Public art is not public in the sense that each individual perceiver/observer will have a personal interpretation of what is exposed? What is personally perceived can not be shared with others, and is therefore not public?

Excellent questions, Marcel. I have the impression that your questions are actually tentative answers. I like them for their polemical value. The challenge is precisely that: is it possible for an art object to have a relatively stable meaning throughout a community? If that communal meaning could exist, could it last through time? How long and why? Thanks for sharing your questions! 

Best regards, Lilliana

How to define public art from a (logistic) constraints point of view, e.g. accepting that 99.999999..% of the human population will never be able to observe it, or to observe it for more than 10 minutes, etc... 

Is the owner of art the Creator resulting in the physical expression of the art object or the Observer resulting in the mental expression of the art object?

Cities across the world are turning to art to create new energy around public spaces, but India lags far behind with complaints of endless red-tape and even vandalism.

We in India, however, are very far from sharing that mindset. Those such as corporate houses, citizens' groups and art institutions, who try to get permissions from city bodies to install artworks, report of endless red-tape.

See few public art ...

http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report-public-art-in-india-brushed-aside-2140764

Dear Marcel, your "counter-question" makes it almost impossible to talk about this. There are other theoretical questions that would lead to some insight on this matter. Why not try one? I really appreciate your collaborations. Do not get me wrong. I believe the construction of a question is complex. I think I share that with you. :-)

Thank you Subhash. That is why Puerto Rico launched a complex and rich, and sometimes flawed, public art project throughout the island, with mixed reviews: some people found it stupid and inconsequential, other liked it very much. There some 100 artworks strewn all over, almost one in each of our 78 cities. Proposals by independent artists, culled through an open and public call, were curated by a panel of international experts. 

Marcel, you are right on target. It was both, a strange encounter between the desire of many communities and the interpretation the government gave to that wish. In order not to impose, communities were approached and they participated in selecting the site for each work, and the artists received information about the communities and had to meet with the people to listen to their views about what was an important memory for them, and the artist would interpret that in making his or her artwork. A few Venice Biennale artist were invited —I had the honor of working a project with splendid conceptual artist Ann Hamilton at the Cabo Rojo Lighthouse. But the truth is some communities rejected their piece AFTER it was built. I found the whole thing very interesting and a great test for the very idea of public art. That is why I have mixed feelings about the idea itself. In fact, about the very idea of "monument". I just posted a link to what is left of the original website for the island-wide project. Maybe you would like to take browse. This website, for some reason, does not show the last phase of must projects. 

I have two takes on this question. Are outdoor statues/sculpture/art paid for by private institutions/organizations/corporations public? Or are they messages showcasing an entity's values/feelings/tastes? We currently have a situation in New Orleans in which monuments and statues paid for by private citizens years ago to commemorate people/events of the Civil War and, in some cases, maintained by private groups, have been voted to be removed by the City Counsel. Whether the statues are "racist" or "historic" does not weigh in on the question of who has the right to say that these "public" monuments to the past can be removed? In fact, with law suits pending, the city suddenly declared that they were "public nuisances" because demonstrations had been held at them and that they "had to be removed as a matter of public safety". If we as a culture "removed" or "destroyed" every statue, every building, every park where a protest occurred, then we would be a culture of nothing.

But what of art becoming fixtures that loose the meaning for which they were erected? Do monuments/works of art become passe? Voir sans voir? Do statues/monuments in the center of rotaries (roundabouts, circles), like the statue of Robert E. Lee in Lee Circle, or along streets, such as Bartholdi's Lion of Belfort in Paris, become objets invisibles: the citizens passing them every day until they become only a road-mark in their daily routines? Is that what happened to Stonehenge? Did it go from religious/ceremonial center to monument to curiosity to blases? Ho-hum to the locals and only seen by visitors to the region? Is that why it fell into disrepair? What of our art, our monuments? Will Ferguson's Umbilic Torus on Stony Brook University or Kapoor's Cloud Gate in Chicago become only fixtures on the landscape? Is there a way of occasionally displaying or promoting these monuments, these arts del'humanite, so that they are not relegated to a part of the public's mind that sees without seeing?

Excellent question Lilliana.

