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Public Address is a platform for wide-ranging discussion of innovative projects, and practices. Read here for news, announcements, and postings and sign up for our e-newsletter here.

Contemporary art is increasingly “untethered” and moves from the white cube of the gallery to any site – including the virtual – to engage the public in its own realm. Public art is an ever-expanding field of inquiry, with artists of all stripes exploring the public realm. Beyond murals, monuments, memorials (and the occasional mime) public art has become a vibrant and engaging practice. From the spectacular to the quotidian, permanent to ephemeral, sited to virtual, material to performative, conceptual to cinematic, we believe there are unprecedented opportunities for new art practices in our shared environment. This is the critical focus of Public Address.

Cultures of complaint

Author
mediachef
Post
02.16.2010

Former Texas senator Phil Gramm famously complained that “we have sort of become a nation of whiners,” but 2008 Bush Fellow Matthew Bakkom, whose tabloid-size booklet “The New York City Museum of Complaint” was published in 2006, has argued

“The point of complaining is not necessarily that it’s going to change things. . . . It’s more kind of an existential act that is essential to democracy.” via NYT

Public art as public amenity

Author
mediachef
Post
02.15.2010
Caley J. Coney, "Bad Day," Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk. via Public Art Saint Paul

Caley J. Coney, "Bad Day," Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk. via Public Art Saint Paul

via Public Art Saint Paul

Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk is a project created by Saint Paul’s Public Artist in Residence Marcus Young and friends, Saint Paul Public Works, and Public Art Saint Paul with contributions from Saint Paul poets, which began in 2008. Every year, St. Paul residents can submit poems to be selected for imprinting in the new and newly repaired sidewalks of the city. The deadline for submissions is March 28, 2010. Guidelines here.

Engaging public art

Crown Fountain, Jaume Plensa, Millennium Park. via Chicago Now

Crown Fountain, Jaume Plensa, Millennium Park. via Chicago Now

“[P]ublic art that truly engages and creates a real relationship with the public and creates a social common ground is rarer. Plensa’s fountain does that and effectively blurs completely the line between art and public. This is urban planning in the service of both art and the city’s populace.” – Dawoud Bey

via Chicago Now

Strange Fruit

Author
mediachef
Post
02.8.2010
Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, August 7, 1930. via Wikipedia

Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, August 7, 1930. via Wikipedia

The words of the song “Strange Fruit” were originally penned in 1936 under the name Lewis Allan by Bronx schoolteacher Abel Meeropol in reaction to a photograph of the 1930 lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to listen to Billie Holiday’s memorable rendition of Strange Fruit the same again after viewing this photograph, which is part of the point of Piotr Szyhalski’s Labor Camp Orchestra, including its “cover” of Strange Fruit – to make visceral the Iraq war. To take us beyond the blaring headlines, patriotic jingoism, and national security fervor to a place that is literally unforgettable.

01SJ Biennial open calls

Author
mediachef
Post
02.7.2010

For the 2010 01SJ Biennial ZER01 is collaborating with SF Shorts: San Francisco International Festival of Short Films to issue an open call for 5-minute shorts interpreting the theme Build Your Own World that were shot using a cell phone, flip video camcorder, or other mobile media device. You can interpret this theme literally or […]

Support “the largest concentration of technology-based public artwork in the country”

Author
mediachef
Post
01.5.2010

San Jose Airport Art Program – Consulting Art Technician “ (aka ArtGeek)” “The ArtGeek oversees the largest concentration of technology-based public artwork in the country. Located in the San Jose International Airport’s brand new terminal, the collection includes a giant propeller-driven robotic sculpture, streaming networked cameras, a massive cloud of flickering glass, liquid-cooled projectors, twitter […]

Support “the largest concentration of technology-based public artwork in the country”

Author
mediachef
Post
01.5.2010

San Jose Airport Art Program – Consulting Art Technician “ (aka ArtGeek)” “The ArtGeek oversees the largest concentration of technology-based public artwork in the country. Located in the San Jose International Airport’s brand new terminal, the collection includes a giant propeller-driven robotic sculpture, streaming networked cameras, a massive cloud of flickering glass, liquid-cooled projectors, twitter […]

Riding modern art in public places

Author
mediachef
Post
01.2.2010
raphael zarka, riding modern art. via DesignBoom

raphael zarka, "riding modern art. via DesignBoom

It comes as no surprise that skaters and others use public art in many different ways. Just as public art itself can be an aggressive territorialization of space. The suite of photographs, “Riding Modern Art,” by Raphael Zarka at DesignBoom based on an upcoming exhibition at the french cultural center in milan, however, is particularly enjoyable for “decisive moment-ness,” which is at once frozen and viscerally vertiginous.

Forecast Public Art Annual Grant Program – Deadline February 6th

Author
Northern Lights.mn
Post
12.21.2009

Forecast’s annual grant program supports emerging, visual artists and interdisciplinary teams led by visual artists residing in the state of Minnesota.
These grants provide artists the chance to develop and create projects for a public audience anywhere in the state, receive increased recognition, and advance their artistic careers.A limited amount of consulting and/or facilitation time is provided by Forecast Public Art staff.

New in 2010, Forecast is excited to announce new funding opportunities
with three of Minnesota’s Regional Arts Councils!