People and Public Art #1: Introduction

I know I promised to debut another blog feature this week, and here it is! One of the great things about public art is its capacity to engage with people in a way that traditional art in museums really doesn't. By nature, public art lives outside, in public, with people. We use it as a meeting place. We touch it. We interact with it. We make it a part of our lives.

I kind of love it when I have the opportunity to watch people engaging with their public art. There's just something about sculpture that brings out the theatricality in people - I know that when I'm teaching, I often find myself acting out the works of art I'm describing. What better way to explain contrapposto to a class full of undergrads than to act it out with your own body? And I've realized by walking around and looking at people that I'm not the only one who has this impulse. Something about public art, and sculpture in general, turns us into actors.

I plan to use this new feature to share instances of spontaneous interaction between people and their public art, like this one time when I was documenting Franklin Court in Philadelphia for a project and snapped this moment of unbridled whimsy:


And I'll admit that sometimes I am overcome in a similar fashion:


I also plan to use this feature to point out instances where public interaction with a specific work has led to an appreciable change in some aspect of the work. One extreme example of this is the medieval statue of St. Peter in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome that has been rubbed and venerated by so many pilgrims over the year that its bronze feet have been worn to nubbins:


Whenever I see either a fun interaction between people and art or an obvious change in materials that results from such interaction, I'm always tempted to document it - this will be my chance to share those snapshots with you.