PUBLIC ART IN
THE AMERICAS

Introduction

Mirko Lauer:
Peru’s Fine Art
of Flag Washing

John Pitman Weber:
Out of the Studio,
Into the Streets

José Luis Soto and
Isa Campos Castañeda:
Mosaic Opening Night

Dora Andrade:
Brazilian Movement Gives Girls Dignity

María Galindo:
Bolivian Debtors
a Creative Force

Coco Fusco:
Now Playing:
Exotic People

Michael Schnorr:
Border Works
Tie Local to Global

María Esther Francia:
Uruguayan Youths
With Unruly Tastes

Slideshow:
Mosaic of the Americas

Books

Home: AMERICAS.ORG   September 2001

Exhibit This!

This section’s guest editor is Bruce Campbell.

Public art is a deceptively simple proposition: the creation in the public realm of exceptionally meaningful (i.e. aesthetic) experiences. But the enterprise is necessarily complicated and politicized by its confrontation with social conventions, controls and hierarchies that govern public arenas. Public art is often a critical exception to unwritten rules governing who speaks about which matters of collective concern.

After more than a year of planning and 10 weeks of production, a spectacular ceramic-tile mural called Mosaic of the Americas covers the south face of the Resource Center of the Americas, the Minneapolis-based nonprofit publisher of AMERICAS.ORG. To help inaugurate the mural, we invited public artists throughout the Americas to reflect on their work. The result is this section of essays—a provocative collection of exceptions to the ruling order. The artists show how they work in their communities to educate each other, challenge elites, democratize culture, undermine stereotypes and cross local, national and global boundaries.

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