Doss Controversy

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Monograph is one of the benefits of membership in Americans for the Arts.

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Public Art Controversy:Cultural Expression and Civic DebateBy Erika Doss

Mention the words public art and youll get a variety of responses, from a nod of recognition from those who identifywith Americas many public tributes to its ancestors and his-

tories to a shrug of disinterest from those who feel neglected in thenations cultural landscapesometimes even a groan of help! fromcity officials and arts administrators when public art becomes contro-versial. And public artprecisely because its public and because itsarthas a history of controversy.

It took some 40 years to build the Washington Monument, whichfinally opened to the public in 1888 after decades of wrangling over itsdesign and financing. By comparison, it only took a few years to buildthe Vietnam Veterans Memorial, dedicated in 1982, even though heateddebate about the monument and its meaning raged for years. Today,these memorials are among Americas most popular works of public art.

Conflicts over public art at the local level often persuade communityleaders, elected officials, funding agencies, and artists themselves thatpublic art is simply too hot to handle. But these heated debatesalso suggest that the American public, often typecast as apatheticand uninformed, is keenly interested in cultural conversations aboutcreative expression and civic and national identity. The dynamicssurrounding public art reveal an ongoing American commitment tomeaningful conversations, which are the cornerstones of an activedemocratic culture.

Surveying several recent public art controversies, this Monograph isintended as a guide for arts professionals, civic leaders, and educators.Discussing both the expansive terrain of public art and its lightning rodtendency to spark debate, it considers how public art controversy canbe used as a tool that enhances community awareness and civic life.

Serving Communities.Enriching Lives.

Local conflicts over public art have

occurred throughout the United States.

In Memphis, controversy erupted overinclusion of the phrase Workers of the

World, Unite! in a sidewalk designed for

the citys new public library. In Milwaukee,

selection of Dennis Oppenheims fiber-

glass sculpture Blue Shirt for an airport

parking garage was perceived as a slur on

the citys working-class roots. In Boston,

a public art tribute to Polish patriots

created controversy when it was first

placed in a remote corner of the citys

Common in 1983, and then generated

even more consternation when it was

moved into storage in 2006. In Portland,

ME, a bronze sculpture of an all-white

family heading to a baseball game

unleashed accusations of racism. And in

Baldwin Park, CA, a public art project that

draws attention to the citys indigenous

peoples and historiesand explored

in more detail in this Monograph was

attacked by anti-immigration groups.


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www.AmericansfortheAr s.org

Definitions of public art, as Jack Beckerdetails in his 2004 Americans for theArts Monograph on the subject, are wideranging and always changing. The city of BlueSprings, MO, provides the following broad expla-nation as a guide:

Public art is artwork in the public realm, regard-less of whether it is situated on public or private property, or whether it is acquired through public

or private funding. Public art can be a sculpture,mural, manhole cover, paving pattern, lighting,seating, building facade, kiosk, gate, fountain, play equipment, engraving, carving, fresco, mobile,collage, mosaic, bas-relief, tapestry, photograph,drawing, or earthwork.

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Its quite a list. Thats because whether permanentor temporary, figurative or abstract, man-madeor mass produced, public art is as diverse as thepeople who view it. As Becker remarks, public artis a multifaceted cultural arena that is open toartists of all stripes, without predetermined rulesor a mutually agreed upon critical language.

Public arts multifaceted dimensions segue withthe multifaceted forms and multiple publics of America itself. As Michael Warner argues, thenotion of the public or of being a public is fic-tive and highly unstable: No one really inhabitsthe general public. This is true not only because

it is by definition general but also because every-one brings to such a category the particularitiesfrom which she has to abstract herself in con-suming this discourse.

2While the idea of a

general public is a naturalizing construction of American nationalism, being a public depends onthe shared assumptions of its participants thatthey comprise Americas public sphere, and arehence entitled to its rights and privileges. Todays

public art diversity speaks to Americas diversityand to the increasing number of Americans whowant to see their cultural interests represented inthe public sphere.

