PUBLIC ART: Transforming the In-Between Spaces
By Molly Kleiman
In constructing this inaugural section dedicated to public art, I was presented with a peculiar challenge: Simply, how does one define public art? So, I asked a series of artists. Thorsten Goldberg assessed, "You cannot transform an inside sculpture into an outside sculpture just by making it more stable or enlarging it." The piece must be dialectically related to the history, function, and cultural significance of the site." For Nicola Stephenson the installation should "bring magic to the everyday." Beatrix Barker answered plainly, "Define public art? That’s simple, public art is anything that moves a city." For this month’s issue, I have collated a series of diverse installations. Each project targets urban in-between spaces–neglected, unfriendly, absences–that are ordinarily used simply as conduits for passage or transport or pause. Humble bus shelters are redesigned to become interactive gallery spaces; a subway platform is converted into a venue for spontaneous musical exchange between strangers; a Los Angeles parking lot becomes an underground concert hall for artificial and organic sounds; a Berlin bridge, former symbol of division and oppression, becomes home to a childhood game writ large; Central Park is redrawn with words as stories, sounds, histories, and reality overlap; the byways and bridges of downtown Pittsburgh are dramatically relit and reformed. Through the use of kinetic materials, unusual media, and innovative applications, artists have transformed various spaces of transit, encouraging commuters (pedestrians, subway riders, rush-hour drivers) to reassess, reclaim, reinvest in their surroundings and in one other.
