Red Grooms Ruckus Manhattan Creative Time Art on the Beach

L years ago it would've been hard to imagine a public sculpture in New York that wasn't a statue of a hero. But as a new show at the Museum of the City of New York, "Fine art in the Open: L Years of Public Art in New York," shows, there has been an explosion of public art in the past half-century, led in role by the Parks Department, Creative Fourth dimension (launched in 1973), Percent for Art (1982), the MTA Arts and Pattern (1985), and the Public Art Fund (1977).

This year also marks the 50th anniversary of New York Urban center'due south kickoff large-scale outdoor public art exhibition, organized past time to come Public Art Fund founder Doris Freedman in 1967.

"In that location's an incredibly rich infrastructure for putting art out in the open hither in New York," museum curator Lilly Tuttle told artnet News during a tour of the exhibition, which takes that 1967 group show, titled "Sculpture in the Environment," as its starting bespeak.

The historic exhibition featured work past artists including Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, and Claes Oldenburg—who, in a piece that would never be permitted today, hired gravediggers to excavate a half-dozen-foot-wide hole in Central Park. (Even at the time, "it caused quite an uproar," Freedman's daughter and current Public Art Fund president Susan Yard. Freedman told artnet News. "No one got that it was art.")

I sculpture from the exhibition, Tony Rosenthal'south The Alamo, became a beloved permanent installation, today more normally known equally the Astor Place Cube.

"A model of public art that put the artists' phonation and cutting border art comes into play in the 1960s," Tuttle said. "What nosotros've seen over this fifty-yr menstruum is artists using traditional media like sculpture and murals, only as well water and land, and doing art in the air, and making art out of garbage, and doing fine art that is performative with people. The scope of public art has only grown and grown."

Works past Kara Walker and Agnes Denes on view in "Art in the Open up" at the Museum of the City of New York. Photo courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York.

Fifty-fifty though public art is often ephemeral, and can exist massive in scale, making it impossible to display in a museum context, the show is a visually compelling combination of photographs, preparatory models and sketches, video footage, and other documents.

The show does include some original work, yet. In that location's Rob Pruitt'due southThe Andy Monument, a 2011 Public Art Fund project that served in role every bit an impromptu memorial to Warhol, as well as one of the polyester resin sugar-coated children from Kara Walker'south 2014 Creative Fourth dimension blockbuster,A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Saccharide Infant. Of less-contempo vintage is a portion of another Creative Time project, the Wall Street newsstand from Ruby-red Grooms'southward 1975 Ruckus Manhattan, a massive sculptural recreation of the New York streetscape.

Red Grooms, role of Ruckus Manhattan (1975) installed in "Fine art in the Open" at the Museum of the City of New York. Photograph courtesy of the Museum of the Urban center of New York.

One theme that runs throughout the bear witness—and the history of public art—is controversy. Many of the works have become flash points of community disagreement—indeed not even those historical hero monuments can escape criticism today.

"Controversy is not in and of itself a bad thing," said Tuttle, noting that artists are looking to start a dialogue with viewers, and don't necessarily want to create work that is likewise safe or easily accepted.

In some instances, the bear witness displays the letters of rejection and outrage from politicians and customs members that have embroiled various works of art. Here are five of the well-nigh controversial public works that appear in "Art in the Open up."

Ai Weiwei, Curvation (2017). Photo by Jason Wyche, courtesy of Public Art Fund.

1. Ai Weiwei,Good Fences Make Good Neighbors (2017)
When the dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was tapped to create an ambitious citywide public art installation in New York, no ane was surprised that he might utilise it to have an overtly political stance. Simply it wasn't the project's pro-immigrant message that had the public upwardly in artillery.

Instead, the city's most contempo public art controversy came near considering the four-month long exhibition, titledExpert Fences Make Good Neighbors, was set to readapt the Christmas tree in Washington Square Park, traditionally given pride of place under the triumphal arch.

Village denizens were angry that they had not been consulted starting time about how the work would affect their holiday celebrations. The tree, which will be lit December 6, is now on display between the arch and the fountain, according to the Washington Square Park Web log.

Though Public Art Fund places corking importance on working with communities to ensure works are well-received, Freedman admitted that "people upset about displacing a Christmas tree, that'due south not something I'm sympathetic to."

Christo and Jeanne-Claude The Gates, Central Park, New York Metropolis (2005).
Photograph by Wolfgang Volz, courtesy of the artists.

2. Christo and Jeanne Claude,The Gates (2005)
"A lot of people don't know that this was actually 26 years in the making," said Tuttle of The Gates, which were originally proposed in 1979.

