Home Court Advantage: Robbie Kienzle by Romy Owens
One of the locations Robbie Kienzle imagines rotating public art is along the concrete portion of this parking garage at sheridan and walker where artists could install panels of large scale 2D works.
Imagine downtown Oklahoma City after the Thunder wins a big game: thousands of people in the midst of a street party, chanting, cheering. Certainly, it’s not too difficult to visualize as in May 2012, the Thunder garnered national media for Oklahoma City, and the day after the Thunder’s game two win over the Miami Heat during the playoffs, videos of the previous night’s riotous celebration showed hundreds of people crammed into the underpass at Sheridan and EK Gaylord. (Search “OKC riot after thunder game” on YouTube.)
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“How cool would it have been to have some amazing mural or mosaic art or a light display in that tunnel?” asks Robbie Kienzle, Arts and Cultural Affairs Liaison for the Oklahoma City Planning Department. “That would have shown the world that OKC is really cool.”
Kienzle’s number one goal in her first year as the city’s Arts and Cultural Affairs Liaison is to develop a comprehensive master plan for public art which will integrate public art into the city’s current, and future, initiatives like Core to Shore, Project 180, and MAPS 3.
In 2009, the Oklahoma City Council approved a plan that requires one percent of construction expenses spent on city-owned property to be spent on public art. Artwork installed in the tunnel entrances to Bricktown is just one of the possibilities of how to integrate art in public places in downtown Oklahoma City.
“You know, when we have this amazing convention center and a 70 acre park that connects our convention center to all the things going on at the river: an Olympic trial ground, a white water kayaking facility… combined with the American Indian Cultural Center that represents 39 tribes… this is huge!