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Programming Note: Site Spec Hiatus A note to Site Spec readers: I'm going to be taking a (hopefully) short hiatus from posting while I do some technical work on the website.

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Friday Roundup: Quebec's Biggest Codfish Edition

Friday Roundup: Quebec’s Biggest Codfish Edition

Welcome to another edition of the public art news roundup. To start the roundup today, I’m going to repost some thoughts I published on my Medium account earlier this week. I’m focusing on a small facet of the continually unfolding and ceaselessly horrifying reports on the Pulse shooting and the events leading up to it. As for the grief I’m feeling following yet another fucking mass shooting,…

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Pittsburgh Moves to Safeguard the “Public” Art It Doesn’t Own

Pittsburgh Moves to Safeguard the “Public” Art It Doesn’t Own

After an iconic, publicly accessible but privately owned sculpture was sold in Pittsburgh, Mayor Bill Peduto is looking to safeguard privately owned art in the city’s public space. My latest story in Next City covers the mechanisms Peduto’s administration is pursuing and some of the context surrounding this effort. Check it out online here. Featured Image: “Ls – One Up One Down Excentric,” via…

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Friday Roundup: Archaeological Station Edition

Friday Roundup: Archaeological Station Edition

Welcome to another edition of the public art news roundup. It took me a few reads to get through the Stanford letter. If you’re a woman or girl, you more than likely understand at least the threat of what she experienced last January, and may recognize some of the many details from her life over the past year and a half that she describes so precisely and vividly. So I wouldn’t be surprised if…

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Triple Art Opportunity Alert: Three Projects Open In Utah

Triple Art Opportunity Alert: Three Projects Open In Utah

The Utah Division of Arts & Museums’ Public Art Program has released calls for three new public art projects in the state, with budgets ranging from $81,000 to $309,000. The projects all spring from Utah’s Percent for Art program and will be incorporated into three new facilities that are currently in the works. One of the projects, budgeted at $81,000 including artist fees, will bring…

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Friday Roundup: The Illuminated River Edition

Friday Roundup: The Illuminated River Edition

Happy Friday, and welcome back to the public art news roundup. Due to the scheduling of writing deadlines and long-weekend brunches beyond my control, the roundup fell by the wayside last week. That means some extra headlines for you this week and lots of coffee and catch-up reading for me. Now to the roundup, with a little rollover: The Louvre published and interview with JR about his work…

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NYC Parks Dept. Censors Sculpture With Noose

NYC Parks Dept. Censors Sculpture With Noose

The NYC Parks Department has reportedly censored a public sculpture that included a noose in its design. The West Side Rag first wrote about the incident after hearing artist Aaron Bell discuss his work, called “Stand Tall, Stand Loud” at a Community Board 7 Parks Committee meeting. According to that report, the City informed Bell that his sculpture’s design – which featured a noose with a…

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Design For New Statue At Cleveland Browns Stadium To Be Kept Secret From Public

Design For New Statue At Cleveland Browns Stadium To Be Kept Secret From Public

Design plans for a statue of Cleveland Browns alumnus Jim Brown will be kept a secret from the public until its unveiling, although City officials have been able to see it. The statue will sit at the Browns’ stadium, on City-owned land leased by the team. It will also be funded by the Browns without taxpayer contribution, according to chief city planner Donn Angus – so, to a certain extent,…

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This series of illustrations were made for the theme of “transportation”, commissioned by Urban Artworks, and hand painted by Jesse Brown and Kevin Drake.

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Friday Roundup: Banksy Drama Edition

Friday Roundup: Banksy Drama Edition

Happy Friday, and welcome to another edition of the public art news roundup. I managed to collect tons of links for this roundup despite the fact that I’m currently drowning in deadlines and also emotionally and physically exhausted from battling a clear descendent of Aragog who set up camp in my living room last night. So let’s just get right to it: Park-goers in Newark, N.J. and Milwaukee, Wis.…

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Student Mural To Be Repainted After Des Moines Fast-Tracks Approvals

