Well April has come and gone and we have seen no sign of this:
At the February 24, 2015 city council meeting we were told that this $500,000 project would be finished and installed at UTEP in April of 2015.
Is anyone surprised? Anyone willing to speculate as to when we will have this to enjoy?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
when san jacinto get finished?
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When alligators fly. Or when Cortney and Lily learn to get along and stop acting like mean girls.
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What is it? And, who the hell would want it?
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WHAT ????
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Can we hope this doesn’t ever materialize?
MCAD will need to save the money to fight the lawsuit brought by another artist whose work was apparently destroyed by the city.
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Who in the heck picks these artist and their works?
Free of charge, I will take you to a pile of junk and call it “Junk”. Is that catchy and artsy or not ?
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Here is the website for the public art. Enjoy!
http://mcad.elpasotexas.gov/public-art
THere is a link for the committee…and a description of this program, said to “Support creative and professional growth of the arts community” Apparently this does not mean the arts community in El Paso…
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That just is stupid….so it represents contemporary or surreal art that doesn’t have much thought? Does that represent what a student will get out of this university: No thinking.
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Here are the qualifications set up by the city for members of the Public Art Committee:
“All PAC members must be qualified/credentialed professionals and represent the following: 4 members of the PAC shall be representatives of the architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning or engineering, construction or development industries; 4 members of the PAC shall be representatives of the visual arts, such as visual artist, curators, art historians or critics, arts advocates/collectors or arts administrators.”
This pretty much stacks the committee with professionals who favor conceptual, abstract and non-representational art. UTEP art professors have a bias against representational art. They want UTEP and El Paso to considered “with it” so they would not be caught dead selecting a traditional sculpture for public art.
The city should change the qualifications and allow artists who work in or advocate traditional styles to help select public art.
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There is nothing wrong with conceptual, abstract and non-representational art. The people selecting art for us are simply amateurs with bad taste and poor judgment. If Michael Tomor, the former head of the Museum of Art, had been running this program, we would have had better results. He left town because he got tired of dealing with the bureaucrats and trying to work with city management.
A person also shouldn’t buy expensive art until they have fixed the leaks in their roof and replaced the broken windows in their house. If we can’t do art in a quality way, we should save the money or put it to better use like paying down the debt on the ballpark or fixing the streets.
On the subject of art, a few weeks ago there were artsy banners hanging from the street light poles downtown. At least some if not all of them promoted one downtown restaurant in particular. Who paid to produce those banners and who incurred the expense to install them? They were hanging on city-owned light poles. Are our tax dollars are being used to promote selected private businesses?
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Take a look at the members and try to figure out what category they fit. “Arts advocates/collectors” is pretty elastic…
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