IRVINE : ‘Poles’ to Be Moved From Civic Center

An artist agreed Friday to remove her work from the Civic Center plaza after city officials declared it a safety hazard. The piece, “Wavering Poles,” is part of an exhibit by 10 Orange County artists which opened Thursday and continues for four months.

The sculpture will be moved to the Fountain Valley headquarters of FHP Healthcare for the duration of the exhibition period. The Irvine exhibit consists of work by artists who were finalists in a competition sponsored by FHP last year.

The artist, Angie Bray of Laguna Beach, said she is concerned that viewers won’t be able to “see the piece functioning” at the new location, “but at least it will have some sort of (attractive) setting.” City officials had threatened to move the piece into the Civic Center building, even though Bray designed it to be seen out-of-doors.

“Wavering Poles” is a cluster of slender, upright aluminum poles in graduated heights, mounted so that they can sway in the breeze. According to Community Services Department employees, the city’s risk management and liability staff was concerned that the beveled tops of the poles could injure anyone who yanked on them. At FHP, the public will not be able to touch the poles.

Stanchions and police barrier tape surrounded the delicate-looking piece in Irvine on Friday.

Toni McDonald, the city’s cultural affairs superintendent, said there was a “misunderstanding” about who was responsible for inspecting “Wavering Poles.” She said one inspector initially passed the work, based on a diagram Bray submitted, but another inspector rejected it.

McDonald had given Bray the alternative of placing the work inside the Civic Center, against a wall and separated from the public by a fence. But the artist declined because the work was specifically made for the outdoor site. “The point of the piece is what it does there,” Bray said. “It responds to air currents, and to the harmonic resonance from the huge helicopters that hover around there all day. Depending on how far or how close (the aircraft are), a different pole quivers.”

Initially, Bray bridled at the idea of moving the piece at all. “I’m not going to say I disagree about the danger or that I (want to) impose this piece” on the public, she said. “I understand they (the city officials) don’t have much experience in public art. But they have a responsibility to take seriously the work they accept and to think ahead” by scrutinizing the diagram she submitted for potential safety problems. “If they don’t, then they do have an obligation to the person who did the work.”

Bray originally designed a different piece, a fence made of flexible bamboo poles, which was to be placed on the Civic Center lawn. (The illustrated brochure for the Irvine exhibit shows a model of that sculpture rather than the one actually in place.) But when Ann Thorne, the city’s public art consultant, told Bray the lawn irrigation system might damage the poles, she was asked to make a piece for the courtyard instead.