When is the last time you saw a work of public art that changed your perception of the world? Or the last time you walked down a busy city street and stopped to wonder at a mural? Maybe an even better question is: when is the last time you admired art out in public?
In our pragmatically-oriented American culture, governmental spending on public artwork is considered a joke — a burdensome expense bereft of quantifiable benefit, if not an outright luxury that can be easily sacrificed. With economic woes eating away at city budgets, public art spending has usually been the first to get cut. According to the group Grantmakers in the Arts, local government spending for public art has dropped by a whopping 18 percent from 2008 to 2012, and is continuing to decrease. Outside of designated “art hub” cities like San Francisco and New York, public art spending in the average American city is low on the list of priorities, if on the list at all.
But why is public art even important?
Art can be a medium of life-changing dialogue. In 2007, the semi-anonymous French artist JR traveled to the volatile Israeli-Palestinian border. Here, in one of the hottest conflict zones on earth, JR launched his audacious Face2Face project. The aim of the project was to photograph normal Palestinian and Israeli citizens who worked the same occupations, from taxi drivers to store owners, and post their pictures side by side on public buildings. JR would take simple monochrome photos, print enormous human-sized portraits of his subjects, and then paste them across the region. At first, many observers on both sides were baffled by the project. In a TED talk in 2011, JR remembers he and his team posting prints in a Palestinian market, attracting a crowd of skeptics.
When passers-by would ask JR, "You mean you're pasting an Israeli face — doing a face — right here?" He recalled he would respond, "Well, yeah, yeah, that's part of the project. . . And I would always leave that moment, and we would ask them, ‘So can you tell me who is who?’ And most of them couldn't say.”
JR notes this last detail excitedly: the inability of people to distinguish between their peers and their perceived “enemies.” This initial shock is why his art was so powerful. But the way he presented his art mattered just as much as the art itself. According to JR,“In the Middle East, I experienced my work in places without [many] museums. So the reactions in the street were kind of interesting.”
“Reactions in the street” is the key phrase here. With his powerful yet accessible photojournalism, JR was able to precipitate a public dialogue that made both Israelis and Palestinians question their views of the other side. JR’s portraits and artwork likely changed some people’s view of a very personal conflict.
Humans of New York (HONY) is another shining example of how public art can allow for strong social dialogue. Utilizing the popularity and openness of Facebook, photojournalist Brandon Stanton has been able to share snapshots of all different types of people from New York and around the world. What’s so beautiful about the pictures is not so much their photographic style, but the accompanying thousands of Facebook comments that allow for dialogue between people regarding the subject of the photos. In his photographs, Stanton brings out the evident humanity present in peoples from all over the world, destroying racial and religious stereotypes as a result. For example, from the perspectives of many privileged well-off Americans, Africa seems to be a place of disparity and hopelessness. This stereotype is corrupted by Brandon’s portraits; one Facebook commenter noted how a family photo Stanton took in South Africa helped reveal the truth about peoples lives’ there:
“Living in [South Africa] and being bombarded by the media every single day with all that is wrong, ugly and broken in Africa, I cannot begin to fully express how much I am loving your photographs of normal people, living their normal lives.”
Not only do Stanton’s photos break molds and encourage social dialogue, they do so in a way in which the common man can participate. Anyone with Facebook can view, comment, and critique HONY pictures.
It is hard to envision HONY or Face2Face being confined to museums or private collections. Without immediate public presence, both art pieces would fail to have the monumental effect they have achieved today. Still, both projects were privately funded, and HONY was started only after Stanton lost his job. The birth of his project came from a rare circumstance, not through government encouragement; it was a successful anomaly. Imagine if the government actively provided funds and encouragement for these types of life-changing project startups. Not only would our cities become aesthetically unique, but they would also be more open to social dialogue.
Hasan Khan is a Viewpoint Writer.
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