Creative Spaces/Contested Spaces: Reinterpreting Italian American Public Art in New York City

Creative Spaces/Contested Spaces: Reinterpreting Italian American Public Art in New York City is an exploration of Italian American public art that examines how monuments and landmarks are created, interpreted, forgotten, or become sites of conflict. With the recent focus on monuments to Italian explorers and their relationship to issues of colonization and genocide, and in view of the prominent role Italian American immigrant artisans have played in making New York’s monuments, public art created by and about Italian Americans is an especially rich means of exploring humanities-related socio-cultural concerns of aesthetics, power, and belonging.