A Companion to Public Art

A Companion to Public Art is the only scholarly volume to examine the main issues, theories, and practices of public art on a comprehensive scale.

• Edited by two distinguished scholars with contributions from art historians, critics, curators, and art administrators, as well as artists themselves
• Includes 19 essays in four sections: tradition, site, audience, and critical frameworks
• Covers important topics in the field, including valorizing victims, public art in urban landscapes and on university campuses, the role of digital technologies, jury selection committees, and the intersection of public art and mass media
• Contains “artist’s philosophy” essays, which address larger questions about an artist’s body of work and the field of public art, by Julian Bonder, eteam (Hajoe Moderegger and Franziska Lamprecht), John Craig Freeman, Antony Gormley, Suzanne Lacy, Caleb Neelon, Tatzu Nishi, Greg Sholette, and Alan Sonfist.

Cher Krause Knight is Professor of Art History at Emerson College, USA. She is the author of Power and Paradise in Walt Disney's World (2014; paperback 2019); and Public Art: Theory, Practice and Populism (Blackwell, 2008). With Harriet F. Senie she also co-edited and contributed to Museums and Public Art? (2018). Together, Knight and Senie co-founded Public Art Dialogue, an international professional organization devoted to providing an interdisciplinary critical forum for the field. They also co-founded and co-edited the journal Public Art Dialogue, the first peer-reviewed journal devoted specifically to public art.

Harriet F. Senie is Professor of Art History and Director of the M.A. program in Art History and the Art Museum Studies track at City University, New York, USA. She also teaches at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11 (2015); Dangerous Precedent? The 'Tilted Arc' Controversy (2001); and Contemporary Public Sculpture: Tradition, Transformation, and Controversy (1992). With Cher Krause Knight she co-edited and contributed to Museums and Public Art? (2018), and with Sally Webster, Critical Issues in Public Art: Content, Context, and Controversy (1992; revised edition 1998).

List of Illustrations x

Notes on Contributors xii

Acknowledgements xx

A Companion to Public Art: Introduction 1
Cher Krause Knight and Harriet F. Senie

Part I Traditions 13

Introduction 15
Cher Krause Knight and Harriet F. Senie

Artists’ Philosophies

Memory Works 25
Julian Bonder

Public Art? 30
Antony Gormley

Natural Phenomena as Public Monuments 34
Alan Sonfist

1 Memorializing the Holocaust 37
James E. Young

2 Chilean Memorials to the Disappeared: Symbolic Reparations and Strategies of Resistance 51
Marisa Lerer

3 Modern Mural Painting in the United States: Shaping Spaces/Shaping Publics 75
Sally Webster and Sylvia Rhor

4 Locating History in Concrete and Bronze: Civic Monuments in Bamako, Mali 93
Mary Jo Arnoldi

5 The Conflation of Heroes and Victims: A New Memorial Paradigm 107
Harriet F. Senie

Part II Site 119

Introduction 121
Cher Krause Knight and Harriet F. Senie

Artists’ Philosophies

Give That Site Some Privacy 129
eteam (Hajoe Moderegger and Franziska Lamprecht)

The Grandiose Artistic Vision of Caleb Neelon 135
Caleb Neelon

6 Sculptural Showdowns: (Re)Siting and (Mis)Remembering in Chicago 139
Eli Robb

7 In the Streets Where We Live 164
Kate MacNeill

8 Powerlands: Land Art as Retribution and Reclamation 176
Erika Suderburg

9 Waterworks: Politics, Public Art, and the University Campus 191
Grant Kester

10 Augmented Realities: Digital Art in the Public Sphere 205
Christiane Paul

Part III Audience 227

Introduction 229
Cher Krause Knight and Harriet F. Senie

Artists’ Philosophies

Practical Strategies: Framing Narratives for Public Pedagogies 239
Suzanne Lacy

Public Art in a Post‐Public World: Complicity with Dark Matter 245
Gregory Sholette

11 Audiences Are People, Too: Social Art Practice as Lived Experience 251
Mary Jane Jacob

12 Contextualizing the Public in Social Practice Projects 268
Jennifer McGregor and Renee Piechocki

13 Art Administrators and Audiences 285
Charlotte Cohen and Wendy Feuer

14 Poll the Jury: The Role of the Panelist in Public Art 296
Mary M. Tinti

15 Participatory Public Art Evaluation: Approaches to Researching Audience Response 310
Katherine Gressel

Part IV Frames 335

Introduction 337
Cher Krause Knight and Harriet F. Senie

Artists’ Philosophies

The Virtual Sphere Frame: Toward a New Ontology and Epistemology 347
John Craig Freeman

The Elusive Frame: “Funny,” “Violent,” and “Sexy” 353
Tatzu Nishi

16 The Time Frame: Encounters with Ephemeral Public Art 359
Patricia C. Phillips

17 The Memory Frame: Set in Stone, a Dialogue 376
Amanda Douberley and Paul Druecke

18 The Patronage Frame: New York City’s Mayors and the Support of Public Art 386
Michele H. Bogart

19 The Process Frame: Vandalism, Removal, Re‐Siting, Destruction 403
Erika Doss

20 The Marketing Frame: Online Corporate Communities and Artistic Intervention 422
Jonathan Wallis

21 The Mass Media Frame: Pranking, Soap Operas, and Public Art 435
Cher Krause Knight

Epilogue 457
Cameron Cartiere

Index 465

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