Not surprisingly, there is an interesting story behind The Secret Bench of Knowledge, a sculpture created by Lea Vivot, one casting of which is located at the entrance the the Library and National Archives Canada in Ottawa. I say not surprisingly because this sculpture has never been quite what it seems.

I

A closeup of the Secret Knowledge Garden. Photo also by Konrad Glogowski.

At first glance, it is a pair of children sitting on a bench; he is eating a bright red apple and whispering something in her ear; she is squirming, ever so slightly, perhaps at his words, perhaps because he is too close, or perhaps she just doesn’t like to sit still. The tourist brochures will tell you that the sculpture bears a message of the joy and value of reading. But there is more going on here. Her face shows she is intrigued, they’re, um, not reading anything, and there’s that bite missing from the apple.

The story told to me on the morning bus commute, on route to the Library and Archives, is this: Under the cloak of darkness, about one hour after sunset in early May 1989, Lea Vivot drove a truck with huge winch and deposited her 315 kilogram work, then called Secret Bench, Lost Paradise, in front of the building. The next morning, staff arriving for work were delighted to see the new addition adorn their front entrance. Naturally, they assumed it had been put there by another government department and the memo would be forthcoming.

In fact Lea Vivot had decided to lend the sculpture to the Library and Archives, unbidden. The Canadian Conference of the Arts cites this explanation from the Ottawa Citizen:

The building needed something and I don’t feel that artists have the time to go through the bureaucratic approach. In the same amount of time that it would take to go through all this (bureaucracy) I can cast another sculpture and enhance another space.

About a year later, Vivot removed the sculpture. However, it had become so popular that philanthropist Eugene Boccia donated a casting for permanent installation. In 1994, this time during daylight, the new Secret Bench of Knowledge was unveiled. According to the Library and National Archives, the new sculpture also included engravings about the pleasure and importance of reading chosen from the contest entries submitted by school children and writers across Canada. This time, clearly, a government memo had been issued.

II

This anecdote offers a useful reminder in sales and marketing 101, showing as it does the tight relationship among the cost, price and value of a work or service. Cost is the amount you spend to produce the work or service, price is the financial reward for providing it, and value is what your customer believes the work is worth to them. To maximize profitability, wherever possible, you should set prices that reflect the value you provide, not just the cost.

III

The Secret Bench of Knowledge in Bonita Springs, Florida. Photo by Cary Edmondson, Bonita Daily News.

More castings of the Secret Bench can be found in Toronto, Sarnia, Montreal, Fort Lauderdale, New York, London and Prague. In Bonita Springs, Florida, the work sits in front of Community Hall off Old 41 and became the community’s first outdoor piece of art in 2003 when according to the Naples Daily News, it was moved from the neighbouring city of Naples after complaints about its suggestive imagery. In 2005, Lea Vivot requested Bonita Springs purchase the work for $150,000 USD. With no single philanthropist is site, the city began a year long campaign to raise the funds privately. It was a long time coming, and it was worth every minute, said Amy Arend, chairwoman of The Committee to Save the Bench. You have to sell a lot of pancakes and T-shirts to raise that kind of money. Eventually, though, Lea Vivot accepted $57,000. After what I have seen, what effort they put into it, I decided I couldn’t take it away, she said. Any art object will make the city look nice, Councilman Alex Grantt noted. It fits here very nicely. The city also established an Art in Public Places ordinance, which means that future artworks for the city will not need to be purchased through private fundraising. The author of the article points out that while The Bench off Old 41 remains the same, the difference is that now it belongs to the city and is no longer on loan from the artist. It is also, of course, the difference between value, cost and price.

Dispatch: On Value, Cost and Price (no math) originally appeared on Portable Learner on March 21st, 2009