Creative Scotland has just formally announced that I have, along with Trigger (Suzy Glass and Angie Bual www.triggerstuff.co.uk) been appointed as Co-Producers for PAR+RS www.publicartscotland.com, Creative Scotland’s public art development project.
So I’ve got a provocative question to start the ball rolling, is public art a subset of visual arts or is it everything across all artforms that takes place outside the temples of art?
Creative Scotland’s press release is here.
This isn’t an expert reply but an interested one. I think public art is that which is designed for maximum availability to the public, typically using physical space for optimum access, which (in a chicken & egg kind of way) means it tends to be visual and ‘always there’. Digital tools of all kinds are opening out spaces for access to be more portable, aural, ambient and multimodal, reducing the primacy of the visual. It means that art may not always be there, but it may always be available. Digital tools also allow public art to be more participatory and performative. So, no, it’s no longer a subset of visual art. I’m not sure it’s as much as ‘everything that takes place outside the temples of art’ because much public art engagement takes place within ‘temples of art’ and those temples are becoming more porous & open (e.g. with online or pop-up galleries).
I’m not sure if public art is outside the temples of art – they’re pretty insidious temples – especially if we are talking ‘plonk’ art which is a piece with no relationship to the place where it is positioned (it could be ‘exhibited’ in any gallery because it is a stand alone self reflective piece).
From my viewpoint in Australia, I have come to associate the term ‘public art’ with those plonk pieces. The most beneficial aspect of them is they afford accidental &/or accessible experiences to a broad demographic (whom mostly do not worship the deities of the afore mentioned temples).
But then there are community projects – pieces that are in dialogue with the place and people they are created for, pieces that are directly inspired &/or created by the flesh and breath of a place.
I prefer not to think about public art in terms of visual art or art temples – these categories set up a closed loop – instead I feel public art is at its best when questioning its responsibility to community, place, dialogue, connection, relationships, function, story, health, environment, collective experience, multiple truths, allowing the work to respond and evolve infinitum.
connected : rooted : reflective : uplifting : energising : wha’s like us? : bursting with pride : tactile : connecting beneath ground to the surface : sense of place : sensory : life changing
and all or some of the above can, of course, take place in interior temples of art, but there is the magic in public art of the unexpected hoving into view just where you least expect it…. go to it Chris and Trigger!!!