Seashore Art

Four proposals for an ambitious art and architecture project to be built at the end of Pico Boulevard at Santa Monica Beach, adjacent to the Park Hyatt hotel rising there, are on display daily through April 19 in the lobby of Santa Monica City Hall, 1685 Main St.

And this less than a year after the major competition in Santa Monica to energize the city’s Third Street Mall with a select public art project. That one was won by Claude and Francois La Lanne with a playful collection of giant topiary in the form of dinosaurs focused on a fountain.

The so-called Pico-Seagate Environmental Art project is sure to attract international interest, given both the problems involved and the reputations of the competing artists--Red Grooms, James Turrell, George Herms and Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison.

The proposals are distinctly different in trying to be functional as well as decorative in dealing with such site problems as the Pico Kenter storm drain, which spills out onto the beach there.

The winner will receive $650,000 to cover artist fees, design, construction and installation. The competition is being conducted by the Santa Monica Arts Commission and underwritten by the hotel as part of its development agreement with the city.