Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography

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Public Art Photography

Photography and photographic processes have been utilized in the arena of Public Art beginning with early 20th century documentation projects and continuing today as an effective means of public self-expression. Public art photography encompasses many facets ranging from conceptual and political art, to documentation, to unique works for exhibition, to architectural and place enhancement.

Public Art may be defined as art that is created for permanent or temporary installation or exhibition in public locations freely accessible to the community as they go about their daily lives. This in contrast to artwork exhibited for an audience who specifically seeks out viewing opportunities at locations such as museums and galleries. Public Art is generally commissioned with public funds and is typically located in public spaces such as governmental buildings, plazas, parks and city streets, but corporations, arts institutions, and individuals may also place art on public view to create de facto public works. The artwork itself may be installed permanently in, on or near a building or public space, such as a sculpture. Or, the work can be part of a "portable" collection of work, such as photographs and paintings that can be moved among public buildings. Artwork may also be physically integrated into the location, becoming an essential element to the structure, such as an artist-designed floor, wall or landscape. Temporary or ephemeral public artworks may include performances, photographic projections or temporary displays.

From its invention up until the period of major growth of Public Art programs in the mid to late 20th century, photography has been primarily utilized within public art as collectable portable artworks or as a medium for documentation. In the 1920s, Soviet artists seized upon the documentary nature of photography to create agitprop, or works meant to sway the masses to a particular political viewpoint. Several significant documentary projects came about in the United States during the Great Depression in the 1930's, under the Federal Government's Works Progress Administration (WPA) program, the Federal Arts Program (FAP) and the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Photographers, along with others in the arts such as painters and writers, were employed by the US Federal Government and given the opportunity to create or teach art for reasonable pay.

The government hired the photographers to document the current condition of life in America, including documenting governmental relief and construction programs. Historically, these photographers built upon the distinguished social documentary work of independent photographers throughout the world in the earlier part of the 20th century. Photographer Lewis Hine, with his groundbreaking images of the abysmal working conditions in industrial America, and the subsequent reform that these images helped bring about, is an excellent example of this earlier socially-conscious work.

The FSA program employed the photographers to document the life and hardship of rural America during the drought and Great Depression. The program produced a remarkable 270,000 images and included such notable photographers as Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. The iconic 20th century image, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California (1936) by Lange was a product of the program. Photographer Berenice Abbott completed another significant project but hers was focused on the urban experience. Funded through the FAP and sponsored by the Museum of the City of New York, Abbott was employed to document New York City in a period of sweeping change during the 1930s. This work culminated in the important portfolio, Changing New York (1939), a collection of 305 images.

Contemporary Public Art can be defined as beginning in the post-World War II era when artwork began to be incorporated into new post-war modern buildings and cities throughout the world. In particular, the 1960's and 1970's saw a significant growth of local governmental Public Art programs and interest in Public Art in general. Much of this funding was spurred by the newly created National Endowment for the Arts, one of President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs. So-called "Percent for the Arts" programs were set up in a number of American cities that by statute called for the setting aside of a percent of the overall budget for the construction of a public building for the purchase and placement of art works. The federal General Services Administration in particular was a pioneer in percent-for-the-arts placements.

In this time period, photography as a public art medium was generally still utilized for documentation purposes and collecting of discrete prints. However, the evolution of technology and artists' ingenuity changed this pattern in the 1980s, 1990s and today. Photography is currently being integrated into Public Art on many different levels from large commercially-produced digital murals; to source imagery for etched reproductions in glass, metal, stone or tile; to use in traditional commercial and advertising venues; to temporary projects including installations and projections.

Photography and the photographic process have become more feasible in Public Art largely through technological advances that have allowed for greater scale opportunities and the utilization of new materials and reproduction techniques that lead to a more permanent image and product. For example, Puerto Rican born artist Pepón Osorio's community-based artwork entitled I have a Story To Tell You… (2003) features glass panels incorporating transferred photographic images from the Latino community in Philadelphia. The panels became the walls and roof of a casita (small house) Osorio built in a community health center courtyard as a gathering place. Deborah Wian Whitehouse creates large-scale photographic works using commercial digital printing on vinyl sheets. Her work Spirit of Atlanta (2000), installed at the Atlanta International Airport, highlights diversity and urban life, and measures a remarkable 20 x 70 feet. Artist Ellen Driscoll's large work, As Above, So Below (1993-1999), in New York City's Grand Central Terminal is a mosaic mural she created with source photographic imagery.

Advancements in digital photography, through the accessibility of the process, ease of use and relative low cost of image-taking and distribution, has also encouraged the use of photography in Public Art. For example, over the past decade in China, digital photography has helped lead to a major photographic movement and interest in photography in general as a means of public expression—ultimately resulting in public exhibits and installations all over the world. An engaging example of recent work from China is artist Chen Shun-Chu's Family Parade (1995 -1996). In the work, Shun-Chu created a large installation by covering an abandoned house with hundreds of framed images of his family.

