Artistic visions for LAPD's new headquarters
Forget about cops and robbers -- how about cops and artists? The lavish new 10-story Police Administration Building on Spring Street, which officially opens Saturday, looks more like a museum gallery than the LAPD headquarters. And it has already drawn some amateur art criticism.
Last week, the new LAPD memorial wall was unveiled. Brass plates on the nearly 11,000-pound structure bear the names of 202 officers killed in the line of duty. The more than 2,000 brass plaques that comprise the structure are removable so that the names of additional fallen officers can be added. The architecture firm Gensler donated its services to design the sculpture.
More than 30 concepts were separated into four general categories for development, said a spokesman for Gensler. Four proposals were developed and the final design was a later iteration of one of the four.
The $725,000 memorial was built with private funding from the Los Angeles Police Foundation.
Sprinkled along Spring Street are Peter Shelton’s cast bronze pieces -- or "some kind of cow splat," as Police Chief William J. Bratton refers to them. Six rotund masses, part of the sculptural installation called “animaline,” rest on pedestals and are flanked by two elongated creatures on either end.
"I'd like to think he'd leave his post more graciously," Shelton said in response to Bratton's comments as he did the finishing touches on the pieces Wednesday afternoon. "He doesn't need to bad-mouth something intended to be enjoyed by the city. I'm disappointed he thinks he's an art expert."
When he was approached by the Department of Cultural Affairs to produce an art piece, Shelton said he thought a series of forms that went up the length of the street would make the art more part of the urban landscape.
"I didn't want it to be connected to a civic theme or anything," Shelton said. "My work is more abstract. I've lived in L.A. for 40 years. This was my chance to give the city something playful, provocative, serious, thought-provoking ... I wanted it to make people stop and think.
"Mission accomplished, right?" he said.
The Department of Cultural Affairs, whose public art budget for the new building was $1 million, also commissioned a piece by Catherine Wagner of San Francisco.
Wagner’s “Ghost Grove,” located at the Ronald F. Deaton Civic Auditorium connected to the new headquarters, will be unveiled Saturday. The project pays tribute to downtown L.A.’s lush orange grove history.
Her inspiration stemmed from the lone citrus tree that remains in the plaza of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Little Tokyo, which continues to blossom in the midst of the concrete chaos.
"I hope that there’s a magical feeling when you enter it," Wagner said. "And that there’s a thinking of the history and past of downtown Los Angeles."
"Ghost Grove" includes images of an orange grove, laser-etched on anodized aluminum, which spans along the north and east facades of the interior corridor of the auditorium building. It presents a ghost-like image of trees that can be seen from the exterior plaza and while traveling to and from the theater.
On the northwest corner and the plaza side of the building, semitransparent orange mylar circles cascade down the exterior windows, creating the illusion of falling oranges. And, depending on the time of day, the illuminated laminated oranges will cast shadows onto the floors and walls of the corridor.
Visitors to the northern plaza entrance will see a sandblasted image of a lone orange tree on limestone.
“I didn’t feel the need to do anything to affiliate with imagery that had to do with the police department," Wagner said. "I felt more inclined to address the site it was in. Civic buildings have a whole history of uninspired architectural presence. With this new building, it’s kind of announcing a new beginning. Just look at the architecture of the building; it’s beautiful.”
--Yvonne Villarreal
Photos: At top, view of northwest corner where Catherine Wagner's orange mylar circles cascade. Credit: Phil Bond. Center, memorial wall on West 1st Street. Credit: Gensler. Bottom, one of Shelton's cast bronze pieces. Credit: Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times
Why are Bratton's comments on art being published by the Times? Steve Lopez doesn't do stories about Michael Govan's opinion of the LAPD service on the Wilshire Blvd.
Posted by: hmmmmm | October 21, 2009 at 02:50 PM
I would have to agree with Chief Bratton. Hardly Henry Moore.
All that energy and material wasted on blobs, I guess they may be part of a blast shield, for that they would perform a needed service. Too bad they dont have any limbs for birds to pearch on, some nice patterned guano might enliven the shapless explanses. Hopefuly they will enjoy the branches of trees overhead.
art collegia delenda est
Posted by: Donald Frazell | October 21, 2009 at 02:52 PM
Dude, its part of the police building, something he was head of and would have to painfully pass everyday to work. So, no one can comment on "art" except artistes? Thats EXACTLY the problem, and why no one cares about contempt art. Thats what you have for humanity, and so we ignore you.
Another example
art collegia delenda est
art colleges must be destroyed.
Posted by: Donald Frazell | October 21, 2009 at 03:01 PM
What an idiot this artist is. You don't have to be an "art expert" to say that this is a really bad piece. In my opinion, Chief Bratton was being more than gracious at only calling it "some kind of cow splat".
Posted by: LB | October 21, 2009 at 07:20 PM
Didn't I read somewhere else that Bratton and one of his lieutenants approved the sculpture? Maybe it was just an offhanded message from Bratton as he departs the City well in advance of the expiration of his contract. "Cow splat" it is!
Posted by: Mike | October 22, 2009 at 07:03 AM
The fine line between thought provoking and incomprehensibly playful is combined here and ends up equaling nothing. How does a vaguely decorative amorphous blob honor our police and city and inform its citizenry? What’s wrong with comprehendible visual identity with feeling? I don’t automatically mean Norman Rockwell or something fascistic, but there got to be something better that this. The public sick of decorative nothing art. Perhaps this would work for a children center or a mental ward. Give us art we can understand and be thrilled by. Something moving enough that when a good cop is killed it might naturally draw people to it as a place of tribute. The fundamental problem is in the designing of these projects is Artists who can draw or design well are routinely omitted from even being considered by the nothing art world.
Posted by: William Wray | October 22, 2009 at 10:28 AM
How much did the cow splat cost and exactly who decided to veer away from civic displays and into modern "art"?
Posted by: Chinhokelly | October 31, 2009 at 06:58 PM