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Palm Springs, CA United States |
Downtoiwn Park | Palm Springs AIDS Memorial |
since 1 December 2025 without names |
As Palm Springs AIDS memorial is revamped, some gay residents say they're not being heard
Earlier design was rejected after controversy, ridicule
It’s long been said that “art is in the eye of the beholder.” But can that still hold true when that art is also supposed to be a memorial honoring the millions who have died of AIDS worldwide? That’s the question reverberating around Palm Springs since controversy erupted earlier this fall around the planned design for an HIV/AIDS memorial that a local group had been working to get installed in the city’s Downtown Park.
In addition to reverberating through Palm Springs’ famously large LGBTQ community, that controversy has put new attention on the city’s process for selecting public art pieces, with some saying there needs to be more robust debate. But it's also raised broader, more philosophical questions that interrogate the very idea of memorials, with some asking who can — and should — get to say what is a memorial and how varying viewpoints about what constitutes one should be handled.
Critics of design call for more community dialogue
The initial proposed design, which consisted of a large stone disc with concentric circles carved onto one side and fin-like forms carved into the other, generated little backlash when it was first unveiled in 2021. The design was considered by the Public Springs Public Arts Commission, which voted to fund the installation of the sculpture at a public meeting in June of that year. The city council also considered it three months later when it voted unanimously to accept the statue as a gift and approve its placement in the Downtown Park.
But that changed in a big way this fall, when a model of the planned sculpture was placed on Arenas Road as part of a fundraiser. Dismay and derision ensued, with many observers complaining that the sculpture seemed to resemble a giant donut or, even more strikingly, a human buttocks. The resemblance of the fin side to the latter has proved particularly concerning to many given what some gay men in the area described as a longstanding tendency in culture to dehumanize and exoticize gay men.
A KESQ report about the controversy added further fuel to the erupting fire, with the task force behind the memorial announcing just days after that report aired that it was scrapping the initial design and would work with the artist to create a new design, then unveil it to the public.
But that announcement, too, has not been warmly received by many members of the city’s LGBTQ community, who say the task force is still not doing enough to gather input from them and the rest of the community. By choosing to formulate a new design in private, those residents feel the task force is missing an opportunity to design a memorial that is reflective of and loved by the community. And they see the risk of a repeat, with a new design that might further offend members of the very community that has borne the brunt of HIV/AIDS in the U.S.
“There’s a certain level of risk with that,” Palm Springs resident Raymond Lafleur said. “Amongst your small group you come up with a design that you hope will resound with the community. But if it doesn’t, it’s another failure.” Lafleur is the administrator of the nearly 13,000-member Gay Men of Palm Springs CA Facebook group. That group become a locus for conversation and criticism about the design, which Lafleur said was met by “resoundingly negative feedback” by the vast majority of the group.
As he watched more and more members of the group lament and express their opposition to the design, LaFleur said he began to feel like he needed to do something to make sure all those voices were being heard by the memorial task force. So, he reached out to the seven-member task force with the intention of starting a dialogue with them. The task force, however, has not taken him up on his offer, he said. “They didn’t really want to talk to anyone,” he said.
Lafleur said the impression that he got was that task force members did not think they needed to talk to anyone because the memorial was to be a donation to the city, although the city had agreed to pay about $65,000 to have it installed at the park. While that “gift” approach might work for a typical piece of public art, Lafleur and other members of the group said it doesn’t make sense when it comes to a memorial about something that has touched as many lives as HIV/AIDS.
He said a better approach can be seen in the memorials in West Hollywood, Chicago and Oregon, which started with grassroots efforts but involved multiple artists making submissions and “tons of community engagement.” “They took a while — five years, seven years in one case — but the end result was a memorial that had tremendous support in the community,” Lafleur said.
Public meeting turns tense
Lafleur was joined by several other mostly-LGBTQ residents at a well-attended meeting of the city’s public arts commission in mid-October. The city council-appointed commission is body of residents that allocates funding for public art pieces and first approved funding to install the HIV/AIDS memorial back in 2021.
