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Oh, is the spire set up to do animations like the CN Tower? I had no idea. That might be really interesting after all
 
cellphone pic

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canmark said:
From an interview with Michael Snow in The Grid:
3. For his next masterpiece, he’s taking on the Trump Tower.

Snow turns 83 years old this year, but his creative pace hasn’t slowed over time: In the last year alone, he’s performed concerts, delivered lectures, and held exhibitions in Spain, England, Austria, Turkey, and New York. His next major project, a massive public art piece called Lightline, will illuminate one of the newest additions to Toronto’s skyline. “I composed a large number of abstract white-light animation compositions, which will vary every night,†he says of the project, scheduled to brighten up one corner of Trump Tower starting in September. “The ‘canvas’ is 60 storeys high, and what happens on it will be visible from a long way away. It will be very noticeable.â€
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Am I the only one scratching their head as to how the lighting can be passed of as public art?

(And I'm an LED lighting guy)

Is anything decorative now fair game to make someone an artist?
 
Light is a medium. It can be utilitarian or artistic, or both as in the case of the theatre.
 
canmark said:
From an interview with Michael Snow in The Grid:
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Tewder said:
Light is a medium. It can be utilitarian or artistic, or both as in the case of the theatre.
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I work with lighting, some of it decorative, creative, entertaining - but I wouldn't think of passing myself off as an artist or my work/products as "public art" if it's simply some accent lighting, which this is.
 
Marko said:
Am I the only one scratching their head as to how the lighting can be passed of as public art?

(And I'm an LED lighting guy)

Is anything decorative now fair game to make someone an artist?
Click to expand...

while i'm not a fan of this building, or of the light strip itself, with all due respect, Michael Snow will not be 'passing the lighting off as public art'. it will be public art, and the reason it will be public art is because Michael Snow is an artist, has been an artist for 60 years, and is a very important one at that.

Up until the 1980's he was the most famous Canadian artist in the world. His film Wavelength is one of the most important experimental films in the history of cinema.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelength_(1967_film)

He's produced some real dogs in his later years--mostly those horrible Skydome (sic) things, but his installation in the Eaton Centre is probably the greatest piece of public art in the city.

as well, this particular medium, light, is a well established one. going back to the mid-1960's with people like Dan Flavin and James Turrell, whose piece “Straight Flush, 2009†is right across the road in the lobby of Bay-Adelaide Centre, and is also one of the best pieces of public art in the city.

further, i would imagine that the reason you wouldn't think of "passing yourself off as an artist or your work/products as "public art" is because you are not an artist, and are thereby not in a position to produce works of public art.
 
Of course light can be a medium for art, what I think Marko might be hinting at is that this particular piece is merely a strip of LEDs running straight up the corner of a building - hardly original or requiring the mind of an artist. However, I think the creativity will be borne out in how the LEDs are illuminated and the patterns that are created. This will hardly be a static fixture.
 
Snow's exhibition Objects of Vision at the AGO is a good counterpoint to the Picasso show. The artists pose similar questions: Snow's Quits ( 1960 ), and Picasso's cubist Guitar forms ( 1912-14 ) in metal and cardboard, both appear to be forms caught in the process of escaping from walls in order to become sculptures, for instance. I was disappointed that none of Picasso's ceramics were included in the show, though - the U of T Art Centre had a fine exhibition of them a few years ago, and I think of him more as a three dimensional artist than a painter, like Michelangelo who produced paintings that look like paintings of sculptures.

http://www.ago.net/michael-snow-objects-of-vision#

Thank goodness the Trump tower has an interesting mosaic work at street level, and the involvement of Michel Snow, to give it some sort of veneeer of sophistication.
 
"...James Turrell, whose piece “Straight Flush, 2009†is right across the road in the lobby of Bay-Adelaide Centre, and is also one of the best pieces of public art in the city."

+1
 
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