Ron Pizzuti's quest
From his eighth-floor office at Two Miranova Place, Ron Pizzuti enjoys one of the best views in Columbus. The spectacular vista-a panorama of COSI, the riverfront and the downtown skyline-can hypnotize a visitor who steps into the private space for the first time. "People assume I spend most of the day looking out the window," Pizzuti says with a laugh, as he settles into a chair with his back to the wall of glass.
Actually, the interior is pretty distracting, too. Pizzuti has decorated the walls with impressive contemporary art from his private collection, ranked by ARTnews annually among the 200 best in the world. There's a painting by Frank Stella, the renowned minimalist and a friend of Pizzuti. Emerging talent is represented, as well: two large pieces by up-and-coming Danish artist Mie Olise and a painting from an unknown Clevelander named Frank Oriti.
On this day in late February, Pizzuti is talking about his latest bold artistic play. Almost single-handedly, he has initiated a citywide discussion of public art. For the past year and a half, he's been working behind the scenes to bring an artistic landmark worthy of a rising metropolis to the Scioto Mile, the $44 million riverfront park that debuted in 2011. He believes he's found it in "Columbiad," a proposed six-story, hourglass-shaped steel sculpture designed by New York artist Brian Tolle.
The project is a gamble, especially in Columbus. The city, according to experts, has less art in public places than pretty much any community its size-and even a few much smaller. (Dublin, its suburban neighbor, has a vibrant program that puts Columbus to shame.) And then there's "Columbiad" itself, a challenging piece that in its initial renderings had more than a passing resemblance to a nuclear cooling tower. Pizzuti might struggle to gather support for any expensive, large-scale artistic landmark. How would he do it for something that makes you want to put on a hazmat suit?
But Pizzuti has never been afraid to roll the dice, whether it's in art, business or civic matters. He helped bring major league sports to Columbus by taking minority stakes in both the Columbus Crew and the Columbus Blue Jackets, and he nearly bought the NBA's Orlando Magic in the early 1990s. He remade the Columbus skyline with Miranova, the luxury condo high-rise and its sister office building, which turned a neglected piece of land on the Scioto River into one of the most exclusive addresses in the city. He's not the richest or most powerful man in town, but it would be hard for any Titan not named Wexner to match his urbanity and chutzpah.
Yes, some folks probably will hate "Columbiad," Pizzuti admits. Others will say it's too expensive. (Tolle estimates it will cost in the "low millions" to build.) But like an Old Testament prophet, Pizzuti wants to lead the city to a promised land of modernity, intellectual curiosity and pizazz. Columbus has changed a lot in recent years-with Pizzuti helping to bring about some of that transformation-and he's willing to bet the city finally is ready to show its artistic maturity. "It stands to reason that we're grown up enough to start appreciating art in public places," he says.
The story of public art in Columbus is not a happy tale. "Large Oval with Points," one of the city's finest pieces, is hidden in a small park across the street from the Franklin County administration building. The Lazarus family gave the 3,000-pound sculpture by the late British artist Henry Moore to the Columbus Museum of Art in 1976. Since then, it has sat atop a fountain in Dorrian Commons, its visibility blocked by trees, a parking garage and a five-story building. "It frankly serves as an ashtray today," Pizzuti says. "And I venture to say if you polled people on the street, 95 percent of them wouldn't know that it even exists."
Pizzuti wants to move the sculpture to a more high-profile location on the south side of the new Franklin County courthouse, which his company built. Franklin County commissioners, however, have yet to approve the move. They're concerned about spending money wisely during tight budget times, says county spokesman Scott Varner. Pizzuti says the move would cost $6,600.
But at least no one has tried to give away the Moore sculpture, a fate that another of the city's most important pieces narrowly escaped. "Brushstrokes in Flight" from renowned pop artist and Ohio State graduate Roy Lichtenstein is an artistic treasure, insured by the Columbus Regional Airport Authority for $3.5 million. But indifference greeted the piece when it was installed at Port Columbus in 1984. Perhaps because of those mixed feelings, then-Columbus Mayor Buck Rinehart attempted to donate "Brushstrokes" to Genoa, Italy, in 1988. He pulled back the offer, however, amid a public outcry fueled as much by his power grab (he had no authority to make the donation) than any great love for the sculpture.
