Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art [Paperback]

Suzanne Lacy (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1994

In this anthology of twelve essays, editor Suzanne Lacy and eleven eminent artists, curators, and critics forge a critical framework for understanding and interpreting the new public art that has emerged over the last two decades. Mapping the Terrain departs from traditional definitions of public art and explores how the new public art reaches diverse audiences to address issues of race, gender, homelessness, ecology, and urbanization. Also included in this publication is a useful illustrated compendium that chronicles the work of over ninety pioneering new genre public artists. Mapping the Terrain makes an invaluable contribution to the continuing debate about public art and how it can be meaningfully woven into our social fabric. TOC: Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1 - An Unfashionable Audience, by Mary Jane Jacob Chapter 2 - Public Constructions, by Patricia C. Phillips Chapter 3 - Connective Aesthetics: Art After Individualism, by Suzi Gablik Chapter 4 - To Search for the Good and Make It Matter, by Estella Conwill Majozo Chapter 5 - From Art-mageddon to Gringostroika: A Manifesto against Censorship, by Guillermo Gomez-Pena Chapter 6 - Looking Around: Where We Are, Where We Could Be, by Lucy R. Lippard Chapter 7 - Whose Monument Where? Public Art in a Many-Cultured Society, by Judith F. Baca Chapter 8 - Common Work, by Jeff Kelley Chapter 9 - Success and Failure When Art Changes, by Allan Kaprow Chapter 10 - Word of Honor, by Arlene Raven Chapter 11 - Debated Territory: Toward a Critical Language for Public Art, by Suzanne Lacy Editor's Introduction Compendium Contributors Photo Credits

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

For several decades now, art has been leaving museum halls in search of a more vital interactive context. Some feel that this search represents a broad shift in perspective whose time has come. This set of essays is an attempt to formulate an ideological understanding inclusive of installation, performance, site-specific work, and other manifestations frequently encountered yet generally misunderstood. What makes this book useful and different is its collaborative slant: each author was aware of what the others were doing. Most of the writers, among them Lucy Lippard and Suzi Gablik, are well known in the field. The book acts literally as a conceptual map clarifying recent art history and helping to define unifying traits such as a strong social orientation, ecology, and new technologies. The reader is left with a better understanding of what exactly "new genre" means. Highly recommended for museum and academic libraries.
Sue Olcott, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., Ohio
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Edited by Suzanne Lacy, a Bay Area artist and theorist, the collection is the first to attempt such a comprehensive look at the field. Indeed, the sheer scope of consideration is breathtaking at times, and the contributors convincingly provide a collective framework for art events as various as billboard art and fifties Happenings, mural projects and parks implemented by urban planners, site-specific sculptures, and ritual dances. Artists as varied as Judy Chicago, Christo, Ant Farm, the Guerrilla Girls and Mujeres Muralistas are considered. The book breaks ground, however, in its effort to provoke, disturb and disrupt the reader's sense of where, exactly, the boundaries between life and art are drawn. Whereas much public art criticism is descriptive, the contributors to this volume concentrate on articulating "where we are and where we're going" (Lucy R. Lippard), and all participated in the creation of the compendium which lists individual artists and describes specific works. The attempt is less to map out, survey or contain than it is to devise critical strategies and theoretical and practical approaches to this dramatically expanding field -- Artweek, April, 1995

In original essays, well-known critics and artists (among them Lucy Lippard, Arlene Raven, Suzi Gablik, and Guillermo Gomez-Pena) explore what happens when artists directly engage and address "real-world" audiences in various public sites and use public art as an instrument of public change. Included is a valuable illustrated compendium of ninety pioneering artists who, for nearly twenty years, have been perfecting an artistic aesthetic based not on similarities of medium but on shared methods, purpose, and intent. -- Midwest Book Review

Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, edited by Lacy, fuels the emerging critical discourse in public art and begins to define a new style of art production. The text includes 12 essays by important artists, curators and critics, as well as a compendium of the work of over 90 artists. Many of the essays included in this text speak out strongly against Modernist claims of authorship and individuality. Historical notions of a passive audience viewing large-scale sculpture in plazas, what Lucy Lippard refers to as "plunk art," are challenged by new genre public art. By interacting with the audience in participatory events that intend to build community, many have questioned whether the result is actually art or social work.....Mapping the Terrain seeks to firmly place this type of activity in an art context and calls for a re-evaluation of existing definitions of art. Particularly noteworthy in this regard are the essays by Suzi Gablik, Patricia Phillips, Lippard and Jeff Kelley --Afterimage, Summer, 1996

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Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Bay Pr (November 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0941920305
• ISBN-13: 978-0941920308
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96,661 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #34 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Language Nonfiction > Chinese

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Raising questions about the purpose of public art., January 10, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (State College PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art (Paperback)

In Suzanne Lacy's Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, authors espouse continuity and responsibility through community-based public art works, collaborative practices among artists and their audiences, and the engagement of multiple audiences through empathy and appreciation. Their sense of new genre public art builds on exposure, deconstruction, and rejection of modernism's constructs and myths. Throughout these essays terms such as "community", "consensus", "truth", "good", and "multiple voices" are used to propagate a genre of public art that is dematerialized and progressive. Yet, it is not realistic to assume that consensus and community will always be progressive forces. This book raises more questions than it answers. Such as; can an artist go too far in the direction of consensus and community? Isn't there danger in not recognizing the tensions and conflicts within any group interaction (small community) for the sense of consensus (common good). Do the multiple voices include those that do not label the project "art?" Do these, and other public art projects have the potential to fall back into the modernist trap of being seen as a fraud, a hoax, or a loss of craft, in which audiences are insulted? Are these projects art because an artist was involved, and what happens to that role if the artist is simply a conduit for other voices? Can the artist speak for communities from which the artist does not belong (is it better to utilize local artists from within the communities)?

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, August 26, 2011

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TH "Tabs" (Alabama) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art (Paperback)

Arrived from the seller top-notch! I am using this for my MFA program, and it has already proved incredibly useful. The questions and ideas brought about by Susan Lacy surrounding public art are interesting and deeply engaging.