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 Cher Krause Knight and Harriet F. Senie, two distinguished scholars in this burgeoning field, it brings together established and emergent scholars ranging from art and architectural historians, critics, public art curators and art administrators, as well as artists.

With 19 essays in four sections tradition, site, audience, and critical frameworks the Companion assesses public art as it is taught, thought about, and talked about within the field, and as it is conceived in the public and popular imagination. The essays discuss 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, time and memory, patronage, and the intersection of public art and mass media. In addition to perspectives from scholars and professionals in the field, it contains contributions by artists. These artist s philosophy essays 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.

Authoritative and indispensible, this guide is essential reading for anyone involved in the teaching, creating, commissioning, and contemplating of public art.

Notes on Contributors x

Acknowledgements xviii

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

Memorializing the Holocaust 37
James E. Young

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

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

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

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

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

In the Streets Where We Live 164
Kate MacNeill

Powerlands: Land Art as Retribution and Reclamation 176
Erika Suderburg

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

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

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

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

Art Administrators and Audiences 285
Charlotte Cohen and Wendy Feuer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Epilogue 457
Cameron Cartiere

Index 465

Cher Krause Knight is Associate Professor of Art History at Emerson College, USA. She is the author of Power and Paradise in Walt Disney s World (2014); and Public Art: Theory, Practice and Populism (Blackwell Publishing, 2008). Knight is the co–founder of Public Art Dialogue, an international professional organization devoted to providing an interdisciplinary critical forum for the field. She is co–founder and co–editor of the journal Public Art Dialogue, the first peer–reviewed journal devoted specifically to public art, with Harriet F. Senie.

Harriet F. Senie is Professor of Art History and Director of the M.A. programin 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).She is co–editor of Critical Issues in Public Art: Content, Context, and Controversy (1992, revised edition 1998), and co–founder and co–editor of the journal Public Art Dialogue, the first peer–reviewed journal devoted specifically to public art, with Cher Krause Knight.