QUICKLINKS:
ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS & RESOURCES
Artist Residencies
Artist Residencies in the Public Realm: A Resource Guide for Creating Residencies and Fostering Successful Collaborations
by Renee Piechocki
This guide is intended for organizations that would like to develop an artist in the public realm residency, as well as for artists who are interested in initiating their own collaborative projects in the public realm. I wrote the guide in collaboration with the Office of Public Art (Pittsburgh) staff in 2014.
Artist Selection
Call for Artists Resource Guide
This 2003 guide I developed for the Public Art Network of Americans for the Arts offers advice and examples about developing Requests for Qualifications and Requests for Proposals.
An oldie but goodie!
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Creating a Level Playing Field: Power and Information Dynamics in Public Art
August 2021 Peer Exchange | LISC Creative Placemaking
VIDEO:
“In this 90 minute session, presenters Christine Wong Yap, Richard Young, Mat Greiner, Dan Swern, and Julie Garreau focus on artist selection through the lenses of diversity, equity, inclusion, and access. Resource Team member Renee Piechocki facilitates this conversation among NEA Our Town grantees and artists as they describe their experiences navigating power imbalances in artist calls and applications, developing equitable payment practices, connecting artists with community, and creating artist selection processes that align with project values.”
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Artist Selection Process Resource Guide | 2013
This issue paper written by the Public Art Network Council of Americans for the Arts in 2013 outlines methods for artist selection for public art commissions, including recommended best practices.
Budgets
Public Art Project Budget Worksheet by Forecast Public Art
Collection Management
Chicago Monuments Project
Monuments and memorials have become a focal point for conversation, protest, and activism in the city of Chicago. In response, the city has created a committee to review the city’s collection of monuments and recommend solutions.
This project outlines the following goals: cataloging monuments and public art on city or park district property, appointing an advisory committee to identify pieces that need attention, recommending new monuments or art commissions, developing a framework for public engagement and dialog about Chicago’s history.
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Monumental Considerations: Addressing Problematic Artworks, Memorials, and Monuments: Suggestions for Public Art Programs
Written by a group of experienced public art colleagues, this guide offers practical advice, encouragement, and insight about how to structure meaningful conversations and actions around racist, sexist, injurious, harmful, and inaccurate works in the public realm. Contributors and reviewers include: Sherri Brueggemann, Kristin Calhoun, Kendal Henry, Kerry Kennedy, Susan Lambe, Jill Manton, Sarah Odenkirk, Marc Pally, Renee Piechocki, and Ruri Yampolsky.
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Monument Lab Field Trip
Monument Lab Field Trip is a hands-on activity guide to help you take a closer look at the monuments in your city or town. Investigate historical monuments in your community, ask questions about art and justice in public spaces, and propose your own ideas for a monument.
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Regional Arts and Culture Council Collections Management Policies
RACC’s collection management policy, deaccession policy, and guidelines for donations of artwork and memorials have been used as a model for many public art programs nationally.
Contracts
A Surprisingly Interesting Book about Contracts
by Sarah Conely Odenkirk
Specifically written to help artists and other creative people overcome contract anxiety. This book provides a painless, and, like the title promises, surprisingly interesting introduction to contracts and other art world business issues. Includes contract examples.
Evaluation
Aesthetic Perspectives: Attributes of Excellence in Arts for Change
This publication is a framework to enhance understanding and evaluation of creative work at the intersection of arts and civic engagement, community development, and justice.
Eleven artistic attributes that address the potency of creative expression to embody and motivate change. Aesthetic Perspectives aims to inform and inspire reflection, dialogue, and rich description in use by artists, funders, evaluators, educators, critics, presenters, programmers, curators, and audiences.
Private Development Resources
Add Value, Add Art: A Public Art Resource Guide for Developers
In 2010, the Urban Redevelopment Authority of the City of Pittsburgh commissioned the Office of Public Art (Pittsburgh) to develop a resource for developers and property owners interested in including works of public art in their projects or proposals. The guide outlines various project types and best practices for artist selection, budgeting, contracts, and more, and is a valuable resource for both public and private entities.
by Renee Piechocki
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Public Art in Private Development Database
The PAPD Database represents years of work by Sarah Conley Odenkirk and her team to gather documents, analyze information from communities around the United States, and compile it into an accessible database. When the project began in 2013, it focused on finding out how many communities across the country have some sort of ordinance or policy that relates to public art for private development. Since 2013, Odenkirk and her team have added more than 90 communities, and the numbers have continued to grow as the PAA team began its stewardship of the database.
