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.
42-864: New York City Waterfalls is a public art project by artist Olafur Eliasson , in collaboration with the Public Art Fund , consisting of four man-made waterfalls placed around New York City along the East River . The most famous was at the Brooklyn Bridge in lower Manhattan. At $ 15.5 million, it is the most expensive public arts project since Christo and Jeanne-Claude 's installation of The Gates in Central Park . The waterfalls officially began flowing on June 26, 2008. They ran from 7 am to 10 pm (under illumination after sunset), until October 13, 2008. The sites chosen for
84-738: A 2010 recipient of the organization's Lifetime Achievement Award. Jacob received her M.A. in the History of Art and Museum Studies from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor . Jacob has an approach to curation that focuses heavily on site, history, social context, and audience relationships. These approaches are most evident in her influential project Culture in Action : Public Art in Chicago . In September 2014, she opened an exhibition, A Lived Practice , co-curated with Kate Zeller, and launched
126-466: A commission motive and as a critical focus by artists. The individual, Romantic retreat element implied in the conceptual structure of land art , 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
168-481: 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
210-665: A four-volume series ob Chicago Social Practice History distributed by the University of Chicago Press. In 1991 and again in 2000–2008 Jacob was the curator of visual arts projects for Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston South Carolina. This was the site of Places With a Past (1991) and Places With a Future (2005). In 1996 Jacob was the curator of Conversations at the Castle: Changing Audiences and Contemporary Art as part of
252-676: A good example although less art is involved. The doual'art project in Douala ( Cameroon , 1991) is based on a commissioning system that brings together the community, the artist and the commissioning institution for the realization of the project. Memorials for individuals, groups of people or events are sometimes represented through public art. Examples are Maya Lin 's Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC, Tim Tate 's AIDS Monument in New Orleans , and Kenzō Tange 's Cenotaph for
294-463: A new approach in the way the percent for art was used, or the public art funds of Geneva with the Neon Parallax project involving a very large urban environnement in 2005. For the second one can refer to Les Nouveaux Commanditaires launched by Fondation de France with François Hers in 1990 with the idea a project can respond to a community's wish. The New York High Line from 2009 is
336-683: A pioneer in the areas of public, site-specific, and socially engaged art. Jacob is the author and editor of many key texts including Conversations at the Castle: Changing Audiences and Contemporary Art (1996) and Culture in Action: New Public Art in Chicago (1993). Jacob has mounted exhibitions, and created public art opportunities that have featured the work of some of the most influential artists in contemporary art including Mark Dion , Suzanne Lacy , Ernesto Pujol , J. Morgan Puett , Pablo Helguera, Marina Abramović , and Alfredo Jaar . The Women's Caucus for Art honored Jacob as
378-413: A ride up-and-over the waterfall. When the project closed the materials were intended to be made available for re-use in a future project. The over $ 15 million project had no city funding and was paid for entirely by private organizations, business and donors. Mayor Michael Bloomberg 's company, Bloomberg LP , donated $ 13.5 million. With estimates that the waterfalls could generate up to $ 55 million for
420-483: 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
462-442: 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. In
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#1732771957444504-438: Is both a natural phenomenon and a cultural one." Construction involved the work of 108 different people, including two environmental consultants . The installation was designed to be ecologically-friendly. Some example of this are energy efficient LED lighting by US-based LED Lighting Designers & Manufacturers Boca Flasher, Inc., energy purchased from renewable sources and the filters used to keep aquatic life from taking
546-611: Is currently unknown. Mary Jane Jacob Mary Jane Jacob is an American curator, writer, and educator from Chicago, Illinois . She is a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago , and is the former Executive Director of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies. She has held posts as Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago . Since 1990 Jacob has been
588-534: 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
630-452: 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 initiatives. 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
672-596: 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 ; 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
714-550: 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. Public art faces a design challenge by its very nature: how best to activate the images in its surroundings. The concept of “ sustainability ” arises in response to the perceived environmental deficiencies of a city. Sustainable development , promoted by
756-636: The Smithsonian American Art Museum 's Archives of American Art . 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 , WESTAF , Public Art Fund , Creative Time , and others. Public Art Online, maintains
798-477: The United Nations 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"
840-567: 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. Between the 1970s and the 1980s, gentrification and ecological issues surfaced in public art practice both as
