Two state-funded art projects in the works

Seven months after revealing the design for his artwork that will hang on the outside of Target Field , local artist and University of Minnesota alumnus Craig David is hard at work on a piece that will adorn the University’s West Bank campus.

“It’s great to be doing a piece of art for my alma mater,” he said. “I feel extremely blessed.”

His is one of two works under construction that will be funded by a 25-year-old piece of legislation, the State of Minnesota Percent for Art in Public Places , which allows for up to 1 percent of the construction budget of a state-funded building to go toward art. Despite cuts in nearly every other realm of the University, the program has remained unaffected.

David’s piece, the Ribs of Humanity, is a set of six 15-foot-tall stone figures that will be placed around a stone fire in Hanson Hall ‘s Campbell Garden in May 2010. The piece is costing the University $75,000, money that came from Hanson Hall’s construction budget.

“I think it’s symbolic of the people in business,” David said of the piece, which will be located near the Carlson School of Management . “We love creating things; we love making things and giving service to people — and so the fire is about that inner drive.”

Across the river, a $350,000 piece of art will go into the Science Teaching and Student Services Center , formerly the Science Classroom Building , in July 2010 shortly before the building opens.

Alexander Tylevich , the artist constructing the 80-foot-tall installation, said it will go inside the building and will span from the skylight at the top, down to the first floor.

“It’s a lot of work ahead,” Tylevich said of the piece, adding that right now, it’s merely a pile of supplies.

The piece, which costs less than 1 percent of the building’s $72.5 million budget, will be made of light-reflecting glass and stainless steel cables in the shape of a giant spiral.

Capital Planning and Project Management director Orlyn Miller said the University voluntarily participates in the program. Whenever they send a public building budget to the state Legislature, it automatically allocates 1 percent to art. A change in that policy is unlikely and would require agreement among the University’s vice presidents, the provost and the Board of Regents .

“All of those are strongly supportive of the program,” he said. “It’s not taken lightly that we reduce it.”

Since its conception in 1984, the program has funded 30 pieces of art on campus, including Platonic Figure in 2001, the large stainless steel and limestone statue outside of the Mechanical Engineering building and The Crucible in 1995, a cast bronze and stainless steel half-globe near Amundson Hall . In total, there are 40 pieces of public art on campus, some of which came long before the program.

Over the years, the art that’s accumulated on campus has contributed to the experience students and visitors have here, Craig Amundsen , curator for the program, said.

“Public art is put in places on campus that you come in contact with in your everyday circulation and use of the campus,” he said. “So in that sense, public art really has a pretty big impact on people.”

Chief Financial Officer Richard Pfutzenreuter said the University is committed to continuing the program, and that the state bonding dollars used in construction can’t be put toward a different use anyway.

“It isn’t the case that you could in all instances not do the public art and somehow pay for a scholarship or somehow pay for a faculty member or somehow meet another expense,” he said. “They’re different forms of money, by and large.”

If the University chose not to use 1 percent of a building’s budget on art, that money would still need to go toward construction of the building, he said.

“You could choose to not do the art and buy more bricks and mortar in the building; that’s for sure,” he said, “but you couldn’t take it and spend it on something not project-related.”

Having originally gone to school to be a painter, David said it’s too hard to sell art to individual clients knowing it won’t be seen by the public. He said he prefers creating public art because it’s able to contribute to community building.

“In my mind, everyone who views it owns it,” he said. “That’s wonderful. It really gives me a great feeling.”