Customer Reviews

Public Art: Theory, Practice and Populism

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This book is a required read for anyone interested in contemporary art, pubic art, aesthetics and/or the history of modern/contemporary art. It is very well written and highly readable and provides both insight and substance for both the novice and the expert alike. The approach taken by Knight is an insightful and significant one. This book gives an important reevaluation of public art as not just a place/art of monuments and site based works but as a key and active aesthetic ground in which the varied interest (public/private), functions (monument/aesthetic statement), audiences (general population/art world), and cultural frames and references (popular culture/ fine art), make for aesthetic and cultural proving ground. One of my most important realizations from reading Krause's book is that rather than being a kind "no persons' land," which is neither important for the art world nor for the public, public art is one of the most important categories of art production today. And for this insight alone the book is well worth the price and I intend to use this book in several of my graduate level college studio art classes. I recommend it to one and all.

Knight provides a crucial study reevaluating the parameters and function of public art. In language that is accessible for a broad audience, she employs a methodological soundness and real insight. Knight, widely acknowledged for her studies on popular culture, situates art within the ubiquitous world of contemporary spectacle. Within the first pages, she introduces the complex framework that has risen around this subject. Rather than sidestep the slippery terrain that encompasses function, aesthetics, and reception, she advocates the critical involvement of the viewer as an essential component. In so doing, she navigates precarious territory by steering midcourse between the tastemakers and the cultural consumers. She qualifies with the following, "My populist perspective seeks balance between the hypercritical and uncritical nodes; to reorient our appreciation for artworks already absorbed into the canon, highlight the viewer's role, and suggest and expanded terrain for public art."
Her study proceeds after a useful review of American public art to examine different responses and modes of interaction, from Christo to Scott Burton, from Lightning Field to Disneyworld. Throughout, she constructs an invaluable network of viewpoints from the most significant theorists and critics of the past and present (John Beardsley, Malcolm Miles). With its compendium of relevant dialogues, its resistance of pretentiousness, and its critical consideration of the terms inherent to the medium, Knight's study is a compelling and vital resource for scholars and enthusiasts alike.

Ms. Knight's `Public Art' is very disappointing. She sets out her agenda/bias in the preface, "I contend that art becomes most fully public when it has palpable populist sentiments - the extension of emotional and intellectual, as well as physical, accessibility to the audience - not a pretension toward such." She uses terms like "accessibility" (which is a loaded term) assuming there is some kind of shared understanding of the meaning. She goes on to slam art "elitists"; equating them with, "...centurions standing guard over and imposing their culture on others." She defines elitists as having a "need for professionalism...and standards of quality..."

Ms. Knight seems to be arguing for a T-ball mentality - everyone should play - when it comes to public art. I find it strange that the people who make a case for populism and accessibility in the arts would never apply the same criteria to own profession. Ms. Knight is an Assistant Professor of Art History at Emerson College. If a position were to come open in Ms. Knight's department, would it be elitist to ask that the applicants had an upper-level degree, teaching experience, that they actually studied art history, that they could even write? Would her department hire, or even consider a person who had none of those qualifications? I don't think so.

I think the book would have been better if Ms. Knight would have stuck to analyzing the public art scene and not try to impose her agenda on the subject.

I enjoyed this book thoroughly and intend to make several personal "Art Pilgrimages" as a result!