The design decorating the newly launched Taiwan Railway Corp train, named “Siraya” — red spots on a white background — is meant to represent the brilliant radiating lights of Taiwan’s lantern festival, its designer said.
However, many people have criticized the design, with one person describing it as “resembling the blood splattered by a bird strike” and another comparing it to betel nut spit stains.
Opinions on art are subjective and diverse, and there is no one-size-fits-all standard to judge it.
However, if artwork is placed in the public realm, it is necessary to take public reception and contextual appropriateness into account. It is common to see all sorts of public art and landmarks in various shapes and sizes, made with various materials. I am unsure if they are all as “artistic” as is claimed, but they have certainly become hot spots with lots of people visiting and tagging their locations on social media.
These “public art” works are touted as artistic creations, underscoring their aesthetic value.
However, it is doubtful whether they have true artistic qualities that could touch people’s hearts. Their sole function seems to be to attract attention with their eccentricity.
The main purpose of public art is to highlight the characteristics of the place in which it is situated — presenting its main theme in a way that is artistic and aesthetic. If public art is just a vehicle for expressing the artist’s views, without taking the public into account, it should come as no surprise when people ridicule an installation as “garbage.”
After being hit by Typhoon Haikui in September last year, a public art project in Taitung Seashore Park that cost NT$60 million (US$1.91 million) was nearly destroyed — only a globe-shaped skeleton survived and all the rattan decorations around it were gone. Despite being called the “international landmark for the centenary of the founding of the Republic of China,” there was nothing grand or representative about the piece.
For artists, creating works is of the utmost importance, yet public art cannot deviate too far from reality. Being too idealistic or obscure and unintelligible would compromise a piece’s accessibility, leading to a loss of its public significance.
The so-called “creative concept” behind public art is entirely up to the designer. An artist in Taitung once used more than 100 bamboo sticks to prop up dozens of gauze nets in the open space of an art museum, naming it Western Pacific Landscape. This was as bizarre as what the designer said about the idea behind the Siraya train’s decoration: trying to put a sweater on the train to protect it from the cold.
The government’s promotion of public art to beautify sites and improve the public’s aesthetic literacy is praiseworthy, but public art should first undergo at least some form of aesthetic review. Otherwise, if we allow “unlimitedly creative” public art to do whatever, wherever, we might create more laughingstocks than art.
Shiao Fu-song is a lecturer at National Taitung University.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
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