Asian Public Art News: Tilted Arc: the aftermath

This is about as good as I think writing about art gets in the daily papers: Richard Serra at MoMA: Towering sculptures in torqued steel. I'm linking to the IHT version, as it will stay free access longer, but you see better pix at the NYT version. Michael Kimmelman is saying that Tilted Arc is far behind us - that today's audiences can appreciate the lightness and warmth of these "awesome mazes of looming Cor-Ten steel":

«That same vocabulary of curved, giant metal walls, once vilified as art-world arrogance, is now better understood and broadly admired. This is how radical art operates.In Mr. Serra’s case you can also call it democratic art because it sticks to pure form that requires no previous expertise to grasp. There’s no coy narrative, no insider joke or historical allusion or meta-art theme. There’s none of what Mr. Serra disdainfully calls, in the show’s catalog, “post-Pop Surrealism,” by which he lumps together all contemporary art that leans for a crutch on language and Duchamp. »

I think on balance this is right, though I would put less emphasis on Serra's formal vocabulary than on attitudes of reception. Audiences are hungry for place-making, ready for serious and honest attempts to engage them, less likely to immediately escalate such attempts the zero-sum wars of identity politics...

(Well, obviously not all audiences in all contexts. Remember Russian war hero monuments in Estonia and, recently, reactions to Singapore's ersatz graffiti...)

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