Embarrassing episodes have continued. The $13 million Broad Street bridge was built in 1990 with columns intended to support public art. Today, the span remains bare after then-Franklin County Engineer John Circle killed a proposal in 1996 from Columbus artist Todd Slaughter to build a giant blue glass snake above the bridge. Slaughter had better luck with another piece, the giant mortarboard commissioned by Franklin University. It had hovered above Rich Street since 2003. But the 7,000-pound sculpture suffered a setback in December: Wear and tear forced the university to take it down, and officials haven't decided whether they will reinstall it yet, says Franklin spokeswoman Sherry Mercurio. "I'm sad that it's gone," says Slaughter, an Ohio State art professor.
In the mid 1990s, Dublin faced a public art controversy like the blue-snake brouhaha. When Columbus artist Malcolm Cochran proposed "Field of Corn"-109 human-sized concrete ears of corn on a two-acre former farm field-the idea drew plenty of criticism. One critic even dubbed it "Corncobs in Flight" in a letter to the Dispatch.
Unlike Columbus, however, Dublin stood by its proposal. Now, public opinion seems to have flip-flopped on "Field of Corn." "I would definitely say it's iconic," says David Guion, the executive director of the Dublin Arts Council. It also has led to a flowering of public art in Dublin, which subsidizes its program through hotel tax money. Today, the suburban community has some 70 permanent and temporary pieces and even offers a cellphone tour of its most significant holdings (a mobile app also is in the works).
Cochran says it's been fascinating to watch the transformation of "Field of Corn" over the past 18 years. "It actually could be a textbook example of how public art is often met with skepticism or disapproval or outright hostility and then attitudes change," he says. Cochran noticed in 2002, just eight years after the piece was installed, the Tuttle mall in Dublin used "Field of Corn" as a backdrop in a marketing brochure. "In a capitalist society, when something is being used for advertising, you know it has value," Cochran says.
In 1974, Pizzuti bought his first piece of art-a print by Dutch painter Karel Appel-and methodically has educated himself since then. He travels across the world in search of emerging talent (he has a trip to Cuba planned for the spring) and visits artists in their studios to pick their brains and watch them work. He smiles as he recalls the time he observed famed photorealist Chuck Close create a piece for him. "The biggest thrill I ever had," Pizzuti says.
The son of a factory worker, Pizzuti has come a long way from his humble childhood in Kent, Ohio. He still has the polite, unpretentious manners of a small-town Midwestern kid, but there's nothing aw-shucks about how he approaches his life and business. After arriving in Columbus five decades ago as a Lazarus management trainee, he befriended a rising entrepreneur named Les Wexner and joined his young company, the Limited (now Limited Brands). He left the business in the 1970s before it took off and struck out on his own, eventually building the Pizzuti Companies into one of the biggest commercial developers in Columbus, with $123 million in projects in 2010, according to Business First.
Today, he's a power player in town, though, curiously, he's not a member of the Columbus Partnership, the Wexner-chaired organization that includes the top Central Ohio business leaders. Pizzuti, however, is on the board of the Columbus Downtown Development Corporation/ Capitol South along with other heavyweights such as Ohio State president Gordon Gee, AEP chairman Mike Morris and Dispatch publisher John F. Wolfe. (The Dispatch Printing Company owns Columbus Monthly.)
About a year and a half ago, Pizzuti and other board members were discussing what to do with the Prow, an observation deck on the Scioto Mile. Planners envisioned the V-shaped appendage at the end of Town Street as a place to hold a significant piece of public art, but no donors came forward to pay for anything during fundraising. At the meeting, someone floated an idea to move another sculpture in town to the Prow. Pizzuti wasn't pleased. "I opened my mouth at a CDDC meeting," Pizzuti tells Columbus Monthly, "because I wasn't thrilled with the program that was being discussed. I got the assignment. That is it in simple terms."
