Sony Studios to Fulfill Culver City's 'Art in Public Places' Requirement With Nine-Story Statue of Rainbow
Culver City, currently getting the life kicked back into it by an influx of artists too poor to live in Venice (even pop-art legend Ed Ruscha recently made the move), and long known for its modern/gray/industrial architectural brilliance, will be taking on an uncharacteristic splash of color next spring [LA Curbed].
Culver City Times Art!
Be jealous, West Hollywood: A near 100-foot-tall rainbow statue is about to be erected in the Sony Studios lot, smack-dab in the middle of Culver City. That's right -- just a ginormous effing rainbow, "created from a welded steel truss and clad with aluminum panels custom finished with a Kynar® paint." And it apparently qualifies as art:
The Culver City Times reports that the city requires all development projects over $500,000 (or remodeling projects over $250,000) to put 1 percent of their budget toward some type of art project. So Culver City. Via the municipal code:
The [ART IN PUBLIC PLACES] ALLOCATION ... is the percentage of the construction costs set aside for the City's APPP and shall be an amount equal to one percent (1%) of the total building valuation for an applicable project, as defined in § 15.06.106(E), excluding land acquisition and off-site improvement costs.
Through some pretty awesome renovations over the last few years that have turned Sony Studios into a fascinating mini-city -- the quintessence of Hollywood illusion, where it's impossible to tell what's real and what's fake, and worthy of such visitors as Obama and the Royals -- Sony has racked up an art requirement of about $614,000.
In other words, this is the most expensive rainbow in the world. (And is unanimously considered "art" by the Culver City Cultural Affairs Commission.) But the gaiety and light it will bring to the community is priceless, right?
In application materials, artist Tony Tasset, of giant eyeball and Paul Bunyan fame, described his newest piece as meant to convey "the sense of optimism and well-being associated with rainbows in general and more specifically with the rainbow in popular culture as imagined in the iconic 'Wizard of Oz' film, created in the very movie studio that will become home to the Rainbow sculpture."
Awww. Boystown ain't got nothing on this baby. One terrifying last word from the Culver City TImes:
Given the scale of Rainbow, it will be visible 24 hours per day, 7 days per week from various locations just outside the Sony lot, including the Madison Avenue gate, as well as from certain vantage points around Culver City.
[@simone_electra/swilson@laweekly.com]
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