Plop Art

Slang used to describe a certain kind of public art: large, biomorphic, modernist, abstract, and colorful, it is usually located centrally within a large urban plaza. The term implies that the work is unsuitable to, or disconnected from, its physical and social contexts, thus having been thoughtlessly plopped down where it stands. Plop art is a play on the term Pop art, and was first introduced by architect James Wines to both criticize the failure of much public art to consider its surrounding environment, as well as to highlight the apparent trend of simply placing seemingly-domestic items scaled to monumental proportions in public spaces. [1]

[1] Alyssum Skjeie, James Wines: The Architect Who Turned Buildings Into Art, Carnegie Museum of Art: Storyboard, July 8, 2015 [Read online] and Wikipedia: Plop art or Plonk art (accessed March 16, 2018) [Read online].