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Say what you will – like it or not – “Conversation Piece #4C,” an abstract sculpture that is the work of late artist Ida Kohlmeyer, can now be counted among the pieces of public art that are the proud property of the City of Asheville. The Tuesday, August 12, 2003, meeting of City Council was where it became official … in a 4-3 vote, City Council voted to toss $18,000 of taxpayer money into the hat for the artwork; these funds had been previously allocated for the purchase of art back in 1999. Mayor Charles Worley, Vice Mayor Terry Bellamy, and City Council members Holly Jones and Brian Peterson voted in favor of the purchase; Council members Joe Dunn, Carl Mumpower, and Jim Ellis voted against it. So far, the sculpture’s name has held up well, with the piece being the subject of much conversation. In previous City Council meetings, several council members struggled to understand just what the art is supposed to be saying. According to the minutes of the July 15, 2003, meeting, Councilman Mumpower “expressed concern about the investment in this piece of art,” and while “he believes that public art plays an important role in our community and he wouldn’t want to do anything to harm the arts or to step beyond the reasonable perimeter regarding public art,” … “he believes our public art money should be invested in what the majority of our citizens can embrace with acceptance and understanding and he was not sure that this piece of art accomplishes that goal.” The Public Art Board, however, had already done a great deal of work and fundraising to procure this particular piece of art before going before City Council to request the public art funds. Pamela Myers, executive director of the Asheville Art Museum and member of the Public Art Board, addressed City Council, reporting that, as part of the approved Public Art Master Plan, the Public Art Board was given the authority to recommend the purchase of public art pieces for the City of Asheville. Further, the public art fund currently had approximately $50,000 allocated for approved purchases. But the ordinance requires that the Public Art Board raise at least half of the funds to be spent on the acquisition of public art. The Kohlmeyer piece, with a purchase price of $55,000, was being purchased with funds coming through several avenues – about one-third being provided by the Kohlmeyer Foundation itself, another one-third from various Public Art Board fundraisers, and the final one-third from the Public Art Board account by the City of Asheville. Ida Kohlmeyer (1912-1997) was born in New Orleans, and came to the world of art at a relatively late age (mid-30s), but is considered one of the foremost abstract Southern artists of her time. Her art can be found in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Corcoran Gallery, among many others. Asheville has developed a national reputation for being a city that prizes its public art collection, so the new Kohlmeyer piece, along with the piece that was put in place at the federal building several years ago, add a lot to the abstract artworks that are part of the collection. The work at the federal building, a metal sculpture that that is equally abstract and modernistic in nature as “Conversation Piece #4C,” met with a flurry of objections when it was first placed in its current location.
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