James, you are absolutely right. Today's monument may become tomorrow's political nightmare, as it happened last year with Confederate monumental memorabilia in some southern states in the United States where racial strife became lethal. Communities should be able to "disenfranchise" those monuments they feel no longer represent them. Of course, they can "rehabilitate" them whenever... 

Your other point is quite baffling for all communities. I have seen in my travels that the monuments considered "universal" are, actually, splendid works of art or architecture, like The Pantheon in Rome, the Eiffel Tower, The Brandenburg Gate, Machu Pichu, the Pyramids... But there is a difference between "intended" monuments, like The Pantheon, that was expressly built to impress, and "unintended" monuments that experts or historians later on have raised to monumental status because of their eloquence in portraying an important moment in history or for the particularly special way they represent a state of technology, say, in architecture, like the Eiffel Tower as a harbinger of steel. That is Unesco's manner of voting "world heritage" into its famous "list", which now includes also "immaterial heritage" as the "Flamenco" dance from Spain, and Argentinian "Tango" of African origin. Lebanon's Sacred Cedar Forest is considered a monument too, as Rapa Nui, of whose lost civilization that built enormous moai we know virtually nothing. These monuments, some of them threatened by extinction, as Chilean "salitreras" or saltpeter mines, despite almost defunct, are still very important for the people who worked there —called "pampinos"—, many of them still keeping a certain salitrera lifestyle.

But UNESCO is one thing, and my barrio is something else. I see nothing in my surroundings that I would preserve, and I do not see anyone wanting to endow upon building or a ritual or a place a monumental status. Maybe what is lost is our need for the monument because memory has gotten thinner. Our memory is less and less "collective" probably. The best book I've read about this is by the late Françoise Choay, L'Allégorie du patrimonies (1992),where she tells the history of the idea of monument and concludes with your question: do we need monuments anymore? Of course, she is speaking about Europe, not about Perú or South Africa. There is an excellent English translation titled The Invention of the Monument (1999),which I recommend, though her elegant and witty style is somewhat lost in translation.

I sometimes wonder about Smithson's Spiral Jetty sometimes, and about all that land art that will become land covering art...

Thank you, James, for your comments. And sorry for my typos.

I prefer to avoid a substancial approach: the question is not what "is" public art, but what "works" as public art in a specific historical context of cultural, social and political set of relationships. That way, You can examine in a different light the topics around ownership, legitimacy, conservation, etc.

It should be interesting to deep a bit more on the concept of public, meaning promoted by the State or local power to be put in a common space or public meaning an individual proposal on a private or shared space. I say that because nowadays in Granada, Spain, has emerged a debate about the right of the municipality to erase/destroy the graffiti mde by a local artist who has strong support among the neighbours. 

http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2014/04/02/andalucia/1396462345_026222.html

Is public art "public"? Yes. It may not be seen or understood by all people but it is public. Even lobby artwork could be considered public. Public art is not always made for a particular demographic of people, sometimes it is simply art available to the public.

Is it art? Yes. Art is a creative expression no matter the medium. A sculpture dedicated to a historical figure is seen as a monument but an artist made it. An abstract artistic wind piece is art even though it is meant to be an interesting conversational piece like a flower arrangement on a table.

Who's its owner/its public? People may own the property it is on but in some cases, it affects the people who make it apart of them and thus, they feel as much ownership even though it is not on paper. The same thing happens to a tree. When people try to remove it, sometimes you get a public uprising.

What does it mean? It means whatever the opinion of the people are. Much like in an art museum, I may not like or get the same feeling out of it like another but it still means something even if it does not communicate with me. In public art, it may not mean anything to me and may just be pretty or cool but to someone else there could be meaningful attachment.

We need it? Yes. Even if I don't get it, yes. It ads "umph" to cities. Even though I am going into architecture, the buildings can bore me and I need those small attractions.

Who will preserve it? As mentioned before with ownership, sometimes its the people rather than an organization or the person who actually owns it.

Can any such artwork be universal? I believe my comments have answered this one as well.

That reminds me of our local hospital complex, which is owned by the public as chartered by the local government. Instead of returning profits to the public by means of lower medical costs, the Board of Directors, who are not voted in but are appointed, use the profits to buy art. They say they are "investing the public's money in something that will retain its value". Millions of dollars of paintings adorn the walls and sculpture and 3-D art grace nooks and crannies throughout the various buildings. Is it "public art" just because it is supposedly owned by the public? Is it "public art" if only those that visit the hospital can view it? Is it "public art" if the hospital considers it disruptive to wander the halls without legitimate reason to be there? How does and institution like this choose which art to buy? Forecasted trends? Artist's clout? Tastes of the Directors?

