Port’s Art Board Tackles the Kelly Site : Panel Postpones Action to Place Any Art on Bay Location

Compared to the torrent of controversy that had attended its earlier activities, Monday’s meeting of the San Diego Unified Port District’s Art Advisory Board was almost devoid of emotion.

For the first time since artist Ellsworth Kelly backed out of his $450,000 commission to create a sculpture for the Port District, the art advisory board met to discuss the bayside site once chosen for the Kelly sculpture, and other matters involving art in the Port District’s territory.

The five-member board gingerly touched on some of the accusations against it, including elitism, not holding public meetings, using an unfair art selection process and not having a membership representative of San Diego.

Board Chairman Gerald Hirshberg read a letter in which Port Commission Chairman William B. Rick asked the board to create a public art program that would maintain excellence without overlooking local artists, reach the maximum number of citizens, and take into consideration that art be compatible with the community in which it would be located.

An audience of 25 people, many them artists, filled most of the seats in the board room.

Although board members termed the Embarcadero site an “incredible” and “magnificent” location for art, they voted to postpone indefinitely any action to place any art there.

The Port District now has $594,000 to spend on art, according to Rick, and the figure grows by $205,000 a year. The Port District should spend $1.2 million on public art by 1988, Rick estimated.

In responding to the commissioners’ demand that they consider expansion of their membership (Port Commission policy allows the board chairman to add two members), the advisory board members balked at adding a member who might not be knowledgeable about art. Board member and art critic Isabelle Wasserman did not think it appropriate to “just grab another body.” She suggested filling one of the two expansion positions with a temporary consultant from outside the city, as advisory boards do elsewhere.

“I fail to see how two more people would necessarily be more or less representative of the community, particularly one who is not involved in the field of art,” Hirshberg said.

Members of the audience, however, disagreed and suggested that the board include members from the community at large to avoid the charge of elitism. On Wasserman’s motion, the advisory board voted to expand the membership by two positions, to be filled--by resident or non-resident--only when desired, depending on the site and type of work being considered.

Enumeration of a list of selection processes was put off until another meeting.

Sites for potential art, including an area south of Spanish Landing and Lindbergh Field, was also discussed.

Also, board meetings were set for the first Monday of the month.