The world of apparel design has a story that might be relevant: "The Emperor's New Clothes"

Some earlier posts on this subject, including a west coast study of same, and within them, other posts on parallel subjects, such as fund raising:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=33000

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=33006

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22372

The most interesting post, at least in my opinion, was this one, by Craig Brinkman (user name "railadventures"), second link, second page:


"It isn't just about fund raising, although that is a big deal. It is about being ready to fund raise...why is someone going to give us money to do preservation?

"The answer, in the case of LACMA, is that they are located in one of the biggest metro areas of the country and are regarded as innovative, dynamic (as in changing), and are promoters. We can whine all day long about big rocks and dangling locomotives, but apparently it raises LOTS of money.

"We have museums and exhibits in major metro areas and they certainly do better at fund raising than those in the less populated areas, but that is not a universal truth, just as is the case for art and other preservation organizations. What's missing is a couple of things:

"Art is everywhere, in the school curriculums, in our homes, in our towns and in museums...Interestingly, railroads are accessible in most areas, but our 'art' is represented in very few (unless you included preserved depots...hold that thought).

"Schools host field trips to art museums as part of their curriculum....how many of your local schools do the same for your museum? If we don't 'start them young', we won't 'see them older with money.'

"Consider the following:

"We have put the vast majority of our artifacts in very few, large collections, often outside of major metro areas...if the Art Institute of Chicago was in Union, IL, do you think 'they would come' or 'give big bucks?' (I am NOT picking on IRM...just making a point). In most cases, we do okay, considering our disadvantages.

"We have 'cultural outposts' in thousands of local metro areas, cities and towns across the country...our restored or restorable depots....but we have very few artifacts at most of these depots, which makes it difficult to build grass roots appreciation of our passion. We don't distribute what we have for education and promotion, because we are too 'proprietary" about "our stuff.'

Big collections mean it takes big bucks to sustain them and we are losing as much as we sustain every year...just read the desperate pleas for assistance to prevent scrapping on this board.

There are no 'slackers' in our art form..everyone works hard and does what they can...but we had best examine our 'model' of collecting, restoring and preserving...because we are losing ground when others, like LACMA, are delivering what the public wants to see (and pay for)."

Of particular interest to me was his comment about the Los Angeles County Museum of Art being "regarded as innovative, dynamic (as in changing), and are promoters," in particular the "innovative" part.

Granted, we are into historic preservation as opposed to "innovative" interpretations of the world around us (which is one definition of "art"), but that still raises the question of why at least some people think trains and railroads are something that should "go away," (including the historic aspect), and why much of that same crowd thinks we are really kids with big Lionel trains. Even if much of the last point is true for some of us, it still suggests a lack of respect for the real work that goes into running even a small railroad; those who are into the operations of even a small line with industrial "critters" for power know about this.

In short, what do we need to be seen as doing something important and positive to the general public?

I think we are doing much that is right, much that is less than right, some things are wrong (though not as much as we may think), and that we also face an uphill battle because of culture and timing ("I live in the wrong time," yes, I've said that about myself often enough).

The things we do right are best represented by (but not limited to) most modern steam locomotive restorations. Here, dedicated people pour money and labor into restoring large, sometimes complex, outdated machines into better than new condition. Some of the bigger and more modern restored locomotives can hold their own operationally on the best of modern Class Is if given the chance to run; we have had speed and endurance runs with 4-8-4s that demonstrate that.

There have been comments about things not done as well as they should be, or outright done wrong, but I'm not sure there is too much of that, at least in the form of operating railroads. Part of this is due to the modern safety standards we must meet, and part of it is due to the forced exit from our field of the short-cutters, the idiots, and the general incompetents, some of whom couldn't make money with a mint. (Note that I am not speaking of our weirder, geekier brothers, some of whom we have discussed lately; they rarely have the resources to run a railroad in any size larger than O scale.)

I think part of our problem, perhaps the largest part of it, is that business of "living in the wrong time." The railroad business had been in a long decline for decades, perhaps the better part of a century. The loss of passenger service in particular took the railroads out of the public eye; railroads today are culturally "invisible" outside of the stereotypical waiting at grade crossings. This is in spite of the ongoing come-around the business has had in the real world; indeed, people who should know better in the business world were shocked at the move by Warren Buffett to dive deep into the railroad business.

