The city of Vancouver, British Columbia has miles of beaches, rocky coasts, and harbors and extensive public parks. It’s the ideal site for large-scale public art, and this year they have installed about 25 sculptures as part of the Vancouver Sculpture Biennale. We followed the map found at their website to photograph some of the striking pieces. Right now in Rochester, we are mourning the loss of several pieces of public art from the airport, peripheral victims of the War on Terror. Could these pieces be relocated to other places in our city, where even more people could enjoy them? Discussions of public art inevitably raise questions about who chooses, who pays, and what locations would be ideal. People’s varying tastes in art make the debates lively, too. The artist who created Engagement Rings, shown here, and Device to Root out Evil, Dennis Oppenheim, has been criticized for creating art specifically for such outdoor settings in many cities and being compensated by municipalities without input from the ultimate consumers, the ordinary people who live there. Such art really works for me, though. And although Vancouver is about three times the size of Rochester, it has a lot more than three times the public art. Art that might not be every person’s first choice is better than no art at all.