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.

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.

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 Drop Park, M. Van Valkenburgh and A. Hamilton