Describes the public art event for the 1998 opening ceremony of the Adelaide Festival of Arts -- Flamma, Flamma held at the Torrens River, Elder Park Adelaide SA on 27th February 1998.
The Percent for Art Scheme in Western Australia uses an allocation of a percentage of the construction cost, usually one percent, of State Capital Works projects to commission artworks. The artist's role is to create works that are integrated with the building or the landscape.
Challenging work, work that made some form of investigative observation about where we stand at this point in time was virtually not appearing anymore....In Adelaide and other cities, decorative design work, which is often very literal and subservient to conservative briefs, commercial interests, political agendas and restrictive models has appeared everywhere under the name of sculpture.
Increasingly, local governments at the cutting edge are recognising the need to carefully define their role in public art and more broadly cultural development.
"Living a few hundred metres away from a community arts project has clarified my doubts about the standard and the value of such projects and what they achieve for their supposed audience." Peers explores the current issues facing the production of community and public art looking at 'The Bridge, Construction in Process' an event and exhibition which took place in Melbourne over March- April 1998.
The Queenslanders Art Alliance was established in 1986, maintaining an artist register as well as project management programs collaborating with the Queensland government in the 'Designing Environments' strategy which is intended to consolidate the quality of the collaborative process in public art projects. Looks at the Kangaroo Cliffs Boardwalk project.
Public Art, the Art for Public Places (APP) program, models for commissions and the matter of percent for art in South Australia. "Processes of development can be as important as the final products when trying to stimulate the field of public art."
Although the history of the west militated against private sponsorship, it began to blossom in the 1990s. This was assisted by the State Government sponsored Percent for Art Scheme. Looks at various examples of public art in Western Australia.
"I am looking at the final design and thought 'what went wrong?' Weeks earlier the Arts Committee had selected an exciting concept design. Why did the artist change the concept design so dramatically?"
Looks at Herring Island Environmental Sculpture Park, Victoria and the issues which surround putting art into parks and public spaces. Unlike the specialised designs of the contemporary art gallery, the 'environment' is a bundle of concepts distributed across the city and suburbs.