Embracing modernity
Michael Awad is interested in the city of Toronto as a machine and as a system, and public art plays a part in how he pursues that interest. For someone who has worked with city officials and as an artist in the city, he does not seem jaded. Awad believes there is genuine public good being served by City Hall’s art policy.
He fondly recalls hanging out at Eglinton Station, watching people interact with his work. Of course, part of the appeal of having art displayed publicly is what he calls “the numbers game”: 50, 60, 70,000 people walking by the work every day and having it becoming part of the fabric of their lives.
For the piece in Eglinton Station, Awad designed subject to meet space. His installation, a panoramic photograph of Yonge Street from Union Station to Finch, celebrates the Yonge line.
Michael Awad has thought a lot about public art in the city. In his career he has been both a jurist selecting artwork and commissioned for his own. His work is often technical, largely focused on multimedia, and often includes the camera he built for documenting streetscapes as long filmstrips. (He uses analogue film, as his method predated Google’s popular Street View camera.) Awad discusses the trajectory of public art such as the move from the civic to the more individualistic pieces—like his own—that are more common today.
Public art sometimes conjures the image of great historical and civic moments. The statues that encircle the Ontario Legislature—lauding the work of firefighters, volunteers in the North-West Rebellion, and Sir John A. Macdonald—come to mind. In the last 40 years, however, public art in Toronto has become an important part of the debate about the city’s self-image—particularly in its adoption of a modern, international profile.
Henry Moore
“It started in particular with one sculpture, The Archer, in front of New City Hall,” Awad recalls. The Archer’s creator, British artist Henry Moore, was one of the most prominent sculptors of the 1960s, known for his abstract, polished granite monoliths. When The Archer arrived in Toronto, it was not met with universal affection. Councillors in City Hall deemed it ugly and a waste of taxpayer money, and there was even a movement to get rid of the sculpture.
“Around this time, there was a huge public groundswell of activity,” Awad says. Citizens became engaged in a dialogue about aesthetics and modernity: “The entire city came out, thousands and thousands of people, to support this piece of public art because it was considered modern and contemporary and optimistic,” he recalls. The Moore sculpture symbolized the dawning of a new era for Toronto, one where the city embraced modernity and accomplished world-class works of art. Thousands of people signed petitions in support of the sculpture, which was, in what became a heartening tale, ultimately saved by the voice of the people.
The Archer remains in front of City Hall to this day, and Henry Moore was so flattered by the popular defence of his work that he listed Toronto in his will as the recipient of all the statues in his studio at the time of his death. These are now housed at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and Toronto still hosts the world’s largest collection of works by Moore.
Canoe Landing Park
“Ever since then,” explains Awad, “the city has had a policy that governs how public art is commissioned, how artists are selected, and where works are placed.” When the former Metropolitan Toronto amalgamated in 1998, for instance, the city inherited the art collections of its constituent parts, and the Toronto Public Art Program released policy statements ensuring that the tradition would continue.
One of these policies was the Percent for Public Art Program. PPA aimed at tying the accumulation of public art to the development of neighbourhoods. For buildings requiring several million dollars to build, developers are obliged to put aside one per cent of gross construction costs to installing a component of public art. If the percentage doesn’t add up to enough to construct a worthy piece, funds can be pooled with those of other developments to invest in more expensive pieces.
One art project that emerged from the policy is Canoe Landing Park. Commonly known for its designer, Douglas Coupland, the Canoe Landing was scheduled to open in 2009 and is receiving its finishing touches, including a hydro hook-up. The 3.2-hectare public park, situated between Spadina and Bathurst just south of Front, was built over the course of three years. Its most prominent feature, a giant red canoe, can be seen from the Gardiner Expressway. The designers of the park used land excavated during the construction of the new Concord CityPlace waterfront condominiums. Concord Adex also contributed funds for the $8-million park as part of Section 37 of the Planning Act, which allows developers to negotiate the zoning of their projects in exchange for community benefits. In essence, Concord Adex was allowed to build higher and denser condos in exchange for a public park.
Adam Vaughan, councillor for Ward 20 (Trinity-Spadina) where Canoe Landing is located, said the developer saw Section 37 as an opportunity. Rather than contributing to the proliferation of “plop art”—to use Vaughan’s expression—that exists because of the city’s PPA policy, Concord wanted to contribute something genuinely useful to the ward.
Museum Station
The renovation of Museum Station, meanwhile, grew out of the Toronto Community Foundation’s Arts on Track initiative. The old station design was replaced with a bold (and well-received) design that reflects the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum. The TCF hired its own architects and raised approximately $2 million from its stakeholders, with the TTC and the provincial government each chipping in.
Awad, who has worked with the TTC as a jurist and a contributor to their public art initiatives, sees the Museum station makeover as a break with the TTC’s active public art program.
“While the public has really taken to the station,” he concedes, “that, in the purest sense, isn’t really public art. It is much more of a telegraphing of what’s above down below. What’s strong about the TTC’s public art policy is that they are pushing public art into not the high profile stations, but all of their stations and it serves the public good more.”
What’s next: a beautiful city?
In December 2009, the Beautiful City Alliance—a loose collection of arts organizations, urban affairs groups, artists, and private citizens—campaigned to secure arts funding from the recently passed Billboard Tax. It was only recently, with the additional revenue tools granted by the provincial government in the new City of Toronto Act, that this became possible.
While the Billboard Tax passed successfully and the city directed revenue towards improving enforcement of its signage bylaws, the arts funding has not been secured. Councillor Rob Ford called activists and artists who supported the tax “freeloaders,” while Councillor Denizil Minnan-Wong has said the tax should not go towards artists but “real people.”
The Beautiful City campaign will continue into 2010 as the funds from the billboard tax are allocated. While the debate over the value of arts spending continues, Toronto’s public art history demonstrates something about the way Toronto’s citizens see themselves. For artists like Michael Awad, it gives them a chance to reflect the city back to its citizens. Public art is something he sees as inherently valuable, as people go about their everyday lives—
“Especially when they stop.”
All photos by Tom Cardoso