During the meeting, many commenters excoriated the task force and commission over the initial design, which they said did not adequately convey the pain of HIV/AIDS and would've made the city “a laughingstock.” Some said they were frustrated that the initial design, beyond being offensive to many, seemed to be less a true memorial than a “piece of art looking for a purpose." They called for the task force to engage with the community about what they would like to see in the memorial, with one commenter noting that a memorial must mean something to both people who have HIV/AIDS and those who have lost loved ones to it.
“My personal journey and perspective as a 40-year survivor along with so many others’, could surely contribute to a more meaningful and inclusive representation of the memorial and our community as a whole,” said one such commenter, Mitch Battersby.
David Keesey, who is HIV-positive, expressed a similar sentiment. “I've lost over 100 friends and four partners, this art piece does not reflect the heartache, the death and the toll it has taken on the nurses, the doctors, everyone involved,” he said. “So please think of that when you reconstruct your vision of this art piece.”
During the meeting, a city staff member read a letter submitted by a resident that stated “the fact that the design was so inappropriate for such an important memorial implies that you need a protocol to ensure more divergent perspectives.” The letter also suggested several ways the council could rectify the situation, including publicizing how the community could share input and providing more specifics about how — and to what degree — the memorial design would be changed in response to the feedback the community had given.
Danny Kopelson, who said he has had HIV for over 40 years, said the arts commission will be able to reach an informed decision about whether the piece achieves its goal as an HIV/AIDS memorial only if it has feedback from community members with HIV and their allies. “Although grateful to them, this is not the task force’s AIDS memorial,” he said. “It’s the Palm Springs AIDS memorial.”
At the start of the meeting, the commission’s chair, Gary Armstrong, read a lengthy prepared statement in which he said the commission “acknowledges and respects the concerns expressed by some members of the community” regarding the memorial. He also noted that the memorial was a “gift to the entire city reflecting the values and perspectives of its benefactors” and that the commission has a responsibility to ensure public art aligns with the community’s values and shows sensitivity while respecting the autonomy of private donors.
Following the comments, Armstrong spoke again, saying it was important for the public to understand that the money funding the creation of the sculpture was being raised by the task force and the city could not choose on its own to assign the work to another artist.
In response, several of the commenters began yelling out questions, including about what would happen if residents didn’t want the piece and asking why the task force was not consenting to a dialogue. Armstrong responded that he could not speak for the task force but would let them know about the attendees’ desire for such a dialogue.
The discussion ended when Armstrong noted that the public would be able to offer comments when the commission considers any new design before stating that the discussion could not continue at the meeting because there was no agenda item related to the memorial.
Task force, city say residents are having their say
No one from the city or task force agreed to be interviewed about the controversy. In prepared statements provided in recent weeks, they offered comments to The Desert Sun similar to those provided by Armstrong. The head of a public relations firm working for the task force reiterated that the task force is working on a redesign of the memorial and that the new concept would be shared as soon as it is ready.
The statement also pointed to an opinion piece authored by the task force’s founder, Dan Spencer, published by The Desert Sun on Oct. 5. Spencer wrote in the piece that “great design happens through listening, adapting and realigning” and that the new design “would honor the original goals of the task force while directly addressing concerns.” “We value your thoughts and want you to know you are heard,” he also wrote.
The Desert Sun asked to speak to public arts commission members, but instead city spokesperson Amy Blaisdell sent a prepared statement noting that the art piece was being donated by the task force. She also wrote that the initial design had been public for two years and was scrapped when the task force became aware of concerns from the LGBTQ community. “The Public Arts Commission is expecting that the Task Force will engage with community members and hear feedback regarding the next design prior to being presented to the Commission,” the statement read. “As always, the public will be invited to provide their comments when the Commission reviews the next design.”
Blaisdell has not respond to a follow-up question about whether the city council would need to approve the new design as well for it to be placed in the park.
Lafleur and Kopelson, meanwhile, said that while they don’t understand the continued approach being taken by the council or believe it will lead to a well-regarded design, they nonetheless hope to be wrong. “I don't think the intent is to kill it,” said Lafleur. “We really hope they're successful. We just think their approach has tremendous risks.”