Speaking of BNSF, I have a friend who had some sort of contact with people who were involved with what was then Burlington Northern and its choice of joining Amtrak and discontinuing its own passenger trains. According to him, even among BN stockholders at the company meetings, the BN management of the time had to explain time and time again that the cessation of passenger service didn't mean the BN was going totally out of business!

If those so-called "sophisticated" investors in the 1970s thought BN was going totally under, and their more recent counterparts could miss what is symbolized by all that modern heavy rail, amazing modern locomotives, electronic air braking and all the rest, where does that leave the general and relatively uneducated public? Where does that leave us in dealing with that public?

Amen, brother Lynch—and most eloquently stated.

Art is art, but if preservation wasn't an undeniable proton in the nucleus of the High Line, it wouldn't exist. This particular section of the city intrinsically embraces art and history more than most, and has proven they're far from mutually exclusive. The southern end of the High Line at Gansevoort Market falls within influence of the Greenwich Village Historical Preservation Society, which was and will always be a force to be reckoned with. Foremost, from signage to relaid rails running its entire expanse, the High Line relishes in its role railroad relic—and might just be among the most visited on the continent. If said suspended spatial art installation was to be dropped in a non-rail centric location, I don't think we'd be having this conversation.

What personally irks me about the present proposal isn't so much the work or its creator's compensation—it's beautiful, no doubt—but its inevitably contrived interpretive role in telling the High Line's heritage. If the option exists, or could be made to, why not tell it right? For stewards of the cause to simply shun the opportunity to play upon the popularity of America's best known linear park and bring preservation into focus seems, frankly, irresponsible. The chance to go mainstream couldn't be more gold plated. Throw a crumb into their yard and hope they follow them to the dusty books and iron oxide in the museum's; otherwise, good luck getting visitors to pay off six decades of valiant efforts.

Folks -

For the record, the City of Chicago plans to put in what is being called the Bloomingdale Trail on the northwest side of the city, using a nearly 3 mile dormant elevated railroad right-of-way. It will be similar to the NYC High Line with parks and multi-use bike and walking trails with access at a number of points. I am not sure of the heritage of the line although I think either C&NW or Milwaukee Road, and I don't know if any of the railroad artifacts along the line are planned on being included. The projected cost for just the first phase is 46 million dollars and here is the kicker; 5% of the projected budget is already earmarked for artwork!

Can we eventually expect a similar hanging steam locomotive sculpture in Chicago?

Les

Wow... three pages of commentary so I'll keep this short and to the point:

"STUPID".

Preservation, accuracy or just plain art, it's dumb and it's ugly and there are better
ways to draw a crowd.

If they want to hang ANYTHING, let them hang the new "for America" Talgo train:



I'd pay a few hundred for a raffle to cut the cord, too.

/Mitch

PS: That cherry is COOL!



A better comparison would be if that cherry on the spoon was hanging
off a crane (for some dumb reason) and not in a park, but over your
head in downtown Minneapolis. The Cherry is in a sculpture park and
fits in well with it's odd sculpture-mates and if you don't like it, you simply
avoid the park (something you can't do with the above proposal!)

/Mitch

"What personally irks me about the present proposal isn't so much the work or its creator's compensation—it's beautiful, no doubt—but its inevitably contrived interpretive role in telling the High Line's heritage. If the option exists, or could be made to, why not tell it right? For stewards of the cause to simply shun the opportunity to play upon the popularity of America's best known linear park and bring preservation into focus seems, frankly, irresponsible. The chance to go mainstream couldn't be more gold plated. Throw a crumb into their yard and hope they follow them to the dusty books and iron oxide in the museum's; otherwise, good luck getting visitors to pay off six decades of valiant efforts."--Ed Kelley

I think a part of what drives us nuts about this has to do with "interpretation" of our artifacts, including locomotives, and this goes to the heart of the interpretation and appreciation of art.