Public art includes sculptures, murals, memorials,monuments, civic gateways, pocket parks, play-grounds, and outdoor performances. It rangesfrom ephemeral pieces like The Gates, Christo and

Jeanne-Claudes project of 7,500 saffron-coloredfabric gates installed for just a few weeks in NewYorks Central Park in February 2005, to perma-nent public fixtures like Kinetic Light/Air Curtain, Antonette Rosato and Bill Maxwells mile-longinstallation of 5,280 minipropellers, backlit inblue neon, that spin wildly when trains pass bythem at the Denver International Airport.

Projects can be noticeably massive, like theNAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, a collab-orative project that by 2005 featured more than46,000 panels. Or they can be subtle, showingup in unexpected places and spaces, like the var-ious sculptural insertions that Mel Chin andother artists made among the collections of the

Martin Luther King Jr. Library in San Jose, CA.From sober and reflective to whimsical, todayspublic art embodies the ideas, initiatives, andinspirations of Americas many publics.

Traditional Forms of Public Art

Traditional forms of American public artinclude figurative sculptures displayed in publicspacesoutdoors or in public buildings. Often,

these are erected as monuments or memorialsto important national figures and moments.Indeed, the first public artwork commis-sioned by the U.S. government (for $44,000)was Horatio Greenoughs George Washington ,a 12-ton marble sculpture of Americas firstpresident. Not surprisingly, it was also hugelycontroversial: Greenough modeled his monu-ment on the Greek god Zeus and depicted

Multiple Art / Multiple Publics


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Shifting Terms of Public Art

At least Greenoughs installation still survives.Other public memorials and memorial places

from that era and earlier were not so fortunate.Following Americas declaration of independence,for example, a gilded-lead equestrian statue of King George IIIdesigned by British artist Joseph

Wilton and erected in New York Citys BowlingGreen in 1770was pulled down from its 15-footpedestal, disembodied, and eventually melted intobullets for the Continental Army. Likewise, as themodern city of New York emerged and expanded,the 18th-century public cemetery of thousands of enslaved Africansa six-acre site in what is nowLower Manhattanwas paved over and forgot-ten. Not until 1991, during initial constructionof a new federal office building at 290 Broadway,was this burial ground rediscovered and returnedto public consciousness as a significant cultural,political, and sacred site.

Washington semiclothed in a toga, sitting on aclassical throne, and raising his right hand inan imperial gesture toward the heavens.

Unfortunately, Greenoughs neoclassical tributeto Americas first father did not go over particu-larly well in an era of post-Jacksonian populism.Installed in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in 1841, thesculpture was moved outside onto the Capitolgrounds in 1843 after numerous complaints aboutthe public display of nudityand because thesculptures heavy weight was beginning to crackthe Rotunda floor. In 1908, the statue was trans-ferred to the Smithsonian Institution; since 1964it has been displayed in the National Museum of American History. Popular perception may paintGeorge Washington as uncontroversial, but com-ing to terms with how to remember him certainlywas not. Greenough defended his statue of a bare-chested Washington, arguing that it fit perfectlywith the political milieu of the new Americanrepublic and its representative senators and con-gressmen. As he remarked, Had I been orderedto make a statue for any square or similar situ-ationI would have made my work purely an

historical one.3

But his ideas about the look andmeaning of public art differed considerably fromthose of other Americans at the time, and his pub-lic memorial shifted from a political settingto a cultural one.

Horatio Greenough,

George Washington

(1840). Photo by

Frances Benjamin

Johnston. Photographic

print (cyanotype) from

the Library of Congress

Collection (c. 1899),

LC-USZ6 - 3939.

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Serving Communities. Enriching Lives.


