For anyone who shares my utter dismay regarding the dehumanization of public art in recent decades,1 I have good news. An extraordinarily ambitious, heartfelt, and skillful work of figurative public art is underway that communicates without the aid of an artist’s statement. It is the slightly larger-than-life sculptural relief for the National World War I […]
A Soldier’s Journey: The Weight of Sacrifice, Commission of Fine Arts, dehumanization of public art, Duane Hanson, Edwin Fountain, figurative sculpture, George Segal, Joseph Weishaar, Maya Lin, National World War I Memorial, Pangolin foundry, Pershing Park, Sabin Howard, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Weta Workshop, WW I Centennial CommissionThis time students at Columbia University have gotten it right. More than 1,200 of them have signed a petition protesting the proposed installation of Henry Moore’s modernist sculpture Reclining Figure (1969-70) in front of the university’s elegantly neo-classical Butler Library. According to Roberto Ferrari—the curator at Columbia’s art and architecture library, who announced the forthcoming installation—the […]
The recent installation of a newly commissioned work entitled Masks (Pentagon) by Thomas Houseago in New York’s Rockefeller Plaza highlights the latest of a long list of bizarre projects spearheaded by the Public Art Fund. Like numerous other projects organized by the Fund and supported by prominent public officials and business leaders in recent years, it promotes […]
