“public art: Most artwork created from the dawn of history has been public art in the sense that it was located in places of public gathering or worship, such as Greek temple sculpture and medieval church frescoes. Since the 1960s, artists’ appetites for creating works too large to be exhibited in galleries or museums, coupled with government-sponsored initiatives, have resulted in the placement of large, publicly funded sculptures in many parks and plazas, with various degrees of critical and popular success, Public uproar over Richard Serra’s site-specific Tilted Arc in Manhattan eventually forced its removal. Other artists created earthworks, such as Christo’s Running Fence, which required vast amounts of open space. See MEDIA ART.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
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