ours runneth over, but that makes it splash art

Breena your story on Sam Yates is pretty disappointing.
The central point is that Palo Alto unwisely withheld payment and closure for two years because someone put the idea out there that the artwork should include a data base useful as data per se. That was not in the contract. Samuel Yates in good faith tried to comply with the request but ultimately fell short. Elise DeMarzo (who is a personal friend, a former commissioner and someone I saw just yesterday) misspoke and misrepresented, probably by simple error, at council or commission when she explained her rationale for not paying.

You should know that I was at a meeting, as Sam’s “wing-man” yet unpaid, as a volunteer, when this was hashed out two years ago.

I wrote about this case copiously (if elliptically) in 2013 (although it is dated 2010, I amended) on m blog.

Your article fits the pattern of Post consistently attacking public arts generally. I find it amusing that you on the other hand do a service with your C3 contest of naming the art featured in the photos.

How much are we paying author Peter Kagamyo (sp?) to speak next week, “The love of cities or whatever”? I hear $5,000. Why do you think that is cool but paying $5,000 for art is out of bounds?

Why is it okay to spend $500,000 to flesh out Arrillaga Towers idea? Yet people balk at a dollar or two per capita on art?!

I can explain this more directly if you care to call: 650 xxxxxsmileemotican

(and for reference, I met my girlfriend of six years now Terry Acebo Davis at Bruce Beasley’s studio when she was lead negotiator in the 1 Percent project that yielded the granite arch, five years later, now installed at new Mitchell Center — my interest in art, and Bruce Beasley — a fellow Dartmouth alum – is what catalyzed my taking an interest in leadership here)

Mark Weiss
to wit:
(and also, as background, I have worked full-time in the the arts for 20 years as Earthwise productions, including 200 concerts produced and about a dozen artists rep’d as personal management in music, but I have also worked for pay for two or three visual artists as well, and collect art. My blog has 1,3000 posts and close to 500,000 words mostly on arts and culture but more than 300 on policy per se, like this one below:

