Jason Foumberg

Why does so much public art seem like a prescription of "good taste" upon "the public"? The byzantine processes, from proposal to committee to commission, that ultimately produce Chicago’s civic art (see Picasso, Calder, Kapoor) have recently been criticized by several camps, initiated by local art dealer Paul Klein, and culminating in a rally at Daley Plaza. The stated complaint is that the Department of Cultural Affairs, by passing a new ordinance, is intentionally limiting future opportunities for artists by eliminating public meetings and hiding behind a veil of bureaucratic elitism. If Klein is correct, the rare and difficult process that deems art worthy of public attention will become even more rarefied, a process lost to artists who exist outside of the Department’s kiss list.

It may be such that what an art dealer decries as the tragedy of public art commissions may not even register to a public that is increasingly uninterested in public art commissions. If the likes of Picasso does not move us nor speak for us, if "Cows on Parade" suggests an inappropriate or misguided representation of our cultural identity, then it is up to our artists to continually redefine what exactly public art is and what they want it to do for the public. The future of relevant monumental public art may suffer in the hands of the aristocracy, but the platform for public art still exists.

Enter Packard Jennings, an artist for the masses who answers to neither council nor committee. Jennings’ art operates within the public sphere yet outside of official sanctions, showing us that public art can be vital and communicative without playing parlance to so-called "good taste" delivered from above.

Jennings’ art often comes packaged in the format of the everyday—newspaper headlines, lottery tickets, marketing jingles, informational pamphlets and warning stickers—in direct contrast to the bronze and steel things that adorn and enhance our lobbies and plazas. Civic statues and murals tend to merely edify or present an idea of bottled culture that we already know. For Jennings, these objects inadequately express the issues of contemporary living.

On his Web site, Jennings provides a downloadable template that mimics the USA Today front page. Users can appropriate the top story section, create their own headline and lede (Jennings hopes users will find such topics as peace and corporate corruption fitting, although he leaves it completely open to the user), and then print it out and insert it into the newspaper’s sidewalk stand.

For the "Business Reply Pamphlet" project, Jennings has created a visual narrative, like a comic book, which users can place in the ubiquitous business reply envelopes that accompany credit card offers and magazine subscriptions. The intended receiver of the pamphlet is the mailroom clerk, who Jennings assumes to be depersonalized by their work and susceptible to the shock of revolutionary propaganda. The pamphlet relates a narrative that begins in the second-person tense; it shows you, the office clerk, receiving the mail and opening the envelope, and then provides instructions that encourage a hostile takeover of the corporation. Activities such as tipping over one’s desk and smashing the copy machine eventually lead to a utopic commune in the old office space, replete with community gardens in the urinals and free love among co-workers. If the worker in the mailroom who receives the pamphlet is not tempted to revolt, it is hoped that they will be simply lifted out of their doldrums momentarily.

Previously, Jennings has created other pamphlets for specific occasions such as the WTO in Geneva and the suburban shopping mall. Although Jennings notes that he rarely, if ever, hears feedback about the efficacy of his pamphlets, he admits that he was kicked out of the mall for dispersing them over the second-floor railings. (His punishment was that he was not allowed to shop there for a full twenty-four hours). The pamphlets shower tactic is familiar mostly to citizens of invaded countries. It is amiss, however, to think that propagandistic pamphlets can cause real change or prompt people into instantaneous acts of revolt. They do not necessarily create a possibility for destruction in a shopping mall nor are they exactly persuasive. Instead, they propose an area of imagination and fantasy for a section of life that seems already out of control. In this, a kernel of hope for real change exists.

More Yes Men than Weathermen, Jennings agitates and provokes with a sort of soft, impermanent vandalism. It turns out that in order to best reconsider the idea of public art, Jennings has turned toward the available methods of information dissemination. His work injects a dose of subversive viral media into the existing distribution systems such as the postal service and newspaper stands. Already broadcast through these systems of circulation are our collective and private desires, hopes, nightmares and loves in condensed, easily graspable blurbs, quick fixes and slogans. Our lives are defined by transactions, not sculptures.

Jennings’ projects also raise the question of cultural authority. It is a paradox: whether our public art is handed down from the city or raised up from the underground, assumptions are made about who we are and what we need from art. As Jennings’ work proves, this paradox should not deter us from vocalizing dissent. If you are fed up with the voice of authority, you can trade the marketing motto "Just do it" with novelist Philip Roth’s provocation, "If you fail to bring the world into subjection, then subject yourself to the world."

Packard Jennings shows at Three Walls, 119 North Peoria #2A, (312)432-3972, through June 30.

(2007-06-22)

Also by Jason Foumberg

Eye Exam
The pleasure that we derive from optical illusions is first through experience and then in knowing how they work. Unlike a magic trick, optical illusions continue to fool and to deliver wonder well beyond the revelation of their construction. Some familiar illusions include Joseph Jastrow's duck rabbit, a head that is both animals, but never both simultaneously. Although it is a static image, the duck and the rabbit alternately appear and disappear, sometimes flicking back and forth in what seems like a dozen times in one second. Another favorite is the Necker cube, a two-dimensional drawing of a three-dimensional box. The effect is of a cube that springs upward or juts to the right. Both perceptions of the cube are available to be seen. Both perceptions are correct, but never simultaneous
(2007-06-12)

Eye Exam
The Peace Tower is a collection of two-foot square panels, essentially protest signs, assembled along a fancy scaffold. Each panel contains an original message by a participating artist regarding the war and the hope for conciliatory efforts. The monument to peace was first constructed in Los Angeles in 1966 as a protest to the Vietnam War. It was re-erected once in New York in 2006 in response to the current war, and now will be on view at the Chicago Cultural Center for four months
(2007-06-05)

Eye Exam
Can art survive a similar reality-flavored marketing infusion? What happens when an artist or an educator issues instructions for viewers to become active users of art and culture? Two exhibitions now on view seek to shake us out of mere observational mode and into participatory agents of culture
(2007-05-29)

Eye Exam
To be an artist is to be a professional dilettante. With what ease does the artist dip in and out of various scientific, economic and political source material and then claim expertise! Often the artist is only an expert of his or her craft; the content of the work, even if it strives to be socially responsible, falls behind the creative practice. Such is the case with two concept-driven exhibitions now on view, Dannielle Tegeder's "The Chicago Index of the Invisible: Incidents and Interconnections," which charts years' worth of missing-person cases in Illinois, and Stuart Keeler and Amanda Browder's "Urban Warp/Weft," an exhibition that considers the issue of "green" or sustainable living
(2007-05-22)

Eye Exam
(2007-05-15)

Eye Exam
(2007-05-08)

Eye Exam
(2007-05-01)

Eye Exam
(2007-04-24)

Eye Exam
(2007-04-17)

Portrait of the Gallerist
(2007-04-10)

Tip of the Week
(2007-04-10)

Tip of the Week
(2007-04-03)

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