Public Art offers more than aesthetic enhancements to today’s built environment. It is a distinguishing part of our public history, our evolving culture and our collective memory. It reflects and reveals our society and adds meaning to our cities and uniqueness to our communities. Public art humanizes the built environment and invigorates public spaces. Subodh Gupta, sometimes dubbed as India’s Damien Hirst, who employs many of the original techniques of French conceptualist Marcel Duchamp by elevating the ready-made into an art object discussed on how he chooses signature objects of the indian sub-continent and relocates them as art objects in monumental installations of stainless steel and tiffin tins to create inspiring installations in public spaces.
Places with strong public art expression break the trend of blandness, and give communities a strong sense of place and identity. It can also generate positive bottom-line economic impact, with material-financial benefit, thus creating an unintended revenue stream for developers and the local government. Sam Rauch, Director of Special Projects at the Public Art Fund talked about the marque exhibition of Public Art Fund’s 40th year, AI Weiwei: Good Fences Make Good Neighbours, a project of unprecedented scale and scope encompassing more than 300 unique commissioned artworks installed throughout the urban landscape of New York.
Public Art in transit-oriented developments offer exceptional marketing opportunities for both public agencies and developers. The continuous high visibility, publicity, and brand identification of iconic public art can generate increased leasing interest, perhaps more than any other element of a transit-related project. Dorka Keehn, Principal Keehn on Art and Commissioner of San Francisco Arts Commission spoke on The Bay Lights, a 25,000 LED Installation by artist, Leo Villareal for the San Francisco Bay Bridge in which she led the fundraising. The current trends and the critical issues facing artists, public agencies, program managers, city planners, educators, developers and others who comprise the constellation of public art stakeholders in our contemporary society was being examined by Theresa Sweetland, Executive Director of Forecast Public Art.
Harmony is a state of coexistence. It is achieved when two or more entities complement each other and enhance one another’s effects. It is ubiquitous, but when things are in perfect harmony we rarely give a second thought to the disparate elements at play. As intuitive as it may seem, Architecture and Art are not always seen as cohabiters of the same space and is too often forgotten, an example of a harmonious relationship.
Sensitivity to the relationship between art and its surrounding has grown during the last decade to create a balance in interior and exterior design. There is an increasing importance of integrating art within architecture to meet the evolving needs of contemporary society and shape today’s art, real estate and the built environment. Foster + Partners, Skidmore,Owings & Merill LLP and Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill brought together various case studies on utilizing art to enrich the urban landscape and to achieve greater visibility in architectural excellence. Atelier Cruz-Diez and Art Team Paris represented by Carlos Cruz Diez JR, spoke on artist, Carlos Cruz-Diez, a major protagonist in the field of Kinetic and Optical art and his cognitive approach to color in architecture where he is best seen working with architects and engineers to integrate his work in office spaces, public spaces and passageways.
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