From left: Jean Cooney, Shaun Leonardo and Mia Pearlman

I’m excited to introduce our “Hot Topics in Public Art” panel at the PUBLIC ART PARTY on October 20th at Van Alen Institute! The topic of our discussion will be FUTURE SHOOK, a play on Future Shock, the 1970 book by Alvin Toffler, who coined the term "as a way of describing the social paralysis induced by rapid technological change."

That change has only intensified in the past 56 years, moving faster than we can grasp or counteract. What is the future of public art as it faces these light speed changes? Prepare to ask and answer questions: we want to hear from you!

Meet the Panelists

Jean Cooney is Executive Director at Creative Time. She is an arts leader, cultural producer, and curator with over 14 years leading ambitious public art programs in New York City. Previously, Cooney served as the Vice President of Arts and Culture for the Times Square Alliance and the Director of Times Square Arts, the public art program that invites contemporary artists to engage with Times Square and the district’s broad and diverse audiences.

Prior to Times Square Arts, Jean spent seven years at Creative Time supporting the realization of large scale site-specific artist commissions across New York City. Jean holds an M.A. in Visual Arts Administration from New York University, and a B.A. in International Relations from Boston University.

creativetime.org

Shaun Leonardo is a Brooklyn-based artist and arts administrator whose 15+ year career has centered on community engagement, public programming, and experimental pedagogy. From 2016 to 2024, Leonardo played a pivotal role at Recess, co-directing its evolution as a socially engaged arts organization and launching the Assembly diversion program. A Queens native, his artistic work— recognized by Creative Capital, Guggenheim Social Practice, and others—has been featured at major institutions like the Guggenheim, New Museum, and MASS MoCA. He has just rejoined Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens as Executive Director.

shaunleonardo.com

Mia Pearlman is a Brooklyn-based sculptor and the organizer of the PUBLIC ART PARTY. She has exhibited internationally in numerous galleries, non-profit spaces and museums, including the MSU Broad Art Museum (Michigan), Museum of Arts and Design (NYC), Goyang Aram Gallery (South Korea), Smack Mellon (Brooklyn, NY), the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington DC), and the Manchester Art Gallery (UK).

Her permanent commissions include large scale, site specific sculptures for Liberty Mutual's headquarters (Boston), the 80th Street A Train station for MTA Arts & Design (Queens, NY), MGM Springfield (Springfield, MA), Zhongshan Huafa Plaza (Zhongshan, China), and Baptist Medical Clay (Fleming Island, FL), as well as paper installations and sculptures for the Hospital for Special Surgery (NY), Leon Max (London) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (NY).

miapearlman.com

Can’t wait to see you on October 20th! Please feel free to spread the word—all are welcome.

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

Please join us for PUBLIC ART PARTY #4: FUTURE SHOOK at the Van Alen Institute, a driving force behind community-led urban design in New York since 1894!

Artists, fabricators, public art administrators, real estate developers, private art consultants, public art curators and more are welcomed to join this community building event. Learn more about the PUBLIC ART PARTY.

In the public art world, we don't have natural meeting places like gallery openings, art fairs, or residencies. This is our chance to meet, talk, make friends, hang out and have fun together.

The event will kick off with “Hot Topics in Public Art,” an interactive and irreverent conversation with experts from across the field. Our topic will be Future Shook, a play on Future Shock, a 1970 book by Alvin Toffler, who coined the term "as a way of describing the social paralysis induced by rapid technological change." That change has only intensified in the past 56 years, moving faster than we can grasp or counteract. Who can blame us for feeling shook?

What is the future of public art as it faces these light speed changes? Not just in terms of adopting new materials and technologies, but what we ask of public art.

How will those demands expand or limit public art's artistic possibilities? How will permanence or temporariness affect what artists decide to make, how it's funded, and how it's received by the public? Prepare to ask and answer questions!

“Hot Topics in Public Art” Panel

(in formation - stay tuned!)

Shaun Leonardo
Executive Director, Socrates Sculpture Park

Jean Cooney
Executive Director, Creative Time

Mia Pearlman
Artist and Moderator

And then we will get the party started! At 8:30pm, all are invited to join the afterparty at Hidden Rivers, one block away.

All ticket proceeds cover event production costs. If the ticket price is a barrier to entry, please email studio@miapearlman.com for a complimentary ticket.

PUBLIC ART PARTY is organized and hosted by Mia Pearlman in the spirit of community.

Can’t wait to see you there!

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

Xenia Diente, Mia Pearlman and Lynn Basa at the PUBLIC ART PARTY #3 afterparty, April 2026

Chicago-based artist Lynn Basa has worked in ceramics since age 12, and has since built an impressive and self-sustaining art career that spans numerous public, private, and museum collections, major international exhibitions, and over 50 public art projects. Her public art can be found across the United States in airports, colleges, public buildings, transit hubs and more. Basa is the author of The Artist’s Guide to Public Art, which is how I came to learn of and admire her. This past April, she traveled to Brooklyn for the PUBLIC ART PARTY, where I was overjoyed to meet her in person.

Lynn, your book The Artist’s Guide to Public Art has been my bible. Rereading it today I thought, "I love asking spicy questions, and I know Lynn is spicy too. She also likes to get to the heart of things.”

I do. Thank you.

I love that the book is so irreverent. I always say, “Take your work seriously, but don't take yourself seriously.” I really like that your book simultaenously informative, conversational and funny.

I was really committed to having it be an artist talking to other artists, because there are all these books out there by artists who are not practicing, telling other artists how to practice.

Yes. Or non-artists telling artists what to do.

Yeah. I was being generous there.

At least when I got my first project at the end of 2011, there really was no other book like this. Or if there was, I didn't know about it.

No, there wasn't. When I was first hired to teach public art professional practices at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I looked around for a book because I thought, “There are all these books on the business of being an artist, I'll just find the one about public art, right? And I'll use that as my syllabus.” I couldn't find one, so I was like, "Crap. Now I've got to write one."

I want to start by talking about your materials. You have a degree in ceramics, and you continue to make work in ceramics, both by hand and in mosaics. Even your encaustic paintings have a kind of ceramic feel to them. What's so seductive to you about this medium? Why ceramic?

I'm surprised that everybody isn't working in ceramic because it's just so primal, and working with the material reifies the meaning of it. It's like, it's one and the same. The gesture is the material.The fact that it's made from ground-up granite from the beginning of Earth's time is really compelling to me. You're taking something that was once stone, then got ground up, and you turn it into this soft mass, then you turn it back into stone again with fire. It's just mind-boggling to me.

It's so connected with ancient human making. About as far back as you can go, people were making stuff out of clay. I just love that connection to ancient humans.

Lynn Basa, Remains #18, glazed stoneware, glass, 10 x 14 x 8.5 in, 2025

Your artist statement begins, “I have a recurring fantasy that, while fossil hunting, I come across the remains of a ceramic vessel that could only have been made by a dexterous creature.” It’s a thought experiment about this buried object that was made before any evidence of humanity.

It’s also interesting in the context of public art, because so often, public art is about permanence. For example, right now I'm working on a project that has to last for a hundred years with no maintenance.

Okay. Okay. Wait a minute. What materials are you using, and how are you addressing that?

Well, that's also a kind of a thought experiment, right? What they're saying is we can't guarantee that there'll be any maintenance, which isn't to say that there won't be any maintenance.

I'm making a suspended aluminum sculpture. So, barring an act of God or a natural disaster, there's no reason why it would fall down.

I think that this kind of need for guarantees, permanence and durability is really interesting in terms of your artist statement. Because you're saying that everything recycles into some new form. The beauty of it is that it's not permanent, it’s that it becomes something else. Eventually those ceramic vessels will also break down, and maybe in a thousand years somebody will use them to make new ceramic vessels.

Is it a hundred-year building? Is the building meant to last 100 years?

I suppose. Yeah.

Okay. Well, then that makes sense, because one of the things that irks me is that they'll hold the art to a higher standard than they will anything else in the building.

Right. The light fixtures that they're putting in next to it are definitely not going to last 100 years. It's all very bureaucratic. I'm sure you've done this kind of project where you have to really color inside the lines.

And there's a fear of art, too.

We're not even in design development and I’ve already worked more hours than I will ever get paid for. But I'm not doing it for the money. I'm doing it because I'm a New Yorker and I want my grandchildren—or my great-grandchildren, or whoever—to walk around New York and see my work. That's why I'm doing it.

So, when you were starting off with this degree in ceramics, what did you imagine? Did you see yourself as a ceramicist, or a sculptor, or an artist? Were you already thinking about working in the public realm? Where were you at that time?

I started studying ceramics when I was 12 and went all the way through high school studying it. And fortunately, the university in my backyard, Indiana University, had a really good ceramics program. So I just went there.

I remember in the second semester of freshman year at Indiana University, you had to declare what your major was going to be. And I’d always wanted to be an artist. But I was in such a conundrum that I would be starving in the gutter if I just decided my major was art, especially ceramics. So I took a semester off just to think about it.

I got a revelation one day. I still remember the exact words that my little 19-year-old self thought. "You know, art is a multibillion-dollar industry, and I am not chopped liver."

I don't know where the chopped liver line came from. I'm always like an old villainous man or something.

I always say that to my kids, and they've never even seen chopped liver. You gotta keep the Yiddish humor alive…

Oh, I love it. I'm glad to hear that. So from then on, I declared my major, and I just decided that I was going to get jobs in the arts. I ended up getting a master's degree in public administration in art management. My first real job was as a secretary at the Seattle Arts Commission, which was brand new then.

I kept working jobs in the arts, and then that led to a job as a curator of an insurance company's collection. And then that led to being the founding director and curator of the University of Washington Medical Center's art collection. I was able to start this collection from scratch.

But all the while I was working, like, 30 or 40 hours a week on my own artwork. I'd just come home from work, and that's all I wanted to do was make art. That's all I did.

Then in 1999, I was getting so many commissions, and Doug, my partner, said, "Do you realize you're actually losing money by keeping your day job?" I was like, "Oh my God."

That was just such a paradigm shift, because I had that starving-artist mentality all along with, "You can't make a living as an artist," right? So I just jumped off the Grand Canyon, and eventually the wind got under my wings, and I have been making a living as an artist ever since then.

Lynn Basa, Into the Calm (2020), Kiln-formed glass (120 panels), 25 × 70 × 1 feet, Multnomah County Courthouse, Portland, Oregon

That's amazing. Do you teach or do anything else?

No. I was teaching sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but it was taking away from my artwork. I was actually resenting the time that I had to spend, and it wasn't worth what I was getting paid because I was actually losing money by teaching. And not just money, but focus.

The students at SAIC are the best. I got really high ratings as a teacher because, of course, I overperformed, because that's what I do. But then I burnt myself out, right? So I quit.

So what do you think your genius is, to have supported yourself as an artist since 1999? Not many people can say that, especially doing so many different things: studio art, public art, and so forth.

Well, one of my other little mottos has always been, "If I can make a living as an artist, you can too." Because I do not see myself as a genius or anything special in any way. I studied how business is done. 

There's this great book I read called Guerrilla Selling, you know, about all the stuff you're not taught in art school, like how to close a sale, how to cultivate clients. Then I did a little demographic breakdown of the people who had bought my work. It was maybe 15 people, and I was like, "Oh, these are professionals—doctors and attorneys—and they're in their late 40s, 50s, and they're the ones who are buying my work." So how do I target my work to them?

