represent groups involved with Arts on the Point, like the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association, the Boston Harbor Association, the Massachusetts State Archives, Boston College High School, the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum and the Institute of Contemporary Art, among others. Opening the lines of communication has spurred Arts on the Point back into action, as Tucker enthusiastically plans the installation of five new pieces: Tony Smith's infamous "Stinger," Ursula von Rydingsvard's cedar "Large Bowl with Mechanic," Gillian Jagger's "Resurrection," Willem DeKooning's "Reclining Figure" and Dennis Oppenheim's "Searchburst." He is financially fully committed to all the pieces and hopes to make installation progress over the next six months.

Such an advancement would inch Tucker towards his dream of enhancing UMass's environment while providing an educational opportunity to the greater Boston community. The artwork adds a humanistic element to the bland, monochromatic buildings of the UMass campus. More importantly, Arts on the Point seeks to bring challenging art to a population that might not otherwise encounter it. "I'm excited to be a part of a project that would place major works of contemporary sculpture in a very public setting where the population, by and large, would not ordinarily be exposed to it," says Gould. She recognizes that a spur-of-the-moment road trip to the Museum of Modern Art in New York is not financially feasible for most students, and even local opportunities like the Museum of Fine Arts have become unduly pricey.

The immediate student community, however, does not seem as receptive to the project's aims. Dean Hatzis, a junior at UMass, looks toward the soccer field where "Huru" towers and says, "I hadn't really noticed it until you pointed it out. I think it's really ugly-at least they could paint it or something." Other passersby share these sentiments and express their puzzlement. "I don't know what it's a symbol of. It's all right looking. I haven't really noticed anything else," comments student Roberto Landivar. Christine Aller, a passing art major, comments that "Huru" is her favorite piece, though she doesn't necessarily like all the works that have been installed. Nevertheless, Aller holds that the artwork "makes the campus more attractive by adding to the gross stone and brick." The ever-quixotic Tucker insists that exposure and familiarity are essential to art appreciation, even if it means challenging people and stepping on some toes: "All novel art has always been challenging," he says. "We're the only public university in the Athens of America-if we can't shoulder public art education, then it's a shirking of responsibilities."

The professor recounts a classic tale of education-to-appreciation, involving the electricians who installed "Huru"'s spotlights. Originally frustrated by their laborious work over a "hunk of metal," the electricians, under Tucker's passionate tutelage, came to love the piece. "By the end of the night, one of the workers thought this was the coolest thing on campus," recalls Tucker. "He went into his truck to get his camera, and spent an entire roll of film on ['Huru']." Not surprisingly, the groundskeepers of UMass Boston have had some of the most profound exposure to the artwork and to Tucker's insight on it. David Lanchester, a heavy equipment operator who's been instrumental in much of the installation, agrees that the pieces liven the campus' aesthetic appeal: "Some of it is nice, but some is a little much. It breaks up the prism look of the university and makes it more livable," he says, while playfully punching the curator who's poured his heart into the project. Tucker is aglow when he hears such words of appreciation from the public-"It's all about education," he beams.

While communication and education are linchpins of progress, one meeting does not resolve all issues. The problem of undesired large pieces in public spaces still remains. Funding issues also come into play, as Arts on the Point remains a small project in terms of money and staff. All pieces are temporarily acquired through donations from foundations and individuals, the most prominent of which include Barbara Lee, The Poss-Kapor Foundation, Nancy Tieken, the LEF Foundation and the Reily Foundation. Intoxicated with his lofty ideals, Tucker shines with enthusiasm about the five pieces that await installation. Excitement, however, takes a continued backseat to local politics, as the miscommunication problem continues. Essaibi claims that the Columbia-Savin Hill Community only agreed to be part of the advisory committee: "We absolutely have not agreed to allow the installation of new pieces," she proclaims. Public art, while it is and should be held up as an ideal, remains a juggling act.