Public Sculpture as a Collaboration with a Community

From Rodin to the present, sculptors have had difficulty finding a vocabulary for public art that is not only valid as sculpture and true to the spirit of their times but also acceptable to the general public. An urban neighborhood association commissioned the author’s first public sculpture, a set of boundary markers built as a political organizing tool. Over the course of building 11 public sculptures, he has observed that putting the skills of a sculptor to work to meet the needs of a group of people who use a public space is a useful way to approach public art. The community’s ideas can serve as ‘found objects’, sources for the sculpture. The author has been able to explore in large-scale work some of the same ideas as those in his non-repre-sentational studio sculpture. Sculpture made in the spirit of collaboration with a community is likely to be accepted by that community.