JUST ANOTHER STATUE

Boston has not had a good record of choosing public art. Last weekend a symposium sought to identify ways to turn that record around. “More artist input, and less community involvement in dictating content and style, was a subplot that simmered without reaching a boil. The community that asks for and gets another figurative statue of a local hero is a community unaware of the world of other options – the world artists know. But ‘community involvement’ has become such a lightning rod that many people in the arts are afraid to question it. – Boston Globe