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Public art is art in any media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and physically accessible to the public; it is installed in public space in both outdoor and indoor settings. Public art seeks to embody public or universal concepts rather than commercial, partisan or personal concepts or interests. Notably, public art is also the direct or indirect product of a public process of creation, procurement, and/or maintenance. Independent art created or staged in or near the public realm (for example,
graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...
,
street art Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art. Street art has evolved from the early forms of defiant graf ...
) lacks official or tangible public sanction has not been recognized as part of the public art genre, however this attitude is changing due to the efforts of several street artists. Such unofficial artwork may exist on private or public property immediately adjacent to the public realm, or in natural settings but, however ubiquitous, it sometimes falls outside the definition of public art by its absence of public process or public sanction as "bona fide" public art.


Characteristics of public art

Common characteristics of public art are public accessibility, public realm placement, community involvement, public process (including public funding); these works can be permanent or temporary. According to the curator and art/architecture historian, Mary Jane Jacob, public art brings art closer to life.


Public accessibility: placement in public space/public realm

Public art is publicly accessible, both physically and/or visually. When public art is installed on privately owned property, general public access rights still exist. Public art is characterized by site specificity, where the artwork is "created in response to the place and community in which it resides" and by the relationship between its content and the public. Cher Krause Knight states that "art's publicness rests in the quality and impact of its exchange with audiences ... at its most public, art extends opportunities for community engagement but cannot demand particular conclusion,” it introduces social ideas but leaves room for the public to come to their own conclusions.


Public process, public funding

Public art is often characterized by community involvement and collaboration. Public artists and organizations often work in conjunction with architects, fabricators/construction workers, community residents and leaders, designers, funding organizations, and others. Public art is often created and provided within formal "art in public places" programs that can include community arts education and art performance. Such programs may be financed by government entities through
Percent for Art The term percent for art refers to a program, often a city ordinance, where a fee, usually some percentage of the project cost, is placed on large scale development projects in order to fund and install public art. The details of such programs va ...
initiatives.


Longevity

Some public art is planned and designed for stability and permanence. Its placement in, or exposure to, the physical public realm requires both safe and durable materials. Public artworks are designed to withstand the elements (sun, wind, water) as well as human activity. In the United States, unlike gallery, studio, or museum artworks, which can be transferred or sold, public art is legally protected by the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA) which requires an official deaccession process for sale or removal.


Forms of public art

The following forms of public art identify to what extent public art may be physically integrated with the immediate context or environment. These forms, which can overlap, employ different ''types'' of public art that suit a particular form of environment integration. * stand alone: for example, sculptures, statues, structures * integrated (into façades, pavements, or landscapes): for example, bas reliefs, Hill figure, Geoglyph,
Petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...
,
mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
s, digital lighting * applied (to a surface): for example, murals, building-mounted sculptures * installation (where artwork and site are mutually embedded): for example, transit station art * ephemeral (or non-permanent): performances, temporary installations: for example, a precarious rock balance or an instance of colored smoke.


History of public art


United States, 20th century

In the 1930s, the production of national symbolism implied by 19th century monuments starts being regulated by long-term national programs with propaganda goals (Federal Art Project, United States; Cultural Office, Soviet Union). Programs like President Roosevelt's
New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Con ...
facilitated the development of public art during the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
but was wrought with propaganda goals. New Deal art programs were intended to develop national pride in American culture while avoiding addressing the faltering economy. Although problematic, New Deal art programs such as FAP altered the relationship between the artist and society by making art accessible to all people. The New Deal program Art-in-Architecture (A-i-A) developed
percent for art The term percent for art refers to a program, often a city ordinance, where a fee, usually some percentage of the project cost, is placed on large scale development projects in order to fund and install public art. The details of such programs va ...
programs, a structure for funding public art still utilized today. This program allotted one half of one percent of total construction costs of all government buildings to the purchase of contemporary American art for them. A-i-A helped solidify the policy that public art in the United States should be truly owned by the public. It also promoted site-specific public art. The approach to public art radically changed during the 1970s, following the civil rights movement's claims on public space, the alliance between urban regeneration programs and artistic efforts at the end of the 1960s, and revised ideas of sculpture. Public art acquired a status beyond mere decoration and visualization of official national histories in public space. Public art became much more about the public. This perspective was reinforced in the 1970s by urban cultural policies, for example the New York-based Public Art Fund and urban or regional Percent for Art programs in the United States and Europe. Moreover, public art discourse shifted from a national to a local level, consistent with the site-specific trend and criticism of institutional exhibition spaces emerging in contemporary art practices.


