When I think of Form, sculpture comes to mind. When I think of sculpture, I do not immediately think of its environment, though maybe I should. Some sculptures (or other works) are meant to be site specific. In the issue if the Tilted Arc, the piece only has meaning in its location. Richard Serra stated, "To remove Tilted Arc, therefore, is to destroy it." In 1985, it was recommended that Tilted Arc be removed from the plaza (331).
When this sculpture was being planned out and placed in the Federal Plaza, did Serra stress the importance of the site to the sculpture and elaborate on the dialogue between the piece and its surroundings? Or was it only when the Tilted Arc was threatened to be destroyed that the importance of location came up?
The Tilted Arc was compared to the Berlin Wall in Germany. Margo Jacobs stated that "it is hostile both to its environment and hostile to the public, since it acts as a barrier to their free movements" (337). The sculpture was a large piece, but viewers could experience it by moving around it. Could the restriction of the viewers' movement be part of the intended experience- move around it to see around it? Comparing Tilted Arc to the Berlin Wall is exaggerating a bit. The Berlin Wall was constructed to separate East and West Berlin- it completely enclosed West Berlin (Berlin Wall). The wall was site specific and had a much more devastating effect on the people of Berlin than this sculpture could have had on the people of New York. The comparison between the two things isn't a good one. In this issue, the artist lost and Tilted Arc was destroyed/removed in 1989 (331).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall
I agree that the comparision between the Berlin Wall and "Tilted Arc" was not well thought out. The whole concept of "Tilted Arc" was that "viewers could experience it by moving around it." It is a site-specific piece of art created to display the viewer into a new perspective of their surroundings, not to enclose another country as "the Berlin Wall was constructed to separate East and West Berlin." I beleive it was a bad comparision due to the fact "Titled Arc" was meant to be viewed as art; whereas, the Berlin Wall was a historical marker.
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