Aesthetic Grounds

Public Art, Public Space

Round-up of Articles on Kara Walker’s sugar baby

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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...]

Mobile Art, ELMO and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

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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...]

PAMM in Miami: Where did the building go? Where is the public art?

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At the Arsht Performing Arts Center across the highway from the new Perez Art Museum Miami, architect Cesar Pelli and the Miami-Dade Percent for Art Program filled the building and public spaces with public art.  Arsht may be the best integrated public art and public architecture of this century.   (According to Miami Dade, PAMM did not qualify for the Percent for Art program.) There is "art" … [Read more...]

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...]

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