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Today, the African Burial Ground is a NationalHistoric Landmark and National Monument,including an $8 million public memorial andvisitor center. The 34-story Ted Weiss Federal

Building adjacent to the burial groundalso features a number of commissioned worksof public art, including Houston Conwills40-foot-diameter terrazzo and polished brassfloor piece, The New Ring Shout (1994); BarbaraChase-Ribouds 15-foot bronze sculpture, AfricaRising (1998); and Roger Browns 14-foot-tall,10-foot-wide glass mosaic wall piece, Untitled (1994). The African Burial Ground has becomeone of the most informative and engagingsites of public culture in New York. It showsthe shifting circumstances of American publicculture and that original intentions regardingpublic arts placement, permanence, and publicinterpretation are often subject to changeand reconsideration.

Funding

The public art projects developed at the site of the African Burial Ground are the result of U.S.General Services Administration (GSA) fundinginitiatives, whereby a certain percentage of thebudget for federal building projects is allocatedfor acquiring or commissioning artwork. The$276 million Ted Weiss Federal Building, forexample, generated more than $20 million infunding for public art.

Funding can be the source of many public artcontroversies. The National Endowment for theArts (NEA) was established in 1965 to fosterAmerican culture with federal funding. Oneyear later, the NEA formed its Art in PublicPlaces program, and in 1973 helped to revi-talize the GSAs Art in Architecture program.These early programs were guided by the ideathat public art was a form of civic improvementand could help generate a shared sense of civicand national identity.

During the tumultuous 1960s, public art wasviewed as a way to beautify Americas publicspaces and simultaneously unify a public dividedover issues of race, gender, and the Vietnam War.

Grand Rapids, MI, dedicated La Grande Vitesse,a 43-foot-tall red stabile by Alexander Calder,in 1969. Engaged in a vigorous urban renewalprogram, Grand Rapids commissioned the sculp-ture to centerpiece a refurbished central plaza.The city raised $85,000 in private funds andreceived $45,000 from the NEA to pay for itthefirst example of NEA-funded public art in America.

Throughout the next few decades, thousandsof cities followed suit with large modernist andabstract sculptures, many of them sited in publicplazas and funded by NEA- and GSA-sponsoredinitiatives. Such federal funding strategies inspiredlocal, regional, and state public art inititivesincluding percent-for-art programs at state andlocal levels, in which certain percentages of capi-tal construction costs are dedicated to publicart projects. Of course, enhanced grassroots par-ticipation in public culture also inspires publicconversations about the purpose and meaning of

public art. Its visibly public presence, its frequentdependence on public dollars, and its originating

Alexander

Calder, La

Grande Vitesse

1969). Grand

Rapids, MI.

Photo by

Erika Doss.


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concept as a unifying form of civic beautificationcan make public art a beacon for controversy. Notall Americans are interested in cultural represen-tation via modernist, abstract sculpture or share

reformist visions of public space. Its difficult toimagine any kind of contemporary public art thatmight adequately address the multifaceted inter-ests of todays diverse America.

Public diversity helps to account for the recentmushrooming of the public art industrythefastest-growing industry in the United States,declared New York Times art critic Grace Glueckin 1982.

4By 2003, the nation featured more than

350 public art programs. Most are financed bypercent-for-art ordinances, as well as fundingstreams such as tax revenues, grants, gifts, andcorporate sponsorship. In recent decades, millionsof dollars have been generated to develop thou-sands of public art projects and also to financepublic art maintenance, conservation, staff, andeducational programming. Supported by local andstate art agencies, national organizations (like thePublic Art Network, a program of Americans forthe Arts), degree-granting programs (at schools

such as the University of Southern California andthe University of Washington), and a growing bodyof artists engaged in the demands and dynamicsof the field, public art has become increasinglyprofessional, legitimate, and visible in America.

Placemaking

Public arts visibility relates to its functionalutility. Since the 1970s, Miwon Kwon explains,public art has been charged with generatingplace-bound identity and lending a sense of distinction and authenticity to the nations evermore homogenous public spaces. Critics andhistorians such as Ronald Lee Fleming andRenata von Tscharner argue that a spectre of placelessness characterizes many of todays builtenvironments; shopping malls, airports, officeparks, and housing developments are so similar

that it is hard to distinguish one from the other.This banal sameness is thought to keep peoplefrom establishing a sense of place or communityidentity. Public art is seen as a solution to theproblem of placelessness, especially in its abilityto remedy social alienation and generate a sense

of civic and community identity.