My Parents Went to the Promised Land And All I Got Was This Amazing Dreamcoat, 94304; or, Why Magritte Didn’t Open a Smokeshop
Cause I have other things to fill my time/
You take what is yours and I’ll take mine
There are two common misconceptions about Samuel Yates’ “The Color of Palo Alto“: one, that the work consists of a treatment to 250 Hamilton, City Hall, Palo Alto, that was up for a matter of six months or so and then removed, that tinted the building or its windows roughly blue or green, wherein with your binoculars or theirs you could make out the shape or character of your actual abode or anybody’s, confirming the piece works, finding yourself among the 17,000 or so “others” or “neighbors”; or two, that the piece was a funky garage or office or structure or container that had landed in a planter in front of City Hall, fifty feet and a couple years in front of Mildred Howard’s “Clear Story”, that someone, the artist, Sam, lived in, worked in or parked his scooter in or near, or maybe was imprisoned there, like a high tech and modern age, yet uber-hip stockade. As either 1) the wrap or 2) the garage “The Color of Palo Alto” by Samuel Yates -abridged would have made a pretty good public art piece, good for a chuckle or two or food for thought about various and sundry issues and concepts, like the green power aspects. But I say “misconception” in that it would be an extreme reduction, a crime really, to think of the piece merely in these terms. like an “Allegory of the Cave” situation. To my mind, at the time and now inspired to rethink my relationship to the piece, my role, my small part, my 421 of 17,000 role or what not, the heart of the matter, what I thought my 17 cents were paying for, what made me smile most was the thought of poor Sam (as compared to Poor Tom’s a-cold, or Poor old Jim, from Shakespeare or Mark Twain, or Sisyphus, ) on his scooter back and forth up Addison and down Alma, or what not, shooting 50 houses per day, every day, for a year, his process. This is or was (I think it still is, right? COPA lives!, right? Our cup still runneth? ) a process piece, a conceptual piece, a performance even, and a good story, a yarn. But was I being cruel to think of Sam Yates as our arts prisoner, or arts martyr, with a mythic type of labor? (I knew meanwhile, or observed, that he was brilliant and charming and full of life; he’s actually from Sacramento, went to Berkeley for his undergraduate degree and Columbia for an MFA; he’s among the best and brightest surely).
From a pure real estate photography perspective, I calculated recently, that we could have or still could hire, for example a guy named Justin Adams in San Jose who presumably would shoot 421 Pepper, or 820 Chimalus or 1788 Oak Creek Drive, for $140 each and maybe cut us a deal to do all 17,000 parcels for about $2 million (compared to Sam’s $15,000 stipend) and would be that much more professional, we presume.
I remember meeting Sam in front of his garage — our garage — and saying something pseudo-knowing and enthusiastic about his piece, and its implications, and what it reminded me of and then being blown back by his further explication and things I couldn’t quite grasp in real time, like when you are traveling in a foreign country and use a few words of the local language and then get a rapid response that you can’t quite follow, from the locals.
I got to know him a little bit during the project’s more active phase and drove him to the airport for example early one morning; he also was kind enough in more recent times to respond by text to a couple of my random messages and brainstorms: about wrapping Palo Alto in “red tape” ala Christo; about turning our $500 million infrastructure backlog into a public art opportunity – can we somehow thematically link or colorize all the potholes we may fill? I also just yesterday had the idea for a counter-project, a derivative event: “Discolor of Palo Alto.” I’m tempted to reimburse or compensate any Palo Altan who would meet me and, well okay, here is what I texted Sam, at 2:51 on March 3, 2013: With your permission, I’d like to start a project called “The Discolor of Palo Alto” in which citizens can sign an affidavit that they don’t understand Duchamp, Lewitt AND Yates in which case I will personally compensate them the 25 cents per capita given SY here. Ok? Mark Weiss. Within a minute (despite being described in local and recent media coverage as being hard to reach and unresponsive) he wrote back: Hahaha!!! I started thinking I could recall Victor Frost by setting up a booth in front of Whole Foods or Piazza’s with a sign saying “25 cents” — I would be handing out quarters not panhandling, however. (Sam later wrote back to say that “Discolor of Palo Alto” was a bad idea…Agreed).
Certainly there is no disputing matters of taste (De gustibus non est disputandem) but my concern is that beyond the issue of whether or not Palo Altans or art lovers ever figure out or learn to appreciate this one piece, or this one artist, that there seems to be some sort of concerted effort by the bureaucrats or the plutocrats or the oligarchs here to undermine most modern art, conceptual art — ANYTHING, BY EXTENSION, THAT FORCES OR INDUCES OR INSPIRES THE AVERAGE PERSON TO THINK, OR DREAM OR IMAGINE — our public art commission or the public sector — Democracy even — altogether. My concern for Samuel Yates — like my concern expressed previously and above for Bruce Beasley, Mohammed Soummah, Joan Zalenski — is related to my concern that “neoliberals” — the people who apparently believe Democracy should be reformed by giving more power to Corporations, privatizing public assets, smashing unions — are selling the farm. Further, when new mayor Greg Scharff states that he wants to expand “percent for art” programs to include private sector development, I don’t believe he is being sincere; I think it is some sort of trick or tactic to confuse activists and residentialists, to give developers another card — like pc planned community zoning — in their hand, and not in ours.
I was reassured to find sympathetic and thoughtful or at least not mindless condemnations of Yates COPA in the New York Times and KQED. Refusalon Gallery’s archive also links to a favorable contemporaneous writeup in Dwell.
Today I took an hour out of my work day (actually, out of my sabbatical and stay-cation) to try to organize my thoughts on this matter; I am sitting in Peet’s at Charleston Center, where David from Harold Ray Live in Concert (on Alternative Tentacles) made me a mean or a mean of means mocha, tapping away on TAD’s laptop, wearing, for the occasion: blue Keen sandals (in March, 58 degrees F) some overly fancy and ultra-nerdy in this case non-sartorial designer striped green dress socks (two shades of green, plus a beige, fromHeimie’s of St. Paul, where on the weekend of my young cousin’s Bat Mitzvah my Dad bought my brother and I jackets, as well; my cousin, who got her middle school to celebrate a
