Public?

by Ruth Barker, 22 Aug 2011

Hello,

Just read on the BBC that Tracy Emin has installed a neon piece in Downing Street. I thought that that was quite interesting, and it reminded me of this post, which I wrote back in March 2009 about the tapestry copy of Picasso’s Guernica that hangs outside the security council room in the UN building in New York.

There’s something particularly intriguing I think about these particular contexts where art and politics might meet. One difference between these examples though is that the Guernica copy was – I think – an acquisition, while the Emin was a new commission: the artist in this latest case devising a new work with this strange and challenging site in mind (evidenced by her quote in the BBC piece that the new work “has to relate to different people on different levels because of all the dignitaries and world leaders and religious groups who go to Number 10”).

How successful has she been? Well, it’s certainly not as bold as the Guernica tapestry.

More later,

R

ps – Jean Cameron sent me this link to the New York Times’ images of outdoor sculptures in NYC. I kinda like Urs Fischer’s bear on page 5! But I was a bit freaked out when I did a google image search. Maybe you can have too many bears, after all…