The book

Providing a kaleidoscopic view onto these works, this richly illustrated volume explores each permanent installation through a suite of three to four short essays. Contributed by critics, poets, and scholars from diverse fields including anthropology, mathematics, art history, media studies, and design, these polyvocal texts are complemented by three longer essays reflecting on the art-historical significance of the site-specific commissions; the varying architectural contexts in which the works reside on The New School campus; and the history of The New School and its relationship to adventurous art practice. The volume also includes a roundtable discussion among leading arts educators considering the pedagogical potential of a campus-based contemporary art collection. The book’s final section presents a capsule history of each commissioned work, highlighted by archival images.

The book’s suggestive title, I Stand in My Place with My Own Day Here, derives from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, as quoted by Glenn Ligon in his magnificent installation, For Comrades and Lovers (2015). Alluding to the ways in which an art work’s meaning shifts according to each viewer’s unique vantage point, this title—and the book as a whole—suggest that each generation has an opportunity to redefine a work’s meaning.