In the first study of its kind, Michele H. Bogart explores in unprecedented detail the world of commercial art, its illustrators, publishers, art directors, photographers, and painters. She maps out the border between art and commerce and expands our picture of artistic culture and practice in the twentieth century with unexpected pairings of Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol, J.C. Leyendecker and Georgia O'Keeffe, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Pepsi-Cola, the avant garde and the Famous Artists Schools, Inc.
Since its founding in 1898, the Art Commission of the City of New York has served as the city's aesthetic gatekeeper, evaluating all works of art intended for display on city property. This text is a fascinating history of the Art Commission of the City of New York.
Since its founding in 1898, the Art Commission of the City of New York (ACNY) has served as the city’s aesthetic gatekeeper, evaluating all works of art intended for display on city property. And over the years, the commission’s domain has expanded dramatically to include everything from parks and courthouses to trash cans and sidewalks. In ThePolitics of Urban Beauty, Michele H. Bogart argues that this unprecedented authority has made the commission host to some complex negotiations—involving artists, architects, business leaders, activists, and politicians—about not only the role of art in urban design, but also the shape and meaning of the city and its public spaces. A former vice president of the ACNY, Bogart tells its story here from an insider’s perspective, tracing the commission’s history from its origins as an outgrowth of progressive reform to its role in New York’s reconstruction after 9/11. Drawing on archival correspondence, drawings, and photographs from commission collections, Bogart presents bracing examples of works—ranging from New Deal murals to Louis Kahn’s unbuilt Memorial to Six Million Jewish Martyrs—that illuminate the ACNY’s subtle yet powerful role in shaping New York’s identity. The Politics of Urban Beauty is thus a fascinating history of a New York art world that paralleled—and sometimes unpredictably intersected with—the more familiar realm of prominent architects, painters, galleries, and museums. Bogart’s fresh view adds a critical dimension to our understanding of “the city beautiful” and makes an important and lively contribution to the study of art history, urban design, and New York City itself.
Bogart's groundbreaking consideration of public art as a topic for serious scholarly consideration examines the sustained and organized effort to create in New York a body of municipal sculpture that would express the civic ideal: an urban vision of patriotism, civilization, and good government. It follows the brief movement through its rise and fall, attempting to explain why sponsorship for such civic projects lasted only for a limited time.
Public sculpture is a major draw in today’s cities, and nowhere is this more the case than in New York. In the Big Apple, urban art has become synonymous with the municipal “brand,” highlighting the metropolis as vibrant, creative, tolerant, orderly, and above all, safe. Sculpture in Gotham tells the story of how the City of New York came to be committed to public art patronage beginning in the mid-1960s. In that era of political turbulence, cultural activists and city officials for a time shifted away from traditional monuments, joining forces to sponsor ambitious sculptural projects as an instrument for urban revitalization. Focusing on specific people, agencies and organizations, and both temporary and permanent projects, from the 1960s forward, Michele H. Bogart reveals the changing forms and meanings of municipal public art. Sculpture in Gotham illustrates how such shifts came about at a time when art theories and styles were morphing markedly, and when municipalities were reeling from racial unrest, economic decline, and countercultural challenges—to culture as well as the state. While sculptural installations on New York City property took time and were not without controversy, Gotham’s processes and policies produced notable results, providing precedents and lessons for cities the world over.
Public sculpture is a major draw in today’s cities, and nowhere is this more the case than in New York. In the Big Apple, urban art has become synonymous with the municipal “brand,” highlighting the metropolis as vibrant, creative, tolerant, orderly, and above all, safe. Sculpture in Gotham tells the story of how the City of New York came to be committed to public art patronage beginning in the mid-1960s. In that era of political turbulence, cultural activists and city officials for a time shifted away from traditional monuments, joining forces to sponsor ambitious sculptural projects as an instrument for urban revitalization. Focusing on specific people, agencies and organizations, and both temporary and permanent projects, from the 1960s forward, Michele H. Bogart reveals the changing forms and meanings of municipal public art. Sculpture in Gotham illustrates how such shifts came about at a time when art theories and styles were morphing markedly, and when municipalities were reeling from racial unrest, economic decline, and countercultural challenges—to culture as well as the state. While sculptural installations on New York City property took time and were not without controversy, Gotham’s processes and policies produced notable results, providing precedents and lessons for cities the world over.
In the first study of its kind, Michele H. Bogart explores in unprecedented detail the world of commercial art, its illustrators, publishers, art directors, photographers, and painters. She maps out the border between art and commerce and expands our picture of artistic culture and practice in the twentieth century with unexpected pairings of Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol, J.C. Leyendecker and Georgia O'Keeffe, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Pepsi-Cola, the avant garde and the Famous Artists Schools, Inc.
Since its founding in 1898, the Art Commission of the City of New York has served as the city's aesthetic gatekeeper, evaluating all works of art intended for display on city property. This text is a fascinating history of the Art Commission of the City of New York.
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