Then I found out about these things called art consultants, who help those people buy art. So I just started looking at art consultants whose work had an aesthetic affinity with mine. I cold-called them and sent them images of my work. I built up such a small but loyal following of art consultants that kept coming back to me and back to me. That's how I was able to do it. Of course, I was doing public art the whole time, too.

No matter which way I look at it, I just don't see how it's a sustainable thing for artists to be represented by galleries, even though that's our holy grail. It was really satisfying just to make the kind of art I wanted and have people want to pay money for it.

But now I really am interested in showing next to the artists who I've admired for years and being in a gallery that is selling my work. Not only because it might look good over somebody's couch—because let's face it, even the most famous artists, a lot of that work is being bought to look good over somebody's couch. Even if it's a big couch in a big penthouse or something.

I don't fool myself that I'll ever make investment-level art. But there are a lot of galleries in the middle. The middle is big. That goes back to what I thought when I told myself when I was 19: "The middle is big, and there's a lot of opportunity there."

This whole brainwashing that artists get that they're going to be starving artists, I see it every time there's a conversation. There's so much abundance. There is so much money floating around in the world all the time to sustain you. You need a little fleck of that money, right? That would be enough for you to sustain yourself as an artist. So I visualize opportunities like that.

I think that's so important. Not in a woo-woo kind of way, I just think that when you believe that something is possible, you work harder at it. You do more because you think it could lead to the goal. If you feel that it's impossible, why would you bother?

I think that there's a kind of scarcity mentality in the art world, partially because of money, partially because of this sense—which is based in reality—that there are a lot of artists and limited number of opportunities. But my attitude has always been, "Well, somebody's got to be successful. Why not me?"

That's exactly it.

Which doesn't mean that every day of every month of every year I'm successful in getting everything that I want. But at least I feel that it's possible and worth working towards.

It does get narrower at the top. But there's, again, the big middle. You realize that, no, I'm probably not going to show at Gagosian, but is that really what I want anyway?

The other thing that happened is I started talking to artists who have really made it. I mean, people who I met in art, you know, read about in art magazines and stuff. Because I'm starting to meet those people now, too. And they're always looking above them. There's always somebody doing better. There's always somebody doing better. There's always some award to achieve. It was like, "Yeah, but I didn't get a MacArthur Genius Grant."

Lynn Basa, Learning Curve (2010), Powder-coated steel, Eastman Tritan, local flat stone and river rock, recycled brick, and concrete, 11 × 36 × 25 feet, Kingsport Center for Higher Education, Kingsport, Tennessee

I remember when I first started meeting artists who I felt were above me and realized, "They're talking about the same things everybody else talks about." You know, their health problems, their divorce, how they lost their studio, how they didn't get into this exhibition, or how their gallery is snubbing them for a more famous artist. I realized that we aren’t any different. They just have a longer resume.

I'm thinking more in terms of satisfaction rather than success. Once I had that paradigm shift and asked myself, "Am I satisfied with my life?”— And my life is all art. My life isn't like, "Yeah, I have a gorgeous garden." No, all it is is art. Making art and looking at art and thinking about art—And I'm really satisfied. I really feel fortunate.

So, yes, I will never be a blue-chip artist, but I'm really having a great life, getting up every day doing what I want, which is making art and thinking about art. I'm satisfied.

I think success is a trap. A lot of people who have galleries like Gagosian are not satisfied and not really enjoying it.

That's one of the paradoxes of success on paper. You meet people who—not just in the art world—are by any measure considered phenomenally successful, but they're not very happy. So what's the point?

They're not. I remember seeing this film, it was fairly recent. This young artist was saying, "If I'm so famous, why am I so poor?"

Right. I always say, "Listen, there's no money in it, so we might as well have fun." It's hard to be an artist. There's a lot of rejection. There's a lot of frustration. So enjoy what you can.

One of the things that really vexed me was, "Why are artists poor?"

I started doing some research on it, and I actually found this book called Why Are Artists Poor? by this Dutch economist. It was really heavy going, but he made so many important points about how we're equated with the priesthood. We're supposed to be above money. We're one of the few professions, other than the priesthood, where we're supposed to be above earthly things. I see the art world reinforcing that all the time.

I'm having a terrible time right now in a critique group that I'm in, with them grappling with the fact that I actually make a living as an artist. My work is very suspect because I sell it. And since I got in that critique group, I've been challenging myself by making unsalable work. As a consequence, I haven't had any income for, like, two years.

Maybe you should get out of this critique group!

The critique group is great though, because it's pushing my work to a level that I always wanted to achieve but wasn't able to get to by myself. It's been really transformative for me, and I've broken through to the other side.

That's amazing.

Yeah. I'm going to make new work. It is absolutely unsalable. But because I have a lot of money saved from when I was selling work, I have the luxury of that that'll buy me some time to experiment, like maybe a couple years to experiment, see what happens. And there's always public art income, too.

It’s such a luxury to not to worry about paying the rent every month. And there's room to make saleable and unsaleable work. It doesn't have to be one or the other necessarily.

With public art, one of the really attractive parts, at least for me, is that there are deadlines. You feel that you're making progress, and it's quantifiable. Whereas when I’m in my studio just playing around, I can panic, like "What am I even doing?" Public art does create a lot of structure, for good or for bad.

And it's a predictable income in a way, because with each project I have, I pay myself 15% of the total cost of the budget. Sometimes it becomes 10%, but that's if I need to really stretch the budget to get something into the piece that I wasn't able to match the budget for. You know, that whole drill. So I'll take a cut on my side. Sometimes it's stretched out over three years, though, because you know how long those things take.

I remember one of the reasons I needed your book so badly. My first project was huge, and I was totally unprepared. I was terrified of creating a budget, because I didn’t know how much money I was allowed to make. I was really worried that if I asked for too big of an artist fee, they would just walk away. That they'd say, "Who do you think you are?"

In your book, you had all these real-world stories in that chapter of your book about how people price. I remember there was this one guy who said, "I make 50% minimum of every project." I was like, "That's a thing you can do?"

I've been through that situation with these kinds of corporate projects where you basically say what you want to do. I realized in retrospect that they really don't care, as long as they get the project they want out of it. Once I started asking for what I knew I needed to make, it was never questioned.

Lynn Basa, Bower (2012), Steel, copper, cast glass, LED and fiber-optic lights, Panther Village, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa

These projects are extremely taxing in terms of time. They take place over years, and there's a lot of project management and so forth. Often you are paying your in-house project manager or assistant. Of course you need to make money. I mean, they understand it because they're business people. They're like, “ I want to make money. You want to make money." In the RFQ world, I think it's a little bit different.

In the RFQ world, I don't have that problem either, with publicly funded work. One of the big reasons artists don't think about it is that when we ask for 15% of the total budget, that is such a minuscule amount compared to what they're getting paid and what the contractors are being paid and all of that. It doesn't even register to them that, "Oh, the artist is asking too much."

No, it doesn't. The artist is going to get $30,000. That's nothing compared to everything else. I've never had anybody say boo about it. I haven't done nearly as many projects as you have, but even when I've been a finalist for something, if that comes up I’m like, “Listen, I live in the most expensive city on planet earth. I gotta cover my bases.”

Did you make any mistakes or have things go wrong that made you think, "I definitely have to write a book to make sure nobody else goes through this"?

No, because I started out being mentored by other artists in Seattle, one of the birthplaces of the Percent for Art program, and I worked at the Seattle Arts Commission. So I understood about working with fabricators, and I always just picked really good fabricators who have lots of experience. I've never had a bad experience.

I'm working on a transit project in Maryland right now. They are on their third contractor that has been fired by the state. I don't know how long we've been working on that one, five years or whatever. They're just little glitches along the way, but you have to expect those, and every problem has a solution.

As you say, everybody's making a lot of money from your project. Why shouldn't you? It's your project. I always say to my classes or in my workshops, "You know who the biggest subsidizers of art are? The artists."

In the book’s introduction you define public art as "art that is seen anywhere people aren't planning to have an art experience." You list parks and plazas and so forth as examples. Is that definition the same for you now, or has it changed since you wrote the book?

No, I think it's perfect.

I’m on a Public Art listserve where there was recently a conversation around public art terminology. For example, do we mean the same thing when we say the words “community engagement.” How do we define these terms? Do we actually agree on what they mean?

In fact, I’m so interested in the idea of a shared public art lexicon, I’m doing a panel discussion with Jack Becker and Hawona Sullivan Janzen about it at the ISC conference in Minneapolis in October.

Some people seemed to recognize an underlying hierarchy of public art categories: site specific, functional, community engagement based, permanent, temporary, art chosen via RFQ, art commissioned through an art consultant, etc.

In this hierarchy, the highest, purest form of public art is RFQ-driven, community engagement based, outdoor, i.e. a mural with the kids in the neighborhood, or a sculpture based on public input. At the bottom would be a corporate commission through a consultant, indoors…you know, “lobby art.” That was described as “art in public,” different than “public art." Do you think these distinctions are valid or useful?

I'm very familiar with that conversation and that context. But my perception of it is totally the opposite of yours. The most prestigious thing in the hierarchy would be like what you did for Liberty Mutual.

Then there's the kind of blue-chip Percent for Art invitational, right? Then there's the Percent for Art competition (I'm using Percent for Art instead of RFQ).

Then there's the muralist who's doing their own mural. Then there's the community mural where the kids do it. And then down at the bottom is wrapping signal boxes. I think that the more community-based it is, the less prestige it has.

Oh, that's so interesting! 

I feel that as public art has become more professionalized, and more bureaucracy is created around it, there's more risk assessment involved.  Everyone is very scared of blowback.

Many artists are stifled and stunted by the requirements of public art. That’s why a lot of public art is starting to look generic and homogeneous. The process makes it that way.

There's a whole other trajectory, and I don't even know if it's on the hierarchy: socially engaged practice. That's different from community-engaged art. Theaster Gates is probably one of the most famous recent examples of artists who make this kind of work.

I love that your roundtable is based on this idea of, well, what is community? What do we mean by community? What do we mean by engagement? Because most of the time it's lip service.

You'll see that in an RFQ, and there won't really be any community engagement except maybe they'll have a couple of public meetings where the artist presents their idea and gets some feedback from the three people from the neighborhood who show up. Right? And that's your community engagement. But there are some times when they really mean it.

I'm working on a project right now in Madison, Wisconsin where they really want community engagement, to the point where I'm like, "Let's find out who are the arts organizations that represent the arts community, and I will facilitate them coming up with the idea for the artwork." So no one could say that I've parachuted in. You know, "I'm this white artist from Chicago, and I'm here to help." No. I will be the medium for art to happen.

Do they like that approach?

Oh, they loved it. Because they really were expecting the other one. Plus, it's for a police station, and the architects gave this whole big presentation to the police station and all that. The very first question after they talked about literally everything for this new police station was, "So, is the art going to represent the community?" I'm like, "Don't you want to hear about the number of parking spaces that are going to be here? Really? That's your first question?"

The police being concerned about how they are perceived by the community is probably a good thing.

Yeah. And then through that I found out that they have community liaison groups, they have little kids' groups. There was this whole rich source of community engagement that I could tap into. I can imagine a lot of other artists would be like, "No, I just do my art, and I'm going to put symbols of your community in there," rather than having true community engagement.

Have you done projects with community engagement in the past?

I haven't had the opportunity. They will say that in the RFQ there will be very, very little opportunity, so I just end up doing a ton of research about the history and the community, and I try to reflect it in my work. But in the end, nobody really cares. I do have some very successful stories of insensitive situations where there were neglected populations that were now being, better late than never, revealed through my art. That was, in some ways not enough, but it was something.