Resource Lists, Toolkits, & Big-Picture Publications
Americans for the Arts’ Public Art Resource Center
Online portal to find tools, resources, and opportunities tailored to your role and needs in the public art field. Organized by type of practitioner:
Artist
Arts Administrator
Field Partner
Community Stakeholder
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Artist's Guide to Public Art: How to Find and Win Commissions by Lynn Basa
A comprehensive guide to the complex world of public art. Learn how to find, apply for, compete for, and win a public art commission.
“What artists don’t know—but need to know.” ~~ Jack Becker, Public Art Review
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ArtPlace America (ARTPLACE)
ARTPLACE was a collaboration among a number of foundations, federal agencies, and financial institutions that operated between 2010 and 2020 to support and strengthen a field of creative placemaking. At the end of 2020, they completed their strategic plan that has worked to enlist artists as allies in equitable community planning and development.
The searchable digital catalogue of toolkits, research studies and more from ArtPlace America and the broader field of creative placemaking has migrated to the website of their partners at: Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities.
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Arts and Planning Toolkit
The Arts and Planning Toolkit offers an array of tools and strategies to help planners advance arts and culture as both a catalyst for and an essential component of community development. It provides resources for planners and other government staff who are interested in innovating their planning and community development work through projects and partnerships that engage arts, culture, and the creative community.
A project of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), the regional planning agency serves the people who live and work in the 101 cities and towns of Metro Boston.
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Asphalt Art Guide
“The Bloomberg Associates Asphalt Art Guide features successful plaza and roadway art activations around the world, as well as key steps and tips for developing such projects. By sharing lessons learned from Asheville to Athens, Bogota to Boston, we hope to help city agencies, community organizations and artists be most efficient in championing projects that deliver safer, more beautiful streetscapes.”
By Streetplans and Renee Piechocki
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Creating Alternatives To In Person Arts-Based Activities Toolkit by Forecast Public Art
Artists and communities need the transformational power of creativity now more than ever. Forecast recognizes the economic crises facing artists during this pandemic and we want to provide guidance on how to keep arts projects active and moving forward, even as we physically isolate.
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National Endowment for the Arts’ Creative Placemaking Resource List
Community development efforts in cities, towns, and rural places across the country have demonstrated that artists, designers, and cultural organizations can play an essential role in realizing community-driven transformation. Community development strategies that integrate arts and culture are better equipped to draw upon and support existing community assets, preserve and enhance the authentic character of place, and ensure equitable outcomes for local stakeholders.
National Endowment for the Arts Creative Placemaking Resources
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Places of Possibility Toolkit
Jackson Hole Public Art created the Places of Possibility Toolkit for rural communities in the Intermountain West. This toolkit contains resources for best practices, planning, community engagement, funding, launching, installing and amplifying your art and placemaking activities.
Jackson Hole Public Art Website
The Public Art and Placemaking Toolkit was made possible by a generous grant from the LOR Foundation.
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Public Art by the Book
Edited by Barbara Goldstein
Public Art by the Book is a nuts and bolts guide for arts professionals and volunteers creating public art in their communities. The definitive resource for information on public art for local government, arts agencies, arts professionals and artists, this book includes examples from cities such as Charlotte, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego and Seattle.
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Public Art Online
A unique public art information site which provides guidance and examples of public art practice from around the UK and internationally. Active from the 1990s through 2010, the Public Art Think Tank, ixia, has extended this repository of useful information at ixia.org.
“ixia was established to promote and influence the development and implementation of public art policies, strategies and projects through creating and distributing knowledge to: arts and non-arts policy makers, public and private sector commissioners, curators, artists and the public.”
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Public Art Toolkit
Provided through Creative City Networks of Canada
The Public Art Toolkit is intended as a guide when planning a public art program or evaluating an existing one, and contains resources for the management of public art projects. The Public Art Toolkit includes: public art overview; different points of views; details on all phases of completing a public art project/program; links to examples and resources from around the world; detailed case studies and project examples of varying scales; illustrative photos from public art projects; and a compilation of links to key web-based resources.
Offered in English and French.
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Toolkit for Health, Arts, Parks, and Equity
For nearly half a century, Trust for Public Land has pioneered a method of collaborating with communities to create parks that lead to greater health, resilience, and equity.
“Through The Toolkit for Health, Arts, Parks, and Equity (HAP-E), we are proud to partner with the National Association of County and City Health Officials to offer health advocates case studies, principles, and policy guidelines on using place-based arts and culture to achieve health equity. We hope it will be an asset in efforts to celebrate communities, facilitate challenging discussions, and build a more just world for generations to come.”
