ART 9C Lecture 6: Richard Turner
Art 9C – 01020 – Thematic Investigation
Week 3 – Lecture 6 – Guest Speaker
Tiananmen Square
• Meaning gate of heavenly peace
• In which the Chinese held a protest
• After a while, Chinese troops assembled and fired on civilians
o Military and government had told them to disband, and had decided to
take care of the protesters after refusal
• This kind of event and its implications
o Kind of a statement per say, about the concept of freedom
Richard Turner
• Public artist since 1980
o Worked on public parks, transit stations, community centers, and
wastewater treatment
• Works can be seen in many many places
o Houston, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Seattle, and
Portland
• Successful public art
o Because of a contract between people and places
▪ Sometimes contracts work, and sometimes they don’t
• Failure
o Long Beach commissioned work
▪ To be a part of the metro arts program; to accompany a bus stop in
East Long Beach
o Piece was called Urban Forestry
▪ Inspired by an architect’s drawing of a tree
▪ Drawn in the 1950s
o Was supposed to be a permanent piece
▪ Was cut at the base after one week; hauled off to some public art
graveyard
▪ Contract between stakeholders and long beach wasn’t upheld
▪ Long Beach never held the kind of public meetings that had to
happen when putting up public art within a public space like this
• Success
o A series of plaques that would go on the wall of the Ranger’s station
▪ Shaped in such a way to imitate the décor on the tops of traditional
Chinese roofs
▪ Plaques to mimic such forms
▪ To tie the ranger station with the temple
o After about two and a half years, it finally worked out
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