{"id":48020,"date":"2019-11-05T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T16:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=48020"},"modified":"2019-12-06T12:23:03","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T18:23:03","slug":"ned-kahns-pages-of-salt-the-answer-is-blowing-in-the-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/ned-kahns-pages-of-salt-the-answer-is-blowing-in-the-wind\/","title":{"rendered":"Ned Kahn’s “Pages of Salt”? The Answer is Blowing in the Wind"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Parisians hated the Eiffel Tower when it first went up. They weren\u2019t crazy about I. M. Pei\u2019s Louvre Pyramid, either. Both, however, have become iconic landmarks. Tourist attractions. Destinations in and of themselves. And that\u2019s what Salt Lake City is counting on with Ned Kahn\u2019s \u201cPages of Salt,\u201d a public art installation unveiled this past month in the heart of the city.<\/h4>\n

\u201cPages of Salt\u201d is the culmination of The Redevelopment Agency of Salt Lake City\u2019s project to revitalize and reimagine Regent Street. A decade ago, it was little more than an alleyway between parking garages. Now, it\u2019s a mid-block corridor connecting City Creek and the Gallivan Center by way of the new Eccles Theater. At the unveiling for \u201cPages of Salt,\u201d Mayor Jackie Biskupski predicted the piece would \u201cquickly become an icon of downtown,\u201d activating the space and drawing people into it. Amy Fowler, RDA board chair and a Salt Lake City Council member, noted that love them or hate them, public art projects attract crowds. And attracting crowds to downtown is what the city is after.<\/h4>\n

The Salt Lake Arts Council\u2019s announcement of the unveiling touted \u201cPages of Salt\u201d as the \u201clargest single piece of public art in Salt Lake City.\u201d It may be the largest in the state. At $2.2 million, it is also the most expensive \u2014 a fact remarked on by local news outlets and sure to remain a point of controversy whenever the work is discussed (for those discussions: the per-resident price comes to a little over $11).<\/h4>\n

Knowing how much (or, rather, little) Utahns are inclined to pay for art, the price tag would probably have been a sticking point regardless of the work selected. And that selection was not easy. From the initial pool of 182 applicants in 2015, the Salt Lake City Design Board, a volunteer group of seven, originally chose Janet Echelman\u2019s proposal for an overhead fiber sculpture. When that fell through due to disputes about timeline and budget during the administration of Mayor Ralph Becker, the board returned to the process. For the second round, they chose a digital projection piece by L.A.-based artist Refik Anadol, but the ongoing maintenance and utility costs for that one had Mayor Jackie Biskupski\u2019s office nix it. Knowing the clock was ticking on the bond to pay for a Regent Street art piece (there was a three-year limit), the design board had also chosen a backup proposal from one of the original five finalists: Ned Kahn.<\/h4>\n

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Kahn has made an international name for himself creating kinectic sculptures and installations that react to elements in the natural environment. In places like Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Singapore and Belgium, he uses elements like wind, water and light as much as steel and plastic. A recurring motif has been the use of wind with hinged pieces of material to make the invisible visible. The effects can be mesmerizing, as the side of a building seems to come alive, shivering and shimmering in the breeze. \u201cPages of Salt\u201d is a work in this vein, a wall of 336 white flags, sewn to resemble both salt crystals \u2014 in honor of the Great Salt Lake \u2014 and sheets of drying newspaper \u2014 a nod to a bit of Regent Street history: the printing presses for The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News used to be there.<\/h4>\n

At the unveiling, in the calm air, the piece literally fell flat. Move around it and you might get some pleasure from seeing the salt crystal perforations framed by the blue sky, or catch the piece\u2019s reflection in a nearby building, but these effects were subtle. On the day following the unveiling, when gusts of wind were blowing leaves off trees by the rakeful in Washington Square, the movement of \u201cPages of Salt\u201d was still lackluster. It took time to notice that while most of the flags lay flat, the upper corners of the piece, barely touched by the sun, were also lifting subtly in the wind.<\/h4>\n

Subtlety is an attractive quality in much art, but usually not public art. Eiffel\u2019s tower and Wei\u2019s pyramid were controversial precisely because they were not subtle. It\u2019s also why they are such identifiable landmarks, aided of course by large public plazas that help call attention to them. By contrast, very little in its environment calls attention to Kahn\u2019s piece. The only sightline comes from within the Eccles Theatre, or traveling south on Regent Street, but even from these vantage points, you might miss it: the rows of white flags blend into the wall of the parking garage they are attached to. That wall is north facing, meaning it will receive little sunlight. Also, while McCarthey Plaza may be used as a community meeting space for special events, it also serves as a loading dock for the Eccles Theater: the day after the unveiling, Kahn\u2019s piece was foregrounded by a couple of large trucks.<\/h4>\n