Photo © Jay Calderon The Desert Sun
18 December 2023
Paul Albani-Burgio, Palm Springs
Earlier design was rejected after controversy, ridicule
It’s long been said that “art is in the eye of the beholder.” But can that still hold true when that art is also supposed to be a memorial honoring the millions who have died of AIDS worldwide? That’s the question reverberating around Palm Springs since controversy erupted earlier this fall around the planned design for an HIV/AIDS memorial that a local group had been working to get installed in the city’s Downtown Park.
In addition to reverberating through Palm Springs’ famously large LGBTQ community, that controversy has put new attention on the city’s process for selecting public art pieces, with some saying there needs to be more robust debate. But it's also raised broader, more philosophical questions that interrogate the very idea of memorials, with some asking who can — and should — get to say what is a memorial and how varying viewpoints about what constitutes one should be handled.
Critics of design call for more community dialogue
The initial proposed design, which consisted of a large stone disc with concentric circles carved onto one side and fin-like forms carved into the other, generated little backlash when it was first unveiled in 2021. The design was considered by the Public Springs Public Arts Commission, which voted to fund the installation of the sculpture at a public meeting in June of that year. The city council also considered it three months later when it voted unanimously to accept the statue as a gift and approve its placement in the Downtown Park.
But that changed in a big way this fall, when a model of the planned sculpture was placed on Arenas Road as part of a fundraiser. Dismay and derision ensued, with many observers complaining that the sculpture seemed to resemble a giant donut or, even more strikingly, a human buttocks. The resemblance of the fin side to the latter has proved particularly concerning to many given what some gay men in the area described as a longstanding tendency in culture to dehumanize and exoticize gay men.
A KESQ report about the controversy added further fuel to the erupting fire, with the task force behind the memorial announcing just days after that report aired that it was scrapping the initial design and would work with the artist to create a new design, then unveil it to the public.
But that announcement, too, has not been warmly received by many members of the city’s LGBTQ community, who say the task force is still not doing enough to gather input from them and the rest of the community. By choosing to formulate a new design in private, those residents feel the task force is missing an opportunity to design a memorial that is reflective of and loved by the community. And they see the risk of a repeat, with a new design that might further offend members of the very community that has borne the brunt of HIV/AIDS in the U.S.
“There’s a certain level of risk with that,” Palm Springs resident Raymond Lafleur said. “Amongst your small group you come up with a design that you hope will resound with the community. But if it doesn’t, it’s another failure.” Lafleur is the administrator of the nearly 13,000-member Gay Men of Palm Springs CA Facebook group. That group become a locus for conversation and criticism about the design, which Lafleur said was met by “resoundingly negative feedback” by the vast majority of the group.
As he watched more and more members of the group lament and express their opposition to the design, LaFleur said he began to feel like he needed to do something to make sure all those voices were being heard by the memorial task force. So, he reached out to the seven-member task force with the intention of starting a dialogue with them. The task force, however, has not taken him up on his offer, he said. “They didn’t really want to talk to anyone,” he said.
Lafleur said the impression that he got was that task force members did not think they needed to talk to anyone because the memorial was to be a donation to the city, although the city had agreed to pay about $65,000 to have it installed at the park. While that “gift” approach might work for a typical piece of public art, Lafleur and other members of the group said it doesn’t make sense when it comes to a memorial about something that has touched as many lives as HIV/AIDS.
He said a better approach can be seen in the memorials in West Hollywood, Chicago and Oregon, which started with grassroots efforts but involved multiple artists making submissions and “tons of community engagement.” “They took a while — five years, seven years in one case — but the end result was a memorial that had tremendous support in the community,” Lafleur said.
Public meeting turns tense
Lafleur was joined by several other mostly-LGBTQ residents at a well-attended meeting of the city’s public arts commission in mid-October. The city council-appointed commission is body of residents that allocates funding for public art pieces and first approved funding to install the HIV/AIDS memorial back in 2021.
