Arts Intranet

“My Your Our Water” evolved from a residency with Salt River Project and Scottsdale Public Art that was primarily focused on the far-reaching functions of SRP and a seemingly invisible desert water delivery system, to a conversation about water issues on an individual, communal, and global spectrum. “My Your Our Water” is forever growing and shifting with each encounter. It shapes how I perceive water, how I perceive myself in relationship to water, and in turn, I like to believe it causes shifts in perception and action in those that engage with it.

MTA Arts & Design has installed nearly 300 permanent projects throughout the MTA region. Our subway system is 112 years old and we normally commission art that is incorporated into station rehabilitation projects. It was a rare opportunity to start from scratch. I have described these installations as the projects of a lifetime, because the immensity of creating new subway stations in Manhattan was a very big deal, and the art had to speak to today’s riders while also pointing the way to the future of mass transit.

Annually, the PAN Year in Review recognizes outstanding public art projects that represent the most compelling work for the year from across the country. This week on ARTSblog, we present you with posts from more than a dozen different perspectives, reflecting on anything from the administrative challenges of public art projects to the artistic thought processes that brought us these amazing works.

Sometimes the most innovative and successful solutions come from collaborating with those who do not think the way you do. This is what practitioners in the Pacific Northwest have been willing to do since the beginning of public art programs in the region. The thinking and unique perspectives of artists have been valued as much as or more than the objects they may produce.

On February 8, Americans for the Arts launched our Arts Mobilization Center, which serves as a hub for all of our position papers. The Mobilization Center is available to the public and is intended to be a tool to help you advocate for the arts. Then, to help our members be the most effective advocates they can be, we launched a regular member briefing series on March 23. These are 30 minute calls available exclusively to members around a specific issue statement, topic area, or program update. During each call, Americans for the Arts senior staff members and I provide background on a given topic, then we take your questions live!

Erie, PA has embarked on a renaissance of both art and industry through a project that leverages Erie’s industrially-rooted identity. The Art & Industry project convenes local manufacturers to share trends and career opportunities with students from Erie County Technical School, reinforcing skills students need to excel. The students then designed, fabricated and installed public art that is a lesson in the history of Erie’s people, helping to foster pride in industrial heritage that extends to the products created locally today.

In May of 1919, National Geographic magazine brandished Erie industry as being among the finest in the U.S., even likening it to that of Chicago. Nearly a century has passed since then, but that does not mean the city has lost its luster of yore. In fact, it would seem that the Gem City has instead embarked on a renaissance of both art and industry. The industrial buildings that were once the epicenter of Erie’s gritty core are undergoing a complete makeover. They have been revitalized and transformed into distinctive microbreweries, upscale urban housing, and, most recently, ideal sites for public art installations.

In 2014, a coalition of Wynwood-based organizations invited a frenzy of mural artists to turn the school into an outdoor gallery. Even though the school’s walls looked vibrant, the students were not included in the mural project in any significant way. They were mere spectators to the act of creativity, rather than participants in the creative process. Did the murals fully empower the local students to be capable, responsible and active citizens? In other words, did this good-intentioned mural painting project do enough?

More than anything, this project has shown me the power of art. You can reach a public that spans the globe and this reach is exponential.

As public art project managers, we walk the line between nudging artists to push their vision and practice while giving them the confidence and trust to imagine and execute a groundbreaking artwork. Trusting your own expertise and instinct—paired with an understanding of an artist’s aesthetic, studio practice and process—paves the way for an authentic and successful artwork.

Imagine Art Here: Tysons Tiles was an ambitious project for a public art novice. I learned some valuable lessons managing a public art project for the first time that I’d like to pass along.

My brief was to make something temporary, to create a colorful distraction to the development and inspire people—but it accomplished so much more: it confirmed that culture is an essential amenity to the growth of a city. 

I envisioned an image of the sheep straying into the park. It is as if, from somewhere far away, one day a flock of sheep wander into Chinatown Park at the Rose Kennedy Greenway for some unknown reason. But at the same time, they look natural as if they have been there all along.

“Chroma Booster” plays on the tradition of having a fountain in large public gathering spaces. The 55-foot tall painted pipes invited visitors to the pathway to cool off in the mist or play with other features that will send water cascading on their friends. Visitors see how art can be transformational and repurpose something utilitarian like a parking lot into a vibrant public meeting space.

The more I looked at the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers coming together in Pittsburgh to form the Ohio River, the more I drew parallels between those waters and myself. I, and so many others like me, are the children of two genetic and cultural rivers that propelled towards each other for thousands of years. The confluence of these two rivers can be seen as the unavoidable collision of the Old World with the New World.

Murmur Wall is a two-year experimental installation that offers a glimpse into the immediate future. It is an artificially intelligent, anticipatory architecture that reveals what the city is whispering, thinking, and feeling in real-time. 

“Passing Storms” portrays the changing weather as metaphor for unpredictable and shifting states of mind. As the residents and visitors move through the hospital courtyards, they see the cloud and rain sculptures subtly change depending on the angle of the light and the color of the sky. 

