Public Art and the Fragility of Democracy

Public Art and the Fragility of Democracy PDF Author: Fred Evans
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231547366
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
Public space is political space. When a work of public art is put up or taken down, it is an inherently political statement, and the work’s aesthetics are inextricably entwined with its political valences. Democracy’s openness allows public art to explore its values critically and to suggest new ones. However, it also facilitates artworks that can surreptitiously or fortuitously undermine democratic values. Today, as bigotry and authoritarianism are on the rise and democratic movements seek to combat them, as Confederate monuments fall and sculptures celebrating diversity rise, the struggle over the values enshrined in the public arena has taken on a new urgency. In this book, Fred Evans develops philosophical and political criteria for assessing how public art can respond to the fragility of democracy. He calls for considering such artworks as acts of citizenship, pointing to their capacity to resist autocratic tendencies and reveal new dimensions of democratic society. Through close considerations of Chicago’s Millennium Park and New York’s National September 11 Memorial, Evans shows how a wide range of artworks participate in democratic dialogues. A nuanced consideration of contemporary art, aesthetics, and political theory, this book is a timely and rigorous elucidation of how thoughtful public art can contribute to the flourishing of a democratic way of life.

Public Art and the Fragility of Democracy

Public Art and the Fragility of Democracy PDF Author: Fred Evans
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231547366
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 235

Get Book

Book Description
Public space is political space. When a work of public art is put up or taken down, it is an inherently political statement, and the work’s aesthetics are inextricably entwined with its political valences. Democracy’s openness allows public art to explore its values critically and to suggest new ones. However, it also facilitates artworks that can surreptitiously or fortuitously undermine democratic values. Today, as bigotry and authoritarianism are on the rise and democratic movements seek to combat them, as Confederate monuments fall and sculptures celebrating diversity rise, the struggle over the values enshrined in the public arena has taken on a new urgency. In this book, Fred Evans develops philosophical and political criteria for assessing how public art can respond to the fragility of democracy. He calls for considering such artworks as acts of citizenship, pointing to their capacity to resist autocratic tendencies and reveal new dimensions of democratic society. Through close considerations of Chicago’s Millennium Park and New York’s National September 11 Memorial, Evans shows how a wide range of artworks participate in democratic dialogues. A nuanced consideration of contemporary art, aesthetics, and political theory, this book is a timely and rigorous elucidation of how thoughtful public art can contribute to the flourishing of a democratic way of life.

The Practice of Public Art

The Practice of Public Art PDF Author: Cameron Cartiere
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113589468X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
This exciting new collection of essays by practicing artists, curators, activists, art writers, administrators, city planners, and educators offers divergent perspectives on the numerous facets of the public art process. The volume also includes a useful graphic timeline of public art history.

The Moving Image as Public Art

The Moving Image as Public Art PDF Author: Annie Dell'Aria
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030659046
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
This book maps the presence of moving images within the field of public art through encounters with passersby. It argues that far from mere distraction or spectacle, moving images can produce moments of enchantment that can renew, intensify, or challenge our everyday engagement with public space and each other. These artworks also offer frameworks for understanding how moving images operate in public space—how they move viewers and reconfigure the site of the screen. Each chapter explores a mode of address that examines how artists and curators leverage the moving image’s attentional power to engage audiences, create spaces, make place, and challenge assumptions. This book also examines the difficulties and compromises that arise when using urban screens for public art.

The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of the City

The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of the City PDF Author: Sharon M. Meagher
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317400631
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of the City is an outstanding reference source to this exciting subject and the first collection of its kind. Comprising 40 chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into clear sections addressing the following central topics: • Historical Philosophical Engagements with Cities • Modern and Contemporary Philosophical Theories of the City • Urban Aesthetics • Urban Politics • Citizenship • Urban Environments and the Creation/Destruction of Place. The concluding section, Urban Engagements, contains interviews with philosophers discussing their engagement with students and the wider public on issues and initiatives including experiential learning, civic and community engagement, disability rights and access, environmental degradation, professional diversity, social justice, and globalization. Essential reading for students and researchers in environmental philosophy, aesthetics, and political philosophy, The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of the City is also a useful resource for those in related fields, such as geography, urban studies, sociology, and political science.

