The State of the Art
Posted on February 11, 2020
Recently I learned a new term, “art-washing.” It means that a real estate developer offers a piece of public art to a city government in exchange for its approving a variance in the building code. That happened in Fredericton a few months ago. The city council approved a many-storied condo building bound to spoil a lovely streetscape in the downtown. This comes on the heels of the destruction in Officers’ Square with the removal of many trees, the historic wall and fence, and the green lawn. Those who opposed this demolition were derisively called “The Against Everything Crowd.”
