Artists Strike Back

As a contributing artist to “Edges and Hedges,” the group of temporary public art installations along Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, I found David Pagel’s review of the project so crabby that it was impossible to take his comments too seriously (“Taking Blandness to the (Speed) Limit,” May 11). But the nakedness of his condescension toward the public and the concept of public art is revealing.

Pagel seems truly offended that on any given day more people will see and, yes, have an experience with, the installations on Santa Monica Boulevard than will see the art in a museum show throughout its entire run.

But that is exactly the point of “Edges and Hedges.” Public art is treated like the illegitimate child of the art world; as such, it has little to lose and most everything to gain by bringing art critique, with all its messy elitist overtones, to the streets.

As an artist it is empowering because the work truly has a life of its own. The interactions I have had with, or observed in passersby seeing my work in raw, public space, have been the most rewarding external experiences of my career as an artist. Pagel can’t do a thing about that. What he says might affect who buys the art, but it’s not there to be sold. What he says might keep a few of his followers away from Santa Monica Boulevard, but thousands of people will still see the work every day. He may deter people without much vision or trust in their own responses, but those who are unafraid have already acted.

MICHAEL STUTZ

Del Mar

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I take particular issue with Pagel’s characterization of the work being “out of touch with the vital street life it pretends to represent.”

I personally spent a month on the boulevard creating the bamboo site work at Plummer Park. The very material was harvested from around the corner at the historic Schindler house. The new community center is a beautiful public facility by Koening & Eisenberg, and landscaped by Pamela Burton (two of L.A.’s leading architectural firms). To see it used and appreciated by hundreds of citizens every day is a moving tribute to West Hollywood’s deep human commitment.

Pagel’s choice to ignore the context in which this work was produced does a cold disservice to the many gardeners, merchants, laborers, police, firefighters and citizens who made these works possible.

He blatantly longs for gallery walls, and ironically, his review reflects the very attitude of retail connoisseurship he purports to despise.

STEPHEN GLASSMAN

Venice