A Companion to Public Art - Paperback

by Cher Krause Knight (Editor), Harriet F. Senie (Editor)

A Companion to Public Art is the only scholarly volume to examine the main issues, theories, and practices of public art on a comprehensive scale.

• Edited by two distinguished scholars with contributions from art historians, critics, curators, and art administrators, as well as artists themselves
• Includes 19 essays in four sections: tradition, site, audience, and critical frameworks
• Covers important topics in the field, including valorizing victims, public art in urban landscapes and on university campuses, the role of digital technologies, jury selection committees, and the intersection of public art and mass media
• Contains "artist's philosophy" essays, which address larger questions about an artist's body of work and the field of public art, by Julian Bonder, eteam (Hajoe Moderegger and Franziska Lamprecht), John Craig Freeman, Antony Gormley, Suzanne Lacy, Caleb Neelon, Tatzu Nishi, Greg Sholette, and Alan Sonfist.

Back Jacket

A Companion to Public Art

A Companion to Public Art is the only scholarly volume to examine the main issues, theories, and practices of public art on a comprehensive scale. Edited by Cher Krause Knight and Harriet F. Senie, two distinguished scholars in this burgeoning field, it brings together established and emergent scholars ranging from art and architectural historians, critics, public art curators and art administrators, as well as artists.

With 19 essays in four sections--tradition, site, audience, and critical frameworks--the Companion assesses public art as it is taught, thought about, and talked about within the field, and how it is conceived in the public and popular imagination. The essays discuss important topics including valorizing victims, public art in urban landscapes and on university campuses, the role of digital technologies, jury selection committees, time and memory, patronage, and the intersection of public art and mass media. In addition to perspectives from scholars and professionals in the discipline, it contains contributions by artists. These "artist's philosophy" essays address larger questions about an artist's body of work and the field of public art, by Julian Bonder, eteam (Hajoe Moderegger and Franziska Lamprecht), John Craig Freeman, Antony Gormley, Suzanne Lacy, Caleb Neelon, Tatzu Nishi, Greg Sholette, and Alan Sonfist.

Authoritative and indispensible, this guide is essential reading for anyone involved in the teaching, creating, commissioning, and contemplating of public art.

Author Biography

Cher Krause Knight is Professor of Art History at Emerson College, USA. She is the author of Power and Paradise in Walt Disney's World (2014; paperback 2019); and Public Art: Theory, Practice and Populism (Blackwell, 2008). With Harriet F. Senie she also co-edited and contributed to Museums and Public Art? (2018). Together, Knight and Senie co-founded Public Art Dialogue, an international professional organization devoted to providing an interdisciplinary critical forum for the field. They also co-founded and co-edited the journal Public Art Dialogue, the first peer-reviewed journal devoted specifically to public art.

Harriet F. Senie is Professor of Art History and Director of the M.A. program in Art History and the Art Museum Studies track at City University, New York, USA. She also teaches at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11 (2015); Dangerous Precedent? The 'Tilted Arc' Controversy (2001); and Contemporary Public Sculpture: Tradition, Transformation, and Controversy (1992). With Cher Krause Knight she co-edited and contributed to Museums and Public Art? (2018), and with Sally Webster, Critical Issues in Public Art: Content, Context, and Controversy (1992; revised edition 1998).