Student Mural To Be Repainted After Des Moines Fast-Tracks Approvals

“This is a really crappy situation, but because the community has rallied, it’s turned it into something beautiful.” The student mural that was beige-washed in Des Moines last weekend due to snafus in the approval process will be fast-tracked for repainting thanks to community crowdfunding, the Des Moines Register reports. The original 200-foot mural, which took nearly 100 hours to paint, was…

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Student Mural Destroyed By Des Moines After Miscommunication

A couple of lost emails have led to the creation and destruction of a $3,000 mural in Des Moines, Iowa, the Des Moines Register reports. The mural, which stretches 200 feet and took 100 hours to paint, was created by students with guidance from artist As Phate. It was nearly completed before being painted out over the weekend by the City, which owns the wall it was on. According to the Register‘s…

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Friday Roundup: Nightmare Land Edition

Friday Roundup: Nightmare Land Edition

Welcome to another edition of the public art news roundup. I’m trying to recall some positive news that came out of this week. NASA announced that it discovered 1,000 more planets, Google proposed some new emoji for gender equality… It’s hard to bring much to mind right now, though, considering Trayvon Martin’s murderer is currently back in the fucking headlines because he’s decided to auction…

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Development Incentives In Indianapolis Will Now Support Public Art, With A Focus On Impoverished Neighborhoods

Development Incentives In Indianapolis Will Now Support Public Art, With A Focus On Impoverished Neighborhoods

The Indianapolis City-County Council approved a new percent for art program on Monday that will require developers to fund public art in exchange for financial support for their projects. This percent for art program differs from many others throughout the U.S. that are tied to a city or state’s own taxpayer-funded capital spending. For example, under those programs, if a municipal building is…

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Friday Roundup: Monet On The Train Edition

Friday Roundup: Monet On The Train Edition

Happy Friday, and welcome to another edition of the public art news roundup. This week would have marked the 100th birthday of Jane Jacobs, “one of the world’s greatest urban visionaries,” as CityLab put it. She wrote “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” went up against Robert Moses and won, and introduced urban planning concepts that remain significant. We’re still asking her opinion…

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Private Money Boosting Public Art In England; Sector Shows Sharp Regional Divides

Private Money Boosting Public Art In England; Sector Shows Sharp Regional Divides

Public art in England is expanding as private money flows into the sector, although sharp divides remain across the country, according to a recent survey from public art think tank ixia. Last month, ixia published its fourth public art survey, looking at the people working in the sector, their earnings, and their work. Findings indicate that the public art workforce is approaching 2011 levels…

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Four tall, twisted metal sculptures by artist Carole Eisner will be on view in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park for one year.

The sculptures come by way of the NYC Parks Department’s Art in the Parks program, with collaboration from the Prospect Park Alliance and Susan Eley Fine Art gallery. They will be placed in “four key sites… chosen to maximize visitor access,” according to the Parks Department.

“Dancer,” the tallest sculpture at 17 feet, will face Grand Army Plaza.

“Dancer,” Carole Eisner. Courtesy of NYC Parks.

“Skipper” stands 13 feet and will greet park goers from Bartel-Pritchard Square.

“Skipper,” Carole Eisner. Courtesy of NYC Parks.

“Zerques” and “Valentine II” will sit in front of Litchfield Villa and at the Prospect Park lake, respectively.

“Zerques,” Carole Eisner. Courtesy of NYC Parks.

“Valentine II,” Carole Eisner. Courtesy of NYC Parks.

From the Parks Department:

For more than 45 years Eisner has been welding massive abstract sculptures from scrap and recycled metal. The four works that will be on view in Prospect Park are from a series Eisner created in the past 10 years from I-beams, rolled and twisted to create lyrical, elegant forms.

In a statement released in February, Prospect Park Alliance president Sue Donoghue said, “the landscapes selected for this exhibition are ideally suited to the elegance and fluidity of Carole Eisner’s work, and we look forward to debuting them in the Park.”

Eisner’s sculptures will go on view May 15 and will stay up for one year.

See It: Four Twisted Metal Sculptures Coming To Prospect Park Four tall, twisted metal sculptures by artist Carole Eisner will be on view in Brooklyn's Prospect Park for one year.