'documenta X' curated by Catherine David from France, opened in Kassel Germany on 21 June 1997 and ran for 100 days. This colossal international event could not be simply understood as an art exhibition and it defied many of the expected ingredients of large scale block busters.
"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.
There's something about public art projects that seems to either bring out the best or the worst in artists. Looks at the 'loo with a view' on the beach front at Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. The project has not been without its tensions......
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.
Describes the public art event for the 1998 opening ceremony of the Adelaide Festival of Arts -- Flamma, Flamma held at the Torrens River, Elder Park Adelaide SA on 27th February 1998.
Over the past decade there has been a significant increase in the number of public art projects directed at the improvement of the quality of public environments. Looks at two projects 'Restoring the Waters' in Fairfield (NSW) involving the artists Michaelie Crawford and Jennifer Turpin and the East Perth Greenway Project by artist Nola Farman. Both projects involve urban waterways and are to do with connecting people to place.
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.
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.
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?
Public Art, the Art for Public Places (APP) program, models for commissions and the matter of percent for art in South Australia. "Processes of development can be as important as the final products when trying to stimulate the field of public art."