ART REVIEW : ‘StreetSites’ Looks at Society’s Shameful Side

“The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame,” proclaimed Oscar Wilde. So, too, with works of visual art, which often challenge our glassy-eyed complacency with startling metaphors for social ills.

Wilde’s observation, quoted in one of this year’s temporary public art projects commissioned by Sushi gallery, explains, in part, why red flags have sprouted recently in the grant application file at the National Endowment for the Arts. It also suggests why many San Diegans may not greet this year’s “StreetSites” projects with open arms.

All three projects hold a mirror up to the personal and environmental injustices that have become standard in contemporary society. David Engbritson’s “Flock,” in Pantoja Park (G Street between Columbia and India streets) sets the vainglorious goals of middle-class life against the gritty reality of homelessness. Larry Dumlao’s “San Diego Reflecting Pools,” in the lobby of San Diego National Bank (1420 Kettner Blvd.) laments the suffocation of the natural environment as the constructed one takes over, and “Art T M,” by Dan Wasil, Susan Yamagata and Todd Stands (in the Community Concourse Plaza, C Street between 2nd and 3rd avenues) rallies in defense of the bruised First Amendment.

Each recasts potent political and social issues into a visual language far more immediate than the cloud of rhetoric that usually defines them. Each has its flaws, but all three succeed in the sense that they throw a pebble into the quotidian flow, diverting our thoughts, at least temporarily, toward problems that thirst for attention.

Engbritson’s “Flock” is, perhaps, the most conceptually ambitious of the three, but the least revelatory. In the center of the downtown park, well-populated by homeless men and women, Engbritson has planted a cluster of steel poles. Each holds aloft an emblem of high status--a diamond ring, a martini, a Cadillac symbol--cut out of metal and painted gold. One pole supports a sign reading “15 minutes,” another bears a hand holding a cross and another a desk and chair. Whether life’s luxuries or its trappings, all of the symbols are high overhead, beyond reach.

Another five poles surround this central group. These support abstract sculptural forms such as a cone formed of metal rods or a double wheel joined by spokes, all painted black and white. While the central poles spark a dialogue between lofty aspirations and the park’s earthy realities, the surrounding ring stands mute and indulgent in the same setting. The artist describes its forms as archetypal, relating to spiritual choices or ideals, but intent and effect are worlds apart.

Dumlao employs symbols in a more literal, accessible way in his work, “San Diego Reflecting Pools,” to focus attention on development’s impact on natural resources. On the bank lobby’s marble floor, he lays out a double row of large, black molded plastic forms. A raised “X” in the center of each form compartmentalizes its surface, and Dumlao uses the resulting spaces to tell a visual narrative, a tale progressing from abundant resources and moderate development to exhausted, desiccated landscape.

At one end of the work, the compartments are filled with dirt and water. A tiny wedge of a San Diego street map rests on the dirt. By the next pair of plastic forms, the pool of water has receded and the map has grown to cover a greater portion of the dirt. The process continues until, in the final pair of plastic forms, the maps subsume nearly the entire plot of earth and the water has evaporated, leaving only a filmy reminder of its former presence.

A tree stands at the end of the sequence, as if punctuating the narrative. Tall, spindly and bare of leaves, the tree emerges from a floor of stones, leaves and bones. All, including the tree itself, are wrapped in clear plastic. Real construction cranes spin silently in the background, seen through the bank’s glass doors. Inside is the metaphor, outside the actuality.

Dumlao makes plain our priorities. His reflecting pools mirror our society’s eagerness to expand, grow and profit at the expense of the land. Wrapping the organic elements in plastic distances them from our functional space--they are sealed, isolated, preserved for viewing but not for actual contact. Dumlao’s work calls, implicitly, for better integration of resources and plans. It does this in a clear, legible manner, relaying its message in pointed, although somewhat passionless, terms.

A fervent and well-directed energy can be credited for the creation of “Art T M” in the Community Concourse Plaza. The collaborative team of Wasil, Yamagata and Stands introduces a new kind of automatic teller machine--one that dispenses ideas, questions and provocation rather than cash.

On the front of the triangular structure a video screen displays the First Amendment and the artists’ supporting commentary, urging viewers to defend their rights to read, see and hear what they want. When an adjacent button is pushed, the voices of artists and others in the community can be heard reciting the passage from the Constitution and occasionally asserting their support of it. The facade of the “First Amendment Bank” also contains a deposit slot, where passers-by can leave an entry slip for a drawing for a $100 Savings Bond.

The facade, with its concession to self-interest, attracts the crowd; the busy melange of images and quotes on the structure’s other two walls holds on to it. A recent statement by U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan runs across the top of the walls: “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”

That principle is violated in example after example of censorship and the suppression of creative expression, painted and collaged onto the walls in jigsaw puzzle fashion. Victims of censorship range from local artist and activist David Avalos to recently freed political prisoner Nelson Mandela, from Robert Mapplethorpe’s erotic photography to Michelangelo’s “David.”

Such broad-ranging swipes at expression are evoked here that no viewer is allowed to feel exempt from the judgment, and perhaps the punishment, of a “higher” authority. Throughout the work, Wasil, Yamagata and Stands sprinkle prompts to get involved in the active defense of expressive freedom.

In the still-turbulent wake of last year’s funding controversy at the National Endowment for the Arts, “Art T M” stands as a vivid reminder that we can never feel too secure of our rights. In the shadow of the city Administration Building, where major cuts in local arts spending are now being considered, the work might also remind council members that effective support of those rights cannot be achieved by words alone.

Sushi’s fifth annual “StreetSites” project continues through April 7. Concurrently, Seyed Alavi’s “Trompe l’Oeil Columns,” floor-to-ceiling stacks of newspaper, remain on view in Sushi’s gallery space (852 8th Ave.).