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(b Winterthur, Dec 22, 1908; d Zurich, Dec 9, 1994).

Swiss architect, sculptor, painter, industrial designer, graphic designer and writer. He attended silversmithing classes at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich from 1924 to 1927. Then, inspired by the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (1925), Paris, by the works of Le Corbusier and by a competition entry (1927) for the Palace of the League of Nations, Geneva, by Hannes Meyer and Hans Wittwer (1894–1952), he decided to become an architect and enrolled in the Bauhaus, Dessau, in 1927. He studied there for two years as a pupil of Josef Albers, László Moholy-Nagy, Paul Klee and Vasily Kandinsky, mainly in the field of ‘free art’. In 1929 he returned to Zurich. After working on graphic designs for the few modern buildings being constructed, he built his first work, his own house and studio (1932–3) in Zurich-Höngg; although this adheres to the principles of the new architecture, it retains echoes of the traditional, for example in the gently sloping saddle roof....

(b Buntingford, Herts, April 28, 1913; d Berkhamsted, Herts, Oct 23, 1981).

English sculptor, draughtsman, architect and writer. After training as an architect from 1933 to 1936, he taught at the Architectural Association in London and practised as an architect as Cotterell Butler until 1939; among the buildings designed by him were two houses at Bushey (1935) and Great Munden, Herts (1939), as well as the clock-tower of Slough Town Hall (1936), designed while working for C. H. James & Bywaters & Roland Pierce (for illustrations, see exh. cat., p. 9). From 1941 to the end of World War II he worked as a blacksmith in Iping, West Sussex, as a conscientious objector; from 1946 until 1950 he worked as a technical editor for the Architectural Press, acted as consultant to various firms, including Ove Arup and Partners, and attended life-classes at Chelsea School of Art.

Butler began to sculpt in 1944, without having had any formal training, and held his first one-man show at the Hanover Gallery, London, in ...

(b Budapest, July 4, 1928; d Budapest, May 22, 1986).

Hungarian architect, sculptor, conceptual and performance artist, teacher, theorist and film maker. He came from a Jewish–Christian family, many of whom were killed during World War II. In 1947 he began training as a sculptor at the College of Fine Arts in Budapest, but he left and continued his studies in the studio of Dezső Birman Bokros (1889–1965), before training as an architect from 1947 to 1951 at the Technical University in Budapest. During the 1950s and early 1960s he worked as an architect and began experimenting with painting and graphic art, as well as writing poems and short stories. During this period he became acquainted with such artists as Dezső Korniss, László Latner and, most importantly, Béla Kondor and Sándor Altorjai (1933–79), with whom he began a lifelong friendship. In 1959 and 1963 he also enrolled at the Budapest College of Theatre and Film Arts but was advised to leave both times....

(Mykolayovych) [Masyutin, Masyuta-Soroka; Vasyl’ Nikolayevich]

(b Chernihiv, 1884; d Berlin, Dec 15, 1955).

Ukrainian printmaker, sculptor, medallist and art historian, active in Germany. He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under Vasyl’ Maté (1856–1917). After the 1917 Revolution he taught briefly at Vkhutemas (Higher Art and Technical Studios), moving to Berlin in 1921. He frequently sent works back to Ukraine to participate in the exhibitions of the Association of Independent Ukrainian Artists (ANUM), of which he became a member when it was formed in Lwów (L’viv) in 1931. His early graphic work includes etchings treated as symbolic fantasies bordering on the grotesque. He also produced a cycle of engravings, the Seven Deadly Sins, and illustrations to Aesop’s fables and to the works of Gogol and Balzac. He sculpted busts of Balzac and several hetmans and produced an entire series of commemorative medallions of the Cossack leadership, medieval princes and contemporary cultural figures, a total of 63 portraits rendered with historical accuracy. Examples of his work are in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. He also contributed to art pedagogy with his ...

At the turn of the millennium, public art was an established global art genre with its own professional and critical discourse, as well as constituencies of interest and patronage independent of mainstream contemporary art. Art criticism has been prodigious regarding public art’s role in the ‘beautification’ of otherwise neglected social space or in influencing urban development. Diversity and differentiation are increasingly the hallmarks of public art worldwide, emerging from city branding strategies and destination marketing as well as from artist activism and international art events and festivals. The first decade of the 21st century demonstrated the vast opportunity for creative and critical ‘engagement’, activism, social dialogue, and cultural co-creation and collective participation. New public art forms emerged, seen in digital and internet media, pop-up shops, and temporary open-access studios, street performance, and urban activism, as well as architectural collaborations in landscape, environment or urban design.

Intellectually, the roots of contemporary public art can be found in the ludic and the architectonic: in the playful public interventions epitomized in the 1960s by the ...