I know that art is subjective, but here is our almost half-million dollar piece of art for the city.

ummmm...what the hell is it supposed to be?

A big blue circle with lights on the top. Nothing more, nothing less. Brilliant, eh?

For the people that were able to coax half a million from your city, yup...they're beyond brilliant. Or the people in your city that gave them the money are complete morons!

It's a circle jerk.

LOL, here's the story! Let me make it clear that I, and probably most others, had no idea the work was done by a group from abroad. My reaction was the same as the Mayor's. And....this was chosen from 55 submissions? OMG, I'd hate to see the other 54!

edited to add: The entire statement from the artist group is at the link. What dumbasses. It's fugly! That's why the negative reaction. Deal with it.


Blue ring artists surprised by reaction to installation
Travelling Light piece has drawn harsh reaction from Calgarians over $470K price tag

The artists behind a controversial Calgary public art installation say they are very surprised by the harsh reaction to the piece.

The sculpture, called Travelling Light, is a large blue metal hoop with street lights on top that is located in the city's northeast on the 96th Avenue bridge near Deerfoot Trail. The piece cost the city $470,000 and has raised quite a few eyebrows.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi has called the work "awful."
........
Axel Lieber, a Swedish artist part of the group Inges Idee, released a statement to the CBC's Calgary Eyeopener in response to the criticism.

The statement, made on behalf of Inges Idee, says the intensity of media and public reaction is new to the group.

"A kind of irritation seems even to derive from us being an artist group from abroad," reads the statement.

"We would like to point out that over 80 per cent of the overall project budget for this project stayed in Calgary, as the fabricators are a local company based in the City of Calgary."

Calgary's public art program received 55 submissions during an internationally-announced competition. The project was part the city's public art policy, which mandates that one per cent of the city's budget will go to public art.

Inges Idee says the project was challenging because it had to be incorporated into the functional structure of the road and bridge, and they wanted it to serve as a landmark from afar.

"We are aware that changes to a familiar environment can be irritating to some people and spur issues of discussion and controversy," the statement reads.

"Nevertheless, we hope that once the [discussions] have calmed down and people get more used to the sculpture, Calgarians might be able to enjoy the work."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/b ... -1.1991453

Perhaps they wanted to build the Olympics symbol but one circle was all they could afford?

maybe it looks better at night?


they should have put the lights inside the circle, and at least made an effort for some positive negative space experimentation.

It looks like a giant hula hoop.

That was my first thought too, laffin.

John, someone made that same comment to the original article days ago. They said they should've saved the rings from the '88 games here and just used the blue one.

wow. that is really a good idea.

alter the shape, so that it's the shape of an eye. Then dangle some truanslucent plastic down with a metal pole shiny enough to look invisible, to look like the iris and pupil of the eye. fix the lights so that they shine out of the pupil on both sides, also reflecting through the plastic in a "stain glassy" kind of way. It would seriously creep people out in the dark.

That is a good idea too, but I think it would be too much of a distraction for the travelers on Deerfoot. One of the busiest roads in the city for commuters, work and the airport.

Only half a million for that. What a bunch of pikers Calgarians are. Way back in 1970 our National Gallery paid $1.8 million for a red line painted on a blue background or two blue lines on a red background - your choice - that the "artist" had laughingly named "Voice of Fire" on his way to his new condo in Cabos San Lucas.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _photo.jpg

Don't forget the raw meat "sculpture".