VISUAL ARTS /Leah Ollman : Sushi’s Street Sites Series Once Again Promises to Challenge, Interrupt the Status Quo

Temporary public art is to permanent public art what performance art is to theater, according to Lynn Schuette, director of Sushi Performance and Visual Arts Gallery downtown. The attitudes and intentions that inspire each form are different from the very beginning, she said. In temporary public art projects, artists are freer to explore topical issues that would never be broached in a permanent, monumental work of public art.

Schuette knows. For the fourth year in a row, Sushi is commissioning a group of artists to produce works that will be installed for one month in highly visible sites in the public arena, primarily downtown.

“San Diego has been so focused on larger works of public art,” Schuette said. “This is a way to show the city that public art needn’t be monumental, costly and permanent. And it’s a way for artists to address social issues.”

The public dialogue evoked by the works in Sushi’s “StreetSites” series, scheduled for Feb. 10 through March 11, would not exist any other way, she said. Even the vandalism that has struck each year’s entries and the legal battles that ensued after authorities removed David Avalos’ 1986 entry, “San Diego Donkey Cart,” fueled that dialogue and became important aspects of the public art process.

Hoping for a range of projects, the only quality that the jury of Sushi administrators and arts advisory committee members insists upon is that the proposals be challenging. This year, as in the past, the four winning entries promise to interrupt the status quo, to test channels of communication, to invigorate a placid public.

Business people who daily traverse the Community Concourse Plaza will find their paths obstructed. Visitors strolling the grassy park around Mission Bay will happen upon what appears to be a new body of water. Pedestrians and drivers passing through a downtown intersection will be confronted with words they may not want to hear, and regulars at Java coffeehouse will be reminded of the uncanny power that television holds over their daily lives.

Most of the participating artists agree that they can make stronger statements in a temporary public artwork than in a permanent one, and it will be better received or at least more patiently tolerated.

“That’s the joy of the temporary siting,” said Ellen Phillips, whose “Neighborhood” will collide with the flow of pedestrian traffic in the Community Concourse Plaza. “People are willing to take a much greater chance with a temporary piece than a permanent one.” Phillips’ installation will use chain-link fencing to close off its four constructed “houses” from passers-by, as a metaphor for the inaccessibility of affordable housing.

Like most of her work, Phillips said, “Neighborhood” is confrontational, and the central siting is essential to its impact.

“People will say, ‘What in the hell is this doing here? I don’t want to look at this.’ But I want them to look at it. This isn’t the kind of piece you put out of the way. It’s the kind of piece you put in the way .”

David Beck Brown has also matched what he sees as an aggressive piece with an aggressive area. The four elements in his “Disinformation Connectors and Terminal (Or, When Did You Stop Being Paranoid?)” will be situated on each corner of the intersection of 3rd Avenue and Broadway, creating a “boxing-ring effect.” Each deals with a different aspect of verbal abuse, such as bigotry, gossip and child abuse, through a sculptural object and accompanying audio tape.

Despite warnings that he is treading on volatile ground, Brown feels compelled to bring the issue of verbal abuse to public attention.

“Physical abuse is against the law,” he said, “but verbal abuse is not as punishable, which I think is a crime in itself. I think a lot of people beat people up, verbally. I think the part of me that’s been a victim will touch others who are victims.”

Although more benign in appearance, the collaborative work of Dan Corson and Laurie Covill also will strike a sensitive social chord. “Veiled Aquifer” (to be unveiled at Crown Point Shores Park at Mission Bay on Feb. 17, pending California Coastal Commission approval) “talks about San Diego being a tropical paradise when you see it from a distance,” Corson said. “But, when you see it close up, you see a different picture.”

Waste, contamination and abuse of the city’s limited water supply are the targets of the work, which will look like a small pond when seen from afar. Up close, the aquifer will reveal itself to be a mass of water bottles, filled with reminders of the water problems in San Diego. Water hyacinths blooming from the center bottles will suggest hope for a future of clean and ample water.

Stuart Flaxman’s work, to be installed at Java (837 G St.), assesses the landscape from a social perspective. “Contemporary Landscapes” re-creates a scenario described by a New York Times article about the homeless in Grand Central Station pooling their money to buy a TV set. By surrounding a television with the characteristic accouterments of the homeless--a shopping cart, cardboard, aluminum cans--Flaxman asks, “What gives people a sense of place?”

Home is where the “contemporary fire,” the television, is, Flaxman said. Except that, rather than drawing people together, it tends to alienate them. “It makes them gather around something unreal rather than real.”

During the course of “StreetSites,” Ruth Wallen’s “Greetings From San Diego” will transform Sushi into a tourist center and gift shop, offering a satirical view of how the city presents itself to visitors.

Although these installations will be dismantled after only a month, the artists hope that the issues they raise will be fastened to viewers’ minds indefinitely. If they truly challenge accepted patterns of thought and action, even such temporary works can have a permanent effect.