Thanks to the Huffington Post and Jihad Watch.

See also this.

Eyesore "art" coming to Van Ness Avenue

"Maybe" this is crap

A public comment on the above:

TO: Zoe Taleporos, San Francisco Arts Commission

This is public comment on the San Francisco Arts Commission’s selection of three towers to be installed in the middle of Van Ness Avenue at the intersections of Market, Sutter, and Union as part of the Van Ness “Bus Rapid Transit” [BRT] project, which will remove two traffic lanes, nearly all of the parking, and all of the mature trees on Van Ness Avenue to install four lanes of red-painted pavement in the center of Van Ness Avenue for exclusive use of buses.

The three Jorge Pardo towers are hideous, and you, San Francisco Arts Commission, need to get a grip. To claim they are some form of “modern” conceptual art depicting “redwood trees” growing out of concrete is a painful attempt at justifying this garbage. Conceptual art itself is a joke that’s been repeated for 100 years now, since Marcel Duchamp’s famous urinal as “Fountain,” circa 1917. Duchamp’s “Fountain” would be much more appropriate for San Francisco streets, but the point is, we get it, and, far from being “modern,” the joke is old and stale now! 

Instead of more ugly visual clutter, leave the actual trees in the Van Ness median strip, or add real redwood trees there---not a conceptual joke on the public and taxpayers! The BRT itself is an ugly, unwelcome visual adulteration of a grand boulevard that is also a U.S. Highway traveled by millions, adding insult to the injury of permanent traffic congestion.

The only good that will come out of your joke on the public is to once and for all enable the public to mount enough outrage for a campaign to de-fund the San Francisco Arts Commission, along with preventing the MTA and the SFCTA from doling out millions for this garbage.

Sincerely,

Mary Miles

Rob's comment:

From the Arts Commission's site we get this artspeak:

Jorge Pardo’s work draws on multiple disciplines as it challenges historical definitions and discourses. His visually seductive body of work explores the intersection of contemporary painting, design, sculpture, and architecture. Employing a broad palette of vibrant colors, eclectic patterns, and natural and industrial materials, Pardo’s works range from murals to home furnishings to collages to larger-than-life fabrications.

For the Van ness Bus Rapid Transit project, Pardo has designed three large scale lighting sculptures (20’x7.5’x5.5’). The sculptures will be fabricated from steel that will be illuminated from within. The artworks will be cited[sic] at the end of the platforms at the Market, Sutter, Bush and Union Street Stations.

Artist Statement: “the work is an urban coastal redwood……it is made of steel, light and weather[sic]…..it is young not old….it comes out of the concrete…not the soil….it does not grow…..its purpose is to orient and remind….maybe of the past….maybe the present…..it is an urban machine…"

Insult to injury: Junk "art" is also planned for Masonic Avenue after the city screws up traffic on that busy street.

Aaron Bialick

Aaron Bialick

Aaron Bialick is leaving as editor of SF Streetsblog. Even allowing for the fact that the whole point of Streetsblog is promoting bicycles and anti-carism, his legacy will be one of crudely biased reporting and outright lies. 

Life is too short to cite all Streetsblog's biased reporting during his regime---there are examples nearly every day---but Bialick was at his worst when neighborhood opposition emerged to the bike lanes on Polk Street, including the lie that the first meeting was packed with outsiders. 

About fatal traffic accidents in San Francisco, Bialick was both biased and dumb: here and here, including a lie about why he banned me from commenting on Streetsblog. Bialick's score-keeping on traffic accidents was like an anti-car parody.

His predecessor, Bryan Goebel, wasn't much better, and whoever replaces Bialick will surely be more of the same.

Goebel was at his worst on Masonic Avenue: here and here. He's now bike correspondent for KQED News.

Bialick doesn't say where he's going. Could it be to the SFMTA? Not surprisingly, that agency sees anti-car bike people as well qualified to work for San Francisco's transit agency: here, here, and here.