Topic: Public Art
Unit Objectives:
-Learn about public funding for the Arts.
-Examine public art’s role in capturing history and place-making.
-Explore the relationship of cultural values to civic dialogue, beautification and identity.
Artifact: Runquist Response
For my response, I decided to step outside of my comfort zone and create my own artistic version of the Runquist Murals. While the paintings depict the evolution of the arts and sciences, they also illustrate many controversial notions that we as society no longer accept. For this reason, I chose to make my response a collage of the advancements in human rights, titling it “Development of Equality”. Below is my attempt at an evolutionary tree representing the changes in human rights in America.
Development of Equality
(start at bottom, rotates to the top)
Panel 1: This photo represents women’s right for equality, specifically the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which prohibited unequal pay for males and females doing similar work.
Panel 2: The portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. represents the Civil Rights movement, as well as the success with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibited discrimination against race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or origin upon hiring.
Panel 3: Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. This Federal Employment Law prohibits the discrimination against person age 40 and older.
Panel 4: This photo of a disabled citizen represents the inequality people with disabilities face, which included simple things like access to a building. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 protects disabled citizens against discrimination, as well as enforcing their rights to access public building. Government buildings are now required to have wheelchair accessibility, as every place should.
Panel 5: Getting into much more recent equality rights, this photo represents Gay Marriage Rights, which has successfully passed in 37 states, allowing same-sex marriages to occur.
Panel 6 and Panel 7: I chose to use two panels to represent transgender rights because I feel as though it is a newer topic. Transgender rights are an attempt to rid society of gender stereotypes, including gender pronouns. Steps that have been taken to support these rights include, but are not limited to: allowing transponders to use the bathroom they identify themselves with, the use of the pronoun “they” rather than “he, she, him, or her”, as well as many other up and coming improvements.
Reflection: The Runquist Murals were an incredible combination that demonstrated funding, history, and culture. On the site for the Runquist Murals, it explains the history behind the funding of the Works Progress Administration, which funded the Federal Art Project, one result of it being the murals. For me, history and cultural values were clearly illustrated in the paintings by showing predominately white males. While many argue that because of this obvious discrimination, the paintings should no longer be displayed at the university, I would argue that it shows progress. The world is no longer is this state of pause; we have grown and developed into much more accepting people, which is what I attempted to illustrate in my collage of equality. Public art is constantly controversial, especially things like graffiti. There is also public art that portrays meaningful messages, such as murals in big cities that emphasize diversity and togetherness.
Future: This is a topic that I feel will never stop being discussed. There will always be someone who does not agree with the public art someone displays; it is just impossible to have a universal agreement when there is so many controversial beliefs from culture to culture.