‘The streets and parks of Manhattan are really a great place to explore what happens to art, and what happens to us, when art steps out from behind the velvet rope … and stands each day in the public eye.’
As evidenced by the increasingly contentious debate over public art, those pieces that a society chooses to exhibit and celebrate in its shared spaces say a lot about its tastes, values and power structures. Released in 1973, the film Art in Public Places is at once a time capsule of its own and a rich window into centuries of New York’s history. Produced by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the film provides a meditative tour of Manhattan’s eclectic displays of public art, expertly guided by the US painter and writer Russell Connor. Spanning the works of artists famous and forgotten, and pieces both improvised and years-in-the-making, the US director Fred Barzyk captures New York’s public displays in all their eclecticism, charms and contradictions.
Director: Fred Barzyk
Website: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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History of science
Insect aesthetics – long viewed as pests, in the 16th century bugs became beautiful
8 minutes
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Nature and landscape
After independence, Mexico was in search of identity. These paintings offered a blueprint
15 minutes
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Mathematics
Spiral into the ‘golden ratio’ – and separate the myths from the maths
4 minutes
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Art
A young Rockefeller collects art on a fateful journey to New Guinea
7 minutes
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Architecture
A lush tour of Fallingwater – the Frank Lloyd Wright design that changed architecture
14 minutes
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Economics
A tour of New York’s gaudiest neighbourhood with the Marxist geographer David Harvey
13 minutes