Call for populist public art.

Public Art: Theory, Practice and Populism

By Cher Krause Knight

Blackwell Publishing, 2008

187 pp./$32.95 (sb)

From Richard Serra's Tilled Arc (1981) to Jeff Koons's Train (scheduled for 2011), from Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1981) to The Gates (2005) by Christo and Jean-Claude, public art has ignited heated discussions sometimes resulting in its removal from the site, its modification, or other arrangements to appease. The answer to the question of why we have incessant controversies over these publicly displayed artworks can be found in the pages of Cher Krause Knight's Public Art: Theory, Practice and Populism. Here Knight refutes the narrow definition of public art as physically located in public space, geographically bound to a site, and open to the public for free. Instead, she endorses populism as a key factor that would make a public artwork more engaging and successful. Negating the derogatory implication of populism, she grants it values and significance based on her understanding of it as "increasing viewer's agency through proactive choices" (131), and calls for populist, public art. If public art has been under scrutiny mainly because it garners better exposure to non-museum goers or "homogenous philistines" (61), then that very fact offers a new direction and a more inclusive definition of public art. Her implication is that what sparks uproar over public art is its lack of accessibility and community involvement rather than its inappropriate use of public space or funding.

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Through her categorization of public art as monuments, amenities, parks, agoras, and pilgrimages, Knight problematizes the previous historical understanding of public art, expands its scope to include memorials, Land Art, Cyber Art, and other artistic practices, and also examines the museum as "a potential site for public art" (50). These various fields are interconnected through the idea of civic engagement, as museums and public art programs could better themselves by becoming more responsive to, and deeply involved with, audiences. Knight's consistent demand for community building and social engineering is anchored in her notion that public art should be about the democratization of art and public empowerment, encouraging viewers' own critical faculties and not oppressing them. Therefore, the criteria that distinguish public art from private are intellectual and emotional accessibilities rather than physical accessibility to the people.

After this readjustment of the definition of public art, Knight discusses Disney World, Rain Forest Cafe, and Treasure Island Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. She does not confuse public art and privately sponsored ventures but addresses her strong argument that a lesson can be learned from these urban entertainment destinations. However commercialized and non-authentic, they are proactive, stimulating environments, encouraging and thriving on participatory interaction with visitors. They are well versed in people's varied interests and willing to listen to the public and adapt accordingly. While they have capitalist agendas and are not for the public good per se, their adaptability, changeability, and know-how concerning animating public spaces and engaging pedestrians are laudable and become great lessons for public art projects. In this provocative discussion of the private sector. Knight does not attempt to resolve the frictions between public and private, high and low, and/or art and non-art. Instead she carefully delineates how our private consuming act becomes a part of public spectacle, and how our encounter of public art is a private and individualized practice, yet how we become more receptive to visual messages when we are welcomingly invited to the communal discourse of art. Not only are theme parks, restaurants, casinos, and the Big Dig in Boston situated on the merging ground of public-private partnerships, but public art can also proactively foster such partnerships as exemplified by the NAMES Project's AIDS Memorial Quilt.

Knight's call for public art that reinforces participatory viewership, egalitarianism, and social networks is clearly presented throughout the book. While public art is not a popularity contest, it could be a "hollow endeavor" (57) without fulfilling its social responsibility, prompting social interactions among visitors, fostering proactive roles played by the public. While her discussion marginalizes self-referential abstract sculptures self-contained in public places and traditional equestrian statues in piazzas of Europe, she offers a twenty-first-century definition of public art. To Knight, it is art that is dedicated to the people, owned--psychologically, if not financially--by the people, and unified with the people. Because of this fundamental aspect, she argues, public art's developmental direction should head toward the public--whether they are called visitors, audiences, pedestrians, bystanders, shoppers, or even philistines.

NOGIN CHUNG is an assistant professor of Art History at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.

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