Most of the issues with public art in the article revolved around an apparent disconnect with the public/community and the artwork. An example of this was Richard Serra’s steel sculpture called “Tilted Arc”, installed in 1981. The work has since been removed. Miwan Kwon suggested that one of the problems with the work was that its creation had been dictated by beureaucrats and a panel of art experts, rather than involving members of the public and the wider community. Likened to the Modernist sculpture of the 1960s, the work had few qualities to link it to the concept of “public” other than it’s imposition on the space. It is important for artists to work with the community in the process of creation. Kwon suggested it was important objective in the creation of community-based site specific art to make members of the public “as simultaneously viewer/spectator, audience, public and referential subject”, to see something of themselves in the work, “of being affirmatively pictured or validated.” Serra’s sculpture received a negative response from the public, perhaps this was because his focus in art making was elsewhere. Rather than making art for the community, Kwon suggests he was interested in merging sculpture and architecture into a new “hybrid form”, with the aim of obliterating categorical distinctions. In this sense Serra’s work can be seen as a success.

Here are some pics of a work by Simone Decker, from the Venice Biennale, 1999. They're interesting to consider as public works, although they were shown in the exhibition as photographs.