Looks like Portland's Paul Bunyan is about to get some care. I come from the Midwest where Bunyans are plentiful but I like ours best and kinda wish more of our public art came off like this instance does. He is a greeter, and designed to be one... a lot of public art is the product of convoluted interests that commission them leading the work to serve too many masters. Of recent public art pieces none is more successful than Jorge Pardo's streetcar stop and it works precisely because it doesn't embrace some obvious things like rain shelter. Instead it gives people a beacon. Paul Bunyan is similar. Sunny disposition with his grin and trusty axe.

I am with Portland's Horatio Law on this, the term "ghetto" means many things to many people and has massive historical precedent in Chinatown. Trying to whitewash history with less loaded language is never the right way to handle these things. The Jews, Italians, Irish, Chinese, Puerto Ricans etc. have all been ghettoized in this country at one time or another and to cede that term to one group over another obscures the pattern and actually re-writes history in a false way. Artists sometimes remind us that committees can sometimes be very bad at addressing history.

An interesting idea, the Broad as a gateway contemporary art museum? I see it differently as every collector has a unique perspective... when they donate works to a more generalized museum their point of view gets diluted. I like strong points of view, even if I completely disagree with them. The Barnes Collection, The Frick, The Menil... they have a certain integrity that can get lost in the multi-patron museum shuffle.

A fascinating interview with an architect that embraces entropy. Watch this one.