ABSTRACT
Public art balances at the boundaries, occupying the inchoate spaces between public and private, architecture and art, object and environment, process and production, performance and installation. In both reality and rhetoric, it operates in the seams and margins. If not entirely unique, its vantage points offer discursive angles of vision. Public art inhabits contemporary civic life unpredictably; its saga has been varied – triumphant and tumultuous. It frequently is time-consuming to plan and treacherous to bring into existence. Then, it is often difficult and demanding to support and maintain. The stories increase of works contested, removed, abandoned, and neglected. Public art is owned by everyone and no one. People may share a stake in it, but few feel any responsibility for it. Perhaps that it exists at all, that some people choose to support, produce, and write about it, confirms the efficacy of fierce beliefs or imponderable miracles.
