Public Artwork Draws Violent Critique

In a college town that dotes on debate, the decision to install 425 feet of nylon fencing and a picnic table as public art was sure to incite argument, even if the installation was only temporary.

But rage? Vandalism?

Officials of the Claremont Community Foundation said they expected--even hoped for--controversy when they commissioned Hollywood artist Donna Williams to install her piece, “Negotiated Settlement,” under the eucalyptus trees on a grass-covered lot at Harvard and Bonita avenues, half a block from City Hall.

But they were stunned last week when someone slashed 50 feet of the mesh fence with a knife and carved the message “Take it down now” into the table. The vandalism came after a number of people left disparaging remarks at the site. “I hate it. It’s not art. It’s trash,” said one comment.

“Claremont is a sophisticated, educated town that has a lot of diversity and people can argue about the smallest things,” said Joe Unis, chairman of the foundation’s public art committee.

But he didn’t expect vandalism: “It’s bizarre and out of the ordinary for us.”

Williams expected her work to be misunderstood. After all, when she was installing the piece, she said, some people asked where the art was.

Was she going to hang paintings on the fence?

The installation, scheduled for removal July 15, consists of a wooden picnic table in the center of a pathway lined with olive-green and rust-colored nylon mesh stretched across seven-foot steel posts.

The installation bisects a 100- by 175-foot corner lot owned by Pomona College. After the art is removed, the lot will revert to open space, officials said.

Unis said the foundation, which was started in 1989, invited artists to submit projects for a temporary installation as a way of introducing Claremont to the concept of public art.

The proposal by Williams, 34, who earned a master’s degree in art at Claremont Graduate School in 1986, was selected over 10 other applications.

In an explanation on a storyboard at the entrance to the installation, Williams said she frequently passed the site while attending college and it always seemed relaxing and intriguing, but was invariably empty.

She said her piece “is designed to focus a space without purpose and illustrate the concept of negotiating one’s path through life. On a personal and social level, ‘Negotiated Settlement’ is intended to address the issues of compromise, cooperation and respect for the unknown--the individual’s responsibility to create meaning out of ambiguousness.”

Unis said he thinks Williams executed her concept brilliantly. “I loved it,” he said. The pathway bends so that those who approach the picnic table don’t quite know what’s ahead, inspiring anxiety. The piece, he said, shows that “It takes courage to come this far to the table to see your opponent and sit down and talk.”

Williams removed the slashed section of the fence Saturday and will replace it. Foundation officials said it will cost $250 to repair the damage.

The art installation is sponsored by the foundation and the Claremont Chamber of Commerce, but some people have mistakenly blamed the city.

Mary Weis, the foundation’s executive director, said some people thought the city was spending money on public art while considering reductions in the police force and other budget cuts. Although the foundation was started with grants from the city, the $4,000 commission to Williams was from private donations, she said.

William P. Banks, a Pomona College psychology professor who lives nearby, posted a letter at the installation denouncing it as an unwelcome intrusion into the neighborhood shortly after it was erected last month.

Though he thinks the art is mediocre, Banks said that’s not his main complaint. “It wouldn’t matter if it were really gorgeous, people would still hate it,” he said, because it occupies a space where neighbors like to sunbathe, throw Frisbees and take their children to play. He said residents resent having “a dubious work of art imposed on them.”

Banks attached sheets of paper to his letter inviting others to comment. One person wrote: “I think any person who had a hand in inflicting this on us deserves to have a full-sized copy installed in his or her back yard.”

Another wrote: “I think I shall never see public art as lovely as a tree.”

But there were more positive responses, too. “I think it’s quite interesting and a good idea to invade the incredibly self-centered space of Claremonters,” wrote one.

And an art teacher compared the installation to the work of Christo, who stretched an opalescent fence across Sonoma County in 1976; surrounded scrub islands in Miami’s Biscayne Bay with pink plastic in 1983; wrapped the Pont-Neuf Bridge, the oldest in Paris, in gold-colored fabric in 1985, and plans to place yellow umbrellas along the hillsides parallel to Interstate 5 in the Gorman area this fall.

“I always tell my art and art history students to pay particular attention to works they hate or find particularly offensive,” the teacher wrote, “because there might just be an important issue or message there for them.”

Williams called the vandalism “fairly indicative of an attitude that’s commonplace today. People want a quick fix. They don’t want discussion; they don’t want deliberation; they don’t want the tension and anxiety that come from actually having to think about something. They don’t want to compromise.”

Weis said she is just thankful the foundation didn’t commission its second choice, an ambitious art project that would have put salvage parts from junkyards on five sites.