The Place of Public Art in Social Change (original) (raw)

2010, Social Science Research Network

The main focus of this paper is the implementation of social committed public art projects in urban renewal actions. It seeks to explore the democratic potential in urban artistic interventions and to challenge the view of public art as a collective good, by examining the role of public art works in terms of urban governance. It takes into account the first public art projects realized in Italy within the Nuovi Committenti Programme and it shows how recent practices of public art are intended both to design the physical appearance of the city and to rebuild the relationship that underpin urban life. Nuovi Committenti, promoting citizen participation in the patronage and production of contemporary art project that acknowledge a concrete demand for a better quality of life, seems to take into account a change in the relation between art and the society and it shows how public art can laid the foundations for more integrated urban regeneration projects. KEYWORDS: city, public art, community, social change, urban regeneration 1. Art and the city: the historical evolution of a dense relationship Art has always been one of the leading actors of the city-building process. Moreover in the past artworks were considered tangible signs of the men who have lived in the city. Monuments The relationship between art and the city in past centuries, has found expression in the realization of civic monuments or in the construction of large religious building such as churches and cathedrals. On the one hand art founded sustenance in the city and its citizens, on the other hand the monument was the major channel used for the transmission of political, economic and social values (Romano 1997, 2008; Sacco 2006). Throughout history, two different interpretations of the artistic contribution to urban planning were given: the first one refers to the idea of civic aesthetic and the second one takes into account the idea of mere embellishment. Until the modern design of urban space belongs both to traditional arts, such as painting and sculpture, and to architecture and urban planning and it is often the city in its entirety to be considered a work of art. In this context, the arts, wholly considered, make legible the life, the history and the thoughts of inhabitants, so that citizens feel represented and responsible of its urban space. The urbs, or in other words the materiality of the city, is thus the product of the civitas. With the advent of industrial revolution, however, the division of knowledge becomes clear and the contribution of art to urban design becomes limited to decorative or celebratory function. For centuries all the important architectural projects-churches, public and noble buildings, squares, schools, monasteries, hospitals, bridges, factories, ports and so on-were born together with works of art, paintings, sculptures, carvings, mosaics and ornaments (Pulini 2009). Until the late nineteenth century architects were trained, in fact, in the same school of sculptors and painters. In other words those who drew churches and palaces were trained as artists and had attended academies and art shops. Architects were also painters, sculptors, or designers (Pulini 2009). Urban planning took into account the beauty as an end. The recognition of the identity of each person as part of a collective body, the civitas, depended on the beauty itself. Thus fertile were