Agenda - Parks and Recreation Commission - 01/09/2025

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contradictions inherent in the term "public art"by bringing different sorts of people into contact in creative ways. Art is a potential tool for communication, and the communication can cross all sorts of boundaries. (Finkelpearl 2000, P. x) While Finkelpearl chose a definition and application of the term "public art," other authors expand the definition in order to include multiple dimensions of the term. Bruce Robbins (1993) writes in The Phantom Public Sphere, a reference of Jeff Weintraub's identification of four primary ways that public and private are opposed: first, is the distinction between the State and the private market economy; second, is the distinction of civil society and citizenship from both the State and the market economy; third, with the concept of public space as being a space of symbolic self-presentation; and fourth, the feminist distinction of private and public. In the mid-twentieth century, it was feminist scholars that challenged the prevailing norms of public and private in regard to gender, race class, and sexuality. The masculine hegemony of the day promoted the public world of work and governance, while diminishing the role of domestic and private life. Palmer(2012) notes in her writings that, "Feminist scholars see the dichotomous conceptualization as perpetuating oppressive structures of gender inequality, leaving women and other marginalized peoples, confined to the private sphere (Rose 1993; Palmer 2012, p. 24)." This classification of people, or groups of people, as public or private is an important distinction relative to the cultural privilege enjoyed by certain people, places, objects and activities. Importantly, she notes that how we use public space is not value-neutral. As a society we use public space to invoke ideals and create normative behavior, and it is through the practice of public art that we realize an expanded engagement of the world. Some authors argue that simply placing an artwork in a public space does not necessarily make it public, and it is not public art if it fails to engage the public (Heine 1996). In order to 37