Art Attack
Last year a group of art lovers formed a committee to promote murals. Now they're being told their favorite artwork will soon be illegal. BY BOB YOUNG, byoung@wweek.com
Muralists aren't going down without a fight. Arguing that murals bring neighbors together, discourage graffiti and record contemporary history, a group of arts advocates and community organizers descended on City Hall this week to protest a plan that would, in effect, ban murals. The city is taking on the Portland Mural Task Force only because it feels it has no recourse. "It's not by choice we confront these issues," says City Attorney Jeff Rogers. The city's dilemma stems from the fact that it has two sets of regulations: one for painted "wall signs," or advertisements; and another more liberal set for "wall decorations," or non-commercial murals. This well-meaning code, however, clashes with the Oregon Constitution, which protects both commercial and non-commercial messages as forms of free speech ("Attack of the 50-foot Hefeweizen," WW, Sept. 17, 1997). The sign industry is forcing the issue. So the city must come up with one set of rules for both wall signs and murals. That means allowing everything, in the form of huge ads and murals, or nothing, by severely restricting the size of both. The city Planning Bureau has recommended the latter, proposing that the city limit both signs and murals to 200 square feet, which is much smaller than most murals. The ban will have real consequences on the cityscape, according to the mural task force, a collection of activists which includes neighborhood activists, artists and business groups. The task formed about 18 months ago to learn how to plan and create murals. The group planned to paint a series of community murals along a 30-block stretch in Southeast Portland. But that wouldn't be allowed under the proposed rules. Some artists say they would rather see all types of wall signs proliferate than have murals banned. "Control of public art is a bit fascist," Remedios Rapoport, owner of Cosmo Graphics, told the Planning Commission at its hearing Tuesday. Other mural advocates find it hard to believe the city can't find some middle ground that would restrict signs but allow murals. "We need to sit down with an attorney and figure out how other cities have done it," says Laura Feldman, a task force member who works at Southeast Uplift, a neighborhood group. "Tri-Met buses are excluded from the sign regulations. There must be some loopholes here. I'm sure the ad industry will find them. We need to find them, too." John Early, an artist who painted a 1,200-square-foot mural on the side of Nature's in Southeast Portland, says the city shouldn't "roll over" and give up so quickly. "My position is that murals are a quality-of-life issue worth fighting for," says Early. If the city can't win a court battle, Early argues, it could wage a public relations war against the sign industry. "Politicians could claim they are being pushed around by the sign industry and they could arouse the wrath of citizens [against advertisers]," he says. Rogers maintains that he isn't aware of any legal arguments likely to prevail in court, and he warns that a court fight against the sign industry could be long and costly. "By far, the safest legal way of regulation is to treat signs and murals the same," he says. His view has been echoed by the Planning Bureau in its recommendations to the Planning Commission, which will decide in early December whether to forward any sign code amendments to the City Council. City Commissioner Charlie Hales, however, has at least suggested there might be hope for murals. "I don't know if there is a middle ground," Hales told WW. "But I want to hear from a lot of people before we make any decisions." |
