I’m definitely with you on your site selections. It’s important that when cities are looking for art, that they focus on the way in options that the built environment offers its artists and the paths that their artistic practices might lead them to find in that environment. As you noted, with different arts mean different paths but it’s all the same city, and within it there sites where paths cross. Where are these nexuses?

Also it’s worth mentioning that while it’s true that for the most part artists spend tend to differentiate between their time spent living and creating (or working) less severely than others, the ratio of time spent living/creating art to presenting art is definitely in the favor of the former. The search for these points of crossing might be better served by not focussing on where artists show their work (ie. galleries et al) but in the places where they live.

I’m not sure if the call limited itself to permanent installations. I actually ended up giving all of the forms that I had away. I’m definitely into the idea of performances and temporary installations. Things are fluid these days – so too can be our art!

And unlikely sites. We’ve been taking Argentine Tango lessons in a coffeehouse.

And for God’s sake a website!

A last thought. Did the call limit itself to permanent installations? In Portland’s new South Waterfront district the developers have paid a conceptual artist to organize a series of performances and temporary installations, in addition to the usual sculptures, etc.

Elizabeth – I agree that there are artists who feel less compelled to cluster. It’s interesting to think about what role they play in the system with regards to the arts profile of their city. Broader calls might bring about opportunity for entry into their “core” arts community.

Manuederra – Thanks for your comment. Name, names!!

Daniel Carrins – Appreciate the well deliberated response. The form was a call for public art – I wasn’t able to check all of the skate parks and schools and youth clubs, but I did check in the ones that I go to and I didn’t see any. I certainly wasn’t trying to cast any stones – There would have to be rigorous research and analysis to do anything like that, but the conversation is interesting to have nonetheless.

The “swimming-pool-gambit” you present about public art is definitely one that I’ve spent my time thinking about as well, and I appreciate the way in which you’ve laid the weight of the discourse evenly on the side of the artists and the community.

Obviously the ratio varies depending on the demographic profile of the community and the artistic profile of the artists within it, but the point you’re motioning towards definitely agrees with my research: public art is more functional than it is aesthetic – it’s more of an innovation than it is decoration.

As places experience time and change both physically and demographically, public art tends to tell the stories that last. At the way things were and the way things are going to be rub up against each-other, the community risks loosing valuable sites of conciliation by simply erecting swimming pools, and the artists risk loosing support by refusing to consider the community.

Eric – Thanks for your comment too man, though I actually disagree with you! It might be just as easy to do at the local level with minimal technology. As I said in my post, I’ve always been impressed by how few degrees of separation that there are between nodes in the arts community within a city. Mapping out social systems and then layering geographic information might not be as difficult as you think.

I think that the visual topography would help us in at least be able to begin to look for patterns and synthesize further inquiries. Good idea!!

It is easier to do this comparing city to city…as Richard has done…but not so easy within the urban topography. But, I’ve noticed that many of the places where creative people converge is at the liminal areas between distinct neighborhoods or subareas of the city. These are the creative seams of the city, where folks encounter a convergence of cultural/class/ethnic groups.

At the national scale, Eric Wilhem, “idea lab” generator and one of Technology Review’s 35 young innovators, noted the distinct advantages SF and Boston provide for innovation networks.

Wilhem brings such information to light by putting DIY projects online (www.instructables.com), believing information sharing, show and telling, is the key to nurturing innovation. It’d be interesting to map these networks geographically…would visually representing such a topography attract even more creatives?

Do you know for a fact that the forms weren’t distributed also to schools, youth clubs, skate parks?

Public art has come a long way since “commission artist to produce a statue”. In fact, the USA is a world leader in challenging and involved public art that uses artists to work with an identified “public” to create “art” that could be anything from music, performance, installation, to the ubiquitous statue of local heritage. Have a butcher’s at a book called “The Art of Placemaking” by Ronald Lee Fleming (Herrald).

I’m a planner in the UK. We’re involved in several public art projects. When I first started five years ago, the commissions basically ran along the lines of “developer is in town. Planning policies says developer must pay for public art. There is no definition of public art, but assumed to be a statue. Planners decide what the art is to be. Developer, to save time and costs, pays for engineer to install public art. Local Authority says thank you. Much fanfare”. Now that’s progressed to something like “Developer is in town. Planning policies say developer must pay for public art. Still no definition of public art, but assumed to be a statue. Planners commission artists who must work with an already-decided “public” (always a school class) to come up with what the art should be based on the public’s involvement. Local Authority says thank you. Much criticism from public who want the money spent on swimming pools”.

So: progress of some sort. As I see it the problems are:

Planners are not trained as artists, nor even to be creative, yet they feel qualified to make decisions about art.

Artists don’t want their creativity to be constrained by “the public” whom they view to be philistine.

“The public” has a misconception that “art” is painting and sculpture and that artists are layabouts who don’t pay tax and public money should be spent on parks and swimming pools.

If art is seen as a means to an end (e.g. solving an environmental, social or economic problem) rather than an end in itself, and if planners stop making decisions in advance that constrain and restrict the “art” and artist (i.e. by specifying that they want a statue, or that they want the artist to work with primary school pupils etc) then we could start seeing more meaningful involvement with a wider audience as Kwende is suggesting, and more meaningful art that does something to change the common misconception that art is bourgeois frippery.