The Public Interest

The malignant object: thoughts on public sculpture

Clark Glymour & Douglas Stalker

Winter 1982

MILLIONS Of dollars are spent in this country on public sculpture-on sculpture that is created for the explicit purpose of public viewing, placed in public settings, and constructed generally by contemporary artists without any intention of commemorating or representing people or events associated with the site. The objects in question may be clothespins, boulders, or tortuous steel shapes. The money may sometimes come from private sources, but much of it comes from public treasuries. 

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