Bruce Damonte

"Building the Iron Horse," 2010 in Laguna Honda

Hospitals aren't generally known as places to see art. Motivational posters and hotel-room quality impressionalistic pastel prints seem to be the dominant forms of institutional expression. 

And then there's the "Pepto-Bismol walls," said Kate Patterson, public art project manager at the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC). 

But there are two new projects — one completed, one in progress — that seek to raise the bar on hospital art a bit higher. The newly opened $585 million Laguna Honda facility, the first hospital in the state to win LEED green certification, has over 100 pieces of original commissioned public artwork on display, both indoors and around the grounds. The SFAC has also recently announced 13 finalists for commissions in the new, nine-story in-patient care facility at SF General Hospital — with $7 million raised to fund these artworks.

While these are very different projects, there are some common threads. Artwork in hospitals should be tactile. Studies show that patients do better when the art contains elements of nature. Wayfinding--or signage--is very important, said Susan Pontious, director of the public art program, which is one of the reasons the SFAC has worked with architects from the start of both projects.

"The artwork is slelected from artists who have a distinct point of view," Pontious said. "It is an important individualizing factor that helps humanize these faciilites."

She spent a decade on Laguna Honda, whose terrible recessionary timing led to many delays and controversies. "Believe it or not," she said, laughing, "I was there at the very beginning." The SFAC worked with the architects to integrate art into a vast array of locations, from commissioning a special handrail to the tiles in the pool area.

At Laguna Honda, these concepts play out in a number of ways. The hospital, which is also a rehabiliation center, is designed to have neighborhoods of sorts, with living rooms at the ends of every wing, united by a long esplanade with an art studio, library and more. A different artist was assigned to every floor, to do pieces in a range of different mediums, from photography to glass, that would distinguish each area. There are also some large scale works in major areas, such as the huge mosaics done from paintings by Owen Smith, whose work may be most recognizable from his lush, retro New Yorker cover images. On a tour, Patterson pointed out that SFAC decided to render Wilson's images in mosaic form. 

At SF General, like Laguna Honda and many other public art iniatives, SFAC didn't just look for artists who have a history of public art projects. Rupert Garcia, for instance, who will be working on the floor of SF General's new building associated with the Mission (each floor is associated with a different neighborhood), hasn't had any previous public art experience. Pontious said that one of their main jobs is to help artists "bring their imagery into a material that is appropriate for an architectural scale."

"The hospital staff is so happy that it's not beige," Pontius said. "[The new building] has blues and golds and greens and reds." It doesn't, in other words, look like a hospital.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified artist Owen Smith.