882-401: 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
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#1732771957444924-495: 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 as "socially engaged, interactive art for diverse audiences with connections to identity politics and social activism". Mel Chin 's Fundred Dollar Bill Project
966-534: The 21st Century public art has often been a significant component of public realm projects in UK cities and towns, often via engagement with local residents where artists will work with the community in developing an idea or sourcing content to be featured in the artwork. Examples would include Adrian Riley 's 'Come Follow Me' in Minster in Lincolnshire where a 35m long text artwork in the public square outside
1008-686: The A-bomb Victims in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Japan. Public art is sometimes controversial. The following public art controversies have been notable: 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
1050-527: The Arts Festival of Atlanta for the 1996 Olympics. Jacob has written and edited over three dozen books and exhibition publications. Her most recent books include Dewey for Artists (University of Chicago Press, 2018), The Studio Reader: On the Space of Artists (University of Chicago Press, 2010) and Learning Mind: Experience into Art (University of California Press, 2010). Jacob is a professor at
1092-502: 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 and food justice . Andrea Zittel has produced works, such as Indianapolis Island that reference sustainability and permaculture with which participants can actively engage. Some public art
1134-426: The curator and art/architecture historian, Mary Jane Jacob , public art brings art closer to life. 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
1176-594: The development of public art during the Great Depression 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 programs,
1218-492: 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. The following forms of public art identify to what extent public art may be physically integrated with
1260-429: The fact that a curator conducts and supervises the realization of a public art work for a third party, it can also mean that the art work is produced by a community or public who commissions a work in collaboration with a curator-mediator. For the first, significant examples of these prospective manners of commissioning art projects have been established by the Public Art Fund launched by Doris C. Freedman in 1977, with
1302-544: 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 , 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
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1344-654: The four waterfalls were the East River Esplanade 's Pier 35 in Manhattan ; beneath the Brooklyn Bridge in DUMBO between piers 4 and 5, also in Brooklyn; and Governors Island to activate spaces that typically were not. Work on erecting the four support scaffolds began in mid-March, 2008. On the shore of Governors Island construction teams used pile driving to secure the scaffolding in place. This method
1386-459: The immediate context or environment. These forms, which can overlap, employ different types of public art that suit a particular form of environment integration. In the 1930s, the production of national symbolism implied by 19th century monuments began 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 facilitated
1428-469: 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
1470-589: The local economies, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation gave $ 2 million to the effort. During the run, trees and shrubs along the Brooklyn Heights Promenade were damaged as a result of the saltwater blown into the parks during high winds. Several steps were taken to solve this problem which included cutting the running time to 50 hours a week instead of the original 101. At the Brooklyn Bridge ,
1512-500: The owner of The River Café claimed customer loss and plant replacements as a result of the winds on the falls. The known damages were getting attention to the point that The Brooklyn Heights Association asked the committee to take down the falls after Labor Day , instead of the original date. Public art Independent art created or staged in or near the public realm (for example, graffiti , street art ) lacks official or tangible public sanction has not been recognized as part of
1554-608: 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. 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
1596-666: 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 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
1638-415: The town's Minster includes local residents own stories alongside official civic history and the town's origin myth. The term "curated public art" is used to define the way of producing public art that significantly takes into account the context, the process and the different actors involved. It defines itself slightly differently from top-down approaches of direct commissioning. If it mainly designates
1680-674: 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 Utteraton 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 displays responses online . In
1722-455: 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
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1764-430: Was not used at the other locations for various reasons, including the effects of vibrations through car and subway tunnels . Once completed, the scaffolding would total 64,000 square feet (5,900 m) and weigh 270 tons. Eliasson has said that the scaffolds themselves were designed to blend in with their urban surroundings, but that he purposely did not try to conceal them, explaining he "want[s] people to know that this
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