Doesn't matter if it's art or not: it's in public

I am sincerely glad to be able to live in and take part in a society where there is sufficient luxury and leisure so that people can discuss, as does Alexandra of Out of Lascaux, Definitions of Art and as does Aaron with his Obligatory Frank Lloyd Wright Post and all because 2blowhards have adopted some conventional, bourgeois notion that the roof should not leak. Some people think that architecture as art should be exempt from such considerations...considerations which would only be appealing to the common man who is immune from the transcendent aesthetic experience.

As I was reading these various interesting posts and comments -- all interesting, all of them, in fact even the ones with which I strongly disagree --- I realized that insofar as the question of "What is art?" relates to public policy, (i.e. the issue of whether architecture is art and thus should be immune from public interference) even if, arguendo, architecture is art, so what?

It's in public.

Most everyone concedes, I believe, that public art impacts the general public (I mean that's why it's done in the first place) and therefore it has a very different set of constraints than does art hanging on your wall. It is only the most extreme and pretentious elitists who would suggest that because someone is denominated an artist then he or she can go around and do anything they like in public. No one can do anything they like in public. That's QED basic adulthood. We all must bend and conform to one degree or another. An artist --- self-proclaimed or generally-recognized --- has the choice of whether or not to accept a commission. So if they do not like the terms (e.g."The work must be acceptable to community standards which means no upsidedown giraffes.") then they are free to refuse the commission.

The issue is not whether "architecture" is "art" but whether it is in public (i.e. visible to all without any limitations such as entrance fees etc.) and thus has potential public impacts. If it has public impacts then it must be responsible to the public and "urban planning" considerations trump "architecture." The degree of such oversight is of course, like the art itself, a political matter and a decision for each local jurisdiction. So there you go.