During the meeting, many commenters excoriated the task force and commission over the initial design, which they said did not adequately convey the pain of HIV/AIDS and would've made the city “a laughingstock.” Some said they were frustrated that the initial design, beyond being offensive to many, seemed to be less a true memorial than a “piece of art looking for a purpose." They called for the task force to engage with the community about what they would like to see in the memorial, with one commenter noting that a memorial must mean something to both people who have HIV/AIDS and those who have lost loved ones to it.
“My personal journey and perspective as a 40-year survivor along with so many others’, could surely contribute to a more meaningful and inclusive representation of the memorial and our community as a whole,” said one such commenter, Mitch Battersby.
David Keesey, who is HIV-positive, expressed a similar sentiment. “I've lost over 100 friends and four partners, this art piece does not reflect the heartache, the death and the toll it has taken on the nurses, the doctors, everyone involved,” he said. “So please think of that when you reconstruct your vision of this art piece.”
During the meeting, a city staff member read a letter submitted by a resident that stated “the fact that the design was so inappropriate for such an important memorial implies that you need a protocol to ensure more divergent perspectives.” The letter also suggested several ways the council could rectify the situation, including publicizing how the community could share input and providing more specifics about how — and to what degree — the memorial design would be changed in response to the feedback the community had given.
Danny Kopelson, who said he has had HIV for over 40 years, said the arts commission will be able to reach an informed decision about whether the piece achieves its goal as an HIV/AIDS memorial only if it has feedback from community members with HIV and their allies. “Although grateful to them, this is not the task force’s AIDS memorial,” he said. “It’s the Palm Springs AIDS memorial.”
At the start of the meeting, the commission’s chair, Gary Armstrong, read a lengthy prepared statement in which he said the commission “acknowledges and respects the concerns expressed by some members of the community” regarding the memorial. He also noted that the memorial was a “gift to the entire city reflecting the values and perspectives of its benefactors” and that the commission has a responsibility to ensure public art aligns with the community’s values and shows sensitivity while respecting the autonomy of private donors.
Following the comments, Armstrong spoke again, saying it was important for the public to understand that the money funding the creation of the sculpture was being raised by the task force and the city could not choose on its own to assign the work to another artist.
In response, several of the commenters began yelling out questions, including about what would happen if residents didn’t want the piece and asking why the task force was not consenting to a dialogue. Armstrong responded that he could not speak for the task force but would let them know about the attendees’ desire for such a dialogue.
The discussion ended when Armstrong noted that the public would be able to offer comments when the commission considers any new design before stating that the discussion could not continue at the meeting because there was no agenda item related to the memorial.
Task force, city say residents are having their say
No one from the city or task force agreed to be interviewed about the controversy. In prepared statements provided in recent weeks, they offered comments to The Desert Sun similar to those provided by Armstrong. The head of a public relations firm working for the task force reiterated that the task force is working on a redesign of the memorial and that the new concept would be shared as soon as it is ready.
The statement also pointed to an opinion piece authored by the task force’s founder, Dan Spencer, published by The Desert Sun on Oct. 5. Spencer wrote in the piece that “great design happens through listening, adapting and realigning” and that the new design “would honor the original goals of the task force while directly addressing concerns.” “We value your thoughts and want you to know you are heard,” he also wrote.
The Desert Sun asked to speak to public arts commission members, but instead city spokesperson Amy Blaisdell sent a prepared statement noting that the art piece was being donated by the task force. She also wrote that the initial design had been public for two years and was scrapped when the task force became aware of concerns from the LGBTQ community. “The Public Arts Commission is expecting that the Task Force will engage with community members and hear feedback regarding the next design prior to being presented to the Commission,” the statement read. “As always, the public will be invited to provide their comments when the Commission reviews the next design.”
Blaisdell has not respond to a follow-up question about whether the city council would need to approve the new design as well for it to be placed in the park.
Lafleur and Kopelson, meanwhile, said that while they don’t understand the continued approach being taken by the council or believe it will lead to a well-regarded design, they nonetheless hope to be wrong. “I don't think the intent is to kill it,” said Lafleur. “We really hope they're successful. We just think their approach has tremendous risks.”
Photo © Jay Calderon The Desert Sun
18 December 2023
Paul Albani-Burgio, Palm Springs
