Art historian and Stony Brook professor Michele Bogart’s new book, Sculpture in Gotham: Art and Urban Renewal in New York City, explores how The Big Apple became an epicenter for public art in the second half of the twentieth century. Her research tracks the ways artists and civic leaders respond to the turbulent political and social climate to make dynamic and aspiring projects.

Each year in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, a towering figure made of wicker known as “The Man” is ceremoniously set ablaze at the culmination of Burning Man, the iconoclastic festival of community and art. The Wicker Man, however, dates back to the ancient Celtic world, when the Druids burned these giant figures in effigy, purportedly sometimes containing human sacrifices. This lecture, led by former lawyer turned religious studies scholar Amy Slonaker, explores the history and modern revival of the Wicker Man in neo-pagan rites and pop culture events and where legend and fact diverge.