ABSTRACT
The history of art in public spaces is complex, but two points are crucial. First, in the 20th century, many ideas influenced public art apart from its long-term antecedents in monuments and architecture: the search for art’s wider public function; increasing dissatisfaction with the limitations of the painting frame and gallery space; and a critique through artistic intervention of conventions of public space and architecture. Secondly, a break in this history occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s when new questions about how art interacts with its public became central. As a public monument under a woman’s direction, House ran counter to important stereotypes: the gendering of the public /private distinction; the historical exclusion of women from “monumental” art and their confinement to “domestic” art; and the regulation of women’s circulation in public space. Public space is a rich site for contesting power, especially when it is integrated into media narratives.
