When, or indeed if, the much discussed millennial stainless steel spike by London architect Ian Ritchie is erected on Dublin's O'Connell Street, it will add another piece of public sculpture to an already crowded thoroughfare in a city awash with statues and monuments. The aesthetic merits of these art works could most charitably be described as variable, with many individual pieces being downright poor and showing a dearth of imagination in design, material and execution alike. And yet the quantity of public sculpture, not just in the capital but across the country, continues to increase.
According to Mary McCarthy, director of the National Sculpture Factory, which is hosting a two-day seminar on public art next week, more than £2 million is now spent annually in this State on the commissioning and construction of works of art in public places; this sum is almost as much as the Arts Council's yearly visual arts budget. Much of this money comes via the Department of the Environment and Local Government's Per Cent for Art Scheme, a programme dating, in various guises, from the 1970s. The intention of this scheme is simple: local authorities are encouraged to spend 1 per cent of the cost of all construction projects, either financed or recouped by the department, on the commissioning of public art.
Across the State, the response to this proposal has been enthusiastic, in part because almost all local authorities now employ arts officers who, through the scheme, have acquired a relatively simple means to commission new art work for their area. While the Per Cent for Art Scheme can be considered a success in terms of the reaction it has elicited from local authorities, the standard of public sculpture produced over the past decade suggests even the best intentions may lead to disappointment.
Mary McCarthy cites the lack of a coherent and cohesive commissioning policy as being at the root of many of the difficulties. Another problem is the lack of diversity: too much public sculpture tends to be produced in the same materials, either stone or bronze; it is interesting that among the objections raised to Ian Ritchie's O'Connell Street spire was the fact that it will be made of stainless steel.
Stone and bronze are the most traditional of materials and invariably the latter is used to create that most traditional of forms: the human figure. Figurative art seems to evoke a more popular public response than does abstraction; the most widely-admired pieces of sculpture in this country are usually those depicting O'Connell, Parnell, Larkin, Burke et al.
The subject is clearly identifiable as is the purpose of the work, most commonly the celebration of a deceased worthy. The character of abstract art is less easily appreciated; for many observers, understanding the intention of a non-figurative work poses a challenge with which they may not engage. Accordingly, indifference is the most common response to a great deal of public art.
But there are other difficulties with the Per Cent for Art Scheme, not least the upper limits for expenditure imposed by the Department of the Environment. On projects costing up to £2 million, a maximum of £20,000 may be spent on public art and this amount gradually rises to £50,000, but no higher. The nature of the art produced will inevitably be affected by the amount of money made available and, where the money operates within certain clearly defined parameters, so too will the work it funds.
While the department's guidelines allow for sums from individual construction funds - especially those of a relatively small scale - to be pooled in order to create a larger figure for the payment of one art piece, in practice this does not seem to occur. Budgetary constraints only encourage similarity between different pieces of public art around the State as the funds available vary little from one local authority to the next. There also appears to be a shared preference for commissioning as much work as possible even if the sum for any one piece is small.
As a result, one of the most dramatic examples of new public art in these islands, Antony Gormley's 65-foot-high Angel of the North, erected outside Gateshead in England in February, 1998, could never be achieved under the Per Cent for Art Scheme because the work cost about £800,000.
The only comparable project on this side of the Irish Sea is a proposal by sculptor Vivienne Roche for a fibre-optic light-bearing steel structure across the River Lee near Cork's Jack Lynch Tunnel. With a budget liable to be well in excess of any yet provided for a public art work, the piece, Lines of Light is being considered by the local authority.
"It's very hard for artists to work on a large scale unless the budgets are increased," comments Mary McCarthy. But it will also remain hard for artists to bring imagination and initiative to their proposals for public art while aesthetic constraints, however unofficial, continue to be so narrow.
Aidan Dunne reports on next week's Public ART forum in the Arts page on Thursday.