public art

public art 01.29.10

city form: public space

Chicago’s public spaces are enlivened by public art that shows the inclusive thinking and experimental attitude toward the variety of forms art can take, and that the city as a patron doesn’t shy away from the controversy always implicit in the question: ‘what is art?’
When mid-century masters such as Picasso and Dubuffet proposed art pieces for civic plazas, there was public controversy over the explicit abstractness of form. More readily embraced by the public have been the artworks in Millennium Park such as Cloud Gate and Crown Fountain. Contemporary artists that challenge the notion of the ‘object-ness’ of art create pieces that are entirely performance based and ethereal, such as Tino Sehgal.