Public Art Proposal Display
Art Proposals for the 49 South Van Ness Forum Sculpture Public Art Project
The San Francisco Arts Commission is conducting a selection process to choose an artist to create a sculpture or a series of sculptures for the outdoor entry forum 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: Joseph Havel, Sanaz Mazinani, Ruben Ochoa, and Mark Reigelman.
Seven Spheres of San Francisco will consist of a group of seven bronze spheres suggested by the seven square miles of San Francisco. The spheres will differ in size with two at 50” in diameter, two at 40”, one at 35”, one at 30” and one at 24 ”. The scale was selected to be intimate in experience achieving its sense of grandness and engagement not as a monument but as a series of orchestrated encounters. The spheres will extend approximately 75’ of the 150 foot forum with a cluster of three including one of the two largest in the originally designated single sculpture site. The general feel created by the placement of spheres will suggest inward momentum drawing the pedestrian towards an engagement with the offices ending with a pair of spheres including the second 50” sphere. Seven Spheres of San Francisco will be very visible from the central office lobby where the Sarah Sze sculpture is located as well as the mural site creating a dialogue with the other artworks. Each sphere will be a cast from a unique bundle of domestic fabric items collected from resale shops in San Francisco. The individual patinas will vary from tarnished and darkened gold to brown and black with each sphere having a distinct color. Bronze highlights will unify them into a cohesive ensemble. 
Rolling Reflection’s thirty-seven sculptural forms span over 150 feet to transform the interior space between the buildings into an active site of movement and play, while reflecting the vibrancy of the city and diversity of its people. 
For myself, shipping pallets function as a basic measure of the cultural economy—each one is a ubiquitous unit by which to quantify the transportation and distribution of consumer goods. I am intrigued by these constructs built from stacks of pallets and how they hinge and re-enforce a city’s existing social, racial, and economic ebb and flow. Forty and Nine brings together class, labor, history, aesthetics, and architecture to morph into a towering multilayer confection of sweat equity. Cast in stainless steel, 40 unique pallets, representing the average height of a stack of pallets found in a pallet yard would be stacked totaling 16.66 ft high, juxtaposed against the serene backdrop of the newly built 49 South Van Ness building where people would be seeking building permits. Nine additional pallets would be strategically placed throughout and within the proximity of the allocated art space. It would reflect the found quality of pallets as a remnant of its role in society, as well as the act of building, constructing, and the integral materials and supplies required in the process. Referencing the formal economy of manufacturing, distribution, and merchant class, against the informal economy of collecting and reselling pallets as a business, Forty and Nine is a nod to everyone’s role and participation in an ever expanding society. If you bought it, most likely a pallet brought it.
Two of San Francisco’s best-known thoroughfares intersect at 49 Van Ness which is slated to become one of the area’s most transformative architectural installations. The project consists of a glass clad structure which will house the city’s planning, public works and building inspection departments as well as a massive concrete clad residential tower. Nestled between these two structures is a narrow walkway and gathering place called the forum. Because of the function and utility of the towering structures overlooking the forum the artwork needs to represent aspects of the city departments and residential structures while creating an awesome public art experience .
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.