One Banner Removed

At the entrance to the exhibition Publicness at the ICA London, the woman at the admissions desk asks if I was born in the UK. For some reason, I respond apologetically,

"No, I'm sorry. I wasn't."

"Then it's free," she replies.

"Free?"

"Yes, it's free for people who were not born in the UK."

This interaction is a work by Jens Haaning, named Foreigners Free, which permits free entry to show for its duration. This is explained in wall text just after the entrance to the exhibition. The women who entered before me do not like this work. "That is not very politically correct," one says to the other. I whisper to my companion, "They must have been born in the UK."

I walk into the National College of Art and Design through the Cook Street entrance. The guard sitting in the car park stops me, "Excuse me where are you going?" I have never been stopped here before. This time I am with two Mexicans visiting from LA who are giving a talk at the college. "To Fine Art," I reply. He looks at the two men and then at me, as if to ask "They're with you?" when I add, "We were invited." This is known as paying in.

In Ireland, public art is at a high in terms of funding. Dublin City Council is heading the largest Per Cent For Art Scheme ever through its arm Ballymun Regeneration Limited. As the State undertakes new construction, Per Cent for Art simultaneously provides for culture.

On Friday 28 March 2003, builder Mick Wallace erected a large banner on the scaffolding of a building on Ormond quay opposite the Millennium Bridge. It read, "We Have The Blood Of Iraqi Children On Our Hands." The sign immediately provoked Dublin City Council to work towards its removal saying, "the poster is a political statement and not advertising anything and that is the reason the council is pursuing the matter."

The same legislation that permits the city to remove Wallace's political statement, permits him to advertise the Wallace logo in epic proportions on any building site he contracts. Here, an individual financed a banner for the benefit of the whole community that many in the community identified with. He placed his present and future contracts at risk and overtly expressed his politics. If considered as an instance of public art, Wallace's battle with the city raises fundamental concerns for those of us reliant on public funding and public space when producing artwork in the public realm.

Within a week, Dublin City Council won an appeal for the direct removal of Wallace's banner, provoking perennial questions about the rights of individual's versus the public good, questions of ownership and control of both public and private space, and who decides what constitutes the public and is representative of public opinion and interest. The legislation surrounding corporate uses of public space was the most immediate reason for the removal of Wallace's banner. Unlike the Wallace logo, the banner opted not to deploy public space for corporate gain, but rather for its apparent inverse; to invoke social responsibility. Amidst a clear lack of consensus among Irish citizens, Wallace's banner appealed to commonality. At a time when the alliances between business and government are more powerful than ever, I notice one banner removed in Dublin.

(Sarah Pierce, "One Banner Removed", in Visual Artists Newsletter SSI:Dublin 2003. A select group of individuals was asked to write about their favourite piece of public art in Ireland. Pierce chose this banner, hung in central Dublin by Irish property developer Mick Wallace.)