Public Art

The construction of Bernini’s fountain was opposed by many Romans. First, Innocent X ordered it at public expense during a period of famine (1646-48); there were fears of riots and graffiti attached to the stone blocks of the obelisk: "We do not want Obelisks and Fountains, It is bread that we want. Bread, Bread, Bread!" The Pope had the authors arrested, and plain-clothes officials patrolled the Piazza Navona. The piazza’s market stallholders were opposed the fountain and had to be forcibly removed by Papal guards.

We artists proselytise easily. We think art is good for people, and many of us think art should be part of everyday life. I recall some Melbourne poets on the trams reciting poetry loudly - not all the sleepy commuters going to work appreciated the performances.

There is a Richard Serra piece ‘Trip Hammer’ (1988) balanced against a corner in Tate Modern that seems so simple, is so simple and mesmerises me. His work refers to the balance and weight of the human form, of dancers.

But his work can be massive.

“By the time Richard Serra's 'Tilted Arc' was lifted from Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan in March 1989, the controversy over its existence had spanned a decade. . . .The placement of art in the midst of life is not always an unqualified good, and it is still insufficiently appreciated that the right of people to participate in the decisions that affect their lives extends to art when it impinges on their lives as lived. Users of the plaza were obliged to find ways around what could not but be an obstacle on wet and windy winter days or in the unremitting heat of Manhattan summers. Even though the sculpture was celebrated on grounds of site-specificity, the site to which it was specific was construed entirely in optical terms. . . .But where that art is to be placed, how it is to be lived with, and what its meaning will be for the lives on which it immediately impinges are among the issues the bitter debate barely touched.” Arthur C. Danto, "The Removal of Tilted Arc" 1989>

The work was destroyed in 1989, despite appeals from Serra.