About Public Art
While all art should be considered ‘public art’, in general, we have come to understand this term to refer to artworks that are located within the public domain – outside of the traditional arts institution, such as the gallery, theatre or concert hall – and where the underlying ambition for the work is to engage in various ways with public audiences and open up possibilities for access to and participation in the arts. A critical feature of public art is therefore the interrelationship between the artist and the artwork, the context (location – site, social, geographical aspects etc) and the public (audience(s) /participants).
While synonymous with the Per Cent for Art Scheme and permanent public sculpture, Public Art is by definition much broader and more complex than this. Alongside artworks commissioned under the Per Cent for Art Scheme, it can also include monuments and memorials, landmark sculpture and works incorporated into architectural design. It overlaps into collaborative practice and new genre public art with its more overtly political agenda. It has always touched into the areas of community practice, arts-in-health and arts-in-education, where the priority focus is often on an active engagement of participants. To an extent public art overlaps with various trends within contemporary arts practice and where artists’ engagements with the ‘real world’ are lodged within the broad practice of everyday life, or which place an emphasis on inter-human relations.