Greg April 2: Doing it in public

For Greg's class on April 2, we'll be discussing public art.

Read the essays below and consider some of the following questions in your written response: What makes good public art? How would we make public art better? Why do we make art in public (from sculpture to performance to murals to installations)? What are the purposes of public art? As memorial? To energize a site? To refocus our experience of a place? To engage with a community? Entertainment? Fountains? What is the public artist's responsibility to the community? How does it involve the public? Should public art be challenging? How/why does it become a landmark? Are we stuck with bad public art?

= "City timidity on public art" by Yvonne Abraham, Boston Globe, Sept. 12, 2010.
= "The very public debate over Fred Wilson's Indy sculpture" by Tyler Green, Modern Art Notes, Oct. 27, 2010.
= "Outdoor art finds its niche: But Franklin Park collection of found objects may have to go" by Brain MacQuarrie, Boston Globe, June 2010.
= "Nancy Holt locates the cosmos" by Greg Cook, Boston Phoenix, Feb. 14, 2012, about the exhibit Nancy Holt "Sight Lines" at Tufts University Art Gallery through April 1. Holt's "Sun Tunnels" (1973-76) is documented in the videos here.