Framing the Discussion of Buster Simpson
How can we make cities more visually interesting and evocative of the wider world that surrounds us?
I have seen a fair bit of public art. Large, usually abstract works that purport to signifying some intellectual concept dot the modern city-scape. Not only are these meanings usually not immediately grasped, there is often little reason to stick around the artwork to take the the necessary time to discover its meaning.
Image from Art Parks International
If no one is ever to understand its purpose, has an artwork failed to be an effective piece of public art? If something is seen everyday, what effects does it have on the viewer?
This video, though approaching this idea from a different angle, speaks to the second question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQXe1CokWqQ
Video from Youtube
Buster Simpson presents an alternative vision, which is not surprising, considering his early art career saw both the founding of an innovative art glass studio: Pilchuck Glass Studios and avant-garde performances. One of these performances included throwing rocks withe word “purge” on them at the World Trade Center – from a great distance of course. Simpson’s work is able to make statements, but they are not often large mental blows and quite often involve some bit of humor. His alternative vision is of an “art in public” which, instead of merely inhabiting space, poses evocative, light-hearted, and creative “solutions” to difficult concepts. Environmental degradation and restoration, recycling, and gentrification are but a sampling of the topics this artist has made statements on in the past decades.
His accessible art suggests at once leaves the viewer appreciative, inquisitive (over the natural phenomena that that specific work is founded on), and open to the vastness of possibility that exists within a city that is not subject strict codes and regularity, but instead a grounds for functional playfulness, humor and wonder.