One Place After Another: A Survey of Public Art Today

Public art is art in any media that has been planned and executed with the intention of being staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all. Public art is significant within the art world, amongst curators, commissioning bodies and practitioners of public art, to whom it signifies a working practice of site specificity, community involvement and collaboration. Public art may include any art which is exhibited in a public space including publicly accessible buildings, but often it is not that simple. Rather, the relationship between the content and audience, what the art is saying and to whom, is just as important if not more important than its physical location.

By definition, Public Art is art in any media that has been planned and executed with the intention of being staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all. Public art is significant within the art world, amongst curators and major art consultants, commissioning bodies and practitioners of public art, to whom it signifies a working practice of site specificity, community involvement and collaboration.

Public art may include any art which is exhibited in a public space including publicly accessible buildings, but often it is not that simple. Rather, the relationship between the content and audience, what the art is saying and to whom, is just as important if not more important than its physical location.

A number of the artists working with Mark Moore Fine Art are actively engaged in the making and realization of Public Art – and number of them have won International recognition for their works. Artists like Tim Bavington, Vernon Fisher, Zemer Peled, Jason Salavon, Andrew Schoultz, Jean Shin, Penelope Umbrico, The Okay Mountain Collaborative, and Yoram Wolberger have all received critical and public acclaim for their Public Art works.

These types of public art projects don’t sit on pedestals: they are seamlessly integrated into the surrounding environment. When you bring one of our gallery artists into a project early in the design process, the work of art can be built into construction documents, which can save time and money from a separate art installation. In many cases, the general contractor can perform some of the fabrication or installation, with the artist or fabrication specialist needed only for specific components.

When an artist is included as a member of the design team with an architect, landscape architect, or engineer, they work together and heighten the creativity, surprise, beauty, or whimsy of a place. These types of projects work best when all members of the team are selected at the same time, they are given equal power and control over aesthetics, and each member has a clearly defined project role from the beginning.

Additional information on our past Public Art Projects and the artists in this exhibition on our website at: http://www.markmoorefineart.com/advisory