Public art has the potential to impact a wide and diverse audience. Its unique ability to humanize cities and places and promote social connections and community spirit can have strong enduring impacts, promoting happiness, wellbeing, resilience and hope.
However, due to its diversity of impacts, public art is also controversial and generates varied opinions and debates. This article seeks to understand this phenomenon and aims to provide a qualitative analysis of existing literature. This is done by reviewing and categorizing 839 articles retrieved from four major international journals using a combination of keyword searches and filtering procedures.
While the purpose of public art can vary, some common purposes include aesthetically beautifying spaces, celebrating significant people and events, acting as a tool of political or social propaganda, reflecting and expressing identity and a community’s ethos, or engaging communities in discussions around social issues. Various types of public art are found across the world including statues/statues, site-specific installations, murals, architecture, graffiti, actions and interventions, land and environmental art, and performance art.
One of the most common roles of public art is to enliven and transform spaces through colour and patterns. It can be as simple as a dazzling pattern painted on the pavement or as complex as a sculptural installation by Sarah Morris. These forms of public art entice deeper theoretical contemplation and can often represent a community’s history, values and aspirations.
Other public art projects address the broader geopolitical realities of our tumultuous times, such as Olafur Eliasson’s Ice Watch in which he carved twelve blocks of glacial ice from Greenland and placed them at prominent urban sites with a clock arrangement to show their inevitable deterioration. These kinds of works are designed to engage and inform the public of the complexities involved in global issues such as climate change, migration and inequality.
Public art can help build connections between people. Jack Mackie’s interactive series of dance instruction steps embedded in sidewalks in Seattle allow strangers to stop and follow the instructions together creating a fun experience and potentially a new friendship.
Many public art projects engage with communities to celebrate their culture and traditions, for example, the sculpture of the Seven Sisters by Gunnai artist Ray Thomas is integrated into the bluestone paving of Collins Street in Melbourne. The seven figures each depict a Koorie creation story from the daughters of Bunjil the Eagle Man and Gunawarra the Black Swan Woman.
Some public art projects are designed to create discussion and debates around social issues, for example, Steven Shearer’s billboard images juxtaposed with religious figures from 17th century baroque painting to spark conversations about racism, sexism and violence against women. However, the discussion of such controversial pieces can lead to tension between people if it is not handled delicately. Public artworks that stir up controversy are important in ensuring that the public’s voice is heard and can contribute to healthy debate about the challenges we face as a society.