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| ©tom stoye |
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| ©tom stoye |
For years I would drive by this building on Trumbull (top photo), and see the hand painted sign of the lady with the short dark hair. Above it, in quotation marks, it read, "What role do public artworks and art parks play in the development of space within the city?" This was painted way before the onslaught of public murals that are now an integral part of the city.
The sign has been relocated, but the question is still important. What is the role of public art, especially in a city like Detroit, a city trying to reinvent itself after bankruptcy?
It's role is especially relevant when considering Mayor Duggan's recent foray into the art world. The Mayor took it upon himself to go after the building owners who have taken Grand River Avenue and made it into an amazing outdoor gallery full of beautiful murals. The city rewarded their efforts to make the world a more beautiful place by spanking them with $130 tickets, and demands to buff out their walls or face further repercussions. Ouch!
The timing is puzzling. Kevin Orr had just handed over the keys to the mayor's office, and one of his first priorities is to come out swinging against public art? Not exactly a confidence booster in the court of public opinion. Once the mayor realized he wasn't thinking so clearly, he released a public apology that went something like... "Aw shucks, I didn't know the difference between civil disobedience and public art…… oops, sorry." By labeling all street art under the umbrella of illegal graffiti art, the mayor appears to be out of touch with a vibrant local art scene, a scene that is sure to play a future role in the city that Duggan was elected to serve.
Before he applied for his current job as Mayor of the great city of Detroit, Duggan was a prosecuting attorney for the city of Detroit. During his tenure, his public enemy number one was... you guessed it, graffiti art. His biggest target, was a guy who was painting turtles all over the city. Duggan had an employee working full time to bust this guy. The mantra was, "Forget everything else, it can wait for Christ's sake, there's a guy painting turtles around town!" Ironically, Turdle was never caught. Instead, one day, the Turdle decided he had had enough of being the secret Turdle guy, and just admitted, yep, I'm your guy. There was a short article in the paper and it was gone like a fart in the wind. Whew!!! Glad that was solved.
With nobody to catch, Duggan set his sights on the leftovers. He even held a press conference after he nabbed a couple graffiti writers painting on a desolate stretch of Rosa Parks Blvd. This was all taking place while the city was beginning its decent into financial collapse. Duggan would leave his job as a prosecutor to work in the health care industry, but in the present, it appears that he's been festering all these years, ready to jump back into the fray again, fighting the good fight, to save the people of Detroit from the biggest art movement in the world.
Luckily for Mayor Duggan, there are working models in other cities (and ours), that have successfully dealt with solutions to embracing the culture of street art while reducing illegal graffiti at the same time.
If his apology to building owners on Grand River Avenue was sincere, a visit to The Alley Project in southwest Detroit would be a perfect place for Duggan and his cohorts to get a grasp on what it would take to work out creative solutions to "cleaning" up the city. The time is ripe for trying something different; prohibition and incarceration are weak solutions and lack the insight required for the city to move forward.
Art heals!
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