Public artwork

Public art is art in any media that has been planned and executed with the intention of being staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all. Public art is significant within the art world, amongst curators, commissioning bodies and practitioners of public art, to whom it signifies a working practice of site specificity, community involvement and collaboration. Public art may include any art which is exhibited in a public space including publicly accessible buildings, but often it is not that simple. Rather, the relationship between the content and audience, what the art is saying and to whom, is just as important if not more important than its physical location.

Cher Krause Knight states, "art's publicness rests in the quality and impact of its exchange with audiences ... at its most public, art extends opportunities for community engagement but cannot demand particular conclusion”, it introduces social ideas but leaves room for the public to come to their own conclusions. In recent years, public art has increasingly begun to expand in scope and application — both into other wider and challenging areas of artform, and also across a much broader range of what might be called our 'public realm'. Such cultural interventions have often been realised in response to creatively engaging a community's sense of 'place' or 'well-being' in society.

Monuments, memorials and civic statuary are perhaps the oldest and most obvious form of officially sanctioned public art, although it could be said that architectural sculpture and even architecture itself is more widespread and fulfills the definition of public art. Independent artwork, created and installed without being officially sanctioned is ubiquitous in nearly every city. It is also installed in natural settings, and can include works such as sculpture, or may be short-lived, such as a precarious rock balance or an ephemeral instance of colored smoke. Some has been installed underwater.

Permanent works are sometimes integrated with architecture and landscaping in the creation or renovation of buildings and sites, an especially important example being the programme developed in the new city of Milton Keynes, England. Public art is not confined to physical objects; dance, street theatre and even poetry have proponents that specialize in public art.

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