I'm doing another book review - this time for the journal Visual Studies. It's called Public Art; Theory Practice and Populism by Cher Krause Knight. Its a very interesting book, although the author does repeat herself a bit, and the structure could be tightened a little more (to prevent the repeats).

What has been the best for me so far is learning that the TV show Melrose Place was actually a forum for public artists! How? You may well ask! Apparently at the time of the show, a group of artists got together under the collective of GALA. They were made up of faculty and students from California Institute of the Arts and the University of Georgia, Athens. The artist Mel Chin (University fo Georgia) in collaboration with GALA devisd a project called In the Name of Place, where the main aim was to have their artworks infiltrate the television industry. They took a viral approach and used Melrose Place as their host.

To begin with, the artists surrepticiously created site specific artworks which they put on set. In the beginning the cast and crew were unaware of what was going on, but as the show progressed various people worked out what was going on, and become members of GALA producing works for the shows. Even writers and producers became members, buidling plot lines around some of the artworks produced by GALA, and Mel Chin, the original artist was cast as an extra in one of the episodes.

The works produced actually engaged with public issues and debates of the time. For example, an unrolled condom was not allowed to appear on US television, yet the artwork Safety Sheets managed to slip past censorship. Safety Sheets was a set of bed linen handprinted wtih unrolled condoms. Another artwork was a chinese take away container which depicted the massacre of Tiannamen Square! In all over 150 site specific works were made.

I am just so surprised. I have always written Spelling productions off as trash, and now I have this urge to go back through all those episodes of Melrose place, just to catch a glimpse of those Safety Sheets.