This session focuses on Land and Public Art and the turn toward sculpture as a symptom of postmodernity. As artists moved beyond the contained professional and formal questions of painting, sculpture, and installation, the environment became the new canvas, making way for the emergence of Land and Public Art. Artists broke out of the gallery and into the landscape, creating works that questioned traditional norms and challenged viewers in new ways. Topics of discussion include: scale, immanence, elitism, ecology, site-specificity and monumentality.

IAN VERSTEGEN is Associate Director of Visual Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He received a PhD in Early Modern Art History from Temple University. In addition, he has produced works on modern art theory and historiography, especially the Gestalt psychologist Rudolf Arnheim.

Extra Credit is organized by the Public Engagement Department at the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. Public Engagement is supported by the Bernstein Public Engagement Fund.