Been doing some new kinds of writing and research and thinking these days. Most of it is quantitative, but some creative. I wrote a critical investigation of an art installation in Buffalo’s Delaware Park this fall, and it was recently published in Cornelia Magazine. The exhibit, newly acquired Albright Knox pieces by the artist Chloe Bäss titled “Wayfinding,” irked me during early morning park walks this summer. I wrote the pitch on a whim of personal annoyance and curiosity.

The process of writing the full piece brought me many unexpected insights about something I’ve wondered about for my entire life as a Buffalonian – how things that pop up around town in the name of public art come to be. Writing this also opened my mind to the historic and artistic value of all of the kinds of art that we, the public, interface with – landscape art, primarily, but also architecture and infrastructure and nature. For the first time, largely thanks to a cadre of invaluable Olmsted scholars in Buffalo, I wondered if the absence of public art should be a choice for juried selection. And, as always, I was stretched in new ways to consider something I am constantly considering: just how far-reaching collaboration – a concept that is central to my research – extends into life and work.

In short summary (and with my encouragement to read the full piece!), this investigation showed me that public art in Buffalo is often born from municipal infrastructures that largely exclude the public. I met with many people who had very little to say about processes to ensure diverse input or showed any oomph! to enlist the public as co-curators. And so it was not entirely surprising, during an especially slush-filled January park walk just after my piece went to print, to see that the installation had been prematurely removed due to persistent vandalism.

Some might say this makes the public of Buffalo uncultured. Without even pausing to comment on the art in the installation itself, I disagree. When those tasked with approving or denying placement of public art do so with minimal efforts to engage the public viewing it, what forum remains?

Interesting that this plucky yellow magazine, the mouthpiece of the Buffalo Institute of Contemporary Art, published my investigation right before the opening of an exhibit celebrating the local museum-sponsored public art campaign. I hope people pick up a physical copy en route. And that readers see if Buffalo is to be a city that flaunts its commitment to public art, we must change to do so in innovative and concrete ways in equal partnership with the very people the art is meant for.

There are far greater perils in Buffalo and beyond, politically. But I also hope candidates for Mayor will read this and consider the importance of all that is put in public view along with our place in its curation. And I hope others – the public! – will find ways into these forums of curation to make changes in what they want to see (or don’t want to see!) around town.