Paul Shinkle Bay View Art Stop Statement

©2012 Paul Shinkle (Statement concerning Bay View Art Stop Project)

Mexican activist Manchado once wrote:
Para dialogar,
escuchar primero.
Despues, escuchar.

 

Marina and Tony, I know you are both fluent in Spanish, but I am not and I know my accent is hopelessly Midwestern, so here is his translation:

In order to dialogue,

listen first.

And then,

listen.

 

The process that brings us together tonight has been one of no dialogue with the people, therefore it is not a democratized process. A bad process necessarily yields bad results and that is what we see here—bus shelters that offer no shelter, an art experience w/out an aesthetic, and public art without the public. We have here political art, the art of incumbency, the art of oppression, art that is an offense to both “public” and to “art.”

Let us change this tonight.

What do I mean by ‘not a democratized process’? I mean we have a committee of career politicians, a committee that has met in secret, that publishes no minutes and denies press access and public access to the process. We have a committee where we seek a sculptural product, there are no working or teaching sculptors on the committee. This is an astonishing deficiency in a city that boasts excellent schools of fine art and where MIAD is just up the street; I know MIAD professors and students who live in this neighborhood; they are not on this committee. This is a bus shelter public art project–where are the bus commuters on this committee—I don’t mean career politicians who ride the bus when there is a camera or a campaign, but real people, like many of us who are not on this committee, who actually ride buses which means waiting for buses.

 

We must democratize this process if we are to have any hope to create the conditions for beautiful public art, not just for your political shrine—who picked this and only this spot for public art?—but for continuing public art projects across this district.

 

There is no difficulty here, no hard work; it is very easy. What should we do?:

 

First, we must stop this bad process dead in the water, right now, tonight. Let us change this now. It is never too late for democracy.

 

Second, we must publicize the next meeting of this committee to the people; I don’t mean that YOU invite people—you invite someone to a private event, like this one. This is not a people’s meeting; this is more like a condo time-share sales pitch, a meeting where YOU control the discussion, you set time limits on us, you pre-set the content and the outcome—this is unacceptable. What we must do is CREATE the next meeting AS a public event; this involves you getting off the dais—no one can dialogue from a dais; it involves you abandoning your control of the content and the outcome of the conversation—it involves dialogue. At OUR next meeting, the committee must be rebuilt around all the people, not just the favored few.

 

Third, all future meetings must be broadly advertised via our new Peoples Arts Committee website with completely open access to all people. This must also include our local papers—BVC, Spanish Journal, The Milwaukee Community Journal. ALL future meetings must be open to all the people and broadcast to those who can’t attend in person via LiveStream or a similar process. It is outrageous that in the Information Age I can watch a General Assembly from Occupy Wall Street, live from Manhattan but a public arts meeting in my own neighborhood is completely dark, totally stealthy, and simply closed to me and my neighbors.

 

Let’s change this now.

 

Fourth, all meeting minutes from past meetings—if you have kept any—must be immediately released to the people, right now. If you have no minutes—just tell us the truth and let’s change this now. All future meeting minutes must be posted to our new PUBLIC Arts website within 12 hours of the end of the meeting and expressly invite public commentary and participation. This is transparency in government; it is not an option.

 

Let’s change this now.

 

Fifth, ALL meetings must be open to the press—denying press access to meetings is what repressive governments do; it entirely unacceptable in this neighborhood.

Let’s change this now.

 

Sixth, open for the review and critique by ALL the people ALL FIFTEEN proposals that came to your secret committee, not simply the ones that you want. We reject the “leftover crumbs” methodology of “politics as usual”.

 

Let’s change this now.

 

Finally, we must create a public funding system for Public Art in our district, one where we have an open, transparent, collaborative effort to give every participating citizen an equal avenue to contribute to the project, not merely the pathetic attempt by one liquor license applicant to bribe the alderman.

Let’s change this.

And I want to take a moment to make perfectly clear, my comment is NOT a claim that Alderman Zielinski has solicited or accepted a bribe. I DO want to point out how sick a process we have when the SOLE citizen funding for this project comes from a misguided attempt to influence a licensing issue—and the stain that this secret committee brings to all of us by not IMMEDIATELY rejecting the donation.

Let’s change this now.

Until this process is democratized, we will have no public art, merely more of the same pathology of politics, painted on participation, and the continued incumbent paternalism that stifles creativity.

And worst of all we will be stuck with bad art.

Let’s change this now.

 

I have been thinking a lot lately about Chinese artist Ai WeiWei. Ai was the darling of the China until he had the audacity to criticize his government—as I am criticizing my government tonight. He has demanded a democratized art process. Since then, government inspectors have hounded him, racking up $2.5 million in fines,  he has been spied upon, he has been arrested and severely beaten by the police—repressive government a work.

 

Frankly, I am a little worried about speaking publicly tonight. The career politicians on this dais are powerful, both of you know that I oppose the practices of this secret committee, your body language betrays your lack of objectivity in this matter. When I tried to dialogue with both of you, you both showed contempt and disrespect for me. I have the emails you sent me right here if anyone in this room wants to read them. When I called upon you privately to democratize this process—and perhaps unknown to you–another elected official sat with me privately and tried to dissuade me, warned me if you will, from pursuing this matter prior to the election because this person was afraid that I might offend you.

 

I accept that by speaking out publicly against this process, I am at risk of finding out if challenging MY government in Bay View might be no different from challenging the government in Beijing. My elected representative has warned me off pressing for dialogue from you; I hope this person was simply misguided.

Let’s change this now.

 

Dialogue is risky, so is democracy. But I have every confidence that the PEOPLE in this room (and those who aren’t here but will join a democratized committee) will truly facilitate an on-going, democratized public arts project. Of course, the outcome of a democratized process is always unpredictable—this is why all governments, not just the repressive ones, always fear dialogue; why all governments try to control the content and outcomes of their encounters with the people—as you have done for months on this committee.
Let’s change this now. Let us start again. Let us begin to end this repressive climate of incumbency and begin a newly democratized process.

 

Let us begin to DIALOGUE ABOUT public art in this neighborhood WITH the people and not AT the people, on this project and dozens more you have never bothered to think about.

Escuchar primero; listen first. Stop this secret committee tonight, close down this backroom wheeling-dealing, repressive effort tonight.. Democratize our committee tonight.

As CSNY once sang to a repressive Chicago government: open up, open up, open up the doors.

 

50

 

Copyright 2013 by Bay View Compass. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.