Just musing.

Dear Chloe and James, the article I posted under the question surveys your questions and affirmations. Most of what you two say is, lamentably, not quite sure or steadfast, and the people and the government, and their intermediaries do not see eye to eye on any of the issues. That is why I posed the question. Thank you both for your comments.

Best regards, Lilliana

Dear Juana María, I discuss graffiti in the article I posted underneath the question. If you have time, take a look at it. I am also very concerned about graffiti vis a vis public art, and the consequences of accepting or not accepting it as such. You have added a very important element: when the people decides by itself what it considers is "public art", graffiti being an excellent example. Thank you!!!!!

Best regards, Lilliana

Dear Barbara! Please explain why exactly you mention the copyright. Just to be sure I understand. :-)

Petek, you are right, but they are seldom  addressed in public policy documents. I already searched for documents. Very few of these works are actually acknowledged and then they die a slow death fueled by universal indifference. That is the reason for my question. I've written about this. My paper is posted under the question, if you have time ro read. It is a long paper. But why not contribute in the long debate if the last word has not been said? Thank you for sharing. 

Is there permanence in graffiti? Or does graffiti represent the temporary whims of society? Could the art of Sylvain Meyer or Cristo & Jeane-Claude be called graffiti dans la nature? Like the muddling of a clean building wall with the thoughts/imagery/doodling of the graffitist: artists that mar the landscape with their brand of reality. What of the officially sanctioned graffiti walls? Not those that, through public forbearance or even public campaign, are accepted by the Municipality. Those in which the Municipality accepts that graffiti cannot be stopped, thus wishes to control it by sponsoring sanctioned walls on which to draw, wiping the slate clean from time to time as the restriction of space necessitates. What of the graffitists who accept or reject this restriction, this muzzling of talent?

Just musing.

Thank you, Petek!

In the modern (liberal, socialist, ecosomething) thinking, art is an isolated field. In a broad perspective, is just a way to say religious things in a secular way.

Dear Franz, art is not religious. Art is a cultural pursuit only seldom related to religion and when it links to religion it tends to secularize it, which is the opposite of what you say. So, I strongly disagree with you.

Best regards,

Lilliana.

I mean religion in an anthropological perspective. Before the modern thinking create the "personal" or "individual" point of view. There was no religion or art in ancient Summer or Egipt, as well as Leonardo was´t only an artist or an engineer in XV century. Best regards for your patience-. : )

I am sorry, Franz! I did tot understand you! Thank you for telling me.

Lilliana

The overlap between public space and public art adds all manifestations of public art in public spaces to the informal canon. By comaprison all artwork cloistered in galleries and museums are illegitimate art.  It is presence and interaction, in a social, sociographic, psycho-political, social-economic, and culturally anthropomorphic demands sets the art object up as a recipient of a locus of concerns one being what you have mentioned about the cultural imaginary.  Just a question....Originally does Charles Taylors idea captures the notion of envisioning a totality of not human experience but culturally relative experience....I ask because once we enter into the question of what constitutes the whole of the society, in the reification of the art object into another state of the material constitution, being the plasmonic state of ideas, creating for us a culturally relationally rich realm of conceptual proprioceptions so to speak, we enter into an arena where the juxtaposition of ambient considerations and core concerns emerge from the laval flow of ideas from the merging between the deferred and the conventional, these fuse into the manifestation not simply of formalist and deconstructionist manifestations that go into the construction of art, but of the placement of the privately owned object, by individual or committee, into the shared spaces which we all have access to.  What this placement does is create a third space, shared and social, that reflects the engrained historicity of a piece according to practical steps, a sensitive painting cannot be made public art, but the mural can, the sharp and jagged sculpture, presents its dangerous considerations...whereas say My favourite sculptor Anish Kapoor's Cloud gate... aka 'the bean' his melting donut does nooooooooootttt quite present the same dangers and concern for necessary precautions, but of course it must be fixed in place.  These acts act as a prerequisite to forge the item as shared, that it reflects in some way our communification of ideas and values....art that is a hazard is not shared art, but carelessly imposing danger. https://books.google.ca/books?id=Z7pRNZaC4YAC&pg=PA232&lpg=PA232&dq=sculpture+collapses+on+spectators&source=bl&ots=iSz8QCrEQf&sig=ZrmDA9pQ3lK_LBlHN-wJgYzeKOg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjElYqnk_TKAhVDKh4KHb_ED9QQ6AEIJTAC#v=onepage&q=sculpture%20collapses%20on%20spectators&f=false

