Talk:Public art/Archive 1

Comment
um, is there a reason why this page's examples are a little.. French -heavy? Cheezewizard 08:54, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Probably because the text appears to have been written by a French / French-Canadian person (note the original grammar and moniker).

Suggestions
1. The description of guerilla interventions that become accepted into the mainstream should be moved into a section of its own with an appropriate title

2. Similarly, a section on public art policy and its part in Corporate Social Responsibility strategy needs to be added, incorporating the NYC Pecent For Art material already here.

3. A separate section on public artists, possibly chronological.

4. More consideration needs to be given to temporary works.

I don't feel qualified to do this work myself. Hence the cowardly suggestion that somebody else does it. --Dominic Sayers 12:54, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Article structure? Index?
If this 'public art' article is to be comprehensive, or even just extensive, I would suggest starting with a statement of scope, and some kind of index, so the additions will tend to be organized, and visitors will have an easier time than drinking from a fire hose.

Initially, the index could be just a agglomerate list, and organized as needed. Since alphabetical is easy, but often misleading, I would also suggest some easily enhanced 'key word' mechanism or structure for cross referencing. To encourage contributors to usefully and consistently describe each contribution, to make visitor access more effective and satisfying. For that purpose, a standard set of Key Word categories could be suggested/advised, and be organized into : Dimensions: Time, size, location, ... : Subjects: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Sound, Light, Motion, ... : Materials: Colors/light, Stone, Ceramics, Metal, Liquid, Gas, Wood, Plastic, Living, ... : Structure: Texture, Function, Touchable, Interactive, Kinetic, ... etc.

As my brief start above shows, these categories are not necessarily distinct, but limiting then to these few will keep contribution 'description' simple but flexible, and encourage creativity.

There might also be models & techniques for organizing or accessing the collection (of images, or of links to images) in the many on-line image databases.

This is a stab at a topic list: Architecture Gardens/Parks/Topiary/Crop Circles Fountains Sculptures/Mobiles Fabrics/textiles Murals/Tagging Music/Dance/Performance/Demonstrations/Games Lights/Pyrotechnics Indoor arts taken outside Livestock/Plant Breeding Venues/Stages/Arenas/Plazas/Malls<BR> ... <BR>Wikidity (talk) 02:03, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Public? or outdoors/exhibited or site specific.
Seems there are a lot of contradictions on this page:
 * public art is art that is presented in the public domain, including galleries and even shops - it is confused here with art that is located outdoors. this could be due to the fact that 'public art' is a buzzword used by artists and art interested bodies to denote a particular kind of current visual art practice, usually installation based, site specific, exterior work.

so the statement about work being unfeasable in a gallery setting is actually missing the point. gallery art is usually public art.

there is also a confusion that seems to revolve around wether the art is made specialy for the location or simply exhibited. both art that tours as an exhibit and work made specificaly for a particular location is public art, when it is shown in a public place. money spent by local authorities wether it is on access to existing works or the commisioning of new work is all spent on public art.

the paragraph about durability of materials is pretty bad - especially when you consider that it is not the case for temporary sculpture, performance, film, all forms of public art.

I think the best way to resolve this is to distinguish between 'art in public' use of the term public art and the pseudo movement 'public art' then to avoid thinking solely about sculpture. :DavidP 01:11, 15 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Ok. I have waited 8 months to see if anyone agrees or disagrees with my statement above - seems no-one is too bothered. so I'm now going to try and clear the definition up a bit. Regards to all fellow public arts practitioners out there.  DavidP

Hi, I just got into this although I've been practicing and teaching for over 15 years. "Public Art", sanctioned via public monies is art in public. I have written a course I teach at the University of Southern California called "Art and Site" and it is specifically in the Fine Arts offerings, not the Public Art program that tends to generate administrators. This is what I think: There should be a section in Wiki called "Public Art Programs" where artists and administrators can provide information on programs and achievements. Then, there should be a section call something like "Contextual Art" including more renegade art in public, performances, temporary projects, graffiti artists but not the super sanctioned work. I would argue that galleries are private spaces and, therefore, no art in them is public. In fact, dealers and curators I know are afraid of sanctioning art in public; it doesn't generate any money or glory for them. I don't have tons of time, because I'm teaching and doing 3 "Public Art" projects right now but I would love to be a part of this. Just don't know if anyone is still out there. By the way, I use most of the same sources as located on the page along with some WJT Mitchell. We might point out that there is very little publicity for the genre unless it's, for example, InSite and includes blue-chip gallery artists.Bmccarren 01:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Public Art
I have a couple of questions: (1) Who should decide about public art? (2) What constitutes a successful public art work?-hunneymelons 1. the police of Boston. 2. Arrest. 71.48.59.67 17:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Copyright or at least artist's name on photos
Shouldn't there be a copyright notation on the photographs of artworks and absolutely an artist's name on all works? This is an infringement by California standards but I don't know about other places. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bmccarren (talk • contribs) 04:48, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

NPOV
The "controversy" section of this article is pretty biased-sounding. Whether intended or not, and taking into account that it's probably hard to be the one writing the section in question without being biased one way or the other, I didn't try to alter the text.

