Public Art at the Canberra Museum and Gallery

In a city with so many cultural institutions focused upon the national agenda, the new Canberra Museum and Gallery is a significant symbol of the ACTs (Australian Capital Territory) increasing confidence in a local identity, interdependent with its national role.

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The Enduring Moment

It is arguable that temporary public art is a more valid response to the transitory, dynamic and complex nature of the city and public life, more available to be critical and exploratory, than its permanent counterpart.

Catherine Murphy

Not Fence Sitting: The Art on Line Project

The 'Art on Line' project initially conceived by Craig Walsh, involved the work of three Brisbane based artists - Wendy Mills, Keith Armstrong and Craig Walsh - who are perhaps better known as working along the experimental edge of fine art, rather than as 'community artists'.

Pat Hoffie

The Vision not so Splendid

Prominent gallerist Paul Greenaway and influential educator Pamela J Zeplin speculated recently about the depths to which confidence in the management of Adelaide's Public Domain has sunk. Who is to blame for the rash of mediocrity -- consultants, governments, artists themselves. Interview.

Pamela Zeplin

The Public Interest: Is There Any?

"Living a few hundred metres away from a community arts project has clarified my doubts about the standard and the value of such projects and what they achieve for their supposed audience." Peers explores the current issues facing the production of community and public art looking at 'The Bridge, Construction in Process' an event and exhibition which took place in Melbourne over March- April 1998.

Juliette Peers

City Provoked: These Questions and More....

RMIT project 'City Provoked' asked questions about the nature of public art emphasising 'new genre public art' - flexibility and responsiveness, specificity and topicality, innovation, challenge, engagement, unregulated encounter. collaboration, temporality and process rather than closure.

Virginia Fraser

Shelf life, Use by Date and Other Related Issues

Isn't it about time we showed artists and our public artworks a little more respect? We coaxed artists out of their studios to put their creative souls on public display, and now many of those life enhancing objects are looking unloved, forlorn and neglected.

Robyn Taylor

Commissioning Public Art: A Consultant Speaks

"I am looking at the final design and thought 'what went wrong?' Weeks earlier the Arts Committee had selected an exciting concept design. Why did the artist change the concept design so dramatically?"

Merily Oppermann

Good or Bad Idea: The Community as Public Art Practitioner

If art in community places isn't for the community using those places, then who is it for? Should all art in public places have immediate community appeal, or reflect those communities in some way, or even have community contributions? And if the answer to any of these is yes, need this impinge on the quality of the art?

Maggie Baxter

An Artist Speaks Out

Challenging work, work that made some form of investigative observation about where we stand at this point in time was virtually not appearing anymore....In Adelaide and other cities, decorative design work, which is often very literal and subservient to conservative briefs, commercial interests, political agendas and restrictive models has appeared everywhere under the name of sculpture.

Greg Johns

For Arts Sake a Fair Go

The status quo of moral rights of artists in Australia today in respect of site specific works.

Sharon Theedar

What do THEY make of it?

Jenny Holzer shared some thoughts with Tamara Winikoff during Artist's Week in Adelaide in March 1998 about her relationship with the public, who over the years and in various countries, has been the audience for her artworks in the public arena.

Tamara Winikoff

Public Art in Sydney - Olympian Heights or More of the Same?

The Olympic Co-ordination Authority and the Sydney City Council, the two commissioning bodies, have the power to transform the capital with their curated programs of site specific public art, some of which will have a limited life span. Ironically, in these environments where relationship to site is one of the criteria for inclusion, it is left to the artist to reconstruct the histories, to illuminate the voices demolished to make way for Olympic progress.

Courtney Kidd

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