Public art... really?

After reading the excerpt from Miwon Kwon's 'One Place After Another' it seems that community-based, site specific art is riddled with issues that even in the 21st century, we seem to not be able to control. I think dividing public art into either works like Richard Serra's 'Tilted Arc', having an "aggressively interruptive function", or like John Ahearn's "assimilative" sculptures for Jerome Avenue is besides the point. In Kwon's book, he seems to politely say that both styles of public art are flawed, and that there will be criticism at both ends of the spectrum.

I think this then leads to other issues such as public taste and who is the actual audience who is allowed to decided whether the work is site and community appropriate. In regards to public taste, it is easy to acknowledge that everyone will have different opinions. This is without a doubt the truth. But then how do we decide which of these differing opinions is the most acute and suitable.

When Kwon debates whether works that have a utilitarian purpose are more suitable to site-specific works than the more traditional avant-garde like Serra's, I think this is an important issue to raise. If the work becomes more utilitarian, then art critics condemn the work saying that it has lost its worthiness of being deemed art. Then if the work becomes too isolated, in its ideas and subject, then the public and community come out and say that this work has no relevance to this site and its people, even though, such as in Serra's case, the work may have a very site-specific concept and idea.

If you have been to Manly wharf, you know of the steaming metal shell (shit) that presides there. When it was first unveiled in 2000, many people misconstrued the sculpture for a large piece of faeces. The sculpture, by Queensland based art consultancy Urban Art Projects, polarised the locals to extreme levels. It is cast aluminium and shoots steam out of 32 misting nozzles. Why I'm talking about this work is because this is a great example of a work that is seemingly misunderstood by the community (however bad it may be) and that public art seems to be a very difficult thing to pull off.The Manly Council created a small pamphlet, promoting the supposed "great number of public artworks", that read "Manly Council is committed to promoting public art for the benefit of the Manly community.

My problem here is, what 'benefit' do we seem to attain from a steaming (admittedly cool... as in temperature) metal shit (shell). How is the community meant to interact and create a dialogue, as suggested by Kwon?

Now ten years on, most of the public seem to just ignore it. And the only dialogue and interaction that occurs is when the steam is expelled leading to tiny children finding entertainment in jumping and running over the steaming metal shell (shit). Go figure.