A widespread interest in genius locispirit of placehas helped generate site-specific worksof art: public art projects that engage specificfactors such as location, audience, and history.Cincinnati Gateway , a public art project designedby Andrew Leicester in 1988, is a good example.The official entrance to Sawyer Point Park, arefurbished 22-acre site along Cincinnatis once-polluted industrial riverfront, the environmentalsculpture features dozens of historical referencesto Cincinnatis past. These range from canallocks and steamship stacks (reminders of thecitys dependence on water-based commerce) toflying pigs (symbols of the citys 19th-centuryprominence as a hog-butchering capital). Theentire sculpture resembles an enormous effigymound, referencing the built forms of the regions

Andrew Leicester,Cincinnati Gateway

(1988). Cincinnati, OH.

Photo by Erika Doss.


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cess itself. These conversations include artists, artadministrators, civic leaders, funders, architects,engineers, and, of course, the public.

Public art discourse, like all conversations, canlead to a larger examination and questioningof assumptions, ideas, and concepts. Plenty of controversies have, in fact, generated mean-ingful conversations about public culture. InCincinnati, animated debate about CincinnatiGateways flying pigs led to widespread localdiscussion about issues of civic identity and cul-tural expression; in Phoenix, heated talk about apublic art project installed along a five-mile stripof highway turned into meaningful conversa-tion about public design. But we are also livingin extraordinarily contentious times, markedby especially fierce talk about issues of politi-cal representation, war, reproductive rights, andimmigration. These issues are sensationalizedin the media, where ranting and rancor, finger-pointing and name-calling can dominate. Theantagonistic tones of mass media talk culturehave dramatically shaped larger cultural under-standing of how to talk in Americaand, not

surprisingly, conversations about public art areoften similarly hostile and intolerant.

Contemporary conflicts over public art especiallyrelate to contemporary concerns about culturalcontrol and questions about artistic, social, andeconomic authority. Americas national ideal asan equitable, unified, and rational democracyoften yields to reality. As Rosalyn Deutscheremarks, public space is marked by conflictualand uneven social relations.

6Heated conversa-

tions over public art subjects, styles, and costsrelate particularly to perceptions of public rep-resentation, or the lack thereof, in Americasuneven public spaces. Angered by percep-tions of powerlessness and invisibility, manyAmericans target public art. Indeed, controversiesover public art tend to unmask deeper concernsAmericans have regarding their voices and theirinterests in the public sphere.

Adena and Hopewell Native American cultures.Equal parts history lesson, urban renewal, andcivic boosterism, Cincinnati Gateway has become abeloved emblem of the city and a place frequented

by locals and tourists alike.

Douglas McGill describes this new public art asart plus function, whether the function is toprovide a place to sit for lunch, to provide waterdrainage, to mark an important historical date,or to enhance and direct a viewers perceptions.

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Public needs, public participation, and publicresponses are all key to the making and meaningof todays public art. Occasional arguments for thesheer existence of art in America are counteredby widespread assumptions about public artscivic and social responsibilities. And contempo-rary public art that fails to generate some sense of spatial and/or social relevance is often snidely dis-missed as plop art. But the sort of identity andrelevance that public art is supposed to generatenot to mention which American public a public artpiece is meant foris often a source of conflict.

