Public sculpture is a vital element in the built environment. It expresses the sense of identity, the intellectual and aesthetic sophistication, and the moral compass of those who engender, adopt and accept it. At first glance, therefore, you might think that the obligation to spend a certain proportion of new-build costs on the commissioning of works of art would be welcome and beneficial.
But when it was first introduced in the US about 30 years ago, all that resulted was the sudden appearance of abstract knots of steel, remarkable for their vacuity, in front of every new building. These objects, many of which seemed merely to respond grudgingly to a perceived artistic obligation, produced confusion, irritation and alienation. The most notorious is Richard Serra’s ‘Tilted Arc’ in Federal Plaza in downtown Manhattan, which inconvenienced those who had to live and work around it so much that they agitated for its removal.
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