Ryan McCourt, Edmonton

No. 23, on the corner of Jasper and 109th Street is the king of failed public art in Edmonton, bar none. Created not by Edmonton artists, but by a “design team” from Calgary, the piece is like a Trojan horse, snuck through our city gates and accepted as a gift by our credulous leaders.

Ironically, instead of being full of soldiers, it is instead completely, overwhelmingly vacuous, devoid of meaning and quality.

But it doesn’t deserve all the scorn. The site itself, the idea of placing artwork here, is a failure itself. Art projects are shoehorned into unsuitable places, not for the benefit of the public and certainly not for the benefit of the arts, but more often for the benefit of the corporate sponsors involved.