Lynn Basa, Coursing Through Life (2010), Recycled and post-consumer glass and mirror, mother-of-pearl, white marble, and other crushed glass terazzo, 1,000 sq ft+, Sabin Hall, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa

Are you working mainly through the RFQ/Percent for Art paradigm, or do your projects mostly come through consultants?

No. I'm still in the scrum of having to apply for public art commissions. I'm waiting for the day when I'm invited. But this one in Madison, Wisconsin was my first one that I've been invited to do, by the architectural team.

What do you think is a good success rate for people who apply for things? And what do you think makes somebody successful?

Okay. I used to apply for, like, 30 RFQ’s a year. I would become a finalist for like five or six of them, and I would win maybe two or three, and go down in flames on the rest of them after spending a ton of effort for whatever ridiculous small amount of honorarium they would pay you, like $1,500.

And how many would you win out of those ones that you were a finalist for?

Two. But now I only apply for things I really, really feel excited about. So I might apply for six a year now, and win maybe, like, two. Same amount. It's the same thing.

That's amazing, though. I think two out of six is a very good success rate.

Yeah, it is. And it varies year to year. I mean, I just lost another one. I thought I was going to win, but now I forget what it was because I submitted it and forgot it. That's my motto.

So, what do you think you do right?

I only apply for things that I feel inspiration and connection to. That I feel like, "Yes, I could see this through for the next two or three years," right? And be excited about it all the way through. If it doesn't pass that smell test, then I don't apply for it.

Which is kind of a no-brainer, but I guess I didn't respect myself as much, or I didn't respect public art as much, because I thought, "Oh, my real art is what happens in the studio," right? Public art is something that I don't have to pour my heart and soul into. I do somewhat, but it's not like opening a vein like in the studio. But now I'm combining those two things together. I want to be opening a vein for public art.

That's such a good name for your next book! “Opening a Vein for Public Art.”

I'm sure that'll sell a lot! [laughing] Maybe it's a poem or a song.

Or a memoir. That would be good.

I think the big question for most artists who want to make public art is, “What's it going to take to start seeing success, and what kind of success can I depend on?”

Well, again, I reject the word "success" because I think that implies comparing yourself with others too much. In my way of thinking, it implies success is something you never can reach, right? Something that's always a moving target, always moving away from you in the rainbow. So that's why I use "satisfaction." That makes it much less of a moving target.

I think that's just a good attitude in life generally!

Do you have any dream projects?

Well, this breakthrough that I've had with my work definitely could apply to public art because everything was very siloed before. There was public art, there's my painting practice, there's my ceramic practice, and never the twain shall meet. So for the past two years, I've been working on how I can conflate all of those things. It's one of the things I wanted to do before I die. It was a bucket-list thing because I knew it was possible, but I wasn't able to get there on my own.

Now that I have burst through and I do see that my public art could look like my studio work now. It could translate. It could scale up and still have the same aesthetic, the same meaning embedded in it, embodying different meanings, but it could be applied to a public place. So I'm feeling really good about that. I still have to understand the work, how it goes together, and what I'm trying to say with it. It's really pulling me along.

I'm not even having anxiety attacks anymore. I've gone through the looking glass with this new work. It's something I've been striving for for decades, and I knew it was in me. Now it's finally coming out, and just in the nick of time.

You can see Lynn Basa’s work in “Witness to Bedlam,” a two person show with Olivia Petrides, at Oliva Gallery, 3816 W. Armitage Ave., Chicago until October 3rd.

Please share your thoughts in the comments! Click “Read Online” in the upper right corner of the email, and log in to add your two cents.

Thanks for reading,

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

September is here, my kids are about to go back to school, and I’m considering how to use my time until the end of June. 

Most advice to artists these days can be summed up as DO MORE: make more work, particpate more in career programs, apply for more opportunities, post more on Instagram, go to more openings…you get the idea. It’s a numbers game, and the more stuff you do, the better shot you have at getting opportunities.

I don’t disagree in principle, but bound as I am by the reality of nonstop adulting, I personally can’t do more of EVERYTHING. I have to choose. And of the things I could conceivably spend my limited time on, I’m for sure not doing more of the things I loathe (Instagram), and—because adulting—I can’t always do more of the activities I at least sometimes enjoy (openings). 

I’d rather rip my fingernails off than spend time on IG trying to go viral

So about 18 months ago, I decided to focus on something I love: connecting with interesting human beings IN REAL LIFE. I put my energy into making art, inviting people for studio visits, meeting new people and community building. 

I made a radical choice: I stopped applying to RFQ’s. 

And guess what happened? Absolutely nothing.

You see, to date my public art projects have arrived through private art consultants and municipal invitationals, i.e. phone calls or emails that come out of the blue. I have completed exactly one project that came from the RFQ process, and I didn’t even win the project I applied for! The client liked my work so much, they commissioned me to create a sculpture in another location. My endless hours of applying have resulted in a whopping 0% success rate.

UNDULATION: The project I got after losing as an RFQ finalist

After many years renaming my jpegs, typing my address into yet another platform, parsing confusing calls and requirements, expanding my bio from 250 to 500 words, trimming it down to 150, and editing it again to less than 2,000 characters as they are counted on one particular website, I calculated whether this idiotic busywork was worth my time, and the answer was clearly NO.

I know other artists have great success throwing their hats in the RFQ ring, and I commend them! Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but I suspect that I may not be the only artist lacking an ROI for their time and energy. 

Just imagine the time I spent on multiple unsuccessful RFQ’s each year…omg

As much as I’d love to create a sculpture in an airport, or on the arts quad of a college campus, I have other needs that directly impact my daily happiness: to spend more time making art, and (much, much) less in front of the computer renaming my images from 01_MPearlman to Pearlman_Mia_1. Maybe I should hire someone, or use AI…but then I’d have spend time correcting all of their/its mistakes.

So what have I done instead? The newsletter you’re reading is one way I’ve expanded my interest in public art and the people who make and support it. Another is the PUBLIC ART PARTY, which will happen next on October 20th at the Van Alen Institute in Brooklyn. I hope you will join us!

It all started in April 2025, when I had a solo show in an untraditional location, the very swank gallery space of a very big New York architecture firm, FXCollaborative. I figured that their clients overlapped with my potential clients, so I mounted a show that included an installation about my public art work. Instead of an artist talk, I put together a PUBLIC ART PARTY to share the exhibition with people who might find it relevant. 

30 minutes in, people were already asking me when the next one would be—and now I have a new unpaid job for the rest of my life! Kidding aside, I love organizing the PAP, and the return on my investment is exactly what I want: new friends, learning about public art all over the world, inspiration, information, fascinating conversations, and helping to build a community I’m honored be a part of.

The first PUBLIC ART PARTY in April 2025 at FXCollaborative

But did I get any projects without applying for RFQ’s, you ask?

Yes, and they partially grew out of connecting with other humans in person (I still had to win on the strength of my proposal). I regularly hear from possible clients out of the blue, and every once in a while, those conversations turn into real projects. Hurrah!

So, 18 months later, should I give RFQ’s another shot? Maybe I should wait until the kids are in school to decide!

Let me know what you think in the comments…

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

Hello and Happy Pride, Knicks, World Cup, last month of school, Stanley Cup, show openings, deadlines, and whatever other madness you are currently enjoying!

Despite all of these things and more, a lovely group of PUBLIC ART PARTYERS got together this Wednesday at Threes Brewing in Gowanus, where we hit all the above topics plus public art (of course), fabrication budgets, salsa dancing, sabbaticals, middle school, wind tunnel tests, music careers, and so much more. What a great and interesting group of people!

The purpose of the PUBLIC ART PARTY and this smaller mixer is to create a space where the public art community can get together to share wisdom, intel, jokes, recommendations, fun and friendship. As I always say, we don’t have natural meeting places, so we have to create them!

We have important lived experience to share. I like to refer to “whisper networks,” i.e. ways we can help each other avoid problems or handle complex situations, and also find opportunities and make the most of them. We need each other!

This smaller gathering was a hit, and we will plan more! Do you have a great bar in your hood? A studio or another place where we could gather? Please make suggestions, and even better: help me plan more welcoming and accessible mixers, and ensure we have a diverse crowd from all parts of the public art world.

Thanks to everyone who came, and…KNICKS IN FIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

Public Art Friends!

Due to overwhelming demand for more opportunities to meet, hang and have fun together, artist/fabricator Sophie Kahn and I have planned the first-ever PUBLIC ART PARTY MIXER on June 10th in Brooklyn.

This casual community-building event welcomes everyone across the public art ecosystem, and anyone who’d like to learn more about public art. April’s post-PAP after party was such a hit, we are spinning it off into its own event!

Please join us at Threes Brewing in Gowanus on June 10th from 5:30-7:30pm! They sell food, drinks and are fully ADA accessible.

No RSVP required, but please let us know if you’re coming in the comments below, or reply to this email.

See you soon!!

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

Welcome to INSIDE/OUTSIDE’s first guest post, and welcome to Jack Becker, an artist and Founder Emeritus of Forecast Public Art, a US-based nonprofit established in 1978. In 1989, he established a statewide grant program for emerging public artists and Public Art Review, an international magazine devoted exclusively to contemporary public art. Jack, a resident of Minneapolis, Minnesota, applies his creativity to projects that connect the ideas and energies of artists with the needs and opportunities of communities. In 2007 he received the Award of Excellence from Americans for the Arts for his contribution to the public art field, and in 2014 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Public Art Dialogue, a program of the College Art Association.

A Global First: The United Nations Hosts a Public Art Conference

By Jack Becker (Beckerjack54@gmail.com)

As a founding member of both the national Public Art Exchange (PAX) and the global Institute for Public Art (IPA) I have long yearned to get folks from both entities together, and that day finally happened on December 3rd, 2025, in New York City—at the United Nations building no less! It was a rare occasion to expand our connections, gain new perspectives and make new friends and allies.

A big thanks to all who organized and participated in the global public art forum hosted by Shanghai University at the UN building, as one of a series of programs celebrating the UN’s 80^th anniversary. It was a very memorable day, enhanced further by an informal happy hour the night before in mid-town Manhattan.

The United Nations

For my part, I organized a full day of guided tours of public art for 20 people the day following the conference, enabling some of us to engage with the fabulous MTA’s art in the subway program, the renowned High Line and a stunning Richard Serra installation at Gagosian. Special thanks to our guides, including MTA’s Deputy Director Yaling Chen and former program manager Lester Burg; and Cecilia Alemani, Director and Chief Curator of the High Line.

Visiting Nick Cave’s mosaic subway installation at Times Square

For a bit of context, the Institute for Public Art, founded in 2013, is a global network supporting the International Award for Public Art (IAPA), an initiative started by the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts. IPA brings together researchers, artists, curators, urban planners, policy makers, educators and architects from all over the world. Check out the hundreds of case studies for nominated projects at their website (also available as a special collection at the Public Art Archive, with enhanced discoverability).

The Public Art Exchange, founded in 2022, is a grassroots peer networking platform and resource hub supporting public art practitioners and allied professionals seeking to be more informed in their decision-making, more impactful in their communities and more connected socially. Currently PAX has more than 1,900 members, some of whom organize in-person gatherings on an annual basis. The next PAX “Field Trip” is scheduled for November 11-13 in Scottsdale AZ.

The event at the UN building, held in the handsome Delegates’ Dining Room overlooking the sun-drenched East River, consisted of the Forum and accompanying events. The Forum explored approaches and strategies to advance the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Concurrently, Shanghai University and the Teachers College at Columbia University hosted a series of events to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the United Nations, under the theme Mutual Learning Among Civilizations, Harmony and Coexistence. In addition to the opening ceremony and reception, there was a beautifully displayed international touring exhibition of Oriental Traditional Craftsmanship and Contemporary Art.

