What Is Public Art For?

The placement of a new, 12-foot-high bronze statue in Times Square, New York City’s most famous tourist and entertainment district, by the Times Square Alliance, a nonprofit organization financed by local businesses, raises the question of just what public art is for. (The statue, made by London-based sculptor Thomas J. Price, will stand in place until June 17, as part of a system of rotating displays of contemporary art.) What is remarkable about the statue is its sheer ordinariness. It depicts an anonymous black woman, overweight and casually dressed, hands on hips, looking more or less straight ahead with a somewhat dour expression, despite the ambiguous title the sculptor gave it, “Grounded in the Stars.”