Tilted Arc Essay

Taking A Stance On Public Art (Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc)

The monumental sculpture titled Tilted Arc by Richard Serra is considered by the general public to be a nuisance, eyesore, inconvenience, and certainly not a work of art. It has been commissioned by the Arts-in-Architecture program of the U.S. General Services Administration, which earmarks 0.5 percent of a federal building's cost for artwork.The sculpture was a solid, unfinished plate of Core-Ten steel, 120 feet long, 12 feet high, and 2.5 inches thick. As its name suggests, it was slightly tilted. Serra said of the design, "The viewer becomes aware of himself and of his movement through the plaza. As he moves, the sculpture changes. Contraction and expansion of the sculpture result from the viewer's movement. Step by step the perception not only of the sculpture but of the entire environment changes."

In March of 1985 a public hearing was held for the sculpture, with 122 people testifying in favor of keeping the piece, and 58 in favor of removing it. A jury of five voted 4-1 to remove the sculpture
and the decision was appealed by Serra. The decision to remove the sculpture was delayed for several months and dragged on for several years but ultimately the sculpture was dismantled and removed by federal workers on March 15, 1989.

The Tilted Arc, decision prompts general questions about public art, an increasingly controversial subject through the late 1980s in the U.S. The role of government funding, an artist's rights to his or her work, the role of the general public in determining the value of a work of art, and whether public art should be judged by its popularity and aesthetics are all debated. However this begs the question of what is considered art and does art always have to be beautiful and fit inside the preconceived social norms that society has placed upon the art community. The perception of the general public towards the art community has always been controversial because of the nature of the work in general. Many times artist will push the artistic bounds which leads one to believe how shocking is too shocking? How far can you push the envelope before you work is deemed gratuitous for the sake of shocking the community?

I however do believe that Tilted Arc should be classified as art.
It doesn’t fit the norm, it’s rusty, it’s in your face, but it is art. It’s the type of art you have to deal with, art that forces you to reevaluate you view of art every time you pass it. Richard Serra is quoted as saying “I don't think it is the function of art to be pleasing, art is not democratic. It is not for the people." This leads me to believe he knew exactly what he wanted his audience to feel and he accomplished that goal if only for a short amount of time. I believe the general public coined his style “shock art” because it wasn’t the norm. I assume that at the very least forced people to feel something and in the end isn’t that what all art is about and what all artists want. To be noticed not just applauded for how well you can color in the lines but how you can move and sway the masses into feeling with your work and
style.

I don’t agree with the decision to remove Tilted Arc from its site and agree whole heartedly with Serra’s decision to even remove his name form his work if it was relocated to another site. The placement of the work had just as much to do with the significance of the work as the sculpture itself. I believe in what Serra was saying that the whole theme and feeling of the sculpture would be destroyed if it was transported to another location. The annoyance that the general public felt for the piece, the anger, the outrage all were emotions Serra had exposed to the general populous. Tilted Arc may not have been beautiful in the way a butterfly is beautiful but at least it forced the bounds of the preconceived notion of beauty. How can we understand beauty if we do not have the complete opposite spectrum of emotions to balance it out?