The news that the Central Bank of Ireland somehow managed to spend €616,000 on a sculpture called A Double Rainbow – more than double their original estimated cost of €300,000 – should not come as a surprise. They were always going to buy something baffling. It was only a question of how much it would cost and how little it would mean. Turns out quite a lot and not very much, respectively.
The sculpture, which sits outside the office of the Central Bank inflicting itself upon the public, is, much like the internet, a series of tubes. 10.5 by 14 metres worth of brightly coloured tubing to be exact.
Add another €130,000 (plus VAT) they spent on a “functional art piece” which one could generously describe as a light fixture and you’ve got yourself about three-quarters of a million euro on just two pieces.
By contrast, a press release last week announced that Culture Ireland funding of over €900,000 was being allocated for the “promotion of Irish arts globally.” That funding supports 154 projects across, in their own words, “over 36 countries.” We assume they meant 37, that being the first number traditionally over 36. In any case, the point stands: the Central Bank spent almost as much on two immediately forgettable installations as Culture Ireland allocated to support the global visibility of Ireland’s entire cultural sector.
The figures are absurd, although not nearly as absurd as the fact that the pieces themselves provoke so little reaction. Not because people approve, but because the works themselves aren’t even memorable enough to dislike. A Double Rainbow is not good; it’s not even bad. It is so completely vapid that the eye barely registers its existence; it has all of the artistic impact of a test centre for learner drivers.
The offence isn’t in the object itself, it’s that this sort of object keeps being chosen. It is less art and more simply the end of a procurement process, and not a well calibrated one.
Look at the piece, if you can be bothered. Not from an angle designed by the architects. Just walk past, as any ordinary person might on the way to work. You will forget it before you turn the corner. It has no presence, no weight, no point. The “light fitting” is the same – neither beautiful nor functional in any way that justifies its price tag. These are line items that became objects.
So why, you might ask, was this sculpture created? Well, in the words of the Central Bank: “In line with planning requirements, the Central Bank agreed with Dublin City Council to commission an artwork for the public space directly outside the campus on North Wall Quay.”
The piece, according to the Central Bank, was intended to “benefit the local community, enhance the public realm of the Docklands and complement our existing Visitor Centre and participation in events such as Open House and Culture Night.”
It is perhaps telling that the Central Bank is able to talk about the art piece in extremely particular terms but shows no interest whatsoever in explaining what the point of the piece actually is, or why it was needed in the first place outside of the fact it was required for planning permission. Like much of modern Irish culture, the focus is entirely on the process, not the purpose beyond the idea that planning permission required it.
That’s it. Not to commemorate anything. Not to inspire anyone. Not to say anything about the institution, the city, or the country. Simply because the paperwork required it. A box was ticked. A contract was issued. A sculpture now exists.
We used to talk about public art being transcendental, inspiring, challenging even. Now we describe it using the same terms we apply to the construction of drainage systems.
Public art has become the worst kind of art: commissioned by people, usually working with committees of ‘independent art experts’, with limitless budgets of other people’s money and a vague, inherited belief that public spaces ought to include art, but no remaining sense of why that might be. Civic art once had a purpose. It existed to elevate the public: to honour a nation’s ideals; celebrate its heroes; express its spirit. Now that sort of thing is seen as ignorant, hopelessly out of touch with modern tastes, or, worst of all, unironically earnest.
Ireland has no shortage of artists capable of creating work that speaks to the nation, honors its traditions, or is simply beautiful – something we seem to have forgotten can actually be an objective when commissioning art. But they are not the ones being commissioned. Because there is a substantial difference between commissioning an artist and having the taste and discernment required to ensure that what you commissioned is actually something that deserves to exist.
The only possible argument for the artistic worth of these pieces is if the Central Bank deliberately attempted to commission multiple works whose only memorable feature is their price tag as some sort of commentary on finance. And even that argument is undercut by the fact that they apparently couldn’t even get the price right; it is reported that part of the additional spend arose because the Central Bank didn’t realise VAT would apply to certain UK invoices. Which is to say that the institution that regulates financial services, oversees national economic policy, and is empowered to set rules for banks…did not understand, and did not care to find out, how VAT works.
All that remains is budget line-items and contract compliance. The best we can hope for is that whatever pile of brightly coloured tubing gets thrown up next follows in the footsteps of A Double Rainbow and bears the deeply redeeming feature that it’s utterly forgettable.