Inaugural World Public Art Conference

The Forum explored how public art can address two core challenges: balancing the needs of humanity and the environmental health of the planet and improving socio-cultural development. 

Among the impressive presenters were Lewis Biggs, Andrew Brewerton, Solomon Enos, Jessica Fiala, Jin Jianbo, Iryna Kanishcheva, Jonathan Johnson, Jennifer McGregor, Hu Yijia, Laura Zarta Gutierrez and several others (see below for a complete list of presenters and the titles of their talks). We each offered perspectives on—among other topics—how public art and artists connect humans with nature and individuals with one another; heal cultural divides; spark dialogues and foster cross-sector collaborations, understanding and inclusivity.

Additionally, we shared practical experiences and theoretical insights on how public art advances the goals of societies around the world, such as valuing cultural diversity and inclusivity, fostering social cohesion and advancing the principles of sustainable development.

Here’s what several attendees had to say about the forum:

Stuart Williams: I’m glad I was able to attend. I wish it had been for more than just one day; there was so much information and so many people to meet, and then it’s over. I think one of the best things about the conference was being able to connect in person with other artists in the public art arena and wish I had connected with more. I was impressed with some of the presenters, in particular Lewis Biggs and Jennifer McGregor as well as a couple of the Chinese and UN officials. It was also interesting to hear about the collaborative efforts of Shanghai University and Columbia University’s Teachers College, as they work to expand efforts to research the field of public art. 

Eva Márquez Salmerón: I really enjoyed the shared sense of humor about public art during the time we spent together, as well as the specific technical insights on the day of the public art tour.

Joseph Eduardo Iacona: It was a wonderful whirlwind of presentations and a kaleidoscopic view of how public art is being activated globally. Surrounded by creative spirits, there was a palpable hunger for connection. Unfortunately, given the rigid formality typical of scholarly assemblies, we lacked opportunities to critically reflect and converse. I found myself seeking—and creating— those “in-between” moments where the true, unscripted collaboration transpires. Ultimately, I left with more questions than answers, but also many new peers to explore those questions with. This is the catalyst that keeps us moving forward, driving our global community and fueling our collective exploration of how public art is a tool for connection and exchange across our diverse cultures.

Group photo of international participants

UN Public Art Forum list of presenters (in order of appearance)

Jin Jiangbo, Vice Chairman of Shanghai Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Executive Dean of Shanghai Academy of Fine Art (Welcome and Overview)

Lewis Biggs, Founder of the Liverpool Biennale, Chairman of the Academic Committee of the International Institute of Public Art at Shanghai University, Co-chair of the Institute for Public Art. Title: Buried Treasure and Intangible Cultural Wealth.

Pan Lusheng, Vice Chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Chairman of the Chinese Folk Artists Association. Title: China’s Art in Public. 

Laura Zarta Gutierrez, Curator and Cultural Manager, Founding Director of Global Warning Agency Foundation, and professor at EAN University and the Los Andes University. Title: Contemporary Latin American Art as a Practice of Regeneration: Rethinking Cultural Diplomacy.

Jack Becker, Founder emeritus of Forecast Public Art, founding publisher of Public Art Review, member of Public Art Exchange, Co-chair Institute for Public Art. Title: Researching Art in Public: A Critical Need.

Jennifer McGregor, Curator and art planner, former Artistic Director and Senior Curator of Wave Hill, first Director of New York City’s “Percent for Art Program”. Title: Conundrum of Permanence: New York City Waterfront.

HU Yijia, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Office of Academic Development, China Academy of Art. Title: Symbiotic Art in Vertical Gradients: A Cross-Disciplinary Art Practice Based on Plant Diversity of the Tibetan Plateau.

DONG Huafeng, Director of Foreign Affairs Office, Qingdao, West Coast New Area, China. Title: A Discussion on Pathways to Empowering Sustainable Development of Coastal Cities Through Public Art.

Iryna Kanishcheva, Public art curator, producer, and founder of Monochronicle, a consultancy, artist network and marketplace platform integrating AI-enhanced art management tools. Title: Human-Centered Algorithms: Rethinking Equity and Access in Arts Through AI-Enhanced Platforms.

Jessica Fiala, Independent scholar, consultant, and dancer based in Minneapolis. Research associate at 8 Bridges Workshop and former research coordinator for the 2015 International Award for Public Art. Title: AR in Transit: Artist Navigations of Body and Space through Augmented Reality.

WU Dingyu, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor, Vice Dean of the School of Advertising and Branding, Communication University of China. Title: The Path of Chinese Art City Construction: From Hard Infrastructure to Soft Systems—A Case Study of Beijing Municipal.

Andrew Brewerton, Professor Emeritus, and former Principal of Arts University Plymouth (UK). Title: Education as Art in Society.

Jonathan “JJ” Johnson and Solomon Enos. JJ is a public art consultant with the Hawaii State Arts Agency where he served as Executive Director, Director of the Hawaii State Art Museum. Solomon is a multi-talented artist. Title: Hawaii State Capitol Pools - “Waterless Solution.”

SUN Ting, Associate Professor, School of Arts, Nantong University. Title: Reconnecting Culture and Community Through Participation: New Forms of Art in Public.

LIU Ye, Independent Curator and Vice-Chair of Curatorial Research Committee, RMIT University (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology). Title: The Nomadic Collective: Relational Transformations from Ritual to Collaborative Practices in Chinese Rural Art.

Thank you to Jack, and to you for reading all the way to the end! Please feel free to share your feedback in the comments…

News about the next PUBLIC ART PARTY is coming to your inbox very soon…stay tuned.

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

Hot Topics panel (from left): Mia Pearlman, Erica Behrens, Brittni Collins, Mike Price and Xenia Diente

What a night!! The third ever PUBLIC ART PARTY was jam packed: with wonderful panelists, excited guests, insider information, cocktails, laughter, and community. In fact, it was so much fun, dozens of artists, fabricators, curators, public art administrators and more chatted late into the night at a nearby bar. Don’t just take it from me: check out the beautiful feedback from attendees…

“I had many energizing conversations both before and after the panel. The ‘party’ part was an excellent addition to that kind of event, you are doing something truly special. Opening lines of communication between artists, fabricators, city/state institutions and programmers…it’s incredible. What a perfect storm!”

Over 90 people traveled from around the five boroughs, the Hudson Valley, upstate, New Jersey, Connecticut, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Saxtons River (VT), State College (PA), Cleveland, and Philadelphia. 

Audience members included folks from Creative Time, MTA Arts and Design, City of Seattle’s Office of Arts and Culture, the New York Botanical Garden, MoMA PS1, Public Art Fund, the Brooklyn Museum, and many fabricators and architecture firms. Not to mention over 50 artists!

“I came by myself and everyone that I met was very friendly and open.”

First, my deepest thanks to Yayoi Shionoiri, VP of External Affairs and General Counsel at Powerhouse Arts, who offered to host the PUBLIC ART PARTY in their gorgeous space, and helped organize it behind the scenes. Check out our recent interview here. Her enthusiasm and professionalism is off the charts! I am so grateful.

Thanks to Powerhouse’s team, it was also the first time I didn’t spend the entire day singlehandedly catering the event, shopping at Trader Joe’s, schlepping huge bags of food and drinks, and plating snack trays. Amazing!

People began to arrive right as the doors opened, received their color/shape/career-coded nametag, and got right to meeting each other over Powerhouse’s delicious cocktails. I always love this “warm up” before the panel! Let’s face it, many of us are introverts, or as I like to say, “socially ambivalent” (me!), and it helps to have a moment to get acclimated…

Around 6:15pm, with a critical mass of people buzzing in Powerhouse’s gorgeous space, we kicked off the “Hot Topics in Public Art” panel focused on FABRICATION. This is the first time I’ve asked panelists to present slides, and I gave them an almost impossible task: pick ONE project and present 5 slides, showing the artwork from idea to process to installation. Oh, and keep it to 5 minutes or less! I’m happy to report that our intrepid panelists rose beautifully to the challenge. 

Here is a link to the entire slide presentation, so you can play along from home.

Erica Behrens from Mayer of Munich began with Nick Cave’s amaaaazing mosaics in the Times Square subway station. Somehow their artisans took his incredibly colorful, intricate and textured sound suits and turned them into two dimensional mosaics that retain all of their irrepressible energy and movement. There have to be like 12 gazillion tiny pieces of glass (my scientific estimate) in this eye-popping installation, and it shows that almost anything is possible…if you have the right fabricator.

One thing that stood out to me is how Mayer of Munich works with artists to translate their ideas into glass or ceramic tile, often for free, for proposals and presentations. Their investment of time and energy on behalf of artists–and public art–is truly generous.

Next up was Xenia Diente, Public Art Deputy Director, Design and Construction Excellence for the NYC Department of Design and Construction. I was blown away to learn that her department is made up of only TWO full time staffers—working on over 70 projects at a time! Does she ever sleep??

Xenia (who heroically volunteered at the first PAP one year ago), explained how she helps shepherd artists and their projects through many layers of bureaucracy and red tape, which can take years. She presented Hank Willis Thomas’s sculpture UNITY in downtown Brooklyn, a 22.5 foot high bronze arm (cast from a professional basketball player) that the artist describes as “an homage to and celebration of the unique and multi-faceted character of the borough of Brooklyn. The spirit of Brooklyn has always been about upward mobility and connection to roots.” Her presentation shows how much invisible labor, care and attention goes into making public art possible–often with very little credit.

Next up was yours truly: I represented the artist's perspective, and to show a different type of public work: a 69 foot tall suspended sculpture called BRUSHSTROKE that I created for a shopping mall in Zhongshan, China, in collaboration with UAP Shanghai in 2021. This entire project was made remotely in the depths of Covid, first from a tiny Catalan village in my brother-in-law’s unheated garage that I used as a makeshift studio, then via Zoom between Brooklyn and Shanghai with a 12 hour time difference. Somehow, despite all of the lockdowns, supply chain disruptions, travel bans and other obstacles, UAP Shanghai was able to use their technological wizardry to turn photos of my very rudimentary physical scale model into, eventually, a gigantic sculpture. A sculpture I still have never seen in person!! Maybe I need a “send Mia to China” donation box at the next event…

Mike Price from UAP NY took us behind the scenes of Jeffrey Gibson’s Metropolitan Museum of Art facade project, “The Animal That Therefore I Am,” which is both monumental and incredibly detailed. Months of engineering, astonishing labor with dental tools to fashion tiny beads and textures, welding, finishing and no doubt a huge amount of money went into realizing this ambitious effort. 

Mike also spoke very eloquently about the intent of the fabricator: to stretch every dollar to the limit in order to help the artist realize their vision. It can take time, and trust, to find affordable ways to reach aesthetic goals. As I think we all know, there are easier ways to make money than to put up with artists and our whims! In my experience, great fabricators love the challenge of helping us make our work, and are very proud of their role. As they should be!

Full disclosure: I made three projects, UPLIFT, SOAR and THE FLYING TIDINGS WHIRLED, with Polich Tallix before they were purchased by UAP, and BRUSHSTROKE with UAP Shanghai. All were wonderful experiences. In my opinion, finding the right fabricator is as much a matter of chemistry as money or materials. It is crucial to find people who understand your vision, who speak your artistic language…or are willing to learn it!