Environmental public art

Between the 1970s and the 1980s, gentrification and ecological issues surfaced in public art practice both as a commission motive and as a critical focus by artists. The individual, Romantic retreat element implied in the conceptual structure of
Land art Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mov ...
, and its will to reconnect the urban environment with nature, is turned into a political claim in projects such as ''Wheatfield – A Confrontation'' (1982) by American artist Agnes Denes, as well as in Joseph Beuys’ ''7000 Oaks'' (1982). Both projects focus on the increase of ecological awareness through a green urban design process, bringing Denes to plant a two-acre field of wheat in downtown Manhattan and Beuys to plant 7000 oaks coupled with basalt blocks in Kassel, Germany in a guerrilla or community garden fashion. In recent years, programs of green urban regeneration aiming at converting abandoned lots into green areas regularly include public art programs. This is the case for High Line Art, 2009, a commission program for the High Line, derived from the conversion of a portion of railroad in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
; and of Gleisdreieck, 2012, an urban park derived from the partial conversion of a railway station in Berlin which hosts, since 2012, an open-air contemporary art exhibition. The 1980s also witnessed the institutionalization of sculpture parks as curated programs. While the first public and private open-air sculpture exhibitions and collections dating back to the 1930s aimed at creating an appropriate setting for large-scale sculptural forms difficult to show in museum galleries, installations such as Noguchi's garden in
Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
, New York (1985) reflect the necessity of a permanent relationship between the artwork and its site. This relationship also develops in Donald Judd’s project for the Chinati Foundation (1986) in Texas, which advocates for the permanent nature of large-scale installations whose fragility may be destroyed when re-locating the work.


Sustainability and public art

Public art faces a design challenge by its very nature: how best to activate the images in its surroundings. The concept of “
sustainability Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...
” arises in response to the perceived environmental deficiencies of a city.
Sustainable development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The ...
, promoted by the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...
since the 1980s, includes economical, social, and ecological aspects. A sustainable public art work would include plans for urban regeneration and disassembly. Sustainability has been widely adopted in many environmental planning and engineering projects. Sustainable art is a challenge to respond the needs of an opening space in public. In another public artwork titled "Mission leopard" was commissioned in 2016 in Haryana, India, among the remote deciduous terrain of Tikli village a team coordinated by Artist Hunny Mor painted two leopards perched on branches on a water source tank 115 feet high. The campaign was aimed to spread awareness on co-habitation and environmental conservation. The art work can be seen from several miles across in all directions. Ron Finley's work as the Gangsta Gardener (or Guerrilla Gardener) of South Central L.A. is an example of an artist whose works constitute temporary public art works in the form of public food gardens that addresses sustainability,
food security Food security speaks to the availability of food in a country (or geography) and the ability of individuals within that country (geography) to access, afford, and source adequate foodstuffs. According to the United Nations' Committee on World ...
and food justice. Andrea Zittel has produced works, such as '' Indianapolis Island'' that reference sustainability and
permaculture Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking. It applies these principl ...
with which participants can actively engage.


Interactive public art

Some public art is designed to encourage direct hands-on interaction. Examples include public art that contain interactive musical, light, video, or water components. For example, the architectural centerpiece in front of the Ontario Science Centre is a fountain and musical instrument ( hydraulophone) by Steve Mann where people can produce sounds by blocking water jets to force water through sound-producing mechanisms. An early and unusual interactive public artwork was Jim Pallas' 1980 C''entury of Light'' in Detroit, Michigan of a large outdoor mandala of lights that reacted in complex ways to sounds and movements detected by radar (mistakenly destroyed 25 years later). Another example is Rebecca Hackemann's two works ''The Public Utterato
Machines
' of 2015 and
The Urban Field Glass Project

Visionary Sightseeing Binoculars
2''008, 20013, 2021, 2022. The Public Utteraton Machines records people's opinions of other public art in New York, such as Jeff Koon's Split Rocker and display
responses online


New genre public art

In the 1990s, some artists called for artistic social intervention in public space. These efforts employed the term "new genre public art" in addition to the terms "contextual art", " relational art", " participatory art", "dialog art", " community-based art", and "activist art". "New genre public art" is defined by
Suzanne Lacy Suzanne Lacy (born 1945) is an American artist, educator, writer, and professor at the USC Roski School of Art and Design. She has worked in a variety of media, including installation, video, performance, public art, photography, and art books, ...
as "socially engaged, interactive art for diverse audiences with connections to identity politics and social activism". Mel Chin's Fundred Dollar Bill Project is an example of an interactive, social activist public art project. Rather than metaphorically reflecting social issues, new genre public art strove to explicitly empower marginalized groups while maintaining aesthetic appeal. An example was curator Mary Jane Jacob's 1993 public art show " Culture in Action" that investigated social systems though engagement with audiences that typically did not visit traditional art museums.