Why is public art so controversial?Answers vary, but in general public artcontroversy relates to the essentiallyconversational nature of the art itself. Usuallylocated in visible public spaces, organized bypublic committes, frequently funded by public

dollars, and intended for multiple audiences,public art is, by definition, the product of pub-lic feedback. It centers on dialogueon theexpressed interests and issues of particulargroupsand that dialogue can be contentious.Conversations and debates about public art rangefrom subject to site and involve competitions,commissions, hearings, juries, artists statements,awards, media accounts, and the art-making pro-

Controversy over Public Art


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The two sides of the arch further commemoratethe regions past and present. One sidemarkedBaldwin Parkfeatures comments that Bacacollected from local residents speaking about

their town and their hopes for the future. Theseinclude: a small town feeling; not just adultsleading but youth leading too; use your brainbefore you make up your mind (stated byBaldwin Parks mayor); and the kind of commu-nity that people dream of, rich and poor, brown,yellow, red, white, all living together. These opti-mistic words are countered by another statement,tucked into a corner, that reads, it was betterbefore they came. Although uttered by a localwhite politician discussing post-World War IIMexican immigration, Baca left the remark unex-plained and ambiguous, thus inviting viewers toimagine for themselves who they might be.

The other side of the archmarked Sunigna,the original Tongva name for the areafeaturespictographs of indigenous peoples and a fragmentof a poem by acclaimed Chicano author GloriaAnzaldua that reads, This land was Mexican once,was Indian always, and is, and will be again.

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Reflecting on the precarious circumstances of border cultures, Anzalduas poem speaks to theSouthwestsand all of Americascomplex his-torical mosaic. In 1770, just before the Franciscansarrived, the Tongva numbered about 5,000 andcovered a territory of some 1,500 square milesof the Los Angeles basin; until 1848, BaldwinPark, like all of Southern California, was ownedby Mexico. As Baca remarks, I wanted to putmemory into a piece of land once owned by theAmerican Indian culturesmemory and willpowerare what any culture, the ones living then andthose living now, has to have to preserve itself.

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Reclaiming Baldwin Park as a layered site of mem-ory, Danzas Indigenas remembers the history of theindigenous peoples of the region and the processof conquest and colonization that erased this his-tory or rendered it invisible. Commissioned bythe city and centered on the hopes and needs of

its residents, Danzas Indigenas is a multiculturalmodel of community-based public art. But democ-ratizing ideas about public art and the nation arenot shared by all Americans today. In 2005, some

12 years after its dedication, Danzas Indigenas became the subject of controversy.

It began when the anti-illegal-immigrant groupSave Our State (SOS) demanded removal of someof the Danzas Indigenas quotes, if not the destruc-tion of the entire public art project. SOS, foundedin 2004, is headquartered in Ventura, CA (85miles from Baldwin Park). The anti-immigrationgroup especially objected to Anzalduas words,which they declared were offensive and seditiousand anti-American. Completely taking the poemout of context, and ignoring the fact that BaldwinPark itself had embraced Danzas Indigenas formore than a decade, SOS accused Baca of creat-ing an art project that advocated reconquista,or returning the American Southwest to Mexico.They also attacked the quote it was betterbefore they came, mistakenly assuming that they referred to white Americans. And in a speciouslawsuit filed against Baldwin Park, the city was

charged with supporting racism and separatism ina tax-supported monument.

SOS was not really interested in public art, of course, and targeted Danzas Indigenas to gain pub-licity for its virulent anti-immigration platform.Its website, for instance, claims that Americans,are tired of watching their communities turn

Judy Bac

Danzas In

(1993). B

Park, CA

Photo by

Nicolas G


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into Third World cesspools as a result of a mas-sive invasion of illegal aliens, and features a Hallof Shame that vilifies Latino leaders. 9 BesiegingBaldwin Park city council members and Judy

Baca with death threats, SOS leader Joseph Turnerboasted that his groups real goal was to bank-rupt the city by forcing it to hire extra securityduring the protests his group organized.

