Art in Public

This seminar explores art’s public presence in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present. Class sessions will consider works ranging from monumental sculptures and murals to performances and ephemeral expression, focusing on how various audiences have understood, valued, and contested the “use” of art in their public lives. Through readings, discussions and visits to sites around the Bay Area, we will investigate how place and community might instantiated in, formulated through, or defamiliarized by artworks. We will also conduct hands-on sessions on commissioning processes, funding models, public critique, education and maintenance. Using the campus landscape, each student will conduct a project synthesizing course materials and independent research to reflect on how art can be made or remade in public.