Curated public art

The term "curated public art" refers to public art produced by a community or public who "commissions" a work in collaboration with a curator-mediator. An example is the
doual'art doual'art is a non profit cultural organisation and art centre founded in 1991 in Douala, Cameroon and focussed on new urban practices of African cities. History doual'art was registered as a non profit organization in 1992 and it was establis ...
project in Douala (
Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the ...
, 1991) that is based on a commissioning system that brings together the community, the artist and the commissioning institution for the realization of the project.


Memorial public art

Memorials for individuals, groups of people or events are sometimes represented through public art. Examples are Maya Lin's
Vietnam War Memorial The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a U.S. national memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring service members of the U.S. armed forces who served in the Vietnam War. The site is dominated by two black granite walls engraved with the names of thos ...
in Washington DC,
Tim Tate Tim Tate (born 1960) is an American artist and the co-founder of the Washington Glass School in the Greater Washington, DC capital area. The school was founded in 2001 and is now the second largest warm glass school in the United States. Tate wa ...
's AIDS Monument in New Orleans, and
Kenzō Tange was a Japanese architect, and winner of the 1987 Pritzker Prize for architecture. He was one of the most significant architects of the 20th century, combining traditional Japanese styles with modernism, and designed major buildings on five co ...
's ''Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims'' in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Japan.


Controversies

Public art is sometimes controversial. The following public art controversies have been notable: * Detroit's
Heidelberg Project The Heidelberg Project is an outdoor art project in the McDougall-Hunt neighborhood on Detroit's east side, just north of the city's historically African-American Black Bottom area. It was created in 1986 by the artist Tyree Guyton, who was as ...
was controversial for several decades since its inception in 1986 due to its garish appearance. * Richard Serra's minimalist piece '' Tilted Arc'' was removed from
Foley Square Foley Square, also called Federal Plaza, is a street intersection in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City, which contains a small triangular park named Thomas Paine Park. The space is bordered by Worth Street to t ...
in New York City in 1989 after office workers complained their work routine was disrupted by the piece. A public court hearing ruled against continued display of the work. * Victor Pasmore's ''
Apollo Pavilion The ''Apollo Pavilion'', also known as the Pasmore Pavilion, is a piece of public art in the new town of Peterlee in County Durham in the North East of England, designed by British artist and architect Victor Pasmore. It was completed in 1969. ...
'' in the English
New Town New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...
of Peterlee has been a focus for local politicians and other groups complaining about the governance of the town and allocation of resources. Artists and cultural leaders mounted a campaign to rehabilitate the reputation of the work with the
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (also known simply as (the) Baltic, stylised as BALTIC) is a centre for contemporary art located on the south bank of the River Tyne in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England. It hosts a frequently changing variety ...
commissioning artists
Jane and Louise Wilson Jane Wilson and Louise Wilson (born 1967 in Newcastle upon Tyne) are British artists who work together as a sibling duo. Jane and Louise Wilson's art work is based in video, film and photography. They are YBA artists who were nominated for the ...
to make a video installation about the piece in 2003. *
Sam Durant Sam Durant (born 1961, in Seattle) is a multimedia artist whose works engage social, political, and cultural issues. Often referencing American history, his work explores culture and politics, engaging subjects such as the civil rights movement, ...
's ''Scaffold'' (2017), installed in the
Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...
's garden represented the gallows used in seven government hangings. Native American groups found the work offensive, as 38
Dakota people The Dakota (pronounced , Dakota language: ''Dakȟóta/Dakhóta'') are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided ...
had been hung at
Mankato, Minnesota Mankato ( ) is a city in Blue Earth, Nicollet, and Le Sueur counties in the state of Minnesota. The population was 44,488 according to the 2020 census, making it the 21st-largest city in Minnesota, and the 5th-largest outside of the Minne ...
. The artist agreed to dismantle and permit the tribal elders to burn and bury the piece. * Maurice Agis' ''Dreamspace V'', a huge inflatable maze erected in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, killed two women and seriously injured a three-year-old girl in 2006 when a strong wind broke its moorings and carried it into the air, with thirty people trapped inside.


Online documentation

Online databases of local and regional public art emerged in the 1990s and 2000s in tandem with the development of web-based data. Online public art databases can be general or selective (limited to sculptures or murals), and they can be governmental, quasi-governmental, or independent. Some online databases, such as the
Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...
's
Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...
. It currently holds over six thousand works in its database. There are dozens of non-government organizations and educational institutions that maintain online public art databases of public artworks covering numerous areas, including the
National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
, WESTAF, Public Art Fund,
Creative Time Creative Time is a New York-based nonprofit arts organization. It was founded in 1974 to support the creation of innovative, site-specific, socially engaged artworks in the public realm, particularly in vacant spaces of historical and architectura ...
, and others. Public Art Online, maintains a database of public art works, essays and case studies, with a focus on the UK. The Institute for Public Art, based in the UK, maintains information about public art on six continents. The WikiProject Public art project began in 2009 and strove to document public art around the globe. While this project received initial attention from the academic community, it mainly relied on temporary student contributions. Its status is currently unknown.


