John Chandler first glimpsed the tall circle in September 2013, on his way to visit his daughter.
“What the heck was that?” he wondered, as his van whizzed by the strange structure towering over traffic on 96th Avenue N.E.
The former professional photographer returned later that month, with his camera this time, to take a closer look.
He stared at the giant blue ring.
Chandler, who taught at Alberta College of Art and Design for 14 years, snapped photos of what looked to him like a huge hula-hoop with a streetlight stuck on its top, located on the side of a new bridge.
He had several questions about what he saw and, when he returned home, he sent a photo and note to the Herald.
He wondered where the hula-hoop came from, and how much it cost. Was it part of Calgary’s public art policy that sets aside one per cent of new construction projects’ budgets to spend on accompanying pieces of art? If so, with a municipal election looming, might this bizarre, blue ring become an election issue?
“It has to be the most expensive light pole in the world,” Chandler wrote.
“No wonder our taxes have gone up 30 per cent to support ridiculous things like this,” he added.
Chandler figured the structure was a piece of art, but it did absolutely nothing for a man who had taught at an art institute. He just didn’t get it. To him, it was just a circle painted blue.
“It might seem really simple,” Axel Lieber, one of the German artists behind the project, said in a 2013 video about the 17-metre sculptural ring called Travelling Light.
“It might seem it’s just a ring, but often the most simplest things are the most complicated.”
Indeed, things became quite complicated once Calgarians learned about the nearly half-million-dollar circle.
Chandler wasn’t the only citizen who saw the ring as a touchstone for taxpayer frustration. Before long, stories and images of the steel structure citizens dubbed “boring” and “ugly” filled newspapers and television broadcasts, just in time for the municipal election.
Citizens learned the sculpture, which also acts as a functioning street light, was dreamed up by a German design team and installed with the help of two cranes.
The peculiar piece was selected by the city’s public art board as part of a program that puts creative installations next to major infrastructure projects and it beat out 54 other applications for artwork to complement a $47-million extension of 96th Avenue. Attached below is an opinion poll below of public art installations throughout Calgary.
As citizen outrage over the big blue wheel boiled over, Mayor Naheed Nenshi told reporters he thought the $471,000 piece was “awful” and “terrible.” Although Nenshi also defended the public art policy, introduced in 2004 at a time when cities around the world were adopting similar rules.
Not since The Brotherhood of Mankind — a collection of 10 tall, aluminum, naked human figures also known as the Family of Man — was installed downtown in 1968 had public art in Calgary spurred such heated debate.
“The intensity of the media and public reaction in this instance was new to us,” artist Axel Lieber with Inges Idee, the firm behind Travelling Light, said in an email.
“We have executed several other public art works in Canada … but not in the least faced this kind of reaction. The discussion started during an election period in Calgary and immediately accelerated, and very fast it became all about politics and very infected.”
Installation of the much-maligned circle began in August and was complete in October, and Lieber was in Calgary early on in the process, before the firestorm ignited.
As he watched the technically challenging piece go up, he breathed a sigh of relief.
“We hoped the art piece would function as a landmark for the area, a sign to be seen from afar and lending the site — a bridge in the proximity of the airport — an identity of its own. And of course, that the people would like and appreciate it,” he recalled of his feelings at that time.
Three years later, his hope for the artwork remains the same.
“I still hope that one fine day people will be able to enjoy it and not only see it as a symbol for a polemic political debate,” he said.
Chandler, who was so perturbed about the blue circle that he stopped to take photos and write a letter to the editor, isn’t there yet.
“Every time I see it, I still get mad,” he said.
John Schmal, a former alderman who was on council when the public art policy was approved in 2004, agrees.
“(When) I go past the ring, I boil,” he said. “Every time I go by there I say what a waste of money … it just makes me sick every time I see it.”
Urban strategist Richard White, a passionate supporter of public art who has sat on many art boards, believes that between the cost, location, and piece itself, the blue ring has done a disservice to Calgary’s public art program.
“The actual placement of it doesn’t make sense to the average person and the piece doesn’t speak to the average person,” he said.
“I don’t think there are any positive impacts from the blue ring. The negative impact is that it probably alienates some Calgarians from all public art … Unfortunately, when some people think of public art, they’re going to think of that one piece and think negatively (of all public art.)”
But Coun. Druh Farrell believes the controversial piece ultimately had a positive impact on the city by igniting debate and discussion that eventually spurred change within the city’s art program.
“What it did do is identify some flaws in our policy,” she said.
In December 2013, a few months after residents first caught glimpse of the giant blue ring, councillors demanded a review of the public art policy with an 11-2 vote.
At the conclusion of the review, changes were introduced including adding two community members to the panel that selects public art, mandating that artists engage the public before developing their final concept, and a slight change in how much money can go to an art project.
Instead of dedicating one per cent of any infrastructure project’s budget to public art, the revised policy approved by councillors in May 2014 allocates one per cent of the first $50 million of any infrastructure project, and half a percentage point for any expenses above that level, to a maximum of $4 million per project.
Sarah Iley, manager of arts and culture at the City of Calgary, believes the “lively conversation” Travelling Light started served as a catalyst to long-lasting changes to the city’s art policy, including efforts to better communicate with Calgarians.
“One of the things we’ve done ever since then is really try to make sure people know what a piece of art is about, why it’s being placed in a particular place and introduce some of the ideas of the artist, etc. That really helps,” she said.
In the wake of the blue ring controversy, the city also created a public art master plan, a process that involved surveying citizens, who overwhelmingly said they supported the public art policy’s purpose.
But, public art wasn’t off the agenda yet and in February 2015, Coun. Peter Demong brought forward a proposal to suspend the program as a way to show restraint “in times of economic stress.” His motion lost 5-9.
Ward 14 councillor Peter Demong.
Demong said he still believes his pitch would have saved “a number of dollars that could have been more properly used in this economic downturn,” but he has to abide by council’s clear rejection.
He often hears from Calgarians about public art they’re disappointed in, especially the blue ring.
“It’s still a sore spot that people think about whenever they go past it,” he said.
Since Travelling Light befuddled viewers three years ago, 27 pieces of artwork, totalling more than $7 million dollars, have been added to the city’s art collection under Calgary’s public art policy.
One piece, a $236,000 LED lighting project installed in 2015 that depicts sewage flow on the siding of a northeast wastewater station, won the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation’s less-than-coveted Municipal Teddy Waste Award earlier this year.
But, no piece of artwork installed under the policy in the last three years has generated the debate that Travelling Light did.
The artists behind the giant blue ring maintain art is subjective and it’s up to the individual viewer to like or dislike what they experience.
“Public art will always be controversial and create a lively dialogue — which we see as a positive thing as long as this dialogue stays fair and considers the facts,” Lieber said.
“Regarding the Travelling Light, that wasn’t the case most of the time.”
