D.1.1 Poetic Misinterpretations of Early Modern Painted Facades

• Victoria Addona, McGill University

Painted facades proliferated across early modern European cities, animating streetscapes with their colourful, expressive figures. Recent art historical interests in intermediality have drawn new critical attention to these public surfaces, which continue to captivate tourists and scholars alike. Much scholarly attention has focused on deciphering their complex iconographies, while less analysis has been placed on their status as public art and their reception among diverse audiences. This paper proposes to investigate a series of satirical poems by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Florentine academicians that purposely misinterpreted the intended narratives of painted and sculpted surfaces. Whether putting words directly in the mouths of virtual bodies, imagining the utility of figured facades as architectural backdrops for memory exercises, or commenting more generally on the aesthetic and intellectual qualities that appealed to a broader public, these poems remain as some of the only extant evidence of a vibrant discourse on the splintered and creative reception early modern public art. By connecting these poetic responses to popular histories of the "social lives" of architecture, which trace the ways that viewers shamed, controlled, named, and protected buildings, I emphasize how painted surfaces provoked broader cultural debates on who had the right to engage with and talk about art in the early modern period. By way of a conclusion, I will offer some ideas on the integration of literary sources to diversify contemporary approaches to the preservation of cultural heritage, in line with current digital initiatives in early modern studies.

D.1.2 The Metropolitan Miniatures and Popular Art Education in Postwar America

Mitchell Frank, Carleton University

In 1948, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) went into business with the Book-of-the-Month Club (BOMC) to bring art to the masses. Between 1948 and 1962, the two institutions collaborated on three projects, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art Miniatures (1948-1957), a series of stamps and albums, which reached over 120,000 homes. The “revolutionary idea” behind the Miniatures, according to its promotional material, was for the museum “to cease being a Mountain and become a Mahomet; to carry itself—by modern technological means now available—right into the homes of...millions of people.” Created with up-to-date photographic and printing practices for a modern audience, the Miniatures went well beyond introducing the public to the Met’s collections. The “simple wise idea” behind the Miniatures was to produce in the viewer “the love of great art.” For $1 per issue, a subscriber would receive monthly a sheet of 24 perforated stamps and an album “with a space reserved” for each stamp. The albums described “the historical background and artistic significance” of the reproduced works of art.

This paper explores the Met’s involvement with the Miniatures, which were intended to be both collectible items and educational material that would uplift the viewer and in turn improve the taste of the nation. Issues of culture and commerce were certainly at play in this large-scale venture. At one point, the Met Director voiced a concern to the BOMC President that the Miniatures were not fulfilling their pedagogical function due to the commercial aspects of the enterprise. Moreover, while the Miniatures were premised on making the museum accessible to all, the fact that they were taken up mostly by a white, middle-class audience, with the means to collect and the desire to be part of a greater collective, suggests the limitations of the Met’s postwar notion of accessibility.

D.1.3 Why has there been no great public art?

Emily Cadotte, University of Western Ontario

Capital P Public Art is often vilified by critics and the masses alike for its perceived aesthetic failures—from the UK’s What’s That Thing competition awarded to the worst work of public art erected that year, to the colossal Monroe in Palm Springs dubbed #metooMarilyn, and the most infamous of all—Richard Serra’s 1981 Tilted Arc, deaccessioned less than a decade later in response to public outcry. On the other hand, “public art” continues to be billed within popular discourse as the most democratic form of art available. Definitions for this category of art production vary greatly. The most obvious commonality being assumptions about their display— which is to say, their siting within so-called accessible public space.

This paper makes the case that—questions of aesthetic merit aside—there is little to no good public art for the simple fact that it doesn’t truly exist. All public art within the neoliberal state is inherently anti-public, the smiling face of surveillance capital and a justification for the expansion of monopolistic real estate development. The installation of expensive artworks in outdoor public space necessitates additional security around their sites, often rendering them unusable for communities who are disproportionately surveilled. Andrea Fraser asserted over a decade ago in her post-Occupy article L’1% C’est Moi that the art world, public as much as private, has become completely coopted by investment capital, perhaps beyond repair. It’s ironic to see this claim made most insidious in a milieu whose title contains the promise of collectivity and democracy through publicness. But even this commendable goal of democracy through public art teeters dangerously towards an imposition of a singular vision, often rendering it what cultural critic Adrian Parr has identified as fascistic monuments. Which begs the question, is quantity of public exposure the be-all end-all goal for the contemporary public art object? Or might there be a necessary exclusion for public art to reinvigorate pluralism to our quietly disappearing public spaces?