The Public Art in Landscape Arch Mag

I pulled all 15 arbitrary issues of Landscape Architecture Magazine still on my office shelf published between 2005 and 2007. Here is what added up for Public Art.

1. Seven Issues with Public Art covers. (Almost half)

2. Full length profiles on artists Maya Lin, Brad Goldberg and Stacy Levy.
MoerenumaPark.jpg
Moerenuma Park by Noguchi

3. Reviews of major public artworks, in collaboration with landscape architects, by artists Robert Irwin, Doug Hollis, Toshihiro Katayama and Isamu Noguchi.

4. Projects by landscape architects that can or have secured public art commissions including Michael Van Valkenburgh, Peter Walker, Walter Hood, Ken Smith and the founder of cross-over - Martha Schwartz.

5. Coverage of art and landscape exhibitions such as the Chaumont Garden Festival (with a work by filmmaker Peter Greenaway), the International Garden Festival at Metis and Mac's Farm and Sculpture Center.

AND THEN the MOST AMAZING THING. I have never seen this in any non-art magazine. Every time an artwork appears in a photograph, the artist is identified. If the artist was a collaborator on the design (not a purchased sculpture), the artist is listed as a member of the team at the end credits. JUST FOR THIS, every public artist and supporter should subscribe.

If the landscape design is a collaboration, the artist is treated just like any other member of the team. Not more special and not ignored. Interviewed or mentioned for the work performed like everyone else. In other words, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE has 100% accepted the equality of the public artist - the design team concept started in Seattle more than 20 years ago. No other American magazine does this - art, architecture, design, home, garden.
Kamal%20Nayan.jpg
Artwork by Kamal Nayan. Photo by Amit Mehra.

Only one other magazine achieved this unity of respect: India's MARG Magazine while edited by Mulk Raj Anand between 1946 and the 1960s. (In my opinion, the best art and architecture publication of the 20th century.) Perhaps editor J. William Thompson was giving us a reminder of the cultural complexity of MARG analysis when he placed New Delhi's "Garden of the Five Senses" on the cover. Like Anand thinking, the garden by Pradeep Sachdeva and many NAMED artists mixes sculptures, carvings, landscapes, land symbols, old myths and new ones.

The writing of Landscape Architecture is primarily reporting without much creative interpretation or comparison to other works. Opportunities are missed such as the relationship of the landscape visions of artists Frederick Church and Robert Irwin - only a few miles apart on the Hudson River. Or the comparison of Michael Van Valkenburgh's and Ann Hamilton's use of agitated stacked stones in the beautiful Tear Drop Park in New York City.

If you don't know all the artists or landscape architects, then an afternoon at the public or university library is worth the trip. Because the information is consolidated and SO COMPLETE. Photos, site plans and details. Thank you editors and writers and the members of America Society of Landscape Architects. Now if we could just get them to put the issues online.

Tear%20Drop%202.jpg
Tear Drop Park, M. Van Valkenburgh and A. Hamilton

April 5, 2007 11:06 PM | | Comments (1)

Categories:

1 Comments

In case you weren't aware, there is a publication devoted exclusively to public art. Public Art Review, a semi-annual journal published out of St. Paul, Minn. by the non-profit FORECAST Public Artworks, has been around for 18 years. Check it out.

Leave a comment

Linkable

September 2008 

Conflux Festival in New York City, Sept 11-14

 La Machine in Liverpool, UK.

 Street Art Exhibition at Bronx Museum of the Arts

more picks

Blogroll

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Aesthetic Grounds published on April 5, 2007 11:06 PM.

Public Art, Plagiarism & Vernacular was the previous entry in this blog.

Walter Hood and the Overgrown is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

AJ Ads

Introducing
AJ Arts Blog Ads

Now you can reach the most discerning arts blog readers on the internet. Target individual blogs or topics in the ArtsJournal ad network.

Advertise Here

[advertisement]

[advertisement]

AJ Blogs

AJBlogCentral | rss

culture
About Last Night
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Artful Manager
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
blog riley
rock culture approximately
CultureGulf
Rebuilding Gulf Culture after Katrina
Dewey21C
Richard Kessler on arts education
diacritical
Douglas McLennan's blog
Flyover
Art from the American Outback
Life's a Pitch
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
Mind the Gap
No genre is the new genre
Performance Monkey
David Jays on theatre and dance
Plain English
Paul Levy measures the Angles
Rockwell Matters
John Rockwell on the arts
Straight Up |
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude

dance
Foot in Mouth
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Seeing Things
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...

jazz
Jazz Beyond Jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
ListenGood
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Rifftides
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

media
Out There
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Serious Popcorn
Martha Bayles on Film...

classical music
The Future of Classical Music?
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
On the Record
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Overflow
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
PostClassic
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Sandow
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Slipped Disc
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds

publishing
book/daddy
Jerome Weeks on Books
Quick Study
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera

theatre
Drama Queen
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
lies like truth
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world

visual
Aesthetic Grounds
Public Art, Public Space
Artopia
John Perreault's art diary
CultureGrrl
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Modern Art Notes
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
Creative Commons License
This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.