Public Art Proposal Display
Art Proposals for the 49 South Van Ness Prefunction Gallery Wall Public Art Project
The San Francisco Arts Commission is conducting a selection process to choose artwork prefunction gallery wall in the entry lobby of the new City building to be located at 49 South Van Ness. The new City building will be a 16-story tower on 11th Street between Market and Mission Streets housing the City’s permit center, building inspection, and offices of the Planning Department and Public Works. The artwork is intended to create a sense of place, as well as delight and visual engagement for the building’s users. Four artists were chosen as finalists by a Public Art Selection Panel to create site-specific proposals for this artwork opportunity: Hughen/Starkweather, David Maisel, and Meghann Riepenhoff.
Title: The Hub
Each of the fifteen panels of Prismatic View offers a unique aerial view of the city of San Francisco and environs, photographed by David specifically for this commission, rendered in reversed tonalities of black and white, which may also be subtly imbued with color in the fabrication process. The tonally reversed rendering encourages a reading of Prismatic View as a series of x-rays, blueprints, or cartographic maps of the city that reveal its inner workings and structure. The photographs are composed looking straight or obliquely downward, from varying elevations and perspectives, and with multiple vanishing points across the series of pictures. The images depict the urban fabric of San Francisco neighborhoods as well as the infrastructure of bridges, freeways, streets, parks, and open spaces that support and feed them. Together, the images and their interlocking gridded arrangement comprise a prismatic view of the city, and echo the form of neighborhoods and communities that comprise the city. The fifteen panels suggest a city with multiple points of entry, containing a multiplicity of lived experiences. The artwork reflects the function of the building as a site of collaboration between the city and its citizens, as well as the civic aspects of the Forum as a public gathering space that leads directly to the permanent site of the commissioned artwork. 
I propose a mural entitled Sea + Sky for the 49 South Van Ness Pre-Function Gallery Wall. The piece is an approximately 11 by 37 foot triptych; the three elements are visually connected, and the negative space between and around the panels frames and anchors the piece on the wall. Sea + Sky integrates into the surrounding architecture, and with the Sze sculpture, balancing prominent geometry with organic forms.
Opportunity For Public Comment
Please take a few minutes to review these artwork proposals and provide feedback on the public comment forms below. Public comments will be considered by the Selection Panel as part of the Final Selection Panel meeting where the Panel will recommend one proposal for implementation. Please note that public comments do not constitute a vote.
The Final Selection Panel meeting will take place Tuesday, September 11, 2018, 9 a.m.–2:30 p.m. at 401 Van Ness Avenue, Room 302. All Artist Selection Panel meetings are open to the public. An agenda for the meeting will be posted 72 hours in advance of the meeting on SFAC’s website under the Public Meeting section: www.sfartscommission.org.
The proposals are available online at www.sfartscommission.org/calendar, in the Public Art Proposal Display section. Comments may be emailed to sfacpublicartcomment@sfgov.org, or hand delivered/mailed to 401 Van Ness Avenue, Room 325 by Monday, September 10, 2017 at 5:00 p.m.