This is a fascinating artist/curator panel from RSA in the UK that I first heard over this past summer. I listened to this panel again recently and it is refreshing to hear professionals and a thoughtful audience argue the nature of visual art in the public realm, both for and against with such informed gusto:
The Art Fund’s Big Art debate will ask should the public choose public art? What would happen if they did? And can we even afford public art in a recession?
Chair: Jon Snow
Panelists: Jonathan Jones, art critic for The Guardian, Munira Mirza, Cultural Adviser to the Mayor of London, Grayson Perry, Turner Prize winning artist, Andrew Shoben, greyworld.
RSA Audio: Can the Public be Trusted to Choose Public Art?
If there is a thread through the dialogue its that artists are professionals and in no other realm are professionals questioned or seen as suspect in their abilities to the same degree as the visual Arts. Citizen surgery anyone?