The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

foe u s So What/s Public Art, Anyway? by Ann Macklem Public art has become a hot topic in the past few years. Municipalities across Canada and the United Slates are increasingly concerned with improving the quality of life in their communities, and they have begun to recognize that art is crucial to this revitalization process. Public art policies are being drafted and revised--the North Shore Arts Commission has recently submitted interim guidelines to the three North Shore municipalities, and the City of Vancouver approved their policy only a year ago--and 'public art' has become a buzzword in community planning and art circles. But what exactly is 'public art'? The Arts Commission document defines it in purposely broad terms as "artwork intended for placement or installation at indoor and outdoor areas of use by the public." A number of artworks on the North Shore fit this definition: the jade sculpture at the foot of 17th Street in West Vancouver, the poolside mural at William Griffin Recreation Centre. Richard Wojciechowski's sculptures at Rogers Plaza, etc. All of these have been funded with public money and are located in public spaces. about an, but when laypersons arc also involved in the discussion, it can become that much more difficult to achieve consensus. City planners face the formidable task of weighing artistic integrity against community approval, and they don't always make the right decisions. In New York City, two public art projects had to be cancelled after those most affected by the artworks--the local community--raised a huge public outcry. In both cases the artworks had already been installed, and their removal was costly, both to the municipal purse and the dignity of the artists in question. A similar situation arose in North Vancouver's Waterfront Park. Although the spider-like sculpture-- which is actually a repro-duction of the North Shore skyline--was eventually installed, its original design had to be scaled down as a result of opposition from local residents, who were concerned that its proposed height would block their view. Many feel that the revised version is a poor substitute. There are no easy answers, but, in general, the more responsive the artist has been to a particular place, the more successful the public art project. In the past, public art monuments were created with little or no regard for where they were going to be placed. The unfortunate result was socalled "plop art." an object dropped in the middle of a plaza. A more integrated approach to public art is now emerging, in which the artwork is conceived with a specific message or site in mind (for example, Bill Pechet's "soccer wall" at Ambleside Park). Artworks that aren't sited in this way normally don't go over very well with the public--as in the case of the Terry Fox memorial or the jade sculpture in West Vancouver. Site-specific artworks such as Wojciechowski's North Shore Rhapsody, on the other hand, tend to be well-received. Another successful North Shore public art piece was recently exhibited at the Lonsdale Quay Market. It succeeded not because its design was site-specific, but because its content was. Created by Ross Muirhead. a local artist, it related some of the history of Versatile Shipyards. Its viewers could identify with it because it spoke to them of their own community. O "Public art should shake people up a bit, make them conscious of what they see." O Last Day at the Shipyards, Ross Muirhead "Good" public art, then, is sensitive to both the physical and cultural context in which it is placed. This isn't to say that it should be totally benign. According to Vaughan, public art should "shake people up a bit, make them conscious of what they see." It should provoke a response-- and it almost always docs, if only because people often come across it unexpectedly. Don Vaughan is an artist and landscape architect from West Vancouver with impressive credentials in the field of public art. He sat on the jury lor the Terry Fox memorial; he has acted as the public art coordinator for Concord Pacific Developments, and. currently, for the new downtown arena; he has also created a number of his own public art pieces--at Metrotown, the University of Victoria, and Ambleside Landing. For Vaughan. the primar> role of public art is "to inform people about their place." But. he maintains, "most artists can't conceive of the artwork as an integral part of the space. They see that their work is about a piece." To remedy this, he suggests that the artist be involved at the outset, collaborating with the architectural siting the p piece. re that the . » ! . This should id not artwork is a part of the landscape incongruous to it. A,,v Acce» Scp/Oc 1993 5 The beauty of public an is that it takes an out of the private realm of a gallery or museum and moves it into the public sphere, ensuring that it becomes a part of everyday life. Thanks to Helga Pakasaar for her helpful input into this article. Ancient Scribe, Kevin Head But siting and ownership are not the only defining characteristics of public art--art can be deemed 'public' for other reasons as well. Public art can be activist/interventionist art, as when an advertising billboard message is subverted or rendered ironic through the use of graffiti: it can be community-based art, wherein the grassroots participate in an art-making project (as in the Public Dreams Society's annual ¡Iluminares festival at Trout Lake); it can also be a commissioned artwork that members of the public have been involved in selecting. The common denominator in all of these versions is that the public is involved in some way--as audience members, participants, patrons and/or dec is ion-makers. Public participation and input is therefore crucial..yet the degree and manner in which the public should be involved is a matter of some debate. Differences of opinion as to what constitutes "good art" are Inevitable, e\en amongst people who know quite a bit