Boston is a city perennially self-conscious about public art. A 2012 Boston Phoenix cover story examined why such an alarming number of young artists leave a city ranked in the top 10 for national arts funding. (The Boston Phoenix itself folded not long after that publication.) When it comes to large-scale works in the public domain, the city tends to favor exogenous creations rather than the homegrown. The accusation that the city is risk-averse and WASP-y descends from what Michael Braithwaite called an “age-old attitude central to the very culture of Boston itself: a city where philanthropy as historically been dedicated to institutions and fine art, rather than to visual art and artists that push boundaries.” More important, the elimination of rent control by voter referendum in 1994 ensured that tenable housing for artists, the vast majority of whom piece together low wages, would be dispiritingly low.This essay appears in TNI Vol. 19: “Art,” out now. Subscribe for $2 and get it.
The most publicly discussed artwork on the heels of that 2012 report was “The Giant of Boston,” a large mural by Os Gêmeos (Portuguese for “the twins”). Otávio and Gustavo Pandolfo are Brazilian brothers from São Paulo who co-produce all their work, both sanctioned and illicit, as the eponymous twins, signing their entire jointly bred oeuvre as a single artist. Os Gêmeos’ local work comprised three murals around the city and an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, the most prominent artistic institution in Boston.