Americans for the Arts' Public Art Network (PAN) is the only professional network in the United States dedicated to the field of public art. As a program of Americans for the Arts, PAN strengthens efforts to advocate for policies and best practices that serve communities creating public art. More than 350 public art programs exist in the United States at the federal, state, and local level. The PAN network brings together artists, community members, and art and design professionals through online resources, professional development and education opportunities, knowledge-sharing practices, and strategic partnerships.

Dec 19, 2010

Graffiti veterans go after the big picture

City sponsors street artists to paint giant mural at Central Library

By ALLAN TURNER HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Dec. 18, 2010, 9:05AM

Once secretive and vaguely menacing but now active in advertising and local classrooms, Houston's leading graffiti artists are pushing for greater public acceptance with their first city-sponsored project — a 20,000-square-foot, $30,000 mural in downtown's Central Library parking garage.

The seemingly strange meeting of outsider art and municipal bureaucracy is being played out in the fluorescent-lit underground garage as spray masters Gonzo247 and MERGE360 employ a palette of custom-designed paints to interpret the library's theme, "Linking You to the World."

In coming weeks, the artists - men in their late 30s who have sprayed graffiti since adolescence - will create images of Earth's continents filled with portraits of indigenous peoples and connected by a trail of paint splatter. The painting will be completed next month.

To the artists and their assistants, who work early mornings, late nights and days on which the library is closed, the project represents a new level of public acceptance - vindication for years of practicing an art scorned by proper society.

To Houston Public Library officials, it is another means of appealing to teens and young adults.

"Providing a way for these folks to express their creativity legally and legitimately is very harmonious with HLP's mission," said Wendy Heger, the library's assistant director for planning and facilities. "… We were lamenting the fact that, in our recent library renovation, we weren't able to make the parking garage look better. We just put two and two together: Here was this great art and here was this space that really needed enhancement."

Dec 16, 2010

Vandalism getting worse on public art in S.F.

Jessica Kwong, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, November 29, 2010

(11-29) 12:26 PST San Francisco -- Each new work of art in the city's public art collection exists to inspire appreciation, but over the last year, many pieces have been drawing the wrong type of attention.

Increasingly, sculptures, monuments and a diversity of public art installations are falling victim to the same disrespect that sidewalks, walls and street signs have long suffered - unauthorized graffiti tagging and vandalism.

"In previous years, an incident would happen every two or three months, but lately it seems to be ... happening monthly," said Marcus Davies, the Arts Commission's civic art collection registrar.

It's a growing concern because the commission has a mere $15,000 of its $11 million yearly budget to clean up the tags, carvings and other unwanted artistic contributions to the 3,500-piece, $90 million collection, said Luis Cancel, the commission's director of cultural affairs.

By comparison, the city spends $20 million annually cleaning up graffiti. The commission typically burns through its meager cleanup budget within the first quarter of the fiscal year.

Public art officials want more flexibility on Calgary's art locations

By Jason Markusoff, Calgary Herald December 9, 2010

Officials behind Calgary's public art program want to ease the rules that force them to erect art pieces in out-of-reach city facilities rather than in more ideal sites.

The city and provincial formulas for funding public art have made Calgary unable to feature most public art anywhere except the site of a new construction project or infrastructure upgrade.

The system led to the wall of leaping trout that came with the Glenmore Trail-Elbow Drive interchange, and a $221,000 steel installation called "bearing" behind a chain-link fence at the fire department's northeast maintenance facility.

"We have a number of premier locations which would be ideal for public art, and yet there's no capital construction associated with those particular sites."

"As we look at a map of the City of Calgary, we have a number of premier locations which would be ideal for public art," said Charles Burgess of the city's public art board.

"And yet there's no capital construction associated with those particular sites."

Calgary's policy is to commit one per cent of construction expenditures to public art. A rule tied to provincial grants -- which fund most city projects, including the fire department's maintenance site -- mean the money can't be used off-site.

In fact, the city spends only one-tenth of a per cent of its capital budget on public art because it doesn't want to install public art at new interchanges and other out-of-the-way sites.

Beth Gignac, the city's arts and culture manager, said the municipality and province are trying to loosen those restrictions

Dec 2, 2010

You Call That Art? TV program premiers in Seattle

Just an artist on a Harley, traveling and talking about art

By Nancy Wick

University Week

View a preview of You Call That Art?!

John Young has a vision of what happens when Joe Citizen encounters a piece of public art, especially if it looks more like the Broken Obelisk than the George Washington statue. Joe, Young thinks, is likely to turn to his companion, jerk a thumb at the piece and say, “You call that art?”

Which is why, when he decided to put together a TV program about public art, Young named it You Call That Art?!. The program debuted at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 22, on KCTS-9.

Young, a UW professor of art, will host the program, which is appropriate, since he has specialized in public art and about a dozen of his own pieces are placed in the

“There’s very little effort going on to educate the public about art,” Young said. “The TV show is all about trying to demystify public art for the common man.”

The show is, in fact, an offshoot of a course that Young has been teaching at the University for years. Officially it’s called Field Study in Public Art, but because it involves getting into vans and touring local public art, the students call it Van Go. Young takes them to particular pieces of public art and talks about the art’s origins, what the artists have said is the intent and who funded them. Sometimes the artist meets them on site and talks about his or her work.

Seattle, Young said, is an ideal place for the course, because it boasts more public art per capita than any other American city — more than 400 pieces outdoors and perhaps 1,600 inside buildings. The proliferation is the result of the multiple arts commissions that cover this region. There’s the city arts commission, called the Office of Arts and Culture; the King County Arts Commission, which is 4Culture; the Washington State Arts Commission, which includes the pieces built on the UW campus and the federal arts commission, the National Endowment for the Arts. Read more here.

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