Our final presentation was from Brittni Collins, Director of Public Art at Powerhouse Arts, about Pamela Council’s “A Fountain for Survivors,“ a commission for Times Square Arts she oversaw while working for that organization in 2021, fabricated by Powerhouse Arts. From the Times Square Arts website: “Adorned with a handmade mosaic of hundreds of thousands of acrylic fingernails, a massive cocoon-like structure houses a tiered water fountain inside a warm, welcoming, and enveloping space.” There are many elements to this sculpture, which includes music, bath bombs, scent, and much more, but what stood out to me in terms of fabrication was the mind-boggling labor, the R&D involved in figuring out how to realize the artist’s vision, and figuring out how to construct something strong out of fragile materials that could last outdoors for two months. 

We also discussed the challenges of what to do with a temporary public artwork afterward: finding storage, showing it elsewhere, reconfiguring it, recycling it into new art. As any sculptor will tell you: when you work in three dimensions, storage is a nightmare!

To allow attendees time to tour Powerhouse’s fabulous public art fabrication shop and grab a snack, the Q&A was short. Before I knew it, dozens of us were rolling to a bar down the street (for once I didn’t have to stay and clean up!) where we hung out for HOURS. 

Fun at the bar!

It gave me so much joy to see people from every part of the public art ecosystem, as well as assorted family members and friends, building community, telling jokes, sharing stories, wisdom and book recommendations, and generally having a grand old time. Pizza was delivered, drinks flowed, and I personally did not get home until almost midnight.

“I loved the Public Art Party!!!”

Thank you to our amazing panelists, to Powerhouse, to everyone who traveled from afar, and made the effort to meet new people and forge new connections. The public art world can be lonely, but it doesn’t have to be.

The PUBLIC ART PARTY was originally a one-off event at my solo exhibition, but from the first moment people asked “When is the next one?” 

This is my labor of love: the love of public art and community building, which is why I keep the ticket price so low, and am grateful for the unbelievable panelists who donate their time for free. And I will continue doing it! Because it is so much fun…

Over the next months I hope to write more articles on aspects of public art that interest me, from the political to the aesthetic. I’ll also be interviewing people, and reporting on events and news. This will all be done in my copious “spare time” (lol what is spare time??), but I promise, I will try.

I’d love to hear your feedback, questions and ideas! Please sign in and leave a comment!!

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

Tomorrow’s PUBLIC ART PARTY is SOLD OUT!! Thank you for your enthusaism—it’s going to be an amazing event.

Please arrive between 5:30-6pm so you can grab a drink/snack and find a seat before we begin! There will be chairs, but some guests may have to stand.

Didn’t get tickets in time? There are two options:

1. Get on the waitlist: we may be able to release a limited number of tickets if there are cancellations.

2. Meet us at The Bar In Gowanus around 8:30pm for the AFTER PARTY!

If you have a ticket but can’t make it, please let me know so I can open the waitlist.

After the panel, there will be an optional tour of Powerhouse’s public art fabrication facilities. There is room for 15-20 people, on a first come-first served basis. An announcement will be made when the tour is offered.

This revolution (joking!) will not be televised, livestreamed or recorded for posterity. I will try to write a recap newsletter for those who cannot attend. Nothing personal to folks who can’t be there—it’s just that in the age of mass surveillance, selfies, social media, doxxing and AI, I want this event to be as human and personal as possible. Attendees are welcome to take photos or videos with phones.

Questions/comments? Please use the commment box or email me at studio@miapearlman.com.

Can’t wait to talk shop tomorrow!!!

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

Hi all,

A few quick updates about the PUBLIC ART PARTY on April 16th!

1. Unfortunately Sean Kizy is not able to join the panel this Thursday, but we are very excited to welcome Mike Price, Principal | Foundry and Fabrication, at UAP NY! 
   
   Mike has worked on tons of fabulous projects with some of the most admired contemporary artists. I’m so excited to talk shop at our “Hot Topics in Public Art: Focus on Fabrication” panel. You can read all of the panelist bios here.
   

2. AFTER PARTY! We have to leave Powerhouse around 8pm, so the festivities will continue at the Bar in Gownus less than a block away. Can’t make it to the PUBLIC ART PARTY? Join us at the bar afterwards!
   

3. There are very few tickets left, so please get yours now, and feel free to invite anyone who’d be interested! BUY TICKETS NOW.

Questions? Comments? Please share!

Can’t wait to see you on Thursday…

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

Hi public art friends,

On Sunday I had the pleasure of hearing artist vanessa german give an artist talk and guided tour of her new public art project, THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF LOVE AND WONDER, at the new Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. 

“An artist is a whole complete human identity.”

Designed by Studio Gang, this gigantic new city-owned rec center is surrounded by basketball courts and a playground, adjacent to the Flatbush Gardens housing projects. It is free for kids and highly subsidized for adults, and features a gym, pool, track and more. Plus it’s only a 15 minute walk from my apartment, which means I will soon get to workout with german’s work!

THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF LOVE AND WONDER was commissioned by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs’ Percent for Art program, in collaboration with NYC Parks and the NYC Department of Design and Construction. The event was open to all, and the audience reflected the neighborhood, recently renamed “Little Haiti,” which is mostly Afro-Caribbean and African American, and includes Guyanese, Haitian, Jamaican, Saint Lucian, Trinidadian, Grenadian, Vincentian, Bajan, Panamanian and Dominican communities. 

There were neighborhood locals, art world people, subjects of german’s work, and rec center members of all ages there to hear the artist speak. And did she! Wearing a bright red, ruffled dress and animal print ankle boots, german needed no notes for her presentation. Equal parts storytelling, non-denominational prayer meeting, artist talk and spiritual uplift, I knew immediately I had to take written notes (on a Key Food receipt crumpled in my purse) to remember her words and cadence. Please excuse any inaccuracies: it was impossible to keep up! They did take a video of her slide presentation, so hopefully that will be made public so you can hear every word.

Clearly, I am not a professional journalist…

German launched in: “I was raised by an artist to be an artist. To solve problems by being intentionally loving, never refusing curiosity or muting the desires of the heart.” 

Her mother, Sandra Keats German, a fiber artist and quilter whose work is in museum collections across the country, taught her “how to be alive in this world. An artist is a whole, complete identity.” Growing up in Los Angeles, it was too dangerous to play outside during the summer, so german’s mother covered the kitchen table in art supplies to fill the time.

As an adult living in a low income neighborhood in Pittsburgh, german’s house was also her studio. Eventually she ran out of space and worked on the porch, where neighborhood children asked if they could help. She rejected their offers of studio assistance, but bought them art supplies and taught them not just to paint and draw, but to think, to “make decisions.” When the porch was filled, she took her work into the street, where curious neighbors side-eyed her sculptures and nervously asked if they were voodoo. 

Eventually, people asked to perform with her work, introducing it to the public through dance and music. Her front porch became a “creator space,” where she taught the local kids to feel and vocalize the words “I trust myself.”

Broke and trying to find ways to continue making art (german describes herself as “self-taught”), german “went through the trash to find things to give me energy. I kept myself going through living love, metabolising the world, integrating deep wholeness through the filter of my soul, communicating with the divine.” At one point her neighbor could no longer care for her young children, and german was asked by a social worker to foster them. Overnight she became a foster parent, and over time got permission from the city to turn the house next door into an artist residency.

Many years later, with a very successful career (german is represented by Kasmin Gallery and has exhibited her work in museums and galleries across the world), she was invited to propose a project for the rec center before it was built. german decided to “engage with East Flatbush as a spiritual practice of divinity.” The rec center was built after a long community process following a fatal shooting on that site, and to honor that history, it was important to the artist to “build a place that is loving…the creative process is love.”

Unbought and unbossed

german asked the audience, “How do you define ‘living love?’” She answered her question: “by making, creating, sharing communities and cultures, working dimensionally.” 

“Community engagement” is a popular catchphrase in public art RFQ’s these days, whose meaning can be fuzzy. What does it actually look like for an artist to engage with a community? Does that mean during ideation, as inspiration, physically creating the artwork, or sharing a dialogue about its content and siting? 

It’s widely presumed that community engagement is a necessary and unequivocal good in public art. But questions still exist. Does (whatever type of) community engagement guarantee that the eventual public artwork will reflect, appeal to or embody that community? Does it mainly serve to mitigate risk for the client, heading off local pushback because the art has been pre-vetted? Most importantly, does community engagement, whatever that means, lead to better public art? 

While I don’t live in Flatbush Gardens or the immediate vicinity, to me german’s museum is a model for what community engagement can be: an authentically open, thoughtful, time-intensive, honest and ultimately celebratory conversation that leads to brilliant art, works that will hopefully only grow in meaning as the community evolves. 

german spent months with a card table at the playground next to the art site as it was being built, asking passersby questions like, “What is your dream?”, “What is wondrous about this place?” and “Who are the living legends here?” Many of the answers hilariously converged on the Sam the ice cream man, the playground Sno-Cone lady, and the guy who owns the local jerk chicken place, but also poignantly included a young boy whose dream was to be “13 years old and smart,” and a woman who immediately replied that she deserved a portrait, as a social worker who gives everything to her community.

The artist explained, “I co-created this project with people and organizations in East Flatbush…it is an activation. My practice is a spiritual practice based on an energetic imprint, a divine spark.”

THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF LOVE AND WONDER is a wonderously ambitious, joy-filled, life-affirming celebration of humanity. Deeply reflective of the local community, its flora and fauna, neighborhood landmarks, ethnicities, cuisines and sentimental objects, it embodies the generosity and love german speaks about so uniquely as her artistic practice. For example, she recalled that the vast majority of adults asked about their dreams only talked about dreams for their children’s futures. Many said they wanted to be billionaires, but not for their own pleasure, but to ensure that everyone in the neighborhood had housing, to clean the local streets, and uplift their whole community. 

Not someone known to extol the virtues of living love, healing, wholeness, or communing with the divine in my life or my artist talks, I was very moved by these selfless replies, especially in this dystopian political moment which mainly fills me with disgust and rage.

More personally, as a parent, and a 2nd generation local (my Dad grew up on Linden Blvd about 10 blocks north of the rec center), I know these sentiments embody the heart of the community: hardworking people, many immigrants, who despite every challenge still show up in storefront churches every Sunday, helping their neighbors, loving their kids, and hoping for the best.

All of these conversations wound up in german’s artworks, both literally and figuratively. Handwritten answers to “What is your dream?” fill handblown vessels that make up an abstracted figure topped with a merkabah, a shape made of two interlocking pyramids that symbolizes a divine chariot connecting the earthly realm with higher consciousness. 

A wall of portrait busts—including Jackie Robinson, the aforementioned social worker, a handsome construction worker from rec center, the actor Michael K. Williams (Omar on “The Wire”), the jerk chicken guy and many more—dazzle from a hallway vitrine. The heads are beaded on the reverse as well, many inset with mirrors, which face the gym’s treadmills. The mirrors are intentionally placed so that anyone can see themselves in the work, and become one of them. Each bust exudes personality, and is gorgeously faceted with semi-precious stones and minerals german sources directly from mines around the world for their colors, forms, and spiritual meaning.

“Who are the people in the neighborhood?” - Sesame Street

Jackie Robinson (crowned) and friends

Another highlight were two “community quilts” made in collaboration with local families from My Time Inc., a local organization that supports parents of people with autism and Ifelayo Cultural Arts Academy, which empowers youth and families of African descent to achieve high levels of educational, professional and artistic excellence. Over several weeks, german worked with these families to very intentionally create or offer personal objects which were incorporated into the finished work, from lumps of clay squeezed while thinking loving thoughts, to bottlecaps, beads and little toys.

