Why Is This a Good Thing for Us? Challenging Public Sculpture and Contesting Territory in 1970s New York

Abstract

The Neighborhood Environmental Sculpture Program (NESP) oversaw the installation of five monumental public sculptures between 1972 and 1974 in the Manhattan neighborhoods of Washington Heights and Inwood. Sponsored by New York City’s Public Arts Council, the NESP joined recent experiments in neighborhood self-determination with a new approach to contemporary public sculpture. However, interagency disputes, budgetary restrictions, and compromised community involvement threatened to derail the NESP entirely. The NESP serves instructive to thinking about the values governing contemporary public sculpture when territory—on the ground, in institutional halls of power, and across disciplines—is contested.