Last year, he spoke in more detail about the incident at a meeting of the Columbus Arts Commission, the panel that approves public art in the city. "I frankly lost my cool," he told arts commissioners, according to a recording of the session. If the downtown board went ahead with the idea, then Columbus deserved to be a called a "cowtown," Pizzuti recalled he said. The response of his fellow downtown leaders: "If you think you can do better, do better."
Pizzuti launched a quest to commission a major piece for the Prow. He assembled a committee to help him with the selection, enlisting friends in the Columbus arts community, such as Sherri Geldin, director of the Wexner Center; Denny Griffith, president of the Columbus College of Art & Design, and Nannette Maciejunes, director of the Columbus Museum of Art. The group considered about 40 artists-including some "household names," Pizzuti says-but ultimately went with Tolle, an up-and-comer who created the Irish Hunger Memorial in New York City. "I just have a great deal of respect for his intellect," Pizzuti says. "He's right-brained and left-brained. He's a very creative person."
Tolle doesn't have a signature style, like the whimsical enlarged everyday objects of Claes Oldenburg (the giant free stamp in Cleveland) or the highly polished stainless steel of Anish Kapoor ("Cloud Gate"-commonly known as "The Bean"-in Chicago's Millennium Park). Rather, Tolle's process is his signature, the way he researches and conceptualizes each project.
As part of that process, Tolle had dozens of meetings with Pizzuti and other community leaders. They urged the artist to think big. They wanted a landmark, a destination, a new icon. Comparisons were made to the Space Needle in Seattle and the St. Louis Arch. They didn't want Tolle to explore the past, as he did with the Irish Hunger Memorial. Instead, they told him to represent the Columbus of today-"a smart, open city on the rise"-and its aspirations for the future.
Tolle mentioned the project to his father, a mechanical engineer whose first job, coincidentally, was at AEP in Columbus. His father told him he used to design cooling towers for the energy giant. "What most people don't realize is that they are truly green technology," Tolle says. "They are self-drafting towers. In the past, power companies had to use tremendous amounts of energy to draw heat away from the plants."
The key was the "hyperboloid" shape of the towers. Tolle dug deeper into the history of the form and discovered its many uses, ranging from 19th-century lighthouses to one of the world's tallest structures, the Canton Tower in Guangzhou, China. He decided the elegance, strength and versatility of the shape made it ideal for the Columbus project.
Last June, Tolle presented his idea to the Columbus Arts Commission: "Columbiad," a 79-foot-tall structure made of steel and reflective glass. At the preliminary review-a chance to consider a project and offer feedback prior to a formal hearing-commissioners liked some elements, but the shape concerned them. "I can't get away from the nuclear power cooling-tower form," said Cochran, the Field of Corn artist and a member of the commission, at the meeting. "It is burned in our collective imaginations." He described the association as "really problematic."
Pizzuti kept the project under wraps for most of 2011. He confirmed to Columbus Monthly in May that he was trying to secure a "major" piece of public art for the Scioto Mile, but didn't release any more details. The full picture didn't emerge until the end of the year when "Columbiad" was revealed through an unlikely medium-a coffee mug.
Every year, Pizzuti commissions an artist to make a holiday mug sent to local media outlets and others. The 2011 mug, designed by Tolle, showcased an inverted Columbus skyline as it would appear on the mirror-glass surface of "Columbiad." An accompanying note offered more info about Tolle and his "monumental" proposal that would reflect "the strength, optimism and progressiveness of the community."
The mug seemed like an odd, back-door marketing tactic. Actually, it was a mistake. "It was premature," Pizzuti says. "We hadn't planned on it. We thought the project would have gotten announced before the mug went out, and it didn't." The note, meanwhile, "slipped through the cracks," Pizzuti says.
Once the mug hit the street, it didn't take long for the Dispatch to break the news, obtaining a rendering Tolle submitted to the Columbus Arts Commission and splashing it across its website and the front page of the print edition. The proposal drew more boos than raves. As the arts commissioners observed a few months earlier, the resemblance to a nuclear cooling tower was strong and unwelcome. "We also should commission a sculpture of Homer Simpson standing right next to it," joked a commentator on the Dispatch's website, referring to the initial renderings.