Community quilt

There are other artworks in the building, from the locker room to the entry, a third floor installation only visible to children who use that floor, and a bench outside made of handprints of local elders. All of them besides the bench are encased in steel and glass vitrines which will never be opened, to avoid dust and decay.

Unlike most public art in municipal rec centers, german’s work is identical to her studio work, and was mostly made by hand, her own or by other artisans and fabricators. It feels extremely refreshing to see handmade, craft-infused artworks in this type of environment, where one typically finds art specifically fabricated for durability. Don’t the people of East Flatbush deserve a free museum? Yes! And shouldn’t that museum also celebrate its audience, embody their stories and represent them to future generations? Of course! 

Third floor installation

Doesn’t every human being deserve creativity, joy, love and wonder? I believe so. And I can’t wait to sign my family up for the rec center, so we can sweat while studying the intricacies of these inspired artworks.

Have you visited THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF LOVE AND WONDER yet? Please comment!

PS: Tickets for the third ever PUBLIC ART PARTY on April 16th are selling out! Please get yours asap if you plan to join us.

Happy Passover, Easter, spring break and whatever you like to celebrate!

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

Hi public art friends! I’m excited to share the debut of a new series, “Public Art in Conversation.” I’ll be chatting with some of the most interesting and dynamic people in public art today, starting with the fabulous Yayoi Shionoiri of Powerhouse Arts in Brooklyn, which is also hosting the next PUBLIC ART PARTY on April 16th!

Yayoi by Phong Bui

Yayoi Shionoiri is the VP of External Affairs and General Counsel at Powerhouse Arts, a non-profit fabrication facility in Brooklyn with state-of-the-art equipment that allows artists the opportunity to work in different mediums, including print and digital print, ceramics, and fabrication of public art.  

In the past, she has served as Executive Director to the Estate of Chris Burden and the Studio of Nancy Rubins; General Counsel and Head of Asia Strategy to Artsy; and Associate General Counsel of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. 

Yayoi received her A.B. from Harvard University (2000), her J.D. from Cornell Law School (2003), and her M.A. from Columbia University in Modern Art (2010).  She has written about, and presented throughout the world on, legal issues related to copyright and contemporary art, AI and digital art, and ethics related to new technology.  (Instagram: @yayoi_shionoiri)

Mia: Yayoi, I'm super excited to talk to you!

Yayoi: I am deeply honored that you and I are in community in this way. What you're doing with the PUBLIC ART PARTY for the field of public art, and the public art ecosystem within the larger art world, is super inspiring. So thank you. I'm so excited that we're chatting.

I appreciate that so much. I worked for years in catering, and started a political organization in 2017. So to me the PUBLIC ART PARTY brings together art, party planning and community organizing, all things that I enjoy doing. I also think there’s a lot of need and desire for more community, and that right now politically, we need community more than ever. 

Yayoi, I know you through the PUBLIC ART PARTY, but I'd love to learn more about where you're from, how you got interested in art and law, and how they came together.

I now consider myself fully a Brooklynite, but I'm originally from Canada, up north. And ever since I was in undergrad, I was an art and art history nerd. I was always very curious about visual material culture and objects as reflective of the times, or the cultural geographies, and the specific geographies that people come from. That for me was something that was of intellectual and academic interest. 

But I'm an immigrant, and I wasn't really sure how to catapult my academic interest into a career, right? I was not part of the art world, either for-profit or not-for-profit. I didn't know how people became who they became. I didn't know how people became curators, or registrars, or conservationists. I didn't know how to become a gallerist. 

So back in the day when I was a very young person, I said to myself, “Well, maybe if I bring a professional skill set to the art world, maybe I can be of service, and I can become something.” You know, if I had realized how difficult that would be, hustling as an arts worker, I'm pretty sure I would have decided to do something that is easier to achieve. That's how difficult it was.

It took a very, very long time for me to actually become an art lawyer, because back then, there weren’t a lot of role models for how people became art lawyers and stayed art lawyers. Now there are so many more of us who call ourselves art lawyers, and who practice either for profit or for not for-profit: for artists, for museums, for galleries, in auction houses. 

I would say my art worker career, like many arts worker careers and many artist careers too, has been a large amount of trial and error and a constant hustle to find my standing in the art world. My very first art law job was an in-house legal and project management job for an artist, and then from there I had the honor, as well as the hustle, to jump around in various parts of the art world.

Brooklyn-to-Brooklyn Zoom

I'm very sympathetic to your plight, because it's very difficult to find your way in the art world, no matter what you do. Even if you have advantages–and you know, I'm from New York, so you'd think I would have had one–everybody has to find their own way. Did you consider at any point going in a different direction, like going into IP law, or doing something else, or did your interest in art and art history and the art world keep you on that track?

I think it's the latter. My first job was in a big law firm, but that was because as a baby lawyer in a conservative industry, it's important to showcase that you've had the opportunity to work in big law. That helped me get my financial stability and footing, in the sense that I was able to repay my student loans. From there it became much easier to take risks, and with luck and serendipity, but also a lot of hustle, I made that catapult into the art world. 

In comparison to some other incredible art lawyers that I am deeply honored to be connected with, like Megan Noh and Sarah Conley Odenkirk, I would say the differentiating factor for me is that I've always been an arts worker-forward. It just happens that I have legal tools I can apply. 

So I've never had to work in a law firm as an art lawyer. I've always been in-house for artists, for museums, for startups, for other non-profits. I feel like I can bring value not only with legal work, but by providing arts worker support, project management, strategic management or just a doer perspective. As I can know you can also relate, we all need to be interdisciplinary and wear many hats to make things work in the art world.

I'm sure that those skills and that knowledge were very appealing to some of the artists that you’ve worked with, like Nancy Rubins and Takashi Murakami, and for Artsy and the Guggenheim Museum. These are all entities or people who are working at a very high level, with a lot of risk involved. The bigger you get, the more is at stake, right? 

Are there legal issues that people on the outside might not suspect are actually quite large? In public art, you negotiate insurance, VARA rights, reproduction rights, licensing, many things artists never learn about in art school. Of course fabricators have to negotiate contracts too, as do clients, curators and consultants. 

Is there a place where you’ve seen problems happen because people either don’t understand what they've signed, or didn't negotiate it to the degree that it could have been?

There are so many ways to answer that very juicy question! So the first thing to note from an economic perspective, is that in the U.S., lawyers are often expensive to hire. I'm not making a judgment as to the value of the benefits and the services that are received. I'm just recognizing that in the U.S. lawyers usually work on an hourly basis, or sometimes a project basis, and in a place like New York City can command very, very high rates. In Japan, which is also a culture that I'm very connected to, for better or for worse hourly rates are much lower in comparison. 

In Japan, if an artist receives an opportunity to make a site specific or permanent public art structure, many times they can have a line item within their project budget for legal fees. So in terms of having somebody who can read the contract, explain the contract to them, and try to negotiate aspects of the contract, it's more protective for the artist. Coupled with that, in the U.S., we also happen to have a very litigious society. 

A lot of times, I think the contracts that are served up to artists are maybe sometimes repurposed from other industries. A good example is oftentimes I've seen an artist win a public, site specific commission. If the owner of the land on which the art is intended to be installed is a private real estate developer, the contract often looks more like a construction project agreement rather than a commissioned art agreement. 

Obviously there is overlap, right? Because there is construction that will happen when the art gets placed. The foundation has to be poured. The work has to be engineered. Everything has to be signed, sealed and stamped. Then the artist comes in to install. Right? I mean, in some ways, I think the developer sort of treats it just as another part of their larger construction project.

But for an artist, they might get served up a 50-page construction contract feeling like A., they don't have the leverage to try to ask for something different. B., feel like they need to sign on to whatever is served. And then C., also not necessarily feeling like they can take the time or funding to try to find a lawyer who can help them understand the contract, negotiate it, and even begin to understand those provisions. Artists often feel so excited that they are being selected to do work, they feel like they don't necessarily have the leverage to be able to negotiate a contract. 

Yayoi leading a tour of the Powerhouse Arts facilities

Absolutely. My first public art project was with a Fortune 500 company, and the budget was over a million dollars. I had no idea what I was doing when it came to contracts, insurance, banking, etc. 

Luckily, a friend recommended an incredible art lawyer, Amy Goldrich, and she saved my life. It took months to negotiate this contract, and as you mentioned, they initially presented a construction contract, and had never worked on an art project. She rejected that out of hand, and we sent our own contract. But there were still crazy things like, can they make holiday replicas of the sculpture, and if so, can they be for sale, or only to gift to certain people? I never, ever would have imagined having to negotiate things like this.

But negotiating itself is kind of fun to me. In my experience, if you operate in a polite, firm, professional way, the client’s respect for you increases. If you walk in knowing your red lines, where you'll give, where you won't, the other team listens and often agrees to your terms, or at least considers a compromise. 

Artists often know our red lines, but can be too scared to engage. There can be a scarcity mentality, and an understandable fear of rejection. I think that everyone in the arts has at least once felt pressured to accept a bad deal, just to get (or keep) the gig. So, do you have any thoughts about how artists or others could feel more confident? How can they go into a negotiation without feeling like they are at a disadvantage?

Thanks for that. You speak so eloquently about the importance of negotiation strategies, and that doesn't mean somebody has to be versed in drafting a contract. I think it's very important for an artist to be able to say, “These are the three to five things that are really important to me that I will not back down from.” It might be the dollar amount of a contract, or a payment schedule. Like I definitely want to be paid in this kind of a way, or I require this level of transparency. 

If it is a gallery, for example, I–as the artist, would want the ability to know how sales are going. Even if the sale is not necessarily 100% done, I would want updates on sales and marketing. Or if I'm having a gallery show, I would like to commission someone to write an essay about me for inclusion in the press release or on the website. It can be as minute as that, or it can be much bigger. 

I think you can build confidence from each experience too. Like your first project was a really, really difficult one because you were working with a Fortune 500 company, right? They had a ton of resources behind them, but they also wanted to be super protective, and potentially extractive from you. That's just how they are. When you went in and you felt confident, the other side was willing to negotiate with you. From there, the next contract negotiation gets a little bit easier. 

Sometimes the lawyer on the other side may not necessarily know how to work with artists either. They may have had a lot of extensive experience working with construction people or interior designers, who are very different from artists in terms of how they work. They might not have had an opportunity to work with artists. So that level setting is important too.

Powerhouse Arts Print Fair

For many artists, it feels like such a huge power differential that if you create any friction, you're out. But I think that lawyers like friction. Friction is not bothersome to them. In my experience, the same is true for big commissioning bodies, whether they're private corporations or municipalities. They negotiate contracts all the time, so they're not scandalized if you want to discuss terms. Some, especially government entities, categorically do not negotiate. Like the MTA, for example. They tell you off the bat that the contract is take it or leave it. But at least you know, and can make an informed decision about moving forward. 

I think you're totally right. The only thing that I would add to that is how important it is for both sides to stay professional and respectful, even if there is a difference of opinion. If an artist responds to emails promptly, if they ask for clarification politely, and there is a level of professionalism on both sides, together they can hopefully work through differences of opinion.

You’ve worked with artists who have these huge studio operations, and some artists have big legal disputes with galleries, collectors, fabricators, etc. But unless you've actually worked in one of their studios (which I personally have not), you don't really know what it’s like. 

At the end of the day, an artist studio is a small business. You have a legal entity, and you have to do everything that is required of a small business owner in addition to being an artist, right? So, that's more than two people's jobs. 