SOSs vitriolic attacks on Baldwin Park did drawthe attention of the media. But they also sparked asubstantial counter-protest of public art support-ers speaking to issues of freedom of expression,creative integrity, and anti-racism. Town hallmeetings were called and demonstrations andmarches were staged. Hundreds of Baldwin Parkresidents, along with area high school and univer-sity students, peace organization representatives,city politicians, and many others, rallied to defendDanzas Indigenas. In a community celebrationof artheld in Baldwin Park on June 25, 2005,and featuring musicians, poets, theater groups,and dancersBaca and members of SPARC (theSocial and Public Art Resource Center, a groupshe founded in 1976) organized a 90-foot mobile

mural. Made up of multiple placards held high byabout 100 people and presented in three differentmovements, the muraltitled You Are My Other Mestated in various sections: Good art con-fuses racists; The land does not belong to us, webelong to the land; and America turns its backon hate groups. Firmly pronouncing that its pub-lic art project would not be altered or removed,the Baldwin Park City Council passed a resolutionhonoring Baca and Danzas Indigenas that read,in part, the strong sentiments expressed bypeople who make various interpretations of itsmeaning after 12 years, is a testament to its valueas an artwork.

The heated debate over Danzas Indigenas becamea significant part of its enduring importance aspublic art. The anti- Danzas Indigenas protestsactually helped to unify the residents of BaldwinPark, many of whom had not really paid much

attention to their citys public art project duringits first 12 years. As artist Suzanne Lacy put it inan online forum, also organized by SPARC andthat specifically centered on the controversy over

the Baldwin Park project, Maybe this is what artis supposed to do. Maybe this is how art becomessomething more than concrete and steel, painton a canvas.

10And as Baca herself writes about

Danzas Indigenas :

Our capacity as a democracy to disagree and tocoexist is precisely the point of this work. No singlestatement can be seen without the whole, nor canit be removed without destroying the diversity of Baldwin Parks voices. Silencing every voice withwhich we disagree, especially while taking quotesout of context, either through ignorance or malice,is profoundly un-American.

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Public Art Controversy and Civic Dialogue

Public culture can be contentious, especially ina country that values individualism, freedomof expression, and First Amendment rights,and yet also prizes communal experiences andrelationships. Public art often has to cater tomultiple constituencies and, as any politicianknows, you cant please everyone. Bowing tothe interests and demands of one public mayalienate another. But public artlike politicsisa collaborative exercise and depends on tolerance,compromise, and respect. Ideally, public artcontroversy animates creative civic dialogue. Thekey is to keep our public conversations meaningfuland productive and to reclaim public culture as a

forum for debate rather than an arena of hate.

Grounded in conversation, dialogue, and oftendebate, public art can serve as a symbol of civicexamination, prompting further debates aboutcommunity needs, hopes, and histories. As aninstrument of public conversation, public artcan become a catalyst for civic and nationalrevitalization. Often because it is controversial,

Judy Baca

and SPARC,

You Are My Other Me

(June ,

00 ). Three-

part mobile

mural, Baldwin

Park, CA.

Photo by

Nicolas Garca.




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public art can play a central role in shaping anddirecting community identityas seen in theheated discourse over Danzas Indigenas . Publicart has the unique potential to encourage mul-

tiple American publics to tell their storiesandto listen to others. As Baca reflects:

Public art is an antidote for the hatred and discon-nectedness in society. It is a creative, participatory,critical, and analytical process. We must tell our stories, and encourage others of all ages to tell their stories in any language they speakWe must teachourselves and others to listen and to hear our storiesbecause it is in the very specificity of the humanexperience that we learn compassion.

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1 City of Blue Springs, Missouri, Blue Springs Public Art CommissionProgram Definitions, http://www.bluespringsgov.com/Default%20Page%20Links/Art%20Commission/art_commission_definitions.htm (accessed May 15, 2006).

2 Michael Warner, Publics and Counterpublics (New York:Zone Books, 2002).

3 Horatio Greenough, quoted in, Preserving Memory A Hit AllAround, S.O.S. (Save Outdoor Sculpture!) Update 14, no. 1(Fall 2003): 2.

4 Grace Glueck, Art in Public Places Stirs Widening Debate,New York Times, May 23, 1982.

5 Douglas McGill, Sculpture Goes Public, New York TimesMagazine, April 27, 1986.

6 Rosalyn Deutche, Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics (Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 1996).

