dieser beitrag wurde verfasst in: englisch (eng/en)
verfasserin/verfasser: Meyer Schapiro
titel: On the Rarity of Painting and Sculpture in Projects of Architects
+: Proceedings of the Congrès International Extraordinaire des Critiques d'Art Brasilia, São Paulo/Rio de Janeiro, 1959; reprinted in portuguese in Habitat 2, no. 58 (1960), pp. 4—5; in: Worldview in Painting — Art and Society, New York 1999
«There is a public art, but it is not communal and contributes nothing of lasting value to the environment. It is the art of advertising, which now commands the public surfaces in the streets and buildings. Like almost all art today, it is addressed to the individual observer, but as a consumer of commodities; its imagery exploits his responses to color and shape and idea, not to give him joy and understanding but to induce him to buy what in many cases is a shoddy object. […]
Can true art ever replace in the public sphere this insincere and clamorous commercial art? The public spaces have lost their sacredness; they are the field of competing appeals to buy cosmetics and clothes and food. The space created by the architect must allow for these images and signs; he must accept as a fact the probable effect of advertising on the appearance of his buildings. The most remarkable facade, with its own sculpture and painting, will be seen as part of a larger whole that includes the distracting architecture of gigantic displays and signs.
All works in the public field must be calculated for a short existence, not only because of commercial needs that limit their length of life but also because during that short life the original design may be curtailed or confused by adjacent ones that have been added without consideration of the total effect.
The painter and sculptor are, therefore, right to be suspicious of proposals to introduce painting and sculpture in the public space. They may be successful in exceptional sites, which are least exposed to the conditions described. But most of these sites will tuurn out to be sites connected with culture or isolated from the traffic of the city. They will be in universities, schools, hospitals, parks, scientific institutes, and centers for the arts — museums, concert halls, theaters, and libraries.»