However, after reading a few sentences about the Tilted Arc, the emotion in the language made me give up on trying to extract any reliable information from this section of the article... It pulls it down to a point where it's not even worth reading as an encyclopedic article.

69.65.232.61 07:52, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * It looks like original research and an essay too, and probably ought to be removed. The criticism of individual pieces of public art is not really appropriate in an article about public art in general - I see how the first two examples are used to illustrate the more general point - but we ought to be using named sources rather than someone's own analysis based on cases they know of.  The writing is also, as you point out, less than neutral.  Ideally criticisms are integrated into the rest of the article rather than in a separate criticism section.  So we might have a section on, say, "public reception" that would talk about the various ways public art is received, both positive, negative and mixed.  It could include a bit on the move from the concept of "the public" to "community" (if that is a significant position expounded by experts) and similar ways artists and those who commission public art have changed their understanding of what public art is, and it might go on to cover how commission and and execution have changed in response to public and critical reception and other factors.  I'm in no position to write this, it's just a suggestion for others :-)  -- SiobhanHansa 14:01, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Image copyright problem
The image Image:DamienHirstVirginMother.JPG is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check


 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
 * That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. --19:40, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

limit posted images
I am going to suggest that we have a guideline here that limits the images posted to one per country. Sound reasonable? Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 18:37, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Something similar was done at War memorial, where images of memorials from the U.K., Canada and the U.S. kept being added and given prominence, such that the article ought to have been renamed "War memorials in English-speaking countries".  If you're not careful to balance the images, giving a wide representation, it inevitably gives rise to WP:BIAS issues. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 20:17, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * As it is, the article only has images from Canada, the U.S., and three countries in Western Europe. Apparently there is no public art elsewhere in the world.  --Skeezix1000 (talk) 20:20, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

If we start getting more images ( I m about to look through my grandfather's slides from Mexico in the 1950s and 60s) we might want to set up a gallery. I know, for example, that the (not sure of exact title) article on Equestrian statues has images from all over the world, but here I'll suggest limiting the number to a couple. Carptrash (talk) 22:50, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * A gallery isn't supposed to simply consist of random images of the article subject (as per the policy at WP:IG) - although many such galleries, they usually eventually get debated and often deleted. So I would be opposed to a gallery that simply shows examples of public art -- that's what a Commons template linking to a gallery or category over at the Commons is supposed to do.  If we could come up with an encyclopedic theme for a gallery, that tied to the text of the article, a gallery could work, but I can't quite think of what that theme would be at the moment.--Skeezix1000 (talk) 23:28, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

If I were inclined to argue with you it would be about the word "random", but since I am not so inclined, I won't. Carptrash (talk) 03:10, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That's not really helpful. Skeezix1000 (talk) 10:21, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Years ago, in Mexico, during the Olmec period, giant sculpted heads were produced, perhaps as public art. In more modern times Mexicans did use the huge head, often of Pres. Juárez, as public monuments. So if a picture of one of these were to appear, even if the background of it was not included in the text, it still would not (opinion) be a "random image." Carptrash (talk) 14:06, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You've misinterpreted what was meant by random - I wasn't refering to non-gallery images. And at some level, as you suggest, any image selection is random (Why was this image of the sculpture chosen?  Why not this image? Why that scupture?).  What was meant was that galleries are supposed to be well-thought out assemblies of images, ilustrating a theme -- they are not supposed to be indiscriminate collections of images of the article subject.  Random images of the article subject should be interspersed within the article or moved to the Commons.  I hope I'm being a bit more clear, but say so if I am not.  Cheers. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:01, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Sooner or later we will end up talking about the same thing and probably agreeing about it. i was thinking of adding a Mexican monument (if I can find one) to a gallery. I have not really checked the images that are in the article to se if they are really connected to the text, or are, "random." I suspect the latter. That they are just public art shot stuck in. Carptrash (talk) 15:49, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You are still misinterpreting my use of the word random. I am not talking about images interspersed within an article in the normal manner - I am not speaking whatsoever about the current images in the article.  I am simply saying that within a gallery, the Image Use Policy requires that the images not simply be random images of the article subject -- the images in the gallery should relate to one another, and the gallery should relate to the text.  That's all.  --Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:25, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Lists of public art in Wikipedia
I've added some lists that have either been created or collected by WP:WSPA please add more if you create or collect them! --RichardMcCoy (talk) 14:40, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I am wondering if the two list that are outside wikipedia, Broward Co. in Florida and Paris in France, (in French) belong in the section of the article. I think not.  Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 21:19, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I just moved this phrase

 * "most of the records have not been updated since 1994 or earlier. "

from the section about the SOS data base because I do not believe (opinion) it to be true. In any case, it is not very clear. especially the "1994 or earlier" part. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 18:51, 1 February 2011 (UTC)