(Been a while since I’ve done one of these, hasn’t it?)
The Austin City Council has decided (based on a recommendation from the city’s Arts Commission) to “deaccession” several pieces of public art.
The big news is: one of those pieces is “Moments”. If you live in Austin, you know “Moments” better as “those blue panels bolted to the overpass wall on North Lamar Boulevard”.
“Moments” caused a stir from the beginning. It was the city’s first art-in-public-places project to be installed along a road, and its installation caused traffic backups. The piece was meant to evoke impressions of the moments contained in an experience or environment, Jean Graham, a city of Austin art in public places coordinator, told the American-Statesman at the time.
“The designer was thinking, well, you could think of the moments going by as you are waiting under the bridge in traffic,” Graham told the paper in 2003.
In [Carl] Trominski’s [the artist – DB] submission for the piece’s creation, he wrote that the site “is visualized as a Threshold between the Urban Austin and the Natural Austin. The underpass marks a journey through the city’s self-image. … This proposal intends to strengthen the expression and experience of this moment.” The signs were to “make abstract reference to musical notes, the motion of a row on Town Lake, and acts (as) a shadow indicator of the day’s progression.”
For the record, the other artworks being taken off the list are…
Here’s a presentation with some photos of the art, if (like me) you were unfamiliar with these pieces.