The Case for Public Art

A city isn’t livable just because it has good jobs and housing, a nice mix of entertainment and recreation. It’s also important to feed the spirit; the arts do that.

When news shows want to let viewers know they’re talking about Wall Street, they lead with a spot of the bronze bull that’s poised nearby, ready to charge into prosperity.

No part of Virginia’s capital city says “Richmond” more definitively than Monument Avenue with its heroes on horseback, all facing south. Paris, a city that loves to be beautiful, boasts 40,000 monuments.

 

Generations have made pilgrimages to see the Vatican’s Pieta, and modern travelers document their visits to the City of Brotherly Love by snapping photographs in front of Philadelphia’s pop-art tribute to love.

Public sculpture memorializes what we think is important, it lifts our spirits, it centers our civic life, it makes our world more beautiful.

 

 

Public art does many things for a city:

• It inspires pride.

• It marks special places and adds a grace note to ordinary places.

• It offers residents and visitors a source of enjoyment that’s always open, always accessible.

• It defines a sense of place and identity. It creates landmarks, and even icons that come to stand for a city. An arch’s sweep says St. Louis, the Trevi Fountain is instantly identifiable as Rome, and with just a glimpse of a stone obelisk, you know the setting is Washington, D.C.