See also

* ART/MEDIA *
Association for Public Art Established in 1872 in Philadelphia, the Association for Public Art (formerly Fairmount Park Art Association) is the United States' first private, nonprofit public art organization dedicated to integrating public art and urban planning. The Assoc ...
* Environmental sculpture * List of sculptors * Lock On (street art) *
Murals A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spanish ...
* Plop art * Sculpture trail * Site-specific art *
Statue A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals are carved or cast in a durable material such as wood, metal or stone. Typical statues are life-sized or close to life-size; a sculpture t ...
* Street installation *''
Trompe-l'œil ''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...
''


References


Bibliography

* Cartiere, Cameron, and Martin Zebracki, eds. ''The Everyday Practice of Public Art: Art, Space, and Social Inclusion''.
Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...
, 2016. * Zebracki, Martin. ''Public Artopia: Art in Public Space in Question''. Amsterdam University Press, 2012. *
Chris van Uffelen Christian van Uffelen (born 19 December 1966 in Offenbach am Main) is a Dutch-German author and art historian, active in Stuttgart. Biography He studied Art History at the University of Münster and afterwards at the University of Mainz The Joh ...
: ''500 x Art in Public: Masterpieces from the Ancient World to the Present''. Braun Publishing, 1. Auflage, 2011, 309 S., in Engl. it Bild, Kurzbiografie und kurzer Beschreibung werden 500 Künstler mit je einem Kunstwerk im öffentlichen Raum vorgestellt. Alle Kontinente (außer der Antarktis) und alle Kunststile sind vertreten.* Savage, Kirk. ''Monument Wars: Washington, DC, the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape''. University of California Press, 2009. * Powers, John. ''Temporary Art and Public Place: Comparing Berlin with Los Angeles''. European University Studies, Peter Lang Publishers, 2009. *Durante, Dianne. ''Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide''. New York University Press, 2007. * Ronald Kunze: ''Stadt, Umbau, Kunst: Sofas und Badewannen aus Beton'' in: STADTundRAUM, H., S. 62–65, 2/2006. *Goldstein, Barbara, ed. ''Public Art by the Book'', 2005. * Federica Martini, ''Public Art'' in ''Mobile A2K Methodology guide'', 2002. * (ed.): ''Public Art. Kunst im öffentlichen Raum'', Ostfildern 2001 * Finkelpearl, Tom, ed. ''Dialogues in Public Art''. MIT Press, 2000. * Lacy, Susanne, ed. ''Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art''. Bay Press, 1995. * Deutsche, Rosalyn. ''Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics''. MIT Press, 1998. * Burgin, Victor. ''In/Different Spaces: Place and Memory in Visual Culture''. University of California Press, 1996. * Miles, Malcolm. ''Art, Space and the City: Public Art and Urban Futures'', 1997. *''Academy Group Ltd. Public Art, Art & Design''. London, 1996 * Doss, Erika Lee. ''Spirit Poles and Flying Pigs: Public Art and Cultural Democracy in American Communities''. Smithsonian Books, 1995. * Senie, Harriet, and Sally Webster, eds. ''Critical Issues in Public Art: Content, Context, and Controversy''. Harper Collins, 1992. * Crimp, Douglas. ''On the Museum's Ruins''. MIT Press, 1993. * Miles, Malcolm, et al. '' Art For Public Places: Critical Essays'', 1989. * (ed.). ''Kunst im öffentlichen Raum. Anstöße der 80er Jahre'', Köln, 1989 * Love, Suzanne, and Kim Dammers. ''The Lansing Area Arts Attitude Survey''. Michigan State University Center for Urban Affairs, Lansing, 1978 * Herlyn, Sunke, Manske, Hans-Joachim, and Weisser, Michael (eds.). ''Kunst im Stadtbild - Von Kunst am Bau zu Kunst im öffentlichen Raum'', (catalog for exhibition of the same name, at University of Bremen), Bremen, 1976
Collection of scholarly publications on public art in Africa


External links


Infecting the City Public Arts FestivalPublic Art Archive™CultureNOW's MuseumWithoutWalls Public Art Database
*
Public sculpture in Perth AustraliaPublic sculpture in Cape Town South AfricaPublic art in Africa
web dossier compiled by the library of the African Studies Centre, July 2019 {{DEFAULTSORT:Public Art Types of art museums and galleries