The general model for the art experience is about individual appreciation in an intimate setting, like home, gallery, museum. The work-painting or sculpture, created by an artist in his studio becomes the object, the basis of a visual dialogue between the artist and the viewer. It is the romantic model of the artist/genius making a rare object and the discriminating, knowledgeable viewer's appreciation.

The process of Public Art is different. It is collaborative with shared creative responsibility similar to cinema, music and architecture.

Other than its process being different, its purpose is different as well. At its best, Public Art is public event for the public good. It aims to beautify and edify, to enhance the quality of urban life, and become a vehicle for defining the community. It reflects its environment, the values of the community in which it exists. Public Art is more than art in a public place. It is a community-based process of dialogue, involvement, and participation. Successful public art is site-specific, and responds to the concept of place-making.

If we try to find the root of what we refer to as Public Art today, we could end up in the mid 19th century when improved environmental design, urban parks, planned communities, set out to solve the urban problems that accompanied industrialization.

Closer to our time, the rebuilding of war torn Europe, modernism in architecture and the generational hubris of the 60s resulted in a more focused approach to urban sociology and the role art could play in urban design.

The inception of institutional public art is considered to be the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts Art in Public Places Program in 1967. Since then federal, state and city laws have resulted in more than half the states, and an ever increasing number of cities mandating percent-for-art commitments from public and private developers to encourage the incorporation of artworks into the public environment.

PUBLIC ART IN LOS ANGELES

Recognizing the important role of art in creating a dynamic downtown, the CRA - Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles, required that art be provided in new downtown developments as early as l968. It established its Art in Public Places Policy in 1985, while the Cultural Affairs Department of the City of Los Angeles created an arts development fee in 1991.

The required fee is usually one percent of the building permit valuation of the project, which is why the program is referred to as Percent for Art.

Over the years, downtown Los Angeles has become a rich and diverse matrix of architecture, culture and art. Reflecting this wealth of texture, contemporary public art is moving toward exciting pluralism. Even though more and more integrated, it can still be an object, but it might be environmental, functional, architectural, or ornamental. It is encountered everywhere: plazas, parks, playgrounds, streets, sidewalks, airports, train stations, office buildings, shopping malls, schools, waterfronts, hospitals, parking lots. Structures become art when created by artists: street lighting, trash bins, gates, benches, bus shelters. It can be abstract or figurative, humorous or inspiring. It could be an event, or it could be temporary. The past decade has been redefining our ideas of what Public Art is and should be, but there is still no real solid ground to talk about political and aesthetic definitions.

Since the 1990s, Public Art in Los Angeles has greatly increased in visibility. A big boost has come from the MTA, the largest public art program in the country with its $16 million Art for Rail Transit budget. It involves artists from the earliest design stages in a collaborative effort with architects, designers and the community. The impact of this program is strong, and will affect our understanding of the potential and method of Public Art in our city.

> SUGGESTED LINK: www.usc.edu/isd/archives/la/pubart/
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