You might have a lease, or own your studio. You have to pay taxes. You need to have an insurance scheme that protects you as an artist, but also a lot of your commissioning entities will require you to have set levels of insurance. If you have staff, you have payroll. You might pay somebody hourly as a contractor, or as an employee. If you have employees, you have employee payroll and tax matters. Providing artists with the tools to understand that they are small business owners in addition to being artists is also very important too.

Powerhouse Arts Grand Hall, photo: Albert Vecerka

Powerhouse is such an impressive operation, from the variety of fabrication that takes place there, to the community programs, art fairs, and soon an exhibition program. How can people in the public art world participate?

Thanks for that question and I'm very, very excited for us to be able to host your third PUBLIC ART PARTY on April 16th. 

I think it might be a little hard to understand what Powerhouse is, because we're trying to serve so many publics. It’s usually after someone attends an event or gets a chance to see the fabrication shops, that they really get an idea of what we do. Vis a vis the public art community, we are going to give a short tour of the public art facilities during the PUBLIC ART PARTY, and I hope that people will come back to experience more.

If you’re a curator, or a commissioning entity, and have an opportunity to work with an artist, please keep Powerhouse Arts in mind. You can always feel free to reach out through our project inquiry form on our website to start the conversation. 

Our public art team also collaborates with other shops and studios within the building all the time. This cross hybridity is what we offer. 

What if someone wants to curate a show, or do a concert here, or perform an experimental dance piece at Powerhouse?

We are self-producing our own events for now, whether that is Powerhouse: International, the festival that's focused on performing arts, or the two fairs that are coming down the pike: Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair (April 9-12) and Conductor: Art Fair of the Global Majority (April 29-May 3). If somebody is interested in renting space, that depends on whether we have space in the calendar and if we are the right space for them. We have an Artist in Residence program, but we generally do not rent studio space. 

We are trying to be a place both of cultural production through our fabrication facilities and access to fabrication facilities, and a place of cultural consumption, meaning we are trying to provide artists an opportunity to showcase their work. So, we're trying to be a hive campus for creative expression. 

We are very excited to introduce Powerhouse Arts to everyone at the PUBLIC ART PARTY, and give the audience a little taste of what is possible here.

Powerhouse Arts Print Studio

I hope you can come to the PUBLIC ART PARTY at Powerhouse on April 16th, so Yayoi can take you on one of her amazing tours of the facilities!

Thanks for reading, and please comment and make suggestions for others I should interview…

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

Savona Bailey-McClain
Executive Director and Chief Curator, West Harlem Art Fund

Sherwin Banfield 
Artist and Hip Hop Sculptor

Tom Finkelpearl
Social Practice Teaching Scholar-in-Residence, CUNY

Denise Markonish
Martin Friedman Chief Curator at Madison Square Park

Mia Pearlman
Artist and Moderator

Seph Rodney
Writer, Editor and Curator

Please join us on October 15th at the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum in Harlem for this informal and fun community building event. Sugar Hill is a gorgeous space for contemporary art, conveniently located right above the 155th Street C train stop.

Artists, fabricators, public art administrators, real estate developers, private art consultants, public art curators and more are welcomed to meet, talk and make friends. It’s a little bit of panel, and a whole lotta schmooze.

“Hot Topics in Public Art” is an interactive and irreverent conversation with experts from across the field. Prepare to ask and answer questions!

Click for more info and tickets

Savona Bailey-McClain

Savona Bailey-McClain
Executive Director and Chief Curator, West Harlem Art Fund
https://westharlem.art

Savona Bailey-McClain is a Harlem based curator and arts administrator. She is the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the West Harlem Art Fund, which has organized high-profile public arts exhibits throughout New York City for the past 20 years, including Times Square, DUMBO, Soho, Governors Island and Harlem.

Her public art installations encompass sculpture, drawings, performance, sound, and mixed media, and have been covered extensively by the New York Times, Art Daily, Artnet, Los Angeles Times and Huffington Post, among many others.

She is host and producer of "State of the Arts NYC," a video podcast program on several platforms. She is a member of ArtTable, Advisory Board member of NYC's Dance in Sacred Places, Governors Island Advisory Council and new Board member of NY Artists Equity Association.

Sherwin Banfield

Sherwin Banfield
Artist and Hip Hop Sculptor
https://www.sherwinbanfield.com

Sherwin Banfield is a Queens, NY based mixed-media artist with recent work attempting to explore journeys of identity and ancestry. Sherwin's creative practice tends to deconstruct the imaginative and physical journey of identity within his preferred subject matter, the human experience. 

Recent projects build upon experimental ideas of encompassing various mixed materials with traditional sculpture; lighting, sound and solar power that he refers to as Sustainable Sonic Sculpture. His public sculpture “Sky's the Limit in the County of Kings’ fused the identity of Brooklyn Hip-Hop Legend The Notorious B.I.G., with his musical legacy into a sonic monument including light and a dedicated audio mix by his mentor DJ Mister Cee. The intention is to combat future erasure of black genius and legacy by reintroducing the multi-dimensional contributions of Hip-Hop Legends, through a multi-sensory experience of Monumentality.

Banfield holds a BFA with honors from Parsons School of Design and studied figurative sculpture at The Art Students League of New York. He is a recipient of the Augusta Savage Grant with the National Sculpture Society, the Harlem Sculpture Garden Fellowship, the Downtown Brooklyn + Dumbo Art Fund Grant, the AnkhLave Public Artist-In-Residence Fellowship, the NYC Art in the Parks: Alliance for FMCP Grant, the Socrates Annual Emerging Artist Fellowship, the Fantasy Fund Fellowship at Modern Art Foundry and the Art Students League of New York’s Works in Public Fellowship (formally Model to Monument Fellowship). 

(Sherwin’s work was the subject of the last issue of INSIDE/OUTSIDE - read it here)

Tom Finkelpearl

Tom Finkelpearl 
Social Practice Teaching Scholar-in-Residence, CUNY
https://socialpracticecuny.org/about/

Tom Finkelpearl has been a curator, writer, museum director and public official. As Public Art Program Director of the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA), Finkelpearl managed over 100 public art commissions in the 1990s. He organized fifteen shows at PS1 in the 1980s, spearheaded a 50,000 square foot expansion as Director of the Queens Museum (2002-2014), and oversaw the city’s cultural funding when he returned to DCLA as Commissioner (2014-2020). Recently he co-curated a show of Christine Sun Kim’s work at the Whitney Museum of American Art. 

Currently he is working on his third book, an assessment of the challenges facing North American art museums in collaboration with Pablo Helguera, while teaching part time at CUNY. His previous books are Dialogues in Public Art (MIT Press, 2000) and What We Made: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation (Duke University Press, 2013). Finkelpearl is Social Practice Teaching Scholar-in-Residence at City University of New York. He earned a BA at Princeton University, and an MFA Hunter College.

Denise Markonish

Denise Markonish
Martin Friedman Chief Curator at Madison Square Park
https://madisonsquarepark.org/art/

Denise Markonish is the Martin Friedman Chief Curator at Madison Square Park, starting in June 2025. For the previous 18 years, she was at  MASS MoCA where her exhibitions include Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream...(co-organized with the Contemporary Art Museum Houston); Jeffrey Gibson: POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT; Joseph Grigely: In What Way Wham?; Glenn Kaino: In the Light of a Shadow; Suffering from Realness; Trenton Doyle Hancock, Mind of the Mound: Critical Mass; Nick Cave: Until (co-organized with Crystal Bridges and Carriageworks); Explode Every Day: An Inquiry into the Phenomena of Wonder; Teresita Fernández: As Above So Below; Oh, Canada; and Nari Ward: Sub Mirage Lignum. 

She has worked on long-term projects with Laurie Anderson, and commissioned works by Sarah Oppenheimer, Stephen Vitiello, Julianne Swartz, Mark Dion, and many others. Markonish has produced numerous exhibition catalogues and edited Teresita Fernández: Wayfinding (DelMonico) and Wonder: 50 Years of RISD Glass, and co-edited Sol LeWitt: 100 Views (Yale University Press). She has taught at Williams College and the Rhode Island School of Design and was a visiting curator at Artpace, San Antonio, and Haystack School of Craft, Deer Isle, Maine. 

Mia Pearlman

Mia Pearlman
Artist and Moderator
https://www.miapearlman.com

Mia Pearlman has exhibited internationally in numerous galleries, non-profit spaces and museums, including the MSU Broad Art Museum (Michigan), Museum of Arts and Design (NYC), Goyang Aram Gallery (South Korea), Smack Mellon (Brooklyn, NY), the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington DC), and the Manchester Art Gallery (UK).

Permanent commissions include large scale, site specific sculptures for Liberty Mutual's headquarters (Boston), the 80th Street A Train station for MTA Arts & Design (Queens, NY), MGM Springfield (Springfield, MA), Zhongshan Huafa Plaza (Zhongshan, China), and Baptist Medical Clay (Fleming Island, FL), as well as paper installations and sculptures for Leon Max (London) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (NY).

Her work has been featured in over 25 books on contemporary art, and in both international and domestic press, including The New York Times, New York Magazine, The New York Post, and The Boston Globe. Pearlman has also appeared on PBS Thirteen’s SundayArts, the Smithsonian Channel, Spain’s TV3, and NY1.

Pearlman lives and works in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and artistic collaborator, Catalan pianist and composer Albert Marques, and their two children.

Seph Rodney

Seph Rodney
Freelance writer, editor and curator
https://www.sephrodney.com

Seph Rodney, PhD is a regular contributor to The New York Times and a former senior critic and opinions editor for Hyperallergic. In 2020, he won the Rabkin Arts Journalism prize and in 2022 won the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. After beginning to curate shows in 2017, he last co-curated Get in the Game, the largest show mounted by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which reopens at Crystal Bridges Museum in September of 2025 and at the Pérez Art Museum Miami in 2026. He is also a co-editor of "Artists as Writers: Living and Sustaining a Creative Life."

(Seph is the author of the article “Are We Asking Too Much of Public Art,” a question we will discuss during the panel!

Looking forward to seeing you on October 15th!

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

Last night at 3am (yay insomnia!) I was wondering why ghosting has become so common in public art, and everywhere else. At least being married I don’t get ghosted by dates anymore! In fact, the only place I experience ghosting these days is in my professional life.

A few months ago an art consulting firm from Asia got in touch about an exciting possible project, and before I knew it we were having late night Zoom calls with the whole team and sending reams of emails back and forth about what looked like a very likely collaboration. They submitted the proposal to the client, and things drastically slowed down. I checked in once a month, and at some point they just stopped returning my emails.

Listen, I am a grown ass lady and I can handle it if the client decided to go in another direction, or cut the budget, or whatever. It happens ALL THE TIME. Being an artist is like 85% rejection. Maybe 98%.

But why the ghosting? I’ll never know what happened. And I would like to.

There is no way to predict when ghosting will happen or with whom. Nonetheless, artists wind up wondering why there is suddenly a veil of secrecy so thick even an email can’t get through.

There are basically two main ways to get public art projects in my experience. Please comment below if I am missing others!

1. You throw your hat in the ring for an RFQ usually created by a municipal/transit/airport/etc art program adminstrator, or sometimes by a private consultant. You are one of maybe hundreds, and a committee or jury evaluates from the pool and picks a few finalists to do proposals for a fee.
   