Doing Democracy

Doing Democracy PDF Author: Nancy S. Love
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438449127
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
Doing Democracy examines the potential of the arts and popular culture to extend and deepen the experience of democracy. Its contributors address the use of photography, cartooning, memorials, monuments, poetry, literature, music, theater, festivals, and parades to open political spaces, awaken critical consciousness, engage marginalized groups in political activism, and create new, more democratic societies. This volume demonstrates how ordinary people use the creative and visionary capacity of the arts and popular culture to shape alternative futures. It is unique in its insistence that democratic theorists and activists should acknowledge and employ affective as well as rational faculties in the ongoing struggle for democracy.

The Arts of Democracy

The Arts of Democracy PDF Author: Casey Nelson Blake
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 9780812240290
Category : Art and state
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Written by some of the most respected and accomplished scholars working in their fields, this volume illuminates the often contradictory impulses that have shaped the historical intersection of the arts, public culture, and the state in modern America.

Connecting Museums

Connecting Museums PDF Author: Mark O'Neill
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351036165
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Connecting Museums explores the boundaries of museums and how external relationships are affected by internal commitments, structures and traditions. Focusing on museums’ relationship with heath, inclusion, and community, the book provides a detailed assessment of the alliances between museums and other stakeholders in recent years. With contributions from practitioners and established and early-career academics, this volume explore the ideas and practices through which museums are seeking to move beyond what might be called one-off contributions to society, to reach places where the museum is dynamic and facilitates self-generation and renewal, where it can become not just a provider of a cultural service, but an active participant in the rehabilitation of social trust and democratic participation. The contributors to this volume provide conceptual critiques and clarification of a number of key ideas which form the basis of the ethics of museum legitimacy, as well as a number of reports from the front line about the experience of trying to renew museums as more valuable and more relevant institutions. Providing internal and external perspectives, Connecting Museums presents a mix of applied and theoretical understandings of the changing roles of museums today. As such, the book should be of interest to academics, researchers and students working in the broad fields of museum and heritage studies, material culture, and arts and museum management.

Companion to Public Space

Companion to Public Space PDF Author: Vikas Mehta
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351002163
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 621

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Book Description
The Companion to Public Space draws together an outstanding multidisciplinary collection of specially commissioned chapters that offer the state of the art in the intellectual discourse, scholarship, research, and principles of understanding in the construction of public space. Thematically, the volume crosses disciplinary boundaries and traverses territories to address the philosophical, political, legal, planning, design, and management issues in the social construction of public space. The Companion uniquely assembles important voices from diverse fields of philosophy, political science, geography, anthropology, sociology, urban design and planning, architecture, art, and many more, under one cover. It addresses the complete ecology of the topic to expose the interrelated issues, challenges, and opportunities of public space in the twenty-first century. The book is primarily intended for scholars and graduate students for whom it will provide an invaluable and up-to-date guide to current thinking across the range of disciplines that converge in the study of public space. The Companion will also be of use to practitioners and public officials who deal with the planning, design, and management of public spaces.

Creative Rebellion for the Twenty-First Century

Creative Rebellion for the Twenty-First Century PDF Author: D. Boros
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137016582
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Employing political philosophy to argue the need for social and public art projects to be a part of the everyday lives of Americans, Boros creates a new synthesis of philosophical ideas to support the political value of public art.

The Failures of Public Art and Participation

The Failures of Public Art and Participation PDF Author: Cameron Cartiere
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000631427
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This collection of original essays takes a multi-disciplinary approach to explore the theme of failure through the broad spectrum of public art and social practice. The anthology brings together practicing artists, curators, activists, art writers, administrators, planners, and educators from around the world to offer differing perspectives on the many facets of failure in commissioning, planning, producing, evaluating, and engaging communities in the continually evolving field of art in the public realm. As such, this book offers a survey of currently unexplored and interconnected thinking, and provides a much-needed critical voice to the commissioning of public and participatory arts. The volume includes case studies from the UK, the US, China, Cuba, and Denmark, as well as discussions of digital public art collections. The Failures of Public Art and Participation will be of interest for students and scholars of visual arts, design and architecture interested in how art in the public realm fits within social and political contexts.