After 2008, I spent 3 years programming public art and performance in Times Square. I learned two significant lessons. 1. Artists, curators and producers rarely design the space for the audience and the method of interactions. 2. People actually know about public art and some really like it. Once the negative thoughts of “my tax dollars!” and “in my community!” are not part of the circumstances for the public, they can thoughtfully comment on the work. Public ignorance is exaggerated.
– Glenn Weiss, April 18, 2013
The dialogue on public art and public space has almost no American art critics. We need some.
Public space is addressed in the socio-political critique of modern culture or in the propaganda of the smart growth, new urbanism and/or green sustainability. And 30 years after the invention of public art, the artists and administrators of the genre are afraid to establish criteria beyond acceptance or tolerance.
To have critics of these art forms, new verbal and visual images must flow everyday. With consistent writing to focus thoughts, empathy and make-believe, aesthetic grounds emerge. The human pleasures of public art and public space deepen – and that is the goal of this blog.
– Glenn Weiss, January 24, 2007