The late Ted Rose had some comments about this in the column he had in Locomotive & Railway Preservation. For those unfamiliar with him, he was an artist, working in the difficult medium of watercolor, who specialized in railroad subjects, and with some wonderfully evocative images of railroading, both from the steam era and the modern day, and he also wrote about railroads and art in the late "Eleanor P."

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/aug/03 ... assings3.1

http://www.railphoto-art.org/exhibits/rose.html

http://www.askart.com/AskART/photos/BON ... 01/144.jpg

http://www.askart.com/AskART/photos/CNY ... 2/1452.jpg

http://www.rrdc.com/images/ph_prairie_fires_lrg.jpg

http://www.railphoto-art.org/galleries/rose.html

http://dev.artistsnetwork.com/wp-conten ... _rose3.jpg

http://onmilwaukee.com/images/articles/ ... story1.jpg

http://dev.artistsnetwork.com/wp-conten ... _rose2.jpg

I'm having to work from memory as my magazines are in boxes in the basement, but as I recall, he commented about how art divided into two streams a bit over 100 years ago. The traditional style of art, in sculpture and in painting, and going back to the masters such as Da Vinci, was a "realistic" style; you painted things to look as they were or might be.

Partially because of the invention of photography, this style went into decline; why work for realism when a camera could do it better than the best painter? What emerged was a new or modern style, which was in some ways a throwback to much earlier times, and at the same time, a new way of looking at things. In some ways, this fresh look was more basic in that it looked at elements of images themselves. The style called Cubism perhaps best illustrates this; artists such as Picasso saw, say, a woman's face, as a combination of geometric shapes, of cones, circles, and planes. One may wonder how Picasso got some of the images he came up with--they certainly don't look "realistic" in our normal sense--but it is interesting to note that shipyard workers in a French yard who were being interviewed on their work at building a new, sail-powered cruise ship, commented on just this in a book on the new vessel (grr, I don't have the book to even look up the title). One of them said this was how they interpreted the drawings of the marine architects to build the hull; they bent the steel plates into cones, planes, and assorted curves that made up its shape, and that a woman's face was also of planes, cones, and curves! It was how you looked at it to see it.

Unfortunately, in Rose's opinion (and mine), this eventually resulted in art that grew more and more abstract, moving further and further away from the real world. At least one comic must have had fun and gotten laughs with a joke about art along the lines of "It must be good, because I can't understand it."

Of course, things like this can lead to a backlash, and in recent years, there has been some interest by artists in more realistic styles.

A notable example of the argument between modern or abstract style and the traditional realistic style can be seen in the Viet Nam memorial in Washington, DC. The original design by Maya Lin was to have been just the wall, which many people thought too severe; some called it a "black gash of shame." The addition of the statue of the three soldiers--and it's a most realistic interpretation of its subject--helped relieve this controversy. As I believe all of us know, the memorial is now an icon to this country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Lin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Soldiers

Frederick Hart, the sculptor of "The Three Soldiers," was a strong proponent of returning to the traditional, realistic style, and in his later years, was attempting to put together a new, traditionalist movement, not just in art, but in poetry and philosophy. This group called itself the "Centrists."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Hart_(sculptor)

This, I think, is the heart of the controversy we are discussing here. So many artists are in the "modernist" or "post-modernist" school, with its stylized interpretations. We, on the other hand, see no need to reinterpret or stylize our artifacts, our locomotives, cars, and stations; we see beauty in them as they are.

It's been said before, but it bears repeating here: our challenge is to take these once common objects, all of which are essentially outmoded junk in the "real" world, and make them relevant to the modern world, and do so with the eye of the preservationist and the conservator as well. That's a question of interpretation and communication, and it's something we need to relearn and rethink for an America that has had much of its railroad heritage and railroad culture squeezed out over the last two generations.

A number of great points have been made in this discussion regarding the importance of engaging the public. Location is a big factor as well. Yet I do not buy the "lack of respect" argument. It sounds like a cop out. Yes, the public is always going to have a lot of seriously wrong ideas about railroads just like they have seriously wrong ideas about a lot of things, but there is also a lot of affection out there for trains.

