PUBLIC ART

Public Art

Defining an art that is public compels us to consider the difficulties that surround the notion of this concept. In a literal sense, it would be the works that belong to the museums and collections, or the monuments in the streets and squares, that are of free access. In this direction, it is possible to follow the public vocation of art since Antiquity, recalling works integrated into the everyday scene - for example, Auguste Rodin's The Thinker (1840 - 1917), installed in front of the Pantheon in Paris, 1906 - and others more directly involved in the political debate. Vladimir Tatlin's (1885-1953) project for a monument to the Third International (1920) and the Constantin Brancusi Memorial (1876-1957), 1937-1938, dedicated to the Romanian civilians who confronted the German Army in 1916 are examples of this . The Mexican muralism of Diego Rivera (1886 - 1957) and David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896 - 1974) can be considered one of the forerunners of public art due to his political commitment and his visual appeal.

The current meaning of the concept refers to the art performed outside the spaces traditionally dedicated to it, the museums and galleries. There is talk of art in public spaces, although the term may also designate artistic interference in private spaces, such as hospitals and airports. The general idea is that it is physically accessible art, which modifies the surrounding landscape, either permanently or temporarily. The term goes into the vocabulary of art criticism in the 1970s, closely following funding policies created for art in public spaces, such as the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the General Services Administration (GSA) in the United States United States, and the Arts Council in Great Britain. Several artists emphasize the engaged nature of public art, which would alter the ordinary landscape and, in the case of cities, interfere with urban physiognomy, recover degraded spaces and promote civic debate. "The public artist is a citizen in the first place," says Iranian Siah Armajani (1939), based in the United States.

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Public art must be thought of within the tendency of contemporary art to turn to space, be it the gallery space, the natural environment or the urban areas. In view of the expansion of the work in space, the viewer ceases to be a distant observer and becomes an integral part of the work (in this sense, it seems difficult to locate the boundaries between public art and environmental art). The artistic context that shelters the new experiences with space refers to the development of pop art, minimalism, post-minimalism and conceptual art that take the North American scene from the end of the 1960s, unfolding in installations, performances, procedural art, land art , graffiti art etc. These new guidelines share a common spirit: they are, in their own way, attempts to direct artistic creation to the things of the world. The works articulate different languages - dance, music, painting, theater, sculpture, literature, etc. - challenging the usual classifications, calling into question the character of artistic representations and the very definition of art. They critically question the market and the validation system of art, denouncing its elitist character.

Land art is among the examples associated with public art. The physical space - desert, lake, canyon, plain and plateau - is a field where artists perform great environmental architectures such as, for example, Double Negative (1969) by Michael Heizer (1944), Spiral Jetty Robert Smithson (1938-1973), and The Lightning Field (1977), by Walter de Maria (1935). The works of Alice Aycock (1946), The Simple Network of Underground Wells and Tunnels (1975), and Mary Miss (1944), Untitled (1973), have another scale: they are installations placed in the natural environment that seek integration between materials - wood in the case - and the environment. The works of Richard Long (1945) follow the steps and the look of the walker (Walking Line in Peru, 1972). In Christo (1935), new architectural solutions are obtained by the packaging of famous monuments, such as Pont Neuf, Paris, 1985, or by action on nature (Valley Curtain, 1972).

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The space of cities is exploited by public art in different ways. Some artistic-architectural projects are directly associated with urban redevelopment processes and involve the local population in their execution (in England, for example, the work of Eileen Adams at Pembroke Street Estate, Plymouth). Other plans to renovate urban centers benefit from works by renowned artists. The order made to Alexander Calder (1898 - 1976) by the NEA is one of them. If Calder's work, located in the central region of Grand Rapids, Michigan, knows the immediate acceptance of the population, another was the reaction mobilized by Tilted Arc (1981) by Richard Serra (1939) - a gigantic inclined steel "wall" which takes care of the Federal Plaza in New York –

withdrawal of the place in 1989, due to the successive conflicts between the artist and the public opinion. Examples of projects and works that deal with the city as a space for intervention can be found at the Los Angeles school - Robert Irwin (1928), James Turrell (1943), Maria Nordman (1939) and Michael Asher (1943) - who works on urban constructions using artificial light sources. The permanent installation of Daniel Buren (1939) in front of the Palais Royal in Paris, and the collective intervention at Battery Park City in Manhattan, involving architects and artists such as Armajani and M. Miss, exemplify other directions taken by public art. An alternative to government funding is proposed by a group of artists - among them Gordon Matta-Clark (1943 - 1978), Richard Landry (1938) and Tina Girouard (1946) - who opened Food Restaurant in 1971 as a public art projects (eg Splitting, 1974, by Matta-Clark).

In Brazil, it is possible to think of public art through individual initiatives by artists. In the 1960s, the environmental manifestations of Hélio Oiticica (1937 - 1980), with their covers, banners, tents, parangoles, a pool hall (1966) and Tropicália (1967, labyrinthine environment composed of two Penetrables associated with plants, sand , macaws, poems-objects, parangolé covers and a television set) can be taken as examples of artistic production that challenges the public scene. In the 1970s, the interventions in the city by Antonio Lizarraga (1924) in partnership with Gerty Saruê (1930), whose first result is Alternative Urban, can be remembered. The work, defined by the authors as a piece of "urban engineering", is composed of 28 tons of prismatic roof beams (manufactured by Sobraf), painted with blue, black, white and red stripes, cut by a geometric design. The proposal is linked to the interaction of the public with the work and to the idea that art must be "utilitarian". This first project is the origin of a collective project, led by the architect Maurício Fridman (1937). Gaspar Louren?o Street, in Mariana, S?o Paulo, is chosen as the setting: the alley is painted white with black figures representing the phases of human evolution; the staircase, also white, carries a blue list and colored cloths; the walls, covered with letters, numbers, lines and colored balls that take the sidewalk. The experience on the street Gaspar Loureiro, points out Annateresa Fabris, "confirms the urban vocation of the public and artistic work of Lizarraga."

Luís Horácio