We’ve written here before about the trials of the Great Divide Waterfall that used to spill from the High-Level Bridge during the summer, by artist Peter Lewis. The Edmonton Journal reports that Mayor Mandel and the City Council want to hear from residents before deciding whether to refurbish it so it can run again, in an environmentally-friendly way:
Mayor Stephen Mandel said he also wants to know if people care about the waterfall. He has mixed feelings about resurrecting the project and suspects most Edmontonians would be fine if it went dry forever.
“Hopefully, we’ll hear from citizens,” Mandel said. “If we get a lot of positive comments, maybe it will move ahead. If we get nobody calling, then we really don’t have any public support for it.”
Do you have strong feelings about this landmark? Read the article and call 311 to give your viewpoint to the city.
“The tap is likely to be turned off again this year on the High Level Bridge’s Great Divide waterfall, and city officials can’t guarantee it will ever start flowing.”
Although the Edmonton Journal didn’t mention it, this Edmonton landmark is one of our most visible public artworks, commissioned based on a proposal by artist Peter Lewis. For some reason—perhaps its popularity—the “Great Divide Waterfall” is often not seen in those terms.
It’s quite a juxtaposition, compared to the other public art controversy happening this month, also making the rounds on tumblr:
Take a look at the blog post my uncle Ryan posted last month. And for a real hoot of a time, be sure to read the comments. Just click on the link below.
The loudest voice is local artist Ryan McCourt—familiar to Latitude 53 regulars after submitting this image anonymously to last year’s National Portrait Gallery show and then complaining about it (the show also included Trevor Anderson addressing the bridge and waterfall itself, which you can see a later version of on his website). But alongside his browbeating of Journal writer David Staples, he points out that he isn’t alone in finding the work problematic. While the “Great Divide Waterfall” is forgotten as an artwork and considered part of the local architecture, “Talus Dome” is the work of American architects and is, in the eyes of its critics, just a pile of building materials. But, like the waterfall, it is also expensive.
What do these scandals say about the future of public art in Edmonton? Can we imagine a future when now-controversial projects like “Talus Dome” or the world’s largest Baseball Bat are as beloved as the “Great Divide Waterfall”?
Dying for a little more of the saga of Trevor Anderson and The High Level Bridge? A recap: Anderson screened some of his unfinished work on the subject last year at The National Portrait Gallery here at Latitude 53, and since then he and his cinematographer–and for a while, our writer in residence–Fish Griwkowsky trekked out to film festivals all over the continent to show the final project.
This month Anderson is profiled in Alberta Venture and he talked to them about his history and his plans for the future:
Several years ago, en route from the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival, the award-winning film DINX by Trevor Anderson was stopped by the Canadian Border Services Agency and held for over a month.
The incident gained significant media attention and roused debate about censorship in art, but independent filmmaker Anderson, 38, was far from outraged by the ordeal. “There was a certain pleasure in feeling, ‘Oh, I’ve really made it – they’re stopping my work at the border of my own country,’” he says, laughing. “It was someone’s job to sit there and watch that film, and I’m glad of it because whatever kind of gay erotica they might have thought it was, what they got was local rock stars Lyle Bell and Allan Hildebrandt in sparkly short shorts on the poles.”
Last month Fish told us his story of going to Sundance for the film he shot with writer, director and narrator Trevor Anderson. This week, Trevor broke the news that the film—watch it above on YouTube—is also going to SXSW.
SUNDANCE DISPATCH 1. Situated in a multi-level rental in the Utah mountains twice paid for by unrequited love, our team of semiprofessionals (as a body) is clicking into Sundance reality, vibrating with possibility and unexpected enthusiasm from without. Over 70,000 people have online-viewed The High Level Bridge (52,000 in just one day) which, as writer-director Trevor Anderson put it, is almost the population of Red Deer where he grew up, “and the comments are just as mean.”
Despite the fact someone out there thinks Anderson sounds like a gay, black, chain-smoking garden gnome – three out of four ain’t bad - someone else that our film was a “waste of a good camera” (defenders have pointed out the $100 Webbie survived being dropped), I’m still in a dreamlike bottle of absolute grateful. A few days ago, Coun. Don Iveson act-of-protocol hosted Anderson and I in front of City Council’s first chamber-huddle of the year, which was certainly the most adult moment of my entire life in Edmonton. Iveson identified me as columnist, artist and “troublemaker,” which made me undownably happy.