I am convinced that people generally like trains and want to give our museums a chance. There are still a lot of positive images of railroading in our culture. There is a great deal of romance, nostalgia, and drama associated with trains. For the past couple of decades, urban areas have been embracing rail transit as we have learned they are necessary to maintain cities that are both dense and humane.

Despite these positive associations, our museums for the most part continue to drop the ball at doing the most basic stuff to create "innovative" and "dynamic" visitor experiences. Most do not even try to go beyond a train ride, baffling displays of hardware, and a few faded placards that tell us build-date, driver diameter, and weight. Some also offer poorly-trained docents that do not know how to connect to the general public.

Museums in other fields understand their survival relies upon maintaining the interest of their constituents in the form of the visiting public and major donors. It takes a lot of work to these things, but they are prioritized because these museums get that it is essential. Meanwhile, a lot of railroad museums lumber on with low-overhead rural locations, dedicated train-loving volunteers, and a general public that, as I said generally likes trains and is looking for something interesting and entertaining. I suspect this affection for trains has been a double edged sword. Without the dedicated volunteers and the interest of the public, we would have nothing. With it, we have just enough to survive, and for many museums, that is enough.

Why is this? Why don't we have grander aspirations? I would guess there are a lot of reasons that might be cultural, political, and even psychological. One of these is that we are fixated on hardware, not people. Even those amongst us that talk a good game about education and outreach tend to focus on technology and underestimate the importance of talking about rail history in terms of the people who ran and rode the trains. That is what most visitors are going to be able to relate to. We need outside educators and designers to create effective and compelling experiences.

Another issue has to do with our museums' leaders, how they are selected, and their collective lack of vision for serving the public. I honestly believe a lot of them do not want to see their museums thrive because they are afraid of the fat cat elites that will take over if they do. They may be right, but what is best for our collections?

Given some of these factors, I think we have the success we deserve.

As far as Jeff Koons is concerned, he has built a huge career on creating work that is audacious, spectacular, and very "accessible." There is no exotic theory to be grasped when viewing a massive locomotive dis-orientingly suspended in mid-air with hissing steam and flailing wheels. His other works have embraced such "hard to get" subject matter as Michael Jackson, puppies, toys, and pornography. He is a popular Pop artist in the vein of Andy Warhol whose work LACMA displays in the same gallery with Koons'.

Respect for history prevents us from engaging in the "frivolous" spectacle of a Pop Art, but there is plenty of drama in railroading that the public "gets." Do they find it when visiting our museums? Mostly, No.

[Edited to add that I teach architecture and introductory sculpture classes at a venerable art college in San Francisco]

The fact that this project is being considered is absolutely egregious. Yep, I used the word. At the very least I find this proposal disrespectful to rail preservation, steam locomotives, and even "art". There isn't much else to say except that I believe we should be collectively appalled by this proposal and distance ourselves from it as much as possible.
-Alex

I would argue that "realism" has always been domain of the craftsman (person?), not the artist. All the best art has focused on creative interpretations of reality. The subject matter must be transformed by the artist into something new to become art. Almost any art movement you can shake a paint brush at is defined by its "style," which by nature, demonstrates a departure from a direct depiction of reality.

You are correct that the camera pushed this need for stylistic innovation into overdrive, and I agree that some art is extremely inaccessible as a result. Nevertheless, tastes and levels of appreciation for this stuff vary; just as they do with other things. When I walk into an art museum I expect only a percentage of the work to "speak" to me, but when it does, it's inspiring. For that matter, I used to think GG1s were ugly (I've come around), but I will never get industrial switchers, or gold eagles and stars marring the outside of a modern steam engine.

I would further argue that our artifacts belong to the modernists. There was a time when our trains were new and shocking. So shocking that the industrial revolution inspired a historicist backlash that dominated art and architecture from the 1850s to 1900. The Arts and Crafts movement advocated hand-made housewares and furnishings in houses for the wealthy modeled after peasant cottages at the same time steam-powered factories were perfecting mass production.

