Cultural Pilgrimages and Metaphorical Journeys/ Whose Monument Where?, Suzanne Lacy.

Public Art in a Many-Cultured Society, Judith F. Baca

Suzanne Lacy and Judith F. Baca explore the transformative “New Genre” art development throughout the public art spectrum within the past 40 years. They state that theses pieces play an integral part in the public’s perception of art, its duel functionality, aesthetic, form and meaning as well as how it is perceived from the public domain. Both authors argue the possibilities of change through the New Genre Art movement, the importance of art because of these changes, as well as the revolutionized role of the new “audience”.

Much different than the initial “rational” museum set-up, public art exhibits provides the “community” with alternative views of an “art object”, either because these pieces are time sensitive, they bring about contemporary/political concerns, and integrate the multi-cultural society that is present today or because they transition the entire process of art from beginning to end because of their site specific home. Museums provide an informative outlook on the exhibits they show, they’re role is to educate the public before they step foot within the barriers of the museum. With new genre public art, the artist has to take into consideration their multifaceted audience, as a multiple happening and not as a singular producer usually seen within the museum society. Through the influence of a collaborative process, within community settings, and working within artist and the community’s own realm throughout the entire process has changed the preconceived notion of art’s function within modern day society. Through this new genre dies the old 19^th century view of “art for arts sake”, and births the possibility of art as functional, educational, and beautiful while still taking into account responsibility of a site sensitive community.

Public Art has gone through the reformation process of trial and error throughout the birth of our nation. As brought up within the writings of Judith F. Baca, originally “The purpose was to evoke a time past in which ‘splendid triumphs’ and ‘struggles of our forefathers’ shifted the course of history.” She speaks about the countless Euro-centric statues placed in park settings, outside government buildings and monuments dedicated to the ubiquitous images of white men, cloaked in military garbs, wielding swords, while riding horses. These statues created to improve societal perceptions of our great nation, also entertain the idea of beauty through alienation of those not represented and proof of power by those who are the ones alienating.

Contemporary new genre art assists in changing these ideologies by integrating community awareness within the artists’ process all the way to the final output. It not only changes the way these artist work, who they work with, how they think and where their work will end up; but also changes those criticizing art, the production of art, and processing art for a major public forum. Criticizing art with these new values in mind means analyzing it in a more “challenging and complex fashion”. One must have to take into account a divergent ideal of beauty, the producer’s intentions and the over all effectiveness of the piece. With these things in mind, an art piece can be taken to a broader audience, one that is not as simplistic as the museum audience, but one that has a possibility of setting an actual public agenda.