NEW YORK CITY has four new waterfalls, part of a temporary public art installation created by Denmark-born artist Olafur Eliasson. Between 90 and 120 feet tall, the waterfalls churn 2 million gallons of water an hour in a roaring cascade that seems from this distance to ask: How's the public art in Boston?
Answer: Just OK. Boston has powerful classics, such as the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial across the street from the State House, Augustus Saint-Gaudens's stirring Civil War relief sculpture of black soldiers. But missing are new, bold efforts.
Last month, to promote stay-at-home tourism among Boston-area residents, Mayor Menino planted 12-foot red pushpins at cultural spots around the city. It's an oversized play on the pins used to mark maps, and it's a good cause, but the rather pedestrian pins are not art.
Other cities have leapt ahead. In Chicago, Millennium Park has Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate, a 110-ton, elliptical, mirror-faced sculpture that reflects the skyline. Half of the park's start-up funds were public and half private. The Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park features artist Louise Bourgeois's granite "Eye Benches," which she calls "confrontation pieces." A quarter of this park's funding was public; the rest was private.
So the question comes: What would great artists create in Boston's public spaces?
It might be a sculpture garden on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway or on City Hall Plaza. There might be an outdoor collaboration between an artist and a dance or theater company. Or creative minds could put a wintertime work in a surprising space, creating aesthetic warmth on Boston's seasonally chilly streets.
Launching a new era of public art in Boston requires two things: leadership and money. Mayor Menino would have to grant his approval and enthusiasm and encourage public-private partnerships that could supply funding and manpower. The Boston Art Commission, the city's public art authority, would need a higher profile.
The likely return on investment is promising. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg expects $55 million in economic activity to come from the $15 million waterfalls, which will be in place through Oct. 13. Most of the waterfalls' funding was private. And $2 million came from the publicly funded Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, formed to spark revitalization after Sept. 11.
Boston doesn't pretend to be New York City. But the other payoff of new public art is that it reflects a city's grander sense of itself as a vibrant, ever-changing civic work of creation.
