Simon Robinson is a first-year student and is participating in Maureen Korp’s FYSM Special Studies in Art History – Visual Literacy. Throughout the term, students will seek out Ottawa’s arts scene and critique the good, the bad and the ugly according to a set of criteria they discuss in the classroom.
Balancing act is the first of a series of student submissions that critique Ottawa-area public art. Over the term, the students’ interpretations of both good and bad art will be included in This Week @ FASS.
Balancing Act
By Simon Robinson
When the National Capital Commission commissions a work of art to be fashioned for public display, several criteria must be met. Artists are back-checked, logistics are discussed, and a certain level of good taste must be maintained. After observing John Hooper’s Balancing, it is evident some of these criteria are valued more highly than others.
Standing alone, Balancing, and its “tongue-in-cheek commentary on some ‘Capital’ people” could be referred to as a quirky, poignant, insightful work designed to provoke thought and discussion amongst its many viewers. Balancing is a modern sculpture consisting of five hand-carved, mahogany figures. Each faces in an easterly direction, along a precarious perch of forked steel. But, placing the five wooden, eerily human figures, on a site just across from Parliament Hill, is akin to inviting Bill Maher to be the guest speaker at a White House function.
The sculptures’ identification plaque at the back of the figures touts the claim that this work was especially designed for its location, a sloping bank angling down towards a gentle canal alongside the National Arts Centre below the confederation square bridge. What the plaque fails to mention is the landmark immediately to the other side of the work, the National War Memorial, commemorating those soldiers fallen in combat defending our country. While Balancing brazenly downplays the actions of the Canadian government, the soldiers honoured by the memorial gave their lives to uphold these very same beliefs. Suddenly, the “tongue-in-cheek” humour of Balancing in this context seems less than amusing. A line has been crossed.
Perhaps it is the crossing of this line, which for me definitively identifies John Hooper’s Balancing as an example of “Bad Public Art”. While one might debate personal taste and preference, once any demographic of the viewing public becomes alienated, especially one as treasured as our veterans then there is a problem. The fragile process of placing a work of art can make or break the work, and in this instance, Balancing has been toppled by poor siting.