Artist Joseph La Piana brings color and sculptural form to the Park Avenue corridor this spring, just outside the doors of the panel venue, the Park Avenue Armory. And despite the vivid lyricism of his work, a hidden criticality rests within the works as made clear in their titles: Tension Sculptures. Most certainly, public art—at least great public art—often provides such a provocative duality. Some people love it, while others deride it. In a hyper politicized world, people are quick to take sides. Just look at the current debacle on the city’s west side facing the Vessel, Thomas Heatherwick’s “stairway to nowhere” at Hudson Yards or to Jeff Koons’s Ballerina sculpture at Rockefeller Center in 2017. Both works have been heavily critiqued by the so-called art world yet both were beloved by the very public for which they were ostensibly made. This panel discusses the realities of making art just that. Public.