Public art has the remarkable ability to break free of the walls and confines of museums and galleries and engage people in their everyday lives. It encompasses a broad spectrum of creative works, from monumental sculptures that redefine city squares to intricately painted murals on the side of buildings. Public art can also be found in parks and transportation hubs, offering the public a glimpse into artists’ visions and allowing them to interact with their cultural landscape.
Because it is located outside the defining power of museums and other art institutions, public debates about art in the public sphere are an important locus for boundary struggles, both within and beyond artistic practice. Those boundaries are negotiated in many different ways, with varying degrees of success and impact. Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s trash collection performance Flow City, for example, brought urban residents into one of the most life-sustaining yet maligned operations of New York City—garbage collection—to see what happens when human waste is transformed into a valuable resource. In another work, Flaka Haliti created a large-scale sculpture made of camouflage netting that was collected from a United States military base in Kosovo and displayed in a public space. Its evocative, otherworldly cloud-like appearance reminded viewers of the lingering legacy of war and violence.
The debates surrounding public art can raise questions about its relevance and purpose, but it is also important to remember that public art plays a vital role in reflecting and shaping societal narratives. Whether through monumental sculptures that redefine urban landscapes or installations that invite introspection and communal interaction, public art is critical in creating a more inclusive cultural landscape.
This issue of Edition explores the complex role that public art plays in our collective cultural landscape. It examines how public art can amplify the voices of underrepresented communities; how it can help us to envision our futures through creative interventions in community spaces; and how it can be used as a tool for social activism.
While there are no definitive answers to these questions, the articles in this issue illuminate a range of perspectives and approaches, from an analysis of how the AIDS Memorial Quilt has been used as a platform for social justice advocacy to a look at how social media can be used to promote public art events and increase visibility. The issue also includes an interview with artist Mary Miss and social ecologist Adrian Cerezo about their collaborations, which fuse environmental art with sustainable development goals; and an essay exploring how public art is often used to commemorate those who have died.
It is increasingly common for museums and other organizations to use publicly commissioned works of art to foster engagement with their communities. To this end, they often employ a variety of tools to measure the success of their projects. However, because public art is rarely “tourist” art in the sense that it doesn’t attract paying audiences who can be easily counted or surveyed, its economic impacts are difficult to measure.