7 Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco: Spinster, 1987).

8 Judy Baca, quoted in Metrolink Baldwin Park Station, Los AngelesCounty Metropolitan Transportation Authority, http://www.mta.net/ about_us/metroart/ma_mlnkbjb.htm (accessed May 29, 2006).

9 Shirley Hsu, Protests Unify Baldwin Park, Whittier Daily News (Whittier, CA), June 24, 2005, http://whittierdailynews.com/ (accessed October 7, 2005).

10 Suzanne Lacy, comment posted on online forum organizedby SPARC on May 15, 2005, http://www.sparcmurals.org/ (accessed October 7, 2005).

11 Judy Baca, Artist Statement, posted on the SPARC websiteMay 12, 2005, http://www.sparcmurals.org/sparcone/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=209&Itemid=124&limit=1&limitstart=5 (accessed October 7, 2005).

12 Judy Baca, Baldwin Park Press Release, posted on the SPARCwebsite June 27, 2005, http://www.sparcmurals.org/sparcone/ index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=209&Itemid=124&limit=1&limitstart=0 (accessed October 7, 2005).

Bibloiography

Americans for the Arts.Public Art Programs Fiscal Year 2001

A Deta iled Statistical Report on the Budgets and Programmin

of the Nations Public Art Programs. Washington, DC: American

for the Arts, 2003.

Becker, Jack. Public Art: An Essential Component of Creati

Communities. Americans for the ArtsMonograph. (March 20

Doss, Erika. Controversy and Public Art: The Phoenix Pots

Episode. InInfusion: 20 Years of Public Art in Phoenix ,

4655. Phoenix: Phoenix Office of Art and Culture, 2005.

Doss, Erika.Spirit Poles and Flying Pigs: Public Art and Cultu

Democracy in American Communities. Washington, DC:

Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995.

Fleming, Ronald Lee and Renata von Tscharner.PlaceMakers:

Creating Public Art That Tells You Where You Are. New York:

Harcourt Br ace Jovanovich, 1987.

Frankfurter, Justice Felix. The Memorial to F.D.R.: What

the President Wanted. Atlant ic Monthly 207, no. 3 (March

1961): 394 0.

Kwon, Miwon.One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art an

Locational Identity . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.

Miller, Sara B. A Monument Stirs Immigration Debate.ChristiScience Monitor , June 29, 2005. http://www.csmonitor.com/

2005/0629/p01s04-uspo.html (accessed May 19, 2005).

National Endowment for the Arts. Preserving Memory:

Americas Monumental Legacy. Traveling exhibition,

Washington, DC, 2003.

Schudson, Michael.The Good Citizen: A History of American

Civil Life. New York: Free Press, 1998.

Social and Public Art Resource Center. Baldwin Park press

release. http://www.sparcmurals.org.

Stein, Sally. The Presidents Two Bodies: Stagings and

Restagings of FDR and the New Deal Body Politic. American

Art 18, no. 1 (Spri ng 2004): 3257.

United States General Services Administration. The African

Burial Ground Project. http://www.africanburialground.com.

Where is King Georges Head?The Sons of the American

Revolution Magazine(Fall 1997): 2830.

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Washington, DC Office1000 Vermont Avenue, NW6th FloorWashington, DC 20005T 202 .371 .2830F 202 .371 .0424

New York City OfficeOne East 53rd Street2nd FloorNew York, NY 10022T 212 .223 .2787F 212 .980 .4857

[email protected] .org

AuthorErika Doss

EditorKirs ten Hilgeford

Copyr ight 2006 , Amer icans for the Ar ts .

P i d i h U i d S

About the Author

Erika Doss is an author and teacher who has written widely on contemporary public art.

Her book Spirit Poles and Flying Pigs: Public Art and Cultural Democracy in American

Communitieswas published in 1995; her book Memorial Mania: Self, Nation, and the

Culture of Commemoration in Contemporary Americais forthcoming.

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