Pizzuti and his allies needed to regroup. "We took a deep breath and said, 'Let's roll with it,' " he says. His first move was to have Tolle address the Columbus Metropolitan Club, the city's premier public affairs forum. On Dec. 14, Tolle outlined some changes he'd made to the design since he spoke with the Columbus Arts Commission earlier in 2011. He ditched the mirror panels, both for economic and safety reasons (some were afraid of birds crashing into the glass). Instead, a "vertical garden" would climb the structure, changing colors with the season. He also tweaked the shape, making it look less like a cooling tower.
The changes and Tolle's thoughtful presentation won over some critics. "You've really opened my mind to this," said a questioner at the Metropolitan Club. "I had a negative reaction looking at the Dispatch, and I feel much more positive today." Says Pizzuti: "My phone rang off the hook the next day with people telling me how impressed they were with his talk."
Unlike most cities its size, Columbus doesn't devote a small percentage of capital dollars to public art. Since the early 1990s, arts backers twice have proposed "percent-for-art" programs. Both times the idea died. City officials recently committed about $200,000 for an installation at North Bank Park, and Cochran, the artist and arts commission member, is leading a temporary public art program in celebration of the Bicentennial in 2012. But city officials have made it clear they don't intend to use any public funds for "Columbiad."
Last year, Pizzuti hired longtime Short North gallery owner Rebecca Ibel to work for him as his curator. Since then, she's been preparing for the fall 2012 grand opening of a private gallery in the Short North to display pieces from Pizzuti's collection, while also trying to help her boss coordinate the "Columbiad" project. She took on the latter responsibility out of necessity. Other communities have a point person to guide and manage public art projects, but Columbus does not. Just one staffer from the city's Planning Department works part time with the Columbus Arts Commission, a volunteer board. The staffer's other main job is to manage annexations.
Pizzuti is asked what it will take to fix Columbus's public art deficit. "If I knew, I would have done it," he says with a laugh. With "Columbiad" strapped to his back, however, Pizzuti seems to have realized that the only way a major piece will happen in Columbus is if somebody with broad shoulders carries it across the finish line. Asked about the progress "Columbiad" has made so far, Amy Taylor, the chief operating officer of the Columbus Downtown Development Corporation, says, "That's all Ron Pizzuti."
But can he keep doing it alone? He's paid for all of Tolle's expenses so far, but he says he doesn't intend to fund everything forever. Soon, he says, he will launch a fundraising campaign. He's confident other corporate and civic players will step up. "I'm sure there will be contributions larger than ours," Pizzuti says.
He faces other stumbling blocks, too. It's not clear when the Columbus Arts Commission will vote on "Columbiad," the biggest thing the panel has considered since forming in 2007. (Maciejunes of the Columbus Museum of Art is a member of the commission, but she is expected to abstain because of her involvement in the project.) Tolle's recent changes seem to address some of the group's concerns, but commissioners declined to comment on the proposal until it appears before them again. "It's an ambitious project," says Diane Nance, commission chairwoman. "We need to be able to let the artist work out some bugs." Those bugs include who would own and maintain the sculpture. Pizzuti is counting on the city of Columbus and the Columbus Museum of Art to reach an agreement, perhaps with the city taking ownership while the museum handles maintenance. "This is a sculpture for Columbus, not for Ron Pizzuti," Ibel says. (In mid March, city and museum officials said no deal was in place yet.)
And then there's the biggest question of all: Is Columbus really ready for "Columbiad"? It's not warm, comfortable and familiar. It's the real deal. It's art. And let's face it: The city doesn't have a good track record with challenging, provocative ideas. Asked what it would mean if "Columbiad" joins the Broad Street snake in the public art dustbin, Pizzuti tries to stay positive. "I'm hopeful that it has universal acceptance," he says. He pauses and then adds, "It does get frustrating."
Ibel is less circumspect. "I'm told they are going to erect a bronze sculpture of Arnold Schwarzenegger," she said in February. "Now, if that project goes through and we don't do something like this, that's an embarrassment."
Twelve days later, an 8-foot likeness of the Governator was dedicated at Veterans Memorial.
Dave Ghose is a former associate editor for Columbus Monthly.