Green Day, to wear green en masse; the story was told that a carpool driver the mom said “Annie, is this real or are you making this up” to which my cousin said “it is real AND i’m making it up”), Patagonia nylon shorts, a t-shirt, a black Arhoolie hoodie, a grey-blue retro Cubs cap and, getting to the point, and racing my wireless access curfew,MeanGreenI am wearing a button, an official part of “The Color of Palo Alto” that is green with white lettering, that says, on front “MEAN OF MEANS #4A753F” (and on the verso “VOTE ONLINE BY 11/04/08 WWW.THECOLOROFPALO ALTO.ORG (C) 2001-2008). As such, I am part of “The Color of Palo Alto” or it is part of me, et cetera — I also, for good measure, scrutinized the illustration on his website to ascertain roughly, or relatively to the other 364 bits of info, what shade or blue/green/brown today is, in this language system or world.
I also wonder, as referenced above, if “The Color of Palo Alto” could be seen as a dance in that could a performer or agent or person retrace Yates path, in whole or more likely in part and call it some kind of a dance? With or without a camera, with or without any other dramatic or amusing Pina Bausch gestures or memes. I actually, come to think of it, had a project or moment, circa 2006 i.e. post-Yates-contact in which I would play “Palo Alto” by Lee Konitz in a loop and proceed to drive from park to park, from Bol Park to the Lawn Bowling Center, and photograph the parks or their new signs — not sure what I was thinking the effect would be, but it killed an hour and a roll of film — some of these are also mock-Muybridge gestures. Ben Marks in the piece linked to above suggested that another comparison for Yates is Ed Ruscha’s early work, a collection of photos of Sunset Strip.
Meanwhile and hopefully back on point I noticed that in front of the new high profile computer store on University not only has parking been eliminated but two large cement bollards are installed — I am guessing someone’s risk manager, ours or theirs, suggested it. That the bollards are painted an unusual grey — I am wondering if they can be given a public art make– (here another 12 minutes of writing and maybe 200 words and 20 ideas got lost when, indeed, the Peet’s curfew came and ate my words…I continued on to Palo Alto Main where they let me log in to their two-hour timeshare only after reminding me that I seem to owe bookoo bucks for a Flaco Jimenez cd that I thougth I had returned but might be lost in my home stacks; I know I even if gratuitously referenced Kathy Aoki and her trip to Belgium — Magritte is Belgian, if that is an excuse. I think of my blog posts as rough drafts in that they are so easily amendable and there is very modest readerships, hence the style experiments).
I was saying that we could paint the bollards in front of the high profile computer store –the former Liddicoats site for us original G Palo Altans — with a “color of Palo Alto” intentionality or at the very least can we put a marker or tag that describes that gray they used in terms of its Yatesian coordinates? Lo, beyond just a wrap or shed or product line, Sam created a virtual world, a real world of color and thought, not unlike, In terms of the Mumford and Sons video — gratuitous and a reach, but they say it is based on Plato and please do note the scooters. They are in Goa, India, by the way. The analogy to “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” or Genesis “coat of many colors” is strained and underdeveloped but it is true I saw the show on Broadway in Fall, 1982 AND had already threw in the bit about Heimie’s of St. Paul.
Conclusion: Whether or not the art piece is useful as data base to public safety or the history association, and whether or not Yates does any more work on our behalf, we could start splashing his colors around, or describing things in the language he created. The piece is ongoing — maybe immortal and evergreen, even — and not merely current because some individuals or bureaucrats or pols who apparently stuck their “mean of means” badges in unfortunate places, it would seem and then started squawking. In a flurry of recent news articles it was learned a City staffer suggests withholding $7,000 she thinks we owe Yates until or unless he delivers the database extension (or is it merely a simulacrum, art imitating science or business or bureaucracy, like in “Brazil”) — maybe we are confusing this brouhaha with the state’s struggle to upgrade (to the tune of $200 million, clearly misspent) its DMV and payroll software. And aren’t we the people who gave Enron $20 million even after we knew they were crooks and bankrupt? Actually, if I can still trust the 2005 SF Chronicle, it turns out that the City of Palo Alto assistant attorney who said we should pay Enron rather than fight them is also the author of ademand letter sent to Yates last year. Way to chose your battles, dude! Actually the Chron helpfully (to my way of plastic thinking) offers that Grant Kolling when not kowtowing to corporations or hassling artists likes to ride motorcycles while humming “Born to Be Wild”. Maybe this whole ordeal could have been avoided if Sam had offered Grant a ride on his scooter?
Meta-note and gratuitous post-script factoid: the “47” referenced in the original headlines is purely random in that initially I was numbering my posts to “Plastic Alto”. This initially very brief entry, the photo and two lines (“agreeing to a green”, “I used to know what his means”) was my 47th post, that is — before that I used Roman numerals like does the Super Bowl; by the time I “edita”‘d with a more comprehensive discussion of Yates, I had already posted some 500 items here. I did note and briefly suss out the fact that yes 47 is a prime and learned for the moment at least that there are 47 Mersenne primes (something squared minus one). Also, feel free to skip the Chihuly items I added here for no reason months ago, below, in self-comments. (I was self-commenting before I learned to “edita” edit to add…)
edita, later that March, 2013 eve: I posted to the other leading source of local news and defamation:
Maybe rather than hassling or defaming the starving artist to get our $7,000-worth, we should claim that we and Samuel Yates invented what became “Google Street View” and dun that $270 Billion corporation for our fair share…The “neoliberal” mindset keeps saying government should act like a business but what they really do is kowtow to corporate power and treat the average citizens or Democratic ideals like so many little blots of ink or data points and blah blah blah blah blah
edit to add, March 6, 2013: I added another few words to Palo Alto Weekly site, and archived that here.
Six months after that, I recommended Sam Yates for an ambitious new media piece at City Hall:
For $850,000 we may be able to get Sam Yates. He’s good with new media; he’s good with new math. It would be fun to turn all 8 floors of 250 Hamilton into some type of temporary — for the next couple years at least — installation art with people pretending to push papers around and acting inscrutably — like something in a Tom Stoppard play or based on Guy DeBord — and then figure out a way to let certain well-connected or frankly desperate computer or social media firms put their twist on this and showcase their private enterprises and gadgets at our expense. Maybe some people will not even notice the difference, if it’s done well (and I mean very droll).
Or have we already been doing this?