Though the projection was ultimately a massive success, bringing an influx of tourists to the park during the traditionally tedious month of February, the city initially denied the creative person duo the necessary permits. On view at the Museum of the City of New York is a re-create of the Parks Department report assessing the project's potential bear on, likewise as letters from citizens and the Audubon Club praising the 1981 conclusion to forestall the installation. ("Christo has a record for persistence, and no doubt he will be applying again," notes the society'south prescient missive.)

"The park was in a very broken downwardly, deteriorated state," said Tuttle. "In that location was a feeling that what the park really needed was rehabilitation."

Fast forward to 2005, and the back up of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and the story has a completely dissimilar ending. "Information technology actually lifted the city's spirits, and it also kicked off a period in the early 21st century of fearless, bold, large-scale public art in the urban center," said Tuttle, who puts Olafur Eliasson'southward New York City WaterfallsandTatzu Nishi'due southDiscovering Columbus on that list.

Keith Haring, Crevice Is Wack (1986). Photo courtesy of the New York Urban center Department of Parks and Recreation.

iii. Keith Haring,Cleft Is Wack (1986)
Visible while driving s on the Harlem River Bulldoze, Keith Haring'sCrack Is Wack mural was originally created without permission, leading to the artist's arrest and the work'south destruction.

"It was controversial because it was unauthorized," said Tuttle. "On the one hand information technology'south graffiti at a fourth dimension when Mayor Ed Koch was really cracking down on graffiti. On the other paw it's an anti-drug message during the era of Nancy Reagan and 'just say no.' The creative person put the urban center in an awkward spot."

It was as well an of import moment for Haring, whose career was only taking off. For a 1982 CBS news report, which is on view in the exhibition, reporter Charles Osgood follows Haring through the subway every bit the creative person creates chalk drawings on bare advert panels.

But while Haring was being hassled by the police underground, he was likewise selling similar work for thousands of dollars in art galleries. "He had this outlaw persona, but at the same time he was really gathering a following and becoming a darling of the downtown fine art scene," said Tuttle.

In the terminate, Haring only paid a $100 fine for the Crack Is Wack mural. He afterward received an apology from the Parks Section, and was asked to recreate the piece as a permanent installation.

Nancy Spero wrote this letter to Hans-Ulrich Obrist virtually her cancelled Public Fine art Fund "Messages to the Public" piece. Courtesy of the artist.

4. Nancy Spero, "Messages to the Public" (1982)
Ane of the longest-running public art exhibitions was the Public Art Fund's "Messages to the Public" series, which presented works on the massive Spectacolor calorie-free board in Times Square each calendar month between 1982 and 1990. One slice, still, was non allowed to run, and appeared on the billboard only in one case, for documentation purposes.

Nancy Spero had wanted to send a pro-option message, so she designed animations that read "Certainly, kid birth is our mortality, we who are women, for it is our battle" and "This Womb Does Non Belong to Doctors, Legislators, Judges, Priests, the State."

"It turned out my boss was an ardent Catholic and he vetoed it," creative person Jane Dickson, who worked every bit an animator for the Spectacolor lite board and approached the Public Art Fund near the collaboration, told artnet News. In addition to having to ax Spero's piece, Dickson was forced to include a pro-life work in the first year. "We said, 'let'south do the 10 artists we want, and and then this really crappy fetus slice!'"

"When [the owner] saw my piece, I was told he went into a rage," wrote Spero in a alphabetic character to Hans Ulrich Obrist about an exhibition of unrealized artist projects. "And so my piece was never played and the art director was subsequently fired."

Richard Serra, Tilted Arc(1981). Courtesy of Frank Martin/BIPs/Getty Images.

5. Richard Serra, Tilted Arc (1981)
In 1979, a panel from the United states General Services Administration's art-in-compages program awarded Richard Serra a commission to create a permanent public artwork for Federal Plaza. Ii years afterwards, he unveiled a 120-foot long, 12-foot-loftier wall of rusty COR-Ten steel, bisecting the plaza. It was met with immediate disapproval.

Following the initial outcry, a public hearing was held and, in 1985, a jury voted to take down the work. Peradventure the most infamous sculpture on this listing, Tilted Arc was called "i of the most bitterly contested of all 20th-century sculptures and a watershed work of public art" by theNew York Times, following its removal.

"Tilted Arc is obviously the ur work," said Tuttle. "There was a before and later on of how artists looked at the sites, the way they looked at the public-ness of their work."

"Art in the Open: Fifty Years of Public Art in New York" is on view at the Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Artery at 103rd Street, November 10–Dec 31, 2017.

The panel discussion "Love It or Hate It: Public Fine art and Controversy" will have place at 6:thirty p.thousand. on Thursday, Nov 30. Tickets are $xx.

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