65-FOOT SCULPTURE TO GRACE SAN DIEGO PORT

After months of controversy, the San Diego Unified Port District opened the door to national artists and approved a monumental sculpture by renowned minimalist artist Ellsworth Kelly, although it did not approve the two-part artwork that Kelly originally submitted to the port.

Instead of the two-piece stainless steel blade and concrete prowlike design whose parts would have faced each other across twin spits of land in the bay, the commissioners voted 5 to 1 for an alternative offered by its arts advisory board. Responding to a public outcry that the five-member board was too small to represent the population, the commission also ordered the board to discuss changing its size and composition to provide better representation.

Gerald Hirshberg, chairman of the commission’s arts advisory board, proposed three alternatives for the board to consider: the original two-part Kelly design; the single, 65-foot-high stainless steel element from the original design; and a larger stainless steel totem as tall as 100 feet.

The advisory board’s makeup and its selection process enraged some local artists and gallery owners. This week’s final round of the debate brought out a string of impassioned speakers: Twenty citizens spoke against the Kelly sculpture or the selection process while seven others spoke in favor of the Kelly proposal.

Kelly, but more often the members of the art board, came in for abuse by citizens who called board members “inept” and “failures,” and the sculpture “a sterile shaft driven into the priceless green space.” Others termed a vote for the Kelly work a “vote for the quality of life we aspire to in San Diego.”

The choice of the single, slim stainless steel blade, reaching about 65 feet into the sky, left open the possibility that the other part--the prowlike concrete structure that drew criticism because of fears it might attract transients who would sleep in its hollow interior--eventually might be built. Hirshberg said it was Kelly’s intention to donate the plans for that design to the Port District.

Reached at his home in New York, Kelly would not comment on the Port Commission’s action.

“It was precisely this form (the stainless steel monolith) which inspired us to select Kelly in the first place,” Hirshberg said before the vote. “We feel very strongly that it would be an elegant, magnificent gesture for this site and for the city. While the committee might prefer the original concept, the 65-foot piece alone would be a significant work of art, a dramatic addition to the visual meaning and impact of our harbor . . . a magnificent first step in opening the door to both local national and international artists to San Diego.” The estimated cost of the Kelly sculpture, which will be in Embarcadero Park near Seaport Village, is $325,000, about $125,000 less than Kelly’s two-part design.