Chicago Revisited: A Critical Roundtable
Thursday, February 11, 12:30 - 2 pm
Regency C, Gold Level, West Tower, Hyatt Regency
Chairs: Mary M. Tinti, WaterFire Providence; Nancy Scott, Brandeis University
Panelists include: Mary Jane Jacob, Professor and Executive Director of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Eli Robb, Lake Forest College; John Pitman Weber, Elmhurst College
This year's Public Art Dialogue roundtable takes as its inspiration the city of Chicago and the diverse public art projects created as exploration, definition or memorial within its urban fabric. Panelists Mary Jane Jacob, Eli Robb, and John Weber will discuss a mixture of contemporary and past artworks central to the city of Chicago and to their own investigations of art in the public realm. Together, these panelists represent a range of points of view—each informed by individual expertise in multiple roles as curator, critic, and public art practitioner.
In keeping with PAD's mission to promote meaningful, critical conversations about public art, the panel will devote the major part of this session to questions and comments from the audience regarding current trends and issues in the field to be introduced by the experience, insights and reflections of our panelists.
The CAA-affiliated society Public Art Dialogue has been created to foster discourse among practitioners, historians, students, and critics in the arts community who are concerned with the creation, preservation and/or the future of the practice of public art in its many manifestations.
Public Art Dialogue Session
Site Variations: The Shifting Grounds of Public Art
Friday, February 12, 9:30 am - 12 pm
Regency D, Gold Level, West Tower, Hyatt Regency Chicago
Chairs: Harriet F. Senie, City College, City University of New York; Cher Krause Knight, Emerson College
Public art in any form implicitly begins with a definition of "site." It might be in relation to a specific building, stem from the history of a particular place, or be movable, perhaps dependent on the artist or audience for its location. Even works that reject the primacy of site and notions of the site-specific underscore the ever-present and always expanding matrix of concerns that site engenders. Site is no longer—nor perhaps was it ever only—just a physical place. The understanding of site has extended well beyond the physical to encompass social, political, historical, and psychological dimensions. This panel includes papers that consider site in terms of aerial art, social practice, locative media, and everyday intervention. Our speakers include art historians, artists, and curators—a reflection of Public Art Dialogue's cross-disciplinary membership.
Non-Sites and Non-Places
Janna Eggebeen, University of Toronto
Invisible Venue(s): Alternatives to the Institution
Christian L. Frock, Invisible Venue
The Neighborhood Narratives Project: Investigating Public Sites for New Encounters
Hana Iverson, Rutgers University
A Front Lawn, A Hotel Room, A Coffee Cup
Gregory Sale, Arizona State University
