Freeman, a senior majoring in interdisciplinary sculpture, is willing to consider almost all of these gestures as art in themselves. Yet he was admittedly hoping for a more balanced dialogue when he conceived his piece, which is part of a public art exhibit called Beyond the Compass, Beyond the Square. Sponsored by the Walters Art Museum in connection with its show, Maps: Finding Our Place in the World, and MICA, the Mount Vernon Place exhibit will be on view in the park until May.
Though Freeman's fence would only stand for two weeks of that time, he hoped to raise questions about "the temporary nature of space," he said, and "to celebrate" the historic park by holding it hostage around the start of spring.
"I wanted to help people see something beautiful," he explained.
For several semesters he advanced his vision, persuading his professors and preparing the necessary municipal paperwork (though some city officials later spoke out against the project, it was initially approved by the Department of Transportation, the Department of Recreation and Parks and the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation).
Freeman also had what must have been some unique discussions with a representative from Long Fence, the company that supplied the 7-foot-tall chain-link barrier that Freeman chose for his primary material.
In preparation, Freeman spent days and nights in the park, "re-imagining and re-seeing" its individual quadrants: the northern part, he noticed, is the emptiest, the western section teems with promenading dogs and their owners (who would soon become some of his most rabid critics), and the east quadrant is full of homeless people, one of whom he slept beside one night, he said.
"I didn't realize he was there until morning," Freeman said. The park kept surprising him, and he couldn't wait to show the city what he'd learned, not realizing that some residents would deeply resent the inconvenience, and what they saw as a hint of youthful condescension.
Freeman said he and his friends spent 16-hour days painting and assembling 3,000 feet of fence. He ran up credit card debt for supplies, and (naturally, having chosen Mount Vernon as his gallery) received reams of parking tickets. On March 16, everything was set to go.
But then the responses began rolling onto his Web site, www.goldchainlinkfence.com.
"What an arrogant jerk, stealing access to a public place," one guest wrote.
