Ofﬁcial art, ofﬁcial publics: public sculpture under the Federal Art-in-Architecture Program since1972 : Public sculpture under the Federal Art-in-Architecture Program since 1972

doi:10.4324/9780203220238-16

Chapter

Ofﬁcial art, ofﬁcial publics: public sculpture under the Federal Art-in-Architecture Program since1972

ABSTRACT

In 1972, the US government launched the Art-in-Architecture Program under the aegis of the General Services Administration (GSA), the department of the federal government that oversees and maintains federal buildings and facilities. Since its inauguration, the program has generated commissions for hundreds of public artworks, including many high-proﬁle outdoor sculptures by well-known artists, at federal buildings across the country. However, with the exception of a few controversial cases, such as Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc in New York City (which was removed in 1989 after an extended, well-publicized debate), the sculptures commissioned by the program have received very little attention in the scholarly literature on contemporary public art in the United States.