BiblioVault - Books about Public sculpture

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Cleveland’s Free Stamp

Cleveland’s Free Stamp

Edward J. Olszewski

Ohio University Press, 2017

In 1985, the Sohio oil company commissioned Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen to design and construct a large outdoor sculpture for its new corporate headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio. The result was Free Stamp, a bold and distinctive installation that captured both a Pop Art sensibility and a connection to the city’s industrial past. Sohio executives approved the design, and work was already underway, when British Petroleum acquired the company. The new owners quickly decided that the sculpture was “inappropriate” for their building and attempted to rid themselves of Free Stamp by donating it to the city of Cleveland—a gift that the city initially had no desire to accept. After much debate and public protest, the sculpture found a home in Willard Park, where it stands today.

This is the first study of any sculpture by Oldenburg and van Bruggen to examine the genesis of their art from conception to installation. Edward J. Olszewski has put together a fascinating narrative based on interviews with the artists, archival material from city records, and in-house corporate memoranda, as well as letters to the editor and political cartoons. He traces the development of the sculpture from the artists’ first sketches and models to the installation of the completed work in its urban environment.

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Public Sculpture in New Jersey

Monuments to Collective Identity

Bzdak, Meredith Arms

Rutgers University Press, 1999

New Jersey boasts more than 700 public sculptures. When viewed as a group, these works give us great insights about who helped to shape New Jersey, what events we considered significant, and how we hope we will be remembered. Public Sculpture in New Jersey examines 150 years of past and current patterns in the commissioning and placement of outdoor art in the Garden State.

The book contains essays that profile the state’s 100 most significant works as well as the artists who created them, and features nearly 100 magnificent photographs that document these works, capturing the effects of time and the environment on each sculpture. Bzdak and Petersen selected these works for the variety of stories they tell and for their range of artistic expression, from traditional to contemporary, rather than focusing only on the best known or most visible works of public sculpture. By telling the stories behind the sculptures, the book captures New Jersey’s history, especially history that may not be well known but that conveys significant information about how our predecessors lived and the official images they sought to leave behind.

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Tilted Arc Controversy

Dangerous Precedent

Harriet F. Senie

University of Minnesota Press, 2001

A comprehensive look at a controversy that continues to fuel debates about the role of public art in America. Since its installation at and subsequent removal from New York City's Federal Plaza, noted sculptor Richard Serra's Tilted Arc has been a touchstone for debates over the role of public art. Installed in 1981, the 10-foot-high, 120-foot-long curved wall of Cor-Ten self-rusting steel instantly became a magnet for criticism. Art critics in the New York Times and the Village Voice labeled it the city's worst public sculpture, and many denounced it as an example of the elitism associated with art and as an obstacle to the use and enjoyment of the plaza. Harriet F. Senie explores the history of Tilted Arc, including its 1979 commission and the heated public hearings that eventually led to its removal in 1989 (it was dismantled and is currently stored in a government warehouse in Maryland). Analyzing the archive of popular opinion, Senie shows how the sculpture was caught in an avalanche of shifting local and national discussions about public funding for the arts. She examines the tactics of those opposed to the sculpture and the media's superficial and sensational coverage of the controversy, reframing the dialogue in terms of public art, public space, and public policy instead of the question of whether the removal of Tilted Arc was poetic justice or a dangerous precedent. Senie provides an enlightening history and analysis of a controversy that will continue to inform our discussions about public art for years to come. Harriet F. Senie is director of museum studies and professor of art history at the City University of New York's City College and professor of art history at CUNY's Graduate Center. $21.95 Paper ISBN 0-8166-3786-5 224 pages | 53 halftones | 7 x 10 | 2001

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Whose Art Is It?

Jane Kramer

Duke University Press, 1994

Whose Art Is It? is the story of sculptor John Ahearn, a white artist in a black and Hispanic neighborhood of the South Bronx, and of the people he cast for a series of public sculptures commissioned for an intersection outside a police station. Jane Kramer, telling this story, raises one of the most urgent questions of our time: How do we live in a society we share with people who are, often by their own definitions, "different?" Ahearn’s subjects were "not the best of the neighborhood." They were a junkie, a hustler, and a street kid. Their images sparked a controversy throughout the community—and New York itself—over issues of white representations of people of color and the appropriateness of particular images as civic art. The sculptures, cast in bronze and painted, were up for only five days before Ahearn removed them.
This compelling narrative raises questions about community and public art policies, about stereotypes and multiculturalism. With wit, drama, sympathy, and circumspection, Kramer draws the reader into the multicultural debate, challenging our assumptions about art, image, and their relation to community. Her portrait of the South Bronx takes the argument to its grass roots—provocative, surprising in its contradictions and complexities and not at all easy to resolve.
Accompanied by an introduction by Catharine R. Stimpson exploring the issues of artistic freedom, "political correctness," and multiculturalism, Whose Art Is It? is a lively and accessible introduction to the ongoing debate on representation and private expression in the public sphere.

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