So we may be in agreement that for something to be of value it must preserve something in the human condition, of the first order, safety and security, this is why sculptors consider the precarious design as the disposable design but not in all cases.  ((See Barrie sculpture link))

For something to encounter the cultural imaginary must it encompass your first question, which is to day does this reflect something in my identity.  Kapoor's mirror like Cloud Gate, does achieve this, but let's look at that tall spirit catcher in Barrie Ontario.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_Catcher  It doesn't reflect something in my personal identity, but it doesn't have to to be uniquely Canadian. 

I don't believe that the cultural imaginary ever captures a totality or a whole in envisioning the Canadian identity.  Once when I was a child watching a program on the CBC, with Meagan Follows... I knew because she was approximately my age at the time and because it was irregular programming that this captured a fragment of a life's voyage in a story of some people wandering the landscape who live forever after ingesting some potion, if memory serves me correctly.  It was with that father figure from the Swiss Family Robinsons  ((Chris Wiggins)).   My point being mainly however to get back to it, that totality is always in this construction a fragment of identification, at a given phase and sensibility...the cultural imaginary to be conceived otherwise lacks...."Imagination".

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rBtJFI_lN4

Dear Peter Kaleb, thank you so much for a keen and subtle comment. Evidently, the public art question is an open challenge. I will reflect on your intuitions and very good assertions for a while, to comment back. Give me until tomorrow. Really, many thanks!

Lilliana

مقالات چاپ شده می خواهم درباره کتاب خودخوان و محتواسازی برای دانشگاه کتاب محور و محتوا محور مثل دانشگاه پیام نور؟؟؟؟

Dear Lilliana/dear All,

Thank you for the brightest article:"identity-iconophilia,identity-iconoclasm;effect of creating the traditions that shape the national;nimbus of the sacred;art for everybody;public decorum;therapeia;error-discursive politics or sclerotic social values"...Totalitarianism hinders the development of civil society.Self-identification of folks can occur through universally recognized values.True masters strive for comprehension of harmony and beauty.To Handel,"I would have regretted if my music only entertained my listeners.I had strived for making them better".Beauty can't be a hostage of politicians.To Schweitzer,"We can learn only from the masterpieces of the ingenious masters".Arts should influence the personality."The aesthetic means moral"Lotman.Senses influence thinking,imagination,memory of a human being.Social (genre) differentiation between high and low art (and people there) went back to the Greek ancient and classical tragedies.Thus,in Russian tragedy an educated nobiliary patriot stood against provincialism,metropolitian arrogance,corruption of officialdom.Nowadays social differentiation in property,intellectuality,in the cultured,ethical,civilized levels is large.To Bulgakov,A Heart of a Dog,"We can explain everything,but not to everybody".What if pop culture can completely replace with high arts?Humanity has already experienced "Bread and circuses"("Panem et circenses") period,which was an effective means for crowd control system. Utilitarianism causes kitsch culture,the "culture of carnival"(Bakhtin).Mass culture has not catharsis.It can't be High art.To Fine arts' understanding we should bring up a reader or at least a spectator. 

Dearest Irina, this last message of yours is a tour de force! I will need a week to digest it! Thank you, wow! Yes! Thank you!!! It will be a great week re-reading it. :-)

Warmest regards, Lilliana

Lilliana -

As a practical example of anything one might want to know about public art I refer you to the city of Toronto.

In the 1950s Toronto realized that it required a new city hall; it also was, for the first time, somewhat daring and outright visionary when it selcted the design of Viljo Revell, in 1958,

Revell admired Henry Moore, the English sculptor.  After visiting Moore's studio in 1964 he selected Three Way Piece Number Two (nowadays called The Archer) a bronze sculpture embodying all of Moore's philosophy and perception.