Journals & Publications
Public Art Review
Published by Forecast Public Art since 1989, Public Art Review is the world’s leading public art magazine. This international magazine offers an inspiring collection of articles, insights, ideas and commentary about art in public spaces.
The archive of Public Art Review issues 1-42 can be viewed at the University of Minnesota online library.
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Public Art Dialogue
Public Art Dialogue, the journal, serves as a forum for critical discourse and commentary about the practice of public art defined as broadly as possible to include: memorials, object art, murals, urban and landscape design projects, social interventions, performance art, and web-based work.
This scholarly journal welcomes new and experimental modes of inquiry and production. Most issues are theme-based, and each features both peer-reviewed articles and artists' projects.
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Sculpture Magazine
A publication of the International Sculpture Center, Sculpture magazine is the essential source of information and dialogue on all forms of contemporary sculpture internationally.
“You can find our not-to-be missed coverage of contemporary sculptural art – from features, interviews with artists, reviews of current shows and other art criticism, to thought-provoking essays – in print and digital magazine, which is published six times per year, as well as on the magazine’s website, which also presents exclusive videos, artist projects, and more.”
Public Art Digital Collections
AntiRacism Arts Repository
University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine
Research the repository to find arts-based responses to racism by artists and arts organizations using resources and approaches that raise awareness, amplify marginalized voices, facilitate dialogue, or promote action and change.
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Public Art Archive
Explore the Public Art Archive
PAA is a free, continually growing, online and mobile database of completed public artworks. By uniting records from public art organizations and artists into one comprehensive resource, the Archive aims to raise awareness about the value of public art and help make it possible for stakeholders to advance the professionalism of public artists and practitioners in allied fields.
Since the Archive’s inception in 2010, public art organizations and artists have submitted informational text, images, and additional multimedia files describing completed public artworks at no cost.
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Save Outdoor Sculpture!
SOS! at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Save Outdoor Sculpture! (SOS!) (1990-1995) was a nationwide survey committed to documenting and preserving America’s outdoor sculpture. Established in 1990, SOS! helped educate local communities about America’s endangered sculptural heritage.
Working with 106 cooperating regional partners, SOS! conducted the first ever comprehensive survey of America’s outdoor sculpture. From 1990 through 1995, nearly 7,000 dedicated volunteers were recruited and trained to collect information on the history and condition of outdoor sculpture in their local communities. They documented and photographed nearly 32,000 outdoor sculptures across America.
The information they collected is part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s online Inventory of American Sculpture database, which can be searched here.
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Public Art Network Year In Review
The Americans for the Arts Public Art Network (PAN) Year in Review annually recognizes outstanding public art projects that represent the most compelling work for the year from across the country and beyond. Two or more public art professionals serve as jurors to review hundreds of project applications and select up to 50 projects to highlight the most compelling public artworks.
The PAN Year in Review is the only national program that specifically recognizes public art projects and is an excellent advocacy and educational tool for public art administrators, artists, and allied professionals.
Professional Organizations
Arts in the Airport Workshop
For more than two decades, the Arts in the Airport Workshop has been the only dedicated arts event in the airport industry, offering invaluable learning and networking opportunities to professionals who play pivotal roles in overseeing and managing airport art programs.
Since its inception, the workshop has consistently proven to be a dynamic platform for sharing knowledge, fostering creativity, and cultivating connections within the airport community.
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Florida Association of Public Art Professionals
The Florida Association of Public Art Professionals is dedicated to the development, advocacy, promotion and education of the public art field in the State of Florida, as well as to promote national best practices in the administration of public art programs. The organization is for individuals interested in Public Art - from seasoned professionals, to students, as well as for people working in related industries.
FAPAP hosts an annual conference.
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Public Art Exchange
Public Art Exchange, founded in 2021, is an open and transparent network for artists, administrators and others interested or involved in the Public Art Field. They promote inclusivity and connectivity in the field through resources, events, and discussion forums.
Membership is free.
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Public Art Dialogue
Public Art Dialogue was founded on the premise that dialogue is the essential element in all effective public art endeavors. Their goal is to provide platforms for dialogue among public art professionals and students across disciplines. Membership includes art historians, artists, curators, administrators, educators, architects, landscape architects, and others engaged with the wide arc that public art encompasses.
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Public Art Network
Americans for the Arts Public Art Network (PAN) develops professional services for the broad array of individuals and organizations engaged in the diverse field of public art. PAN is the only professional network in the United States dedicated to advancing public art programs and projects through advocacy, policy, and information resources to further art and design in our built environment.