Contemporary photographers and artists have also utilized, and some would say exploited, elements that have been traditionally available to the advertising and promotions industry, including billboards, photo light boxes, bus shelters and bus and taxi placards. Many of these artists are specifically critiquing the prevalent advertising medium and how information, and photography, are disseminated in popular culture. Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar frequently utilizes photography in installations including large-scale prints and light boxes. His work, often political, focuses on the exploitation of the Third World by the industrial world. In Rushes (1986), Jaar installed eighty large photographs of Brazilian Indians mining gold in dehumanizing conditions beside the world market price of gold in a New York City Wall Street District subway station. In contrast, Taiwanese artists Pu and Yang Tsong utilized photo light boxes to exhibit tranquil images of nature in their work Musical Skies (1998) at the Memorial Hall Station in Taipei, Taiwan.

Artist Krzysztof Wodiczko combines photographic images and the photographic process of slide projection in his ephemeral work. Wodiczko, who was born in Poland and now lives in the United States, has produced his projection installations throughout the world since 1981. Wodiczko's work addresses social and political issues including homelessness, corporate power and the experience of the disenfranchised. The artist chooses the images and the buildings, such as monuments, museums and corporate headquarters, to both engage the viewer and challenge the viewer's own perception and prejudice. His projections may include images of eyes or hands juxtaposed with images of guns, nuclear missiles and money. For a project in 1985 at the Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, New York, Wodiczko projected a US nuclear missile and a Soviet nuclear missile chained and locked together. These temporary works are also recorded for history and further reproduction through photographic documentation. Others have successfully worked with projection including American artist Shimon Attie, whose striking work concentrates on the Holocaust and German Jewish history.

The intent and use of the photograph varies from artist to artist, from original work created by the artist to the inclusion of appropriated or historical images. The photograph, image or projection can be the final complete artwork or it can be integrated into an overall, larger work. Photography, and evolving and innovative photographic processes, will continue to be a source for artists as they create works to enliven our public buildings, cities, spaces and communities.

Jim McDonald

See also: Agitprop; Digital Photography; Farm Security Administration; History of Photography: Twentieth-Century Developments; Image Theory: Ideology; Social Representation; Works Progress Administration; Berenice Abbott; Walker Evans; Lewis Hine; Dorothea Lange

Further Reading

Public Art Review, FORECAST Public Artworks, Saint. Paul, MN (entire serial publication)

Sculpture, International Sculpture Center, Washington, DC (entire serial publication)

Akmakjian, Haig, The Years of Bitterness and Pride: Farm Security Administration, FSA Photographs 1935 - 1943, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975

Bach, Penny Balkin, editor, New Land Marks: Public Art, Community, and the Meaning of Place. Philadelphia: Fairmount Park Art Association, 2001

Feuer, Wendy, Review of the International Conference on Transportation and Public Art, Taipei, Taiwan, Public Art Review, Spring/Summer, 2002

Finkelpearl, Tom. Dialogues in Public Art. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2000

Haus, Mary, The Bombs on the Building Walls, ARTnews, October 1993 (article on Krzysztof Wodiczko)

Jaar, Alfredo, Alfredo Jaar: IT IS DIFFICULT, Ten years, Barcelona: ACTAR, 1998

Jacob, Mary Jane, Places with a Past: New Site-Specific Art at Charleston's Spoleto Festival, New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1991

Kleeblatt, Norman, Persistence of Memory, Art in America, June, 2000 (article on Shimon Attie)

Lacy, Suzanne, editor, Mapping The Terrain: New Genre Public Art, Seattle: Bay Press, 1995

McEven, Melissa A. Seeing America: Women Photographers Between the Wars, Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1999

McKinzie, Richard D., The New Deal for Artists, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973

Minglu, Gao, editor, Inside Out: New Chinese Art, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998

Mitchell, W.J.T., editor, Art and the Public Sphere, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992

Novakov, Anna, editor, Veiled Histories: The Body, Place, and Public Art, New York: San Francisco Art Institute Critical Press, 1997

Novakov, Anna, Public Penetration: Text, Gender and Urban Space, Public Art Review, Spring/Summer 1995

Paul, Christiane, The Prophet's Prosthesis: An Interview with Krzysztof Wodiczko, Sculpture, May, 1999

Phillips, Patricia, Inscription & Testimony: Public Art and Shared Experience, Sculpture, October, 2002

Phillips, Patricia, (Inter) Disciplinary Actions, Public Art Review, Fall/Winter 2003

Pollack, Barbara, Chinese Photography: Beyond Stereotypes, ARTnews, February 2004

Senie, Harriet F. and Sally Webster, Critical Issues in Public Art: Content, Context, and Controversy, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992

Todd-Raque, Susan, The Big Picture, Public Art Review, Fall/Winter 2002

Vine, Richard, Report From Pingyoa: Picturing China, Old and New, Art in America, April, 2003

Wetenhall, John, A Brief History of Percent-for-Art in America, Public Art Review, Fall/Winter, 1993

Wodiczko, Krzysztof, Critical Vehicles: Writings, Projects, Interviews, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1999

Woodbridge, Sally B., Review of the Veiled History Conference, Public Art Review, Fall/Winter, 1996

Yochelson, Bonnie, Berenice Abbott: Changing New York, New York: The New Press, 1997

Sample Entries