Radio National discussion: Weekend Arts 14 August 2014 “(Very) Public Art”
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/weekendarts/public-art/5638902
Jon Stanhope – Former ACT Chief Minister
“Why public art?”
“So many people don’t go to art galleries, or to museums or perhaps to sculpture parks. There was a sense that there is some elitism around engagement with the arts and I was encouraged in my thinking to provide public art for everybody .. so you are exposed to art that is not locked up in a gallery”
The art is available for everybody .. not elitist or confined to galleries or sculpture parks
Any expenditure on the art creates controversy
1% rule for allocating money toward art (the percent for art scheme) – trying to deal with some of the politics of providing art
It’s about the quality of our lives, the quality of our cities, and the extent to which governments should be seeking a balance.
It is about the long term and a vision for the future
The capacity for expression and for each of us to engage
(a significant number of) people will come to own the art .. They’ll own it, they’ll be proud of it and it will enhance their pride in their city
Jess Scully – Curator of TEDxSydney, Director of Vivid Ideas festival
“In an age where we spend ever more time looking down at a device and disconnected from the physical here and now, public art is an intrusion into that landscape and its a way of making us connect with the places that we’re in and a way of triggering conversations between people and a way of adding a sense of wonder to the everyday.”
What is a city without public art?
“A giant carpark. Lifeless. I want to see signs that people have lived and loved and fought in a place .. told through art in a place”
Oliver Watts – Lecturer at the University of Sydney’s College of the Arts
“They are uplifting, idealistic, transcendental” (what works about the pieces he chose)