Public art is among the most creative ideas that man has ever made. Public art is an artistic work that is created and displayed in a public place where it is visible to everyone. It comprises of massive and multidimensional urban typology. The public art especially the performative techniques can be used to explore various dynamic processes. In several cases, public art is used to represent most of the physical environment and mental changes in the entire society. The public art has different roles in contemporary society.
Understanding the Public Art
Public art is any work of art which is being displayed in any media where it has been planned, arranged and executed for a particular specific intention that is staged in the public domain where people can easily access it. Public art is used to serve the public and the society as a whole where it enlightens on important matters and how they should be handled[1]. Due to that perception, public art should be installed and staged inaccessible areas where people will get accessed to them easily. Public art also has a relationship with public places where they correlate to each other. Public space is a place where the drama of the communal life reveals as being illustrated in the book which was written by Stephen Carri. Public space places where people don’t dwell on it of which are different from where people live for example yards, streets, hospitals, parks, and stations. Public space is also a place where the community meets and interacts with other people by exchanging ideas which can help them in their lives.
Public space has a stable relationship with democracy where people get a chance to express their views on matters about their relationship where they come up with agreements or disagreement amongst themselves. Also, public art can be termed as a form of expression where people come up with their feelings they want to demonstrate to the public to be aware of by educating the press on some critical issues on how people should be able to live to be successful in life. Public space is mostly utilized for mental and economic purposes by its people. On the other hand, public art is used to reflect our culture and portrays a sense of belonging where it accommodates everybody. Public art is a form of social dialogue where people have the freedom to express their feelings publicly without any disturbance[2]. Public art is constructed in public places which give rise to the creation of public space for people to earn a living. Public space should contain public art so has to exist as one form of social interaction between people where they express their views with others mutually by understanding one another. Public art is linked to democracy where it develops our environment by enlightening us. Public art has a right to freedom where someone can give his or her assumptions concerning a particular aspect regarding the interests of society.
Public art consists of all kinds of art which include parks, open-air museum, forms of street, monuments, and sculptures. Public art comprises of features where it operates on. One of the features public art contains is accessible to everybody. This feature represents all people in society regardless of their ability. Likewise, to education, protection, healthcare, public art does not discriminate people and it represents the democratic values of people. Therefore, public art should be established outside in an open place where it can be accessible for everyone. Some of the public art is situated at the hospitals, public transport areas, and stations where some people can be accessed with it. Public art should be able to have an additional value which it can offer to its people on particular areas in which it's situated. Its better for the work of art to be located in one area where it can be precisely found to enhance the environment’s needs[3]. A work of art should contain a meaningful message the artist wants to convey to people, and also the opinion of the artist has towards the message he or she wants to pass to the society. Also, the work of art is a form of our communication, expression, and interaction with people in society on issues regarding our welfare. An artist creates art pieces with the intention of a conveying a particular message to the community, people and reveals some of the problems people encounter in their daily lives.
Public art is a very crucial tool to stimulate people’s reaction where they will be able to give their responses concerning the aspect of the artists is talking about. Public artworks together with public spaces to influence our public life where art tries to teach us on important tasks basing the arguments on the kind of life we are living. The work of art helps us to think beyond what we see to reflect the type of growth our future generation will live. In the democracy we are living in, the government should be able to come up with new ways of promoting the work of art by ensuring legal matters are followed. The government should encourage the work of art whereby it will provide funds to art which will enable our artists to develop and also enrich the environment we are living in.
The role of public art in interaction
There are various forms of public art which are planned to encourage the audience during the representation in a practical way. Some of the examples include public art which is installed in front of the Ontario science center of the museums as the main architectural centerpiece. The artwork invested is a fountain where people come and freely play at any time they want. People interact with the art where they can block water jets by forcing it to produce sounds like mechanisms found inside the sculpture. One of the public art creation found in Melbourne works as a musical instrument. There is one interactive public art which was formed in Michigan in the year 1980 which was called the century of light where a large number of people interacted with it in complex ways to movements and sounds of visitors that was detected by radar for a duration of twenty-five years until it was wrongly destroyed[4]. The interactive artwork of the Dutch artist of crystal in Eindhoven can be stolen or shared whereby it exists out of many people as salt crystals light up when one interacts with them.
Drawing our perspectives from the art of work and its relationships on film where the history of motion of pictures creates a vivid description, there are additional types of public art which considers media and film works in the digital art space. A film is an art form where people got engaged to perform a particular movie by creating ideas which reflects the activities happening in the society. The concept of the film and public spaces can be traced back in the metropolitan areas and monuments by the father of film who was called George and Lumiere brothers who came up with a moving image which was commonly known as a motion picture in the year 1896. This was one of the culminated artistic movement which did well in the film industry, and it was among the best film ever produced in Paris world fair in the year 1900.
