Public Arts Committee Meeting 11/03/2021 – Will Vote On Lease Extensions For Three Sculptures; Decide On Process For Filling Houdini Plaza Welcome Tower

The Public Arts Committee is meeting 11/03/2021 at 8:30AM. They’ll be taking up a number of items.

The Municipal Services Committee already voted to recommend that the lease for The Collective sculpture on College Avenue be extended for 6 months through the end of April in order to give time to transport it to Montana where it’s new owner lives. That lease extension also has to go through the Public Arts Committee. The Municipal Services Committee amended the lease extension to make clear that there would be no further extensions. We’ll have to see if the Public Arts Committee makes the same amendment or if they vote to extend the lease at all.

The Committee will also be taking up two other lease extension requests one for the Gesture of Consciences sculpture and one for the To The Moon Alice sculpture. To The Moon Alice is the rocket shaped sculpture currently sitting in in Vulcan Heritage Park. The Gesture Of Conscience is the big wooden hand making the “okay” symbol in Jones Park.

Apparently, Sculpture Valley has discovered that it is challenging to compel the artists to come to Appleton “to recover their works given their discomfort with travel during the pandemic.” [The memo does not go into details regarding the nature of the artists’ concerns. All of these sculptures are outside, and it’s not clear that coming to Appleton and moving them would require close indoor contact with anyone. Be that as it may…] Sculpture Valley is requesting an extension of the leases and anticipates removing the artworks during the second quarter of 2022.

The committee will also be considering a request from Creative Downtown Appleton Inc . to install oversized wooden letters spelling “RISE” on City-owned property located within Houdini Plaza. These letters would be similar to the Hope sign that was placed in Houdini Plaza.

Finally, the committee will be determining the selection process for picking new artwork for the Houdini Plaza Welcome Tower. The previous committee meeting ended with them holding the item until the next meeting at which point they would decide whether they were going to hold a photo contest, use Rhythm of the World photos, or do a combination of both.

Finally, the committee has one information item. They will be receiving a Public Art Inventory Map.

View full meeting details here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=895651&GUID=5771F2F1-6F18-4ED1-9542-D2BDCD782BF7

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