If robots are plotting to take over the world, they’re starting with Pittsburgh International Airport. And they’re succeeding.

Like most urbanized parts of the U.S., Boston’s demographics have changed dramatically in the last 30 years and so has tone of conversation. Anyone who attended this year’s Americans for the Arts conference could see and feel the change. 

Barbara Goldstein is an Americans for the Arts member and recipient of the 2016 Public Art Network Award. Find out more about the Americans for the Arts Annual Leadership Arts Awards.

Usually when people ask me what I do and I say “public art planner” a lot of confusing questions follow. Many lay people identify murals and public sculpture as public art; others consider public art to be concerts in the park, painted utility boxes and Cows on Parade ™ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CowParade

I’m here to tell you that, yes, public art is all those things. But most of all, public art is a practice that creates a partnership between artists and stakeholders to create art in the public realm where people can discover it without having to pay admission.

•   5,997 miles driven

•   11 events

•   17 Minnesota Artists

•   8 Communities

•   50 cups of gas station coffee

•   0 flat tires

•   25 fish

Living in a rural, pastoral location can ironically promotes restlessness. One typical requirement about living in a small town and wanting to experience art is that one must travel to IT, whatever it might be.

From a purely business perspective, the arts in general and public art in particular are demonstrated spurs of economic development. This happy reality has proven true in my work as the Principal and sole employee of Prospective Inc., which is the exclusive leasing agent for the 4-million-square-foot office component of Reston Town Center, an internationally-recognized urban mixed-use development located in Reston, Virginia.

Last year, the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and Shake Shack joined forces for Summer Rendezvous, a breezy, bright mural on the wall behind Shake Shack’s first Philadelphia location. Edwin Bragg, Vice President of Marketing & Communications at Shake Shack, took a few minutes to talk to me about the partnership.

CRS: What drives Shake Shack’s giving philosophy, both historically and currently?

EB: Shake Shack’s mission is to Stand for Something Good, which means taking care of each other and our communities. Giving back is an essential to connecting to every community that Shake Shack is in. We have a program called Shack Gives Back, a company-wide community program that recognizes Shake Shack employees for volunteering. We also donate with funds, meals at Shake Shack, and more.

On an October afternoon in King County, Washington, a crowd of about fifty threw on their roller skates and attended a roller disco party, complete with bright lights and psychedelic colors. The party wasn’t at a skating rink, however—they had all joined together in a tunnel on one of King County’s biking trails, and were celebrating Ebb & Flow, the new public mural by local artist Kristen Ramirez that covered the tunnel walls and enveloped the disco-goers.

At Bloomberg Philanthropies we recognize the enormous potential of public art to enliven neighborhoods, drive foot traffic to local businesses, bolster tourism, and inspire people to live and work in places identified with creativity. So in October 2014, we launched the Public Art Challenge to support temporary public art projects that catalyze urban growth, contribute to local identity, and promote creativity. In addition to generating exciting work in cities and seeding strong public-private partnerships supporting culture, we hoped the initiative would encourage local governments across the United States to view artists and the arts as resources for addressing civic priorities in real and transformative ways. 

Jessica Cusick retired as the Manager of the City of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Department on March 3, 2016. Starting the job in 2005 she took a staff of three and grew it into a powerhouse of 21 to serve a city of 90,000 residents. She also created municipal programs through planning, policy, creative communities, public art and artist residencies to bring the work of writers and coders, planners and planters, poets and visual artists free to city audiences.

Happy New Year from all of us at Americans for the Arts! Together our work has helped transform America’s communities through the arts.  

Share with ARTSblog readers one way the arts helped transform your community in 2015, in the comments below and on social media! Tag us @Americans4Arts.

Congratulations on your success in 2015! We look forward to an exciting and productive New Year.

CODAworx is a global, online community that is the first of its kind -  serving as an artists' LinkedIn, made for the commissioned art world. We support public art because it is an investment that creates more significant, long-term value for the community. 

CODAworx represents not only artists, but everyone collaborating on private and public art projects: architects, interior designers, fabricators, photographers… and most recently, building developers and a Rotary Club! Our passion at CODAworx lies in bringing the arts community together in one place, connecting them with the resources needed to create amazing art projects, and showcasing those projects to the world.

This year, Arlington Public Art received our seventh PAN Year in Review Award since the award program began in 2000.  We feel honored to be so distinguished. Christian Moeller’s Quill (2014) joins Liquid Pixels by Ned Kahn (2002); Memory Bricks by Winnie Owens-Hart (2005); Cultivus Loci: Suckahanna by Jann Rosen-Queralt (2006);  Flame by Ray King (2007); CO2LED by Jack Sanders, Robert Gay and Butch Anthony (2008); and Echo by Richard Deutsch (2012), our other Year in Review Award winners.

So how did we do it?

The thing I remember most about the start of the performance was the deafening sound of silence.

That was the first unexpected moment during artist and activist Dread Scott’s performance piece with More Art. The crowd pressed forward in anticipation as Scott turned a corner and prepared to advance. The firefighters, prepared to unleash a stream of water against Scott equivalent to a crowd control hose, were at the ready. And the world held its breath.