1 post tagged “science and art”

I found the following post from Community Arts puzzling. Besides the black & white approach, it seems to presume that only the social sciences are relevant to public art. This seems dramatically old-fashioned & limited to me, esp as it relates to ecological public art. It also seems to be along the lines of what has been discussed in other venues, to the effect that artists have become the new (cheaper & more glamorous) social workers, too many of whom are under-paid women. read on & judge for yourself:

U.K. Arts Administrators Place Community Interests First?

"Increasingly, there are two intellectual platforms for art in public," says Jeremy Hunt, guest editor of the fall/winter issue of Public Art Review, "art in the service of political engineering and social values, and... art centered mainly on artistic concepts and aesthetic ideals." Hunt, editor of the U.K.'s Art and Architecture Journal, produced an issue on public art in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. He roots the schism in "funding, power and control": Arts Council England, the government funding body with an annual budget of £411m, "has dictated that publicly funded arts should make a measurable contribution to its sustainable-communities agenda. Art is expected to improve education in impoverished schools, raise health standards, reduce crime...[etc.]. ...[I]t is little wonder that arts administrators place community interest first." Alas, it's only available in print.