In Brief
Norway Will Demolish Building Famous for Its Picasso Murals
While the government promises to preserve the Picasso murals to be utilized in a new building, preservationists are unmoved.
Public Art
Opinion
Kehinde Wiley, Wangechi Mutu, and Kara Walker Upstage the Monuments Debate
With recent monumental commissions, the artists focus on the imagination’s role in accounting for the past.
Art
The Art That Hangs Above LA's Daily Commuters
As a problem of engineering, design, and aesthetics, commissioning art for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority was a gamble.
News
In San Francisco, a Design for Maya Angelou Monument Is Approved, Then Suddenly Scrapped
Lava Thomas said she was elated to find out her proposal had been selected out of hundreds of applicants, but two weeks later she got a call saying that the sponsors will instead pursue a more figurative, traditional design.
Art
The Defiant Spirit of Wangechi Mutu’s Caryatids at the Metropolitan Museum
In reflecting on Mutu’s recent commission for the Met’s façade one morning, I realized that her sculptures make space for excellences and joys that dominant Eurocentric histories have ignored and excluded.
Art
Kiss, Hug, or Get Lost in Olafur Eliasson’s Giant Reflective Spheres
Eliasson suggested that it was just fine for people to touch his artwork. He even said it would be great if anyone wanted to kiss or hug the spheres.
Art
Wangechi Mutu Adorns the Met Museum's Façade With Images of African Queendom
For the first time in 117 years, the empty niches on the museum's exterior are occupied. Mutu's four bronze sculpture express resilience and wisdom.
Art
The Young Lords' Fire Will Not Go Out
Mapping Resistance: The Young Lords in El Barrio, a public art exhibition on the civil rights organization, displays the group's spirit of refusal to accept our skewed legal, political, economic, and social organization system.
News
Controversial Monument to Women's Suffrage Redesigned to Include Sojourner Truth
The abolitionist and women's rights activist will join Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in the proposed Central Park sculpture that had previously been accused of racism and whitewashing history.
In Brief
The New York Public Library’s Iconic Lions Are Taking a Cat Nap
Patience and Fortitude, the 108-year-old lions that have guarded the Library's Main Branch since 1911, will be covered for cleanup and repair beginning September 2.
In Brief
San Francisco Will Raise Maya Angelou Sculpture
Only two of the city's 87 public sculptures depict historical women. The Angelou monument will help begin to shift that balance.
Art
The Role and Responsibility of Public Art in the Modern Day
The Innovating Public Art symposium will consider a bevy of questions around public art through discussions with artists like Martin Puryear, Leonardo Drew, and others.