Despite Some Misgivings, City Accepts Sculpture
By Kirstin Downey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Something entirely new is coming to Alexandria's historic King Street corridor -- modern art -- and like all public art, it is already provoking debate.
Alexandria plans to install a nine-foot-tall obelisk, a piece that has drawn mixed reviews from residents, in the plaza at South Fayette and King streets. It will be one of the city's first forays into nonfigurative sculpture.
The sculpture, called Sacandaga Totem, was created by New York artist John Van Alstine and is being donated to the city by the Alexandria Sculpture Festival, an organization that mounted several exhibitions of contemporary art on the waterfront in the 1980s.
The Alexandria City Council unanimously approved acceptance of the sculpture, worth $60,000 to $90,000, in January. Next month, the city's Board of Architectural Review will deliberate over the base for the sculpture, and city officials hope the statue will be in place by September.
"Alexandria will come into the 21st century," said H. Alan Young, a retired lawyer who serves as president of the nonprofit Alexandria Sculpture Festival, at the council meeting.
For more than two decades, Young has pursued a lonely quest: to bring modern art to Old Town. He first offered to donate the sculpture to the city six years ago.
"Up until now, Alexandrians' concept of contemporary art was George Washington sitting on a horse," Young said.
The support for a piece of modern art is a turnabout for a city that has prided itself on its historic and representational art. The few pieces of overtly modern art in the city, such as the three cape-shrouded figures at 3601 Eisenhower Ave. and the stylized bronze trees in the park on Holland Lane at Duke Street, have been outside the historic core.
Sacandaga Totem is made of rough-cut granite, with four heavy steel fins bolted at the base and welded to a steel plate. It weighs about 7,500 pounds and will be illuminated at night.
"It's definitely not what you would expect in Alexandria," said Cheryl Anne Colton, cultural arts administrator for Alexandria. "This is pushing the limit. Alexandria isn't used to contemporary pieces."
It's over the limit for some residents.
Carrie Severino told city officials by e-mail that she considered the sculpture "profoundly ugly" and not in keeping with the city's "historical, cultured" ambiance.
A subcommittee of the city art commission voted to ask that the piece be placed somewhere else, perhaps in a rural outdoor or park setting, and that there be further debate over the statue, but the Alexandria Commission for the Arts voted to accept it last winter, and the City Council approved it as well.
Matthew Harwood, who chairs the public art committee for the Alexandria Commission for the Arts, said he thinks the piece will work well in its location.
"It will give a new interpretation to Old Town by juxtaposing something contemporary next to the old feel," he said. "Alexandria has been so focused on maintaining the old that it's been difficult to find the right situation where something modern would work. In some ways, this is an experiment."
Harwood said that all public art provokes mixed emotions at first.
"Inevitably, at first blush it's controversial, but over time there's a sense of adopting it as something familiar," he said. "Even if it were representational art, people would have a reaction to it. My experience with public art is that it is a growing process, it has a reaction."
The stir over the piece suggests it is already having the desired effect, said council member Justin M. Wilson (D).
"The fact we have people saying they don't like it is great," Wilson said.
Van Alstine's pieces are displayed in museums and galleries around the world, including a large piece selected for installation at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The artist lives near the Sacandaga River in New York and fashions much of his work out of metals and materials commonly found in such Rust Belt areas.
City Council member Paul Smedberg (D) said the piece would be "a real punctuation point" for the corner.
Mayor William D. Euille (D) championed the acquisition of the piece after meeting with Young. The festival had purchased the piece and wanted to donate it to the city to help advance the cause of introducing contemporary art to Alexandria, which has long been resistant to modernist influences in its landscape. Young had long pushed for the city to accept the piece and finally set a deadline of Jan. 30, 2008, for the city to make its decision. Euille decided to make it happen.
"It was put on the fast track," Harwood said. "This was something the mayor and council wanted."
At the council meeting in January, Euille said the gift would allow the city to start adding modern art to the cultural mix in Alexandria.
"Why not start with a piece someone is willing to donate?" Euille asked.
At the council meeting in January, Young credited Euille with helping make it possible to bring the statue to Alexandria.
"I commend you for cutting through the red tape and getting on with it," he told the mayor.
View all comments that have been posted about this article.