By the turn of the century, locomotive designers had abandoned historicist pretense for a machine aesthetic that honestly expressed the dictum of form follows function. These machines were the harbingers of a brave new world of engineering, speed, and efficiency. A world that inspired a generation of architects and artists that were tired of new buildings and art masquerading as something they were not; old, quaint, exotic...

Instead of ostentatious pretense, this new generation embraced simplicity and technology. Characteristics you will find in our railroad equipment in spades. Functionalism has since become a bad word denoting dry, boring, "good for you" minimalism. But think about it. This word values what something does over its superficial appearance. Some of our nicest looking locomotives are the ultimate expression of this concept. It is actually not such a bad idea, is it? In honor of yesterday's 126th birthday for Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, "weniger ist mehr." Less is more.

This arc in railroad aesthetics from looking backward in the 19th Century and then looking forward in the early 20th is one of the things that makes railroad history relevant. This history is crucial to understanding the triumph of the modern global economy. Railroads spread standardization, consumer goods, people, and ideas while basically annihilating the problems of "distance" and "difference."

Once again, back to Koons' crazy train, there is nothing abstract or stylized about it. The locomotive is intended to be a "realistic" representation of an ATSF 4-8-4. I understand he initially wanted to use a real one, but none of the current owners could be persuaded to part with one (I am guessing Modesto?). The crane is just that. This art was not supposed to be a "representation." It was intended to be the very thing it appeared to be. What makes it "art" is the unlikely spectacle it creates.

R.

What Mitch said..........

Why is it "egregious"? Exactly why should we be appalled? Just because we don't agree with how somebody else might spend their money? Just because you don't agree with this person's definition of art?

It's fine to only like a certain type of art, but is it a good idea to be offended by other forms of art? A lot of people don't like abstract art, and many don't "get it". Does that mean a private individual is a fool if he by a piece of Abstract art? Van Gogh was definitely controversial, but a lot of people love his work.

What if, instead of a train, this fellow had decided to hang a pink Cadillac? Or maybe a giant Apple for "The Big Apple". Yeah, that's it, we can make a giant Apple made out of iPods, and iPhones and Ipads and hang it up there! Would that be better? (You know, I might be on to something with that idea, better call my agent! Oh, wait, I'd better find an agent...)

Just because this piece has a train theme, does that mean railfan should somehow be offended by it? It's one thing to choose not to support it, or even to laugh it off as a silly proposal. But I'm not sure we should go so far as to be hostile to it.

I do agree that it would be good to make the distinction between this and actual railroad preservation clear, if that should ever come up. However, I think that for most folks it's obvious this is a piece of art, not an attempt to create a space-saving railroad museum. (We'll hang them vertically, they need much less real estate that way!)

In the end, the relevance of this discussions, as well as the previous ones on the LACMA "Rock" relate to a simply question:

If an presumptive "artiste" can get people to spend millions on a floating rock or a hanging locomotive, what can we learn from this as rail preservationists?

Folks who think that the "cherry in spoon" is cool may not think Robert Todd Lincoln's restored 1900 Pullman Palace car at Hildene is worth the investment or is art, but art is in the eye and the wallet of those who appreciate it.

Before we dismiss this thread as inappropriate to the forum, consider the following:

Why isn't a restored CZ car a "medium" for an artist who wants to create an interior that evokes the 1950's, complete with dressed mannequins and other elements that he or she as an artist believes is art?

Before we throw the "Pullman out with the bathwater", it would be a far better outcome than the scrap yard and might actually raise awareness of what we know to be "high art"....our passion.

Craig Brinkman
www.arpcp.org

Just for reference, here is a page illustrating the translation of railroads into art in admittedly a more traditional manner:

http://weimarart.blogspot.com/2010/12/t ... tting.html

I think it is a overly hyped novelty act with a short shelf life. A surrealistic joke that mocks the actual history of the High Line and it's once important role bringing commerce into the city.
What does it teach? It teaches that faddish tripe is the flavor of the 21st century. Lavish money thrown at random cultural jokes somehow equates with artistic or cultural value. This has zero to offer anyone.
I think hanging a gigantic dollar bill from the crane would be apt to memorialize what a waste of time this stupid hermaphrodite represents.