Public art can be a great way to beautify your neighborhood, make it more interesting, and increase community pride. It can also be used to help promote tourism and economic growth in your city or town.
A variety of artists use their work to encourage people to take time out of their busy lives and appreciate the beauty of their surroundings. The most common examples of public art are sculptures, paintings, and murals.
During the 20th century, public art has significantly widened in form and function. This change is largely due to the influence of the civil rights movement and the alliance between urban regeneration programs and artistic efforts in the late 1960s.
The widening of the definition of public art has allowed many more works to be created and dispersed in everyday life, and can have a very positive effect on communities around the world. These types of artworks are often designed for social interaction and engagement, and can be quite challenging to create, but they have the potential to transform the public sphere in profound ways.
For instance, Montreal-based artist MissMe creates unsanctioned wheat paste posters and stickers in cities across the globe that aim to challenge toxic masculinity and support female empowerment. Her works often include aggressive and graphic imagery that evokes strong responses from viewers, such as images of women’s genitalia or rage-filled women shouting obscenities.
This type of art can be very challenging to make, but it can also be very rewarding to see the impact that a piece can have on an audience. For instance, a 2013 installation by New York-based artist Suzanne Lacy called “Between the Door and the Street” gathered 400 women and a few men on stoops along Park Place in Brooklyn to engage in a series of conversations about gender politics.
Other forms of public art include land art, which uses natural elements to create sculptures. This type of art is particularly well-suited to public spaces, as it can be aesthetically pleasing and can serve as a visual reminder of the presence of nature within an urban environment.
A more recent development in public art is what many refer to as New Genre Public Art. This form of public art is characterized by the social turn that many contemporary artists have taken. It is increasingly centered on social responsibility, to which aesthetic concerns are becoming secondary.
These works of art are primarily created for the public, and they have been described as “dematerialized, participatory, dialogical, and multisensory” by many artists. They are typically aimed at making an impact on the public in a way that would be impossible to achieve in the gallery or museum setting.
Creating, collecting, and caring for public art requires both collaboration and a level of skill and experience that is not always found in the traditional art world. This is why it is important to have a broad network of professionals, including public artists, community organizers, and others who are involved with the process from start to finish.