The role of digital public art in contemporary society
Traditional public art and digital public art try to make use of new technologies which have come up in their creation and display to modify their technique. Digital art utilizes technology to come up with new ideas which it will be able to draw its illustrations to the society concerning the relevant aspects of the needs of the community. What distinguishes digital public art and the traditional public art is the ability to interacts with the audience and gets the response from the audience immediately[5]. The public art methods differ from the digital community artworks inform of the way people get socially engaged — the way people involved in creating their relationship with their audience in the two works of art is different. The digital artworks based on community emerge with issues through dialogue process but not on clear development of an action or a set of relationships.
The work of public art is usually obtained from the collaboration and the authorization from the company or the government that owns the business or manages the space. Governments encourage the construction of public art whereby it promotes them through allocating funds in artworks and also implementing the percent for art policy for the artists to benefit from the government. It's well known that about two percent of the budget of the city is allocated to the artwork for development of the city which keeps on varying from time to time. Some of the cost which is supposed to be used in maintenance and administration sometimes are withdrawn before the money which is supposed to be disbursed for artwork. The majority of the locals have funds that support temporal programs and their cultural activities rather than depending on the related projects which cannot be able to fund them. Many European countries, several countries in Africa and Australia and many states and cities of the united states have a certain percentage in the art of work[6]. It's not all the capital improvements projects are done on municipalities regarding the interest of artwork policy.
In history, the first percent for art legislation to be passed was in Philadelphia in the year 1959. The prerequisite was implemented in some ways where the government of Quebec maintained the integration policy of the art and architecture[7]. The procedure required all the publicly government buildings to pay one percent for artwork. On the hand, New York had a law that required them not to allocate less than one percent for the first twenty million dollars for artwork in the building of the city. Besides that, they included not less than one percent to be charged on exceeding the amount of twenty dollars to be assigned for art in any public building possessed by the city.
Conversely, the capital city of Toronto set aside one percent for public art without setting an upper limit where the municipality will negotiate with the developer concerning on the maximum amount which will be needed. In the United Kingdom, the percentage of public art does not fully reach one percent[8]. The local authorities are the ones which regulate and implement the public art policy under section 106 agreement which is known as planning gain. It’s in Ireland where the local authorities widely performed the percent scheme for art.
The role of public art in politics
Public art has been widely used in politics more so as propaganda within authoritarian with regimes which conquer opposition. Some approaches are connected to art which has been seen in different areas like Mao Zedong’s cultural revolution in China and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union which stands out as representative. Public art is used to refute those propagandists who wish to have political regimes. The artists use culture techniques by taking advantage of the media to interpret some of the methods which were used during the past to attain independence and also discuss issues related to political and commenting on social media issues which will be relevant to the state[9]. The actors also use ethos jamming to ease social relations with the fundamental concerns of people where they will be able to see the importance of changing the way people think in the current world through the existing culture. Most artists find public art to be useful in open societies where there are helpful in promoting ideas by having direct contact with their views. The artwork can be deliberately brief when there are temporary installation and performance pieces where they are displayed in an urban environment without the consent of the authorities. Some of the art gain special recognition from the official and its viewers.
How public art creates representational models for social relations
The work of art mostly represents the social ties among the people. Images being an example of public art plays a significant role where they are used by people to internalize the type of behavior which will be suitable in a given social setting in society. The research which has been done shows that children and other people learn more by observing other people and by doing things other than giving directives. The work of art consists of concrete things which can be seen, durable and long lasting which make reinforcement to be real to a vision where people get motivated by practicing doing the work of art. Most of the images which are seen are ideologically full such as the red figure drinking cup of the Greek which demonstrates the advantages of the males position they take in the society where they are sharing a drink in a ritual ceremony[10]. The elites are privileged where they get richly and aesthetically pleasing art objects which are made of expensive materials by the skilled artisan. The artists get morale from the elites where they are congratulated for their excellent work done in many archaic states consisting those crafts from coastal Peru previously the Incas.
Ways in which public art acts as the cultural capital
Public art serves as a cultural capital where it is advantaged to produce items of high value to the market. It also represents the art which is shared among the members of the society that have a common agenda regarding the interests they have on the kind of crafts they want to have in their social class. Some members of the social class may require to have the same styles of doing things which will lead to the formation of a society where members will be able to have common agenda they will strive to obtain their goals. People should be able to practice art to make a community to have a collective identity. People should be ready to start small-scale innovations which will help them in feeding their family by working hard on the work of art knowing it can act as employment for people to earn a living[11]. The work of art can help to put people in different stratified societies by uniting everybody regardless of their position they hold since not all people are equal. It helps to improve our skills of encoding where we put them into practice on what we have been taught into real life situation. In the European and the American history there were two architectures Gothic and Classical who were very powerful and competent doing their work which made them be revived to build public buildings in the 18th and 19th century.
Art as a medium of exclusion, resistance, or layered meaning
The role of public art I the contemporary society is not limited to presenting the social models or dominant ideologies. It may make use of other strategies like hidden, contested or layered meaning. “The figurine and the Aztec state” is an example of public art that contains a layered meaning. The public as used in Pennsylvania it is used to test the effectiveness of the of ideological domination. The figurines used in the Aztec is used to represent the negative depictions of the women their society. The public art can also be used to represent some form resistance among the various people in the society against a certain unwanted aspect in the government ruling. Some people use the public in their protests. These kinds of art are manifested in public inform of counter- authoritarian and unsanctioned way. For example, the graffiti is in most cases used in various political sentiments. In the BBC website, there is a recent article that includes a creative artwork by coming up with a full-life size human figure public art. The communication in the figure is that there are adamant trouble and political conflict.
