First: Kara Walker's sugar baby is NOT public art. It is big sculpture. To qualify as public art, the work must be accidentally available to any person in real space. The best public art engages a public space that is truly owned and protected by a community of people. Once behind the walls - like a strip club - the vast public allows anything as long as the establishment does not attract … [Read more...]
Public Art Images from the Week
Images posted on www.facebook.com/glenn.weiss.100 Ask to friend me. … [Read more...]
Mobile Art, ELMO and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
If in London, the don't forget to tour the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for the Public Art. In September for one weekend, all the mobile art vehicles will set-up shop. ‘PORTABILITY: ART ON THE MOVE’ Celebrating the extraordinary world of mobile art vehicles in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park 20th – 21st September, 2014 For the first time in the UK, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is … [Read more...]
Brian Miller: World’s FIRST town artist. 1962
Thanks to Gar Dunlap for the correction. Brian Miller may be the world's first town artist. He served the Scottish New Town of Cumbernauld. From THE FORGOTTEN PUBLIC ART OF CUMBERNAULD by Neville Rae For twenty eight years starting in 1962, Brian Miller worked as Cumbernauld’s first, and only, town artist. After initial doubts over which department he should be placed in, he was employed … [Read more...]
David Harding: The World’s Second Town Artist
I am surprised about the lack of public artists, administrators and academics that don't know the work of David Harding in 1968-78. For eight years, he served as the "Town Artist" for the Scottish new town of Glenrothes. Harding is still practicing as an artist and has published some of his memoirs on the Glenrothes work. The memoir is here: www.davidharding.net Harding was followed by … [Read more...]
Kara Walker Tangents: Sexual Sphinx
As I considered Walkers' sugar baby, I wanted to know about sphinx sculpture in general. I was very surprised to learn the 17-18th century feminization of the sphinx with a subtle dose of sexuality in Europe. In the ancient times, the memorable sphinx's are male with a sense of pride and self-importance, not sex. The great sphinx at Giza Egypt fools the memory as a female with its head dress … [Read more...]
We have the best public art of 2014 – Kara Walker
So Kara Walker's "A Subtlety" has been declared the best public artwork of 2014. BUT at the moment it is NOT public art. Buried in the Domino Sugar factory the work does endure the same public examination that Sofia Maldonado's 42nd Street murals suffered with public calls for removal and a serious debate about media images of African-Americans in 2010. Move the Sugar Baby to TIMES … [Read more...]
Halo versus Halo in #publicart
One tricks the sense of gravity. Another strives for heaven. Turpen + Crawford, Sydney............... Titia Ex, Amsterdam … [Read more...]
RAINBOWS: Less Joy. Burning in Warsaw
Julita Wojcik's rainbow of plastic flowers in Warsaw has been burnt five times by Polish nationalist in the mistaken idea that the sculpture supports gay rights. The sculpture is now a main visual element of the battle for the heart of Poland as a conservative, nationalist bastion or a city of tolerance, especially for LGBT Poles. Yet the artist Julita Wojcik continues to say: "The Rainbow … [Read more...]
More Joy – RAINBOWS: Best loved, least used #publicart
An actual rainbow generates a smile in me every time. They are just suddenly THERE. The feeling is like seeing a fish jump or the landing of a bird on your window sill. A quick momentary gift. My attention heightens and nothing else matters around me. EXCEPT to share the pleasure with anyone else in space. LOOK - I yell or whisper. We jump a little. Yet when the actual event, becomes a … [Read more...]
Architects as Sculptors: J-Mayer-H versus Ensamble Studio
Last week, I planned to argue for Ensamble Studio as the better method to be a sculptor as as an architect. Ensamble feels the weight and balance of materials. J-Mayer-H draws shapes in space. And J-Mayer-H shapes are crude, arbitrary lines. Ensamble strives for a tactile, spatial emotion. With J-Mayer-H, the space is merely the leftover area inside the form. One is intimate. The other … [Read more...]
Improve “Memory Wound” for the Norwegian massacre
Norwegians select "Memory Wound" by artist Jonas Dahlberg. The 43-year-old artist has sliced a three-and-a-half-metre-wide slit into the Sørbråten peninsula, which faces the island of Utøya where Anders Behring Breivik killed 69 people in 2011. It marks a "symbolic wound" in the landscape. I like the memorial as a sculptural reminder. Simple metaphor of damage landscaped and damaged nation. … [Read more...]