Americans for the Arts

University of Chicago professor Hung Wuy defines experimental art in China, and explains it role and history since its beginnings in 1979.

Nothing stirs the imagination as does art; and nothing stir's the public's imagination - or indignation - as do publicly funded, large-scale works of art that are located in highly traveled places. Recently, the State of Rhode Island was faced with its own public arts controversy, playing out an all-too-familiar script in an all-too-familiar performance. This essay explores one model of successful public arts patronage and then applies it to the Rhode Island drama as a case study in an attempt to identify elements, both similar and unique, in order to discuss possible plot shifts and

Because of the paucity of published information on the urban garden, I thought it would be helpful to have writers from different disciplines address the urban garden from their own distinct perspectives. Jane Weissman provides an overview of community gardening in New York City and its historical antecedents. While Weissman's focus is on the grassroots efforts of neighborhood groups across the city, her essay also reveals the linkages between community gardening and public art. From the context of the municipal parks and grand European-style boulevards that have been the primary form of

This document is intended to help rural communities that are considering a public art project. It is formatted as a series of questions about public art that is most commonly posed to public art authorities in Oregon. Practical and easy-to-read, this publication can be a strong resource for those communities who wish to undertake a public art program, but have questions about the field.

Presented at the conference Public Art Dialogue - Southeast sponsored by the Durham Arts Council and the North Carolina Arts Council, held in Durham, North Carolina, June 8-11, 1989.

Despite cutbacks in federal funding for the arts, the N. C. General Assembly has boosted its support for the arts in recent years - with one notable exception. The Artworks for State Buildings Program. In 1995, legislators repealed a law that had required public art for major state construction projects because of controversies surrounding some of the first artworks commissioned under the program. The law, enacted in 1988, had required the state to set aside money - 0.5 percent of the construction costs - to acquire art for new or renovated buildings and their surrounding grounds. But the

In recent decades, many cities have realized that no form of transportation moves large numbers of people with the speed, efficiency and environmental benefits of mass transit. Trains and buses enable cities to reduce the harm done to their environment and economy by the proliferation of automobiles. Because urban leaders understand that transit makes their regions more livable and more competitive, with the assistance of the federal government they have worked to revitalize old systems and build new ones. They also recognize the power of transit to create a sense of place and to manifest

This resource provides information on various public art programs in the .

Over the last three decades the federal government, through its Art-in-Architecture program, has funded more than 200 permanent art installations in cities throughout America. This study examines the public response to a sample of 41 such public art projects and attempts to illuminate the factors that lead to official or organized conflict. Findings suggest that controversies are most likely to erupt over abstract art placed in relatively small cities and cities experiencing high rates of population growth. This is especially true when the community is not asked to participate in the project

Local papers ranked it the biggest cultural controversy to hit San Francisco in 20 years. But for the sculptor Richard Serra, it was a familiar refrain. The controversy started in early July when the San Francisco Chronicle published a photograph of a preliminary model of a Serra sculpture commissioned by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The model was of a 48-foot tall, 140-ton planar structure intended for a parking area across from the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, which, with the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, makes up the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

FDR never wanted a monument for himself. And who could blame him? It was he who watched with growing dismay, throughout the Depression and much of World War II, as battle raged over the proposed Jefferson Memorial. Today, that circular, domed edifice beside the Tidal Basin seems a stately embodiment of the Republic itself. But back then, it was a lightning rod for critics, and when it finally seemed it would never get built, Franklin Roosevelt personally intervened.

A reprint of an article from the Encyclopedia of Architecture: Design, Engineering, and Construction, Volume IV covers art in public places from classical antiquity to present day. Topics covered include government public arts programs, percent-for-art legislation, art in transportation facilities, individuals and corporations as art patrons, and the role of art in urban planning.

Presented at the conference Public Art Dialogue - Southeast sponsored by the Durham Arts Council and the North Carolina Arts Council, held in Durham, North Carolina, June 8-11, 1989.

The controversy over Richard Serra's Tilted Arc involves a number of issues concerning public art. While this case has prompted what is perhaps the most acrimonious and well-publicized debate over public art, controversies concerning other public artworks have arisen elsewhere with increasing frequency during the last decade. Since each artwork is unique, commentators have tended to regard each public art incident as essentially idiosyncratic, prompted by the impact of a particular artwork, governed by the tastes and degree of sophistication of a specific audience, and provoked by flawed