Raw Materials
Public art and community-building from the founder of Forecast
Friends,
This week, I stumbled onto a talk by Jack Becker, the founder of Forecast Public Art and Public Art Review. A longtime advocate for public art, Jack’s talk makes a case for expanding our notion of the arts from beyond institutions and out onto the streets and brick walls of the built environment around us. The museums matter, of course they do, but so does remembering that art is a deeply human activity we can all join in—no need to wait around for permission or perfection. Just start sculpting or singing or dancing or painting or writing and sharing with the rest of us! In the selections below, Becker reflects on a public vision for the arts, where both art and community weave together into one social fabric.
Take care,
Michael
Selections from “Public Art as a Community Building Strategy” by Jack Becker
What happens when you connect the ideas and energies of artists with the needs and opportunities of communities? I was lucky to get an opportunity to do that kind of imagining when I was fresh out of college in Minneapolis back in 1977. I was one of sixty artists in the CETA Program, a federal job training program that put artists to work part-time in their studios and part-time in the community.
I was lucky enough to get this job title: “Gallery Director of City Art Productions,” which was pretty heady. I had a desk and a phone at City Hall at the Minneapolis Arts Commission, and they said, “Jack, there’s just one catch: there is no gallery. The city is your gallery, and your job is to organize exhibits of CETA artists at the parks and plazas and government centers and libraries in the city. Now here’s your desk and phone, now go for it.”
It was an energizing job I wasn’t necessarily qualified for, but I learned pretty quickly because of my experience in the arts. I knew from my time in theater and the visual arts that bureaucracy can be an art form, too. It’s a little bit like found object sculpture—you've got all the raw material around you in the city to put things together and to make things happen. Not only did I have the raw material—places in the city, and the people and the businesses and industries—there were also 60 artists in the program and all I needed to do was connect.
I found that I was pretty good at it, and I started to learn something about public art in the process and the power that artists bring to the public art equation in combination with communities. I learned that public art is more than murals, monuments and memorials (or the occasional mime). In fact, public art is the visible evidence of our shared humanity. You can tell a lot about a place by the kind of public art they have. It’s kind of like a cultural barometer. Or, in some cases, the absence of public art tells you something about the values of the community.
I learned that public art can be top-down, where the people with the money commission artists to do what they want them to do, or it can be bottom-up, where artists and community members and collaborators from different sectors work together to create the kind of public art that they want in the community and serve needs that are unmet. And they become creative problem-solvers and actually become valued in their communities in ways that, well, the top-down model doesn’t always convey. I learned that public art can be a process as well as a product. It can be visual; it can be performative. In fact, public artists get to write their own job descriptions. It’s pretty amazing isn’t it?
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Artists have the ability to help build community, but you all have the opportunity to participate in the public art equation. You’re all part of it. What can you do to make sure that you’re taking advantage of this incredible natural resource? You can invite artists to the table. They’ll bring ideas you might not think about, spark conversations that haven’t been had yet, or raise awareness of issues that maybe nobody else wants to talk about. They think outside the box. You can support their development because let’s face it: a lot of the educational system that brings artists into the world are still about making objects to sell. What we’re talking about is social engagement and process and surfacing value in the community, and you can help run your city’s involvement with your community by putting artists to work, not only in residence in city halls and in schools and in social service organizations but anywhere you can think of. So, my message to you for today is this: let’s put more public in public art.
“Peace in the Valley” by Carole King
Looking out my window
Peace in the valley just don't come
Though I know that man's my brother
And that I'm the selfish one
The hour is getting later
It's time we had begun
Knowing something's one thing
But the race must still be run
Take care of little jealousies
And talk that kills for fun
And hold your heart in readiness
It's so easy to come undone
But I think I saw a brand new light
Coming over the horizon
Brighter than all the others
And it says all men are brothers under the skin
Brothers under the skin
Looking out my window
Peace in the valley just don't come
Though I know that she's my sister
And that I'm the selfish one
And I look at all the people
And I love the ones I can
And I wonder if the dream will be
Or be turned into sand
Still I think I saw a brand new light
Coming over the horizon
Brighter than all the others
And it says all men are brothers under the skin
Brothers under the skin
Peace in the valley just don't comeThis Lakota artist made abstract paintings years before the NYC movement
Gizem Vural’s comics are contemplative and abstract in the best way
The history of WARM—Women’s Art Registry of Minnesota
”The fabric of placemaking is woven from many threads” — on art and placemaking