Generative Miscommunication in Public Art: games of collection and interpretation on a university campus

Abstract

Most public sculpture before WWII, in the form of statues and monuments, was charged with values corresponding to specific religious and national commitments. During the 20th century, with the fragmentation of university departments, disciplines have become increasingly specialised. As a result, the meaning of modernist public art can be opaque to the very public for which it is intended. Situated outside formal establishments, public art opens the doors for forms of interaction that break conventions, typically unintended by curatorial design, but which become integrated into art historical interpretation. The gap between meaning structures employed by the curators and those carried by the public does not prevent communication, rather it leads to what I term generative miscommunication.