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Public Art, Public Space

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Brian Miller: World’s FIRST town artist. 1962

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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

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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...]

Street Artists and Airplanes

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With os gemeos's completion of the FIFA airplane for the Brazilian World Cup Team, I noticed the on-going exhibition in Pima, Arizona of street artists who have painted abandoned planes at the famous airplane "boneyard" and now museum.    We can't forget Calder for Braniff in the 1970s and the unknown-to-me artist for Ecuatoriana.  Please forget Peter Max for Continental. "The Bone Yard … [Read more...]

Kara Walker Tangent: All roads lead to Mammy’s Kitchen

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"All roads led to Mammy's Kitchen" in the 1960s and 70s in Myrtle Beach.   As a boy, my family spent a week every summer making sand castles and body surfacing.  I remember the cool breezes at night, lonely walks as a teenager and all the signs sending tourists to Mammy's Kitchen.    No memory of eating there, just the signs.  "All roads lead to.................... Kara Walker's sugar baby sent … [Read more...]

Kara Walker Tangent: Ernst Fuchs

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Ernst Fuchs has nothing to do with Kara Walker's sugar baby except that her work led me to discover Ernst Fuchs.  Fuchs created an "all human" female sphinx in the 1970s.  (See Tangent: Sexual Sphinx). Fuchs caught my attention as Fuchs saved Otto Wagner's house from the wrecking ball in 1963 in a failed partnership with two other visionary artists - Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Arnulf … [Read more...]

Kara Walker Tangents: Sexual Sphinx

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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

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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...]

Return of the Dome and Bubble Pavilion

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The dome structure has a mundane and glorious history from the African thatched house to the soaring dome of dome of Florence.  In the 1960s and 70s thorough Buckminster Fuller and Hippies, the dome returned to world fairs and rural, self-built homes.  Today the digital design software combined with computer controlled routers or jet cutters have brought a resurgence in small structures that range … [Read more...]

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