Sydney is experiencing a boom in public art programs: Sydney Sculpture Walk, Sydney Airport’s Art at Work program, the Olympic Co-ordination Authority’s Public Art Program, and Sydney Foreshore Authority’s Promenart program. The strategy of having specially commissioned and curated programs of public art means that the art works not only relate to their sites but also to one another. This is extremely important for a number of reasons.
First, the programmatic approach can acquaint the public with new ways of thinking about public art. Most people are no doubt familiar with traditional forms of public art - statues on pedestals, the abstract sculptures of modernism, fountains and so forth - but more contemporary art forms such as site-specific art and installation may not be part of their experience. Having a series of such works helps to accustom the public to different ways of looking at and experiencing art. The first of these programs, Sydney Sculpture Walk, is exemplary in this regard: the walk itself creates a path around the city via a series of such works. Up to twenty artworks will make up the walk: fourteen by Sydney-based artists and around six from leading international artists. To date, eight works have been completed, with two more scheduled to be completed before September.
Many of the works in the Sculpture Walk engage with the history of their site; “site-specific” here doesn’t just refer to the present state of a site. For example, Anne Graham’s water work in Martin Place, Passage, traces the footprint of a Georgian domestic dwelling once on that site. At regular intervals walls of fine mist rise from the perimeter of the absent house to recreate a ghostly outline. Because the work is very low-rise - one can walk across the outline and between the two bowls that form a fountain at the wash-end of the house - it | | encourages passage through it. Consequently many people, to their surprise and delight, are caught inside the house when the misty walls rise. The obvious enjoyment and amusement caused by this sudden immersion in history, right in the heart of the erstwhile sober CBD, is testament to the beguiling nature of this experiential work.
The second advantage of the planned program is that it affords a degree of integrity to the works. Public art programs become a distinct feature of the city or site; they are not last minute additions to an existing building program - the much lamented “art as ornament” approach. Perhaps, when public art takes more traditional sculptural forms, this last minute approach can be countenanced; but, because many of the artists involved in these recent programs work with the space of installation itself, their work is most effective when it can enter into a dialogue with the surrounding space. |