One of the significant role of the public art in contemporary society is that it creates and a chance for different understanding in society and accommodates the ambiguity that might arise due to its interpretation. Like in the European during the medieval period, the art was used to express various visual plans for the rulers[12]. In public art, the artist may hide certain things by coming up with public art symbol that has both personal and public significance. An example is a woodcarving that was made in the medieval period to represent obscene imagery and sacred texts.
The public art creates sites of activity in the society
In most cases, the art has been used to generate an action setting. The process thus ascertains that the public events have been organized effectively and the collective action did that suits all the parties involved. Also, other public arts generate various sites for the re-enactment of the shared memories through the monumental installations. The public art in health care units is an example of the role that public art plays in society[13]. The framed reproduction of an impersonator painting always found in the doctor’s waiting room is a good example that clarifies the role of public art in society. The framed impersonator painting creates an unthreatening atmosphere which in turn is used to reduce the levels of anxiousness among the patients. As evident from the of the local arts in the local areas, the public art expresses the way in which the group memory is experienced and enhanced. Taking the example of the African Burial Ground monument found in New York, it is evident that public art can be used to create memories such as war memories. Thus, using specific examples as illustrated above we can conclude that public art can be used to create spaces for some specific activities including social relationships.
It is evident that the public plays a significant role in contemporary society. The public art can create or change the people perception towards a particular aspect or ideology. Its role is seen in different areas. The public art influences the way people interact in society. The public art can be used to address various political issues. The public art also creates representational models for social relations
Bibliography
Hall, Tim, and Iain Robertson. "Public art and urban regeneration: advocacy, claims and critical
debates." (2001): 5-26.
McGuigan, Jim, and Jim Mcguigan. Culture and public art. Routledge, 2012.
Mitchell, WJ Thomas, ed. Art and the public sphere. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Lacy, Suzanne, Mary Jane Jacob, Patricia C. Phillips, Suzi Gablik, Estella Conwill Májozo,
Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Lucy R. Lippard et al. Mapping the terrain: New genre public art. Bay Press, 1995.
Roberts, Marion. "For art's sake: Public art, planning policies and the benefits for commercial
property." Planning Practice & Research 10, no. 2 (1995): 189-198.
Selwood, Sara. The benefits of public art: The polemics of permanent art in public places. Vol 770. London: Policy Studies Institute, 1995.
[1] Lacy, Suzanne, Mary Jane Jacob, Patricia C. Phillips, Suzi Gablik, Estella Conwill Májozo, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Lucy R. Lippard et al. Mapping the terrain: New genre public art. Bay Press, 1995.
[2]
Lacy, Suzanne, Mary Jane Jacob, Patricia C. Phillips, Suzi Gablik, Estella Conwill Májozo, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Lucy R. Lippard et al. Mapping the terrain: New genre public art. Bay Press, 1995.
[3]
Lacy, Suzanne, Mary Jane Jacob, Patricia C. Phillips, Suzi Gablik, Estella Conwill Májozo, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Lucy R. Lippard et al. Mapping the terrain: New genre public art. Bay Press, 1995.
[4]
Lacy, Suzanne, Mary Jane Jacob, Patricia C. Phillips, Suzi Gablik, Estella Conwill Májozo, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Lucy R. Lippard et al. Mapping the terrain: New genre public art. Bay Press, 1995.
[5]
Selwood, Sara. The benefits of public art: The polemics of permanent art in public places. Vol. 770. London: Policy Studies Institute, 1995.
[6]
Roberts, Marion. "For art's sake: Public art, planning policies and the benefits for commercial property." Planning Practice & Research 10, no. 2 (1995): 189-198.
[7]
Lacy, Suzanne, Mary Jane Jacob, Patricia C. Phillips, Suzi Gablik, Estella Conwill Májozo, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Lucy R. Lippard et al. Mapping the terrain: New genre public art. Bay Press, 1995.
[8]
McGuigan, Jim, and Jim Mcguigan. Culture and the public art. Routledge, 2012.
[9]
Mitchell, WJ Thomas, ed. Art and the public sphere. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
[10]
Selwood, Sara. The benefits of public art: The polemics of permanent art in public places. Vol. 770. London: Policy Studies Institute, 1995.
[11]
Selwood, Sara. The benefits of public art: The polemics of permanent art in public places. Vol. 770. London: Policy Studies Institute, 1995
[12]
Roberts, Marion. "For art's sake: Public art, planning policies and the benefits for commercial property." Planning Practice & Research 10, no. 2 (1995): 189-198.
[13]
Hall, Tim, and Iain Robertson. "Public art and urban regeneration: advocacy, claims and critical debates." (2001): 5-26.