The mayor of Toronto loved it.

As for the rest of the city, that was something else. To sit in the public space around the highly distinctive modern building they wanted an equestrian statue of some earlier king. Man on a Horse, by conventional artist number 5,829.

Discourse became so nasty that Philip Givens lost reelection two years later.

However there were sufficient like-minded people that the sum of $100,000 was raised by private donation, Henry Moore having knocked down $20,000 from its original price. I don't know where the Man on a Horse went - it's somewhere. Nobody visits it - everyone is at the Archer, with a good number of children and young people experiencing its wonderful tactility by climbing over/through it.

http://torontoist.com/2010/07/historicist_henry_moores_big_bronze_whatchamacallit/

Dear D.E., thank you for the link. How fortunate Toronto is for having such a splendid artwork by Moore. There are so many equestrian cultures that should be torn down and trashed, really. Something similar happened when Maya Lin won the opportunity to design the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington D.C. Many people wanted the typical heroic scene, and Lin's design stood up to the public relation's onslaught. The contrary happened with Richard Serra's Tilted Art in front of the Supreme Court in Manhattan: it was torn down capriciously. Below, the two links.

Thank you for commenting!!!

Dear Liliana:

But how to establish criteria to demolish public art beyond the taste of a particular social group? Is it a political issue beyond the aesthetic taste of a group ? ISIS recent  heritage vandalism in Palmyra could be legitimated that way...

Dear Lilliana,dear D.E./dear All,

Thank you for the interesting materials.Symbols have two plans-the world of ideas and the world of impressions.What is more important "being of any stone or being of a child"(Hegel)?Have we right to negate one or another cultural epoch?(using relativist or metaphysical approach) For ex,we don't criticize naive art or art of pagan culture.They are the treasure of humanity. Sometimes we can criticize some objects of arts, using irony,but it's better to interpret them only as the symbols or markers of the one or another time.Some arts could be a brand of a town,place or even epoch,being not a value for the High art.They can be a piece of art propaganda(agitprop),a state order,or a disguise censorship.Sometimes we discuss not only collective,historical memory,but also personal memory,nostalgia. In the course of time the kitsch can become an artwork,symbolizing the page of history.In the long run,every artwork is a conception.The Berlin Wall was a symbol of separation(with the greatest graffiti-to me,because I saw them and adored them as a symbol of freedom).The Fall of the Berlin Wall symbolizes the end of the cold war,it's the symbol of the great revolution of 1989,the end of the era of mistrust and division,the way for cooperation,transformation of geopolitics...The appelative image of plaster sculptors of the "plaster socialist realism"-"A girl with a paddle"was a metaphor of "Soviet kitsch".These plaster figures decorated the parks of culture and recreation everywhere. they were expressionless imitations of the genious image of "A girl with a paddle".What is the fate of the original?I.Shadr created his statue as an anthique masterpiece in 1935.It was the embodiment of beauty,perfection of a sportswoman.The sculpture was criticized, because of  the  physical representation which seemed to be sensual, erotic,and modernist.It was dismantled as a "vulgar"The prototype of this stature was Vera Voloshina,who was called to the front and then was brutally murdered (WWII).Nowadays the interest to this sharp image has grown,surely not to replicated mass plaster images,which were set up in the parks..

 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%83%D1%88%D0%BA%D0%B0_%D1%81_%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%BC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall

Dear Jorge, that is the biggest challenge of public art: when does it cease to bear the meaning of a community. I do not have an answer for that. The community has to press its opinion usually against the grain either to demolish or to preserve art that still has a meaning or art that has lost its meaning.

Best regards, Lilliana

What a splendid comment, dear Irina. It goes well with the mounting and insoluble issues of public art!

Best regards, Lilliaa

I am late to this discussion, but as a "Public Art" conservator, I have found it interesting.  Public Art simply belongs to a citizenry of an area that can be enjoyed in whatever fashion the individual wishes. And it is the many different interpretations that makes it interesting.  Though, on the subject of who is going to take care of it, maintain it, preserve it, that is the duty of the public, which is the city or town or whatever, by giving it means to support said preservation.  We elect people to run our towns and we put our trust into them to preserve the cultural heritage which includes public art.

https://www.facebook.com/preservesculpture/