Public Art

I’ve been looking at a few public art commissions recently and it got me thinking about the way public art is chosen and talked about. I’ve come to the conclusion that I find the idea that the public needs to be consulted on or somehow involved in public art commissions a bit strange. The public aren’t consulted when a new building is put up (beyond certain planning considerations) or a billboard advert is placed where they will be seeing it every day. Yet when it comes to public art, everyone’s opinions have to be taken into consideration; it’s probably why so much public art is awful.

I don’t think people ever really know what they want until they see it and then decide whether they like it. There will never be a consensus on this because everybody is different and has differing likes and dislikes. Anthony Gormley’s ‘Another Place’ is basically a load of human statues staring out to sea; if people had been asked what sculpture they would like to see on Crosby Beach, I doubt they would have come up with that solution… that’s what an artist is for. Looking at this idea from another angle, if an artist suggested building a 1000ft tall tower on top of a Yorkshire moor as a symbol of coming home, I’m sure this would be met by much outrage and it would never happen. And yet, that is exactly what a TV mast on Emley Moor has become to many people.

Artist’s should be provided with a brief and then the artist chosen should be trusted to respect and complete that brief, in the same way that designers and architects are trusted to come with designs/products that the public will like and buy. If the artwork isn’t a success then surely the fault should lie with the people in charge of commissioning the artist, for choosing the wrong artist, or the people in charge of creating the brief, for creating a poor brief.

Maybe too much attention and significance is placed on the commissioning of public art; if there were more public artworks with less emphasis on permanence, maybe the good ones would last out and the poorer ones would be replaced. So, the conversation would be more along the lines of “Here’s some artwork, it’s going to be here for a little while. If you don’t like it, it’ll be gone soon. If you do like it, let us know.”

Or, maybe, I’m looking at this very much from an artist’s point of view and I just want to have more art in the world!