How to Destroy a Mural

Abstract

TheUniversity of North Carolina at Greensboro has struggled with what tomake of—and out of—JosephH. Cox’s untitled sculptural mural from 1960 (fig. 1). At various moments over the past six decades, representatives of the university have removed key elements, permitted lax maintenance, and disassembled the work entirely. As part of the 2018 demolition of the building that supported the mural and the subsequent construction of a new building on the same site, the university revealed an institutional understanding of the mural to be less a work of public art than a collection of useful public materials.