Art Market Monitor

Roberta Smith gives public art a big thumbs up in the New York Times, remarking that it has gone from an embarrassing backwater to a vibrant leader:

At the time many of the most talented emerging sculptors were making anything but sculpture. Ephemeral installations, earthworks and permanent site-specific works were in vogue, and soon the very phrase “public sculpture” had been replaced by public art, an amorphous new category in which art could be almost anything: LED signs, billboards, slide or video projections, guerrilla actions, suites of waterfalls.

But over the past 15 years public sculpture — that is, static, often figurative objects of varying sizes in outdoor public spaces — has become one of contemporary art’s more exciting areas of endeavor and certainly its most dramatically improved one.

Public Art: Eye Sore to Eye Candy (New York Times)

Also of Interest:

• Art: Commodity or Public Trust?
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• The Problems with the Public Trust
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• Where Does the “Public Trust” End?
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• Public Art from a Private Collector
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• How Does Art Get to Be a Public Trust?
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