2. A private art advisor reaches out with an opportunity. Sometime this is early stage: they are showing a ton of artists to a usually private client like a corporation, in order to see what they like and winnow down to a few finalists. Other times they can get in touch at the finalist stage, or even at the very end of the process. I have been contacted after I was already selected! Now THAT is a great surpise.

In either scenario, these days you often never learn the result of the process. Some RFQ managers and private consultants are fantastic at letting artists know if they were chosen or not, and sometimes we even learn who made it to the final round. This is very educational, and I always appreciate it. Many a time I have looked at the finalists’ work and thought, “Welp, I know why they didn’t choose me. Not what they were looking for!” But much of the time, it’s crickets.

Have you been ghosted, or <journalist voice> do YOU enjoy ghosting? Is there an upside to ghosting that I’ve missed?

Compared to everything that’s going on in the world, ghosting is barely what I would consider a problem. But I sure want to know what actually happened with that project in Asia so I can stop thinking about it at 3am!!

REMINDER: The next PUBLIC ART PARTY is on Wednesday, October 15th at the lovely Sugar Hill Children’s Museum! I hope to see you there.

Click here for tickets

Hope to see you there! Please comment below about ghosting IF YOU DARE!

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

Happy back to school to all who celebrate…especially us artists who can finally return to the studio!

BIG NEWS: the next PUBLIC ART PARTY will take place on October 15th at the Sugar Hill Museum in Harlem!

I am so excited to be back at Sugar Hill after participating in the exhibition Structural Play last year. The panel is going to be excellent…stay tuned for more info and to purchase tickets.

Now back to the subject at hand: public art and hip hop…

My previous newsletter on this topic focused on murals and 2D public art that expresses, honors and/or is influenced by hip hop music and culture. This newsletter is all about SCULPTURE. 

The artists and work mentioned here are so interesting, they each deserve their own essay. No doubt there are many other amazing artists and works I wasn’t able to highlight. I hope you’ll click on the links below and learn more.

Bayeté Ross Smith - Hip Hop 50 Boombox

“I let my tape rock 'til my tape popped / Smoking weed and bamboo, sipping on private stock." - The Notorious B.I.G.

https://www.bayeterosssmith.com/

Sugarcane and cotton boombox sculpture - Lenfest Center for the Arts at Columbia University

Let’s kick it off with Harlem-based artist Bayeté Ross Smith, whose Hip Hop 50 Boombox series and public Boombox sculptures both celebrate and actually play hip hop music. I listened to his mixtape, which accompanied his “Got The Power Boomboxes” installation at the Apollo and New Victoria theaters in Harlem, while writing this newsletter—you can listen while reading it!

From the artist: “Hip Hop 50 Boombox is a series of monuments, public events, & mixtapes that examine Hip Hop as a global liberation movement rooted in the history of the sugar, tobacco and cotton industries; and resistance to colonialism. These site-specific sculptural monuments are constructed out of sugarcane and cotton boomboxes. They play mixtapes made of people’s favorite freedom songs, their personal stories and interludes from historians discussing the history of the sugar, tobacco and cotton industries and their impact on the Americas, Europe and Africa.” 

This 10+ year long project engages the public in various ways: inviting viewers to interact with the sculptures themselves, listen to the soundtracks and mixtapes, contribute a song or oral history, or attend a live event. A former photojournalist, Ross Smith thoughtfully mixes (and remixes) stories, research and music to evoke hip hop and its deep and complex roots. In one track you can hear Ella singing “Take the A Train” overlaid with narration that includes colonial history and cultural analysis. 

Visually, the rectilinear towers, made of salvaged boomboxes or cast from sugar and cotton, are both powerful and fragile. To me, they slyly wink at (or maybe elbow) the very white male history of minimalism (think Richard Serra’s Corten blocks); evoke memories of giant boomboxes on the subway blasting KRS-One between splayed knees or hefted on shoulders; and reflect the cubic urban streetscape where hip hop was born. I’m also reminded of many African artists, like El Anatsui and Moffat Takadiwa, who repurpose discarded materials in their work.

Boombox sculpture at the Montgomery Museum of Art in Alabama

I love the way these boombox sculptures celebrate the revolutionary, political origins of hip hop. Ross Smith says, “One thing I wanted to emphasize is that people don’t talk about how hip hop is a counterculture. So, the soundtrack that plays is a series of Pan-African and Pan-American hip hop freedom songs that illustrate that essential function of the genre as a global freedom and liberation movement. At this point, everything in the world has a little bit of hip hop in it, but I wanted to give light to the obscured, erased, and under-discussed parts of the genre.”

Hip hop’s subversive power is no joke, and here and abroad rappers have been attacked and even jailed for their lyrics. This is a big topic of conversation with my husband, composer and pianist Albert Marques (who you may have met running the bar at the April Public Art Party). His collaboration with Catalan rapper Pablo Hasél, who was convicted and imprisoned by the Spanish government for insulting the King of Spain in his lyrics, and Brooklyn-based rapper Samuel Omare, highlights how hip hop is still a potent and often dangerous way to speak truth to power. (You can read more about the project in Rolling Stone.)

Ja’Hari Ortega - Big Hoops to Fill

“I want a girl with extensions in her hair. Bamboo earrings. At least two pair.” – LL Cool J

https://www.instagram.com/ja_hari713/?hl=en

Photo Credit: Mel Taing

This “door knocker earring” swing brings me back to 9th grade, Bell Biv DeVoe and Triple F.A.T. Goose puffy coats. What a funny, smart and playful way to celebrate all the women in hip hop—rappers, graffiti artists, DJ’s, fashion designers, fans and music producers–who are often left out of the official history. I am ready to take my kids to Boston just to try it out!

“Ortega’s sculpture draws upon the cultural weight of bamboo hoop earrings, an iconic style of jewelry worn by many women of color that originated from early hip-hop culture and fashion, worn by performers such as Salt-N-Pepa, MC Lyte, Roxanne Shanté, and Queen Latifah, and featured in song lyrics by LL Cool J. As journalist Ivette Feliciano observes, these earrings ‘symbolize resistance and bear cultural significance [especially for] immigrant communities rooted in Indigenous and African traditions.’ ” - Rose Kennedy Greenway website

In fact, “Hoop earrings originated in Africa, dating back to Nubia, a civilization that existed in the fourth century in what is now present day Sudan. Earrings were seen as something that enhanced one’s beauty and sexuality” according to Yekaterina Barbas, Associate Curator of Egyptian Art at the Brooklyn Museum.

Photo Credit: Mel Taing

Yet despite this long and royal history, centering women of color in public space is somehow still controversial in 2025. As we saw in the bizarrely contentious reaction to British artist Thomas J. Price’s 12 foot tall sculpture of a Black woman “Grounded in the Stars” in Times Square, everyone has an opinion on how and whether women of color should exist in public.

To Ortega, “Big Hoops to Fill” celebrates women and offers opportunities to “heal one’s inner child, cultivate and encourage healthy multigenerational relationships, and foster confidence in one’s identity and culture.” Joy, self-expression, community and pride suffuse this generous and inventive work, inviting all people to partake.

Sherwin Banfield - Hip Hop Icons

"Now I’m the King of the Rhyme, the radio’s my domain / With my DJ’s, we bring the pain." - Run DMC

https://www.sherwinbanfield.com/

“YEEA-a-a-a-a-ah,” Banfield’s tribute to Kool DJ Red Alert

Queens-based sculptor Sherwin Banfield may be best known for his Kool DJ Red Alert sculpture titled “YEEA-a-a-a-a-ah” in West Harlem’s Montefiore Square. If you grew up in NY or the tristate area anytime in the last 40 years, you’ve probably heard Red Alert spin (and yell) on Kiss FM. He created the first ever mixtape compilation with Africa Bambaata back in the 70’s, and in four decades on the radio, Red Alert was an early supporter of A Tribe Called Quest, Queen Latifah, Black Sheep, Jungle Brothers, and many others.

Born in Trinidad and Tobago, hip hop helped welcome Banfield to Harlem as an immigrant. A graduate of Parson’s, he began making public art in 2017 after years of study and exhibitions here and abroad. Much of his work in the public realm celebrates hip hop. 

Banfield’s 2018 project “A Cypher in Queens” at Socrates Sculpture Park, “consists of three Audio Sculptures, each representing the sonic identities of three Legendary Fallen Artists from Queens, NY. One DJ (Jam Master Jay of RUN DMC) and two Emcees (Phife Dawg of A Tribe Called Quest and Prodigy of MOBB DEEP). These three Hip Hop Icons were chosen for their individuality, unique style of delivery, excellence and contribution to the Art-form of Hip Hop.”

(PS: this art is not dead! Head to Union Square on Friday nights or livestream Legendary Cyphers from May to November.)

In 2021, he debuted “The G.O.A.T,” a sculptural tribute to LL Cool J in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, home to the rapper. “Botanical Boombox: Queensbridge,” installed at the Queens Botanical Garden in 2022, “is a Sustainable Mini Greenhouse Boombox sculpture that houses a miniature public housing ecosystem…that symbolizes the voice of voiceless” including audio by a local Hip Hop Artist. 

“Sky’s the Limit in the county of Kings, A Tribute to The Notorious B.I.G.” (2022) is a sonic sculpture that reflects Biggie’s larger than life talent and importance in hip hop history, especially at home in Brooklyn where his image is still found on murals, coffee mugs, t-shirts and tattoos. 

​Like an African king surveying his lands, adored by his subjects, and feared by his enemies, this sculptural portrait evokes the aesthetics of Zamunda, Wakanda, and of course, the borough of Kings: over his heart we read the words “Spread love, it’s the Brooklyn way.” 

As Banfield notes, “The Notorious B.I.G. has such a lasting appeal because our Hip Hop culture recognizes his authenticity, his genius, his heart and his potential!  His authenticity mirrors the roots of Hip Hop, the voice of the voiceless, of disenfranchised black and brown youth who put their personal stories of hardship and fun on record." 

Eric Orr + Collab + Welder Underground - Rappin’ Max Robot

“I’m your hip hop lyrical robot and a real cool cat” - UB40

https://www.instagram.com/orrdesigns/?hl=en

Photo credit: Gabriele Holtermann

Artist Eric Orr grew up in the Bronx, obsessed with comics and drawing. When his high school friend Jazzy Jay, later a hip hop pioneer, started the music label Strong City, Orr got the chance to design logos and artwork for golden-era hip hop artists. He started to develop his comic “Rappin’ Max Robot” about a young robot boy named Max who waged rap battles and listened to music on his boombox, interspersed with ads for a local pizzeria, record shop and video store. 

In 1986, with the help of artist Keith Haring, Orr was able to print his first issue: “Keith Haring bought an ad on the back page of the comic book and helped fund the first printing along with other family and friends. I was able to go to a local Bronx printer and printed 500 copies.” While only 4 issues were released, Rappin’ Max Robot became an icon of early hip hop culture.

Issue #1 of Rappin’ Max Robot

Fast forward to 2024, when Brooklyn-based fabrication and design studio Collab came up with the idea to transform Max into an 8,000 pound steel and I-beam sculpture. Collab owners Marc and Adina Levin met Orr through their work on the Bronx’s new Hip Hop Museum and thought that Rappin’ Max Robot would make a great sculpture. To make this a reality, they formed Welder Underground, a non-profit that empowers a new generation of welders and metal fabricators through an innovative six-month “earn while you learn” apprenticeship program for young adults. This was the organization’s first project. 

The sculpture debuted at the Hip Hop Museum in August 2024, and after three months moved to Brooklyn Borough Hall Plaza. It will have a permanent home at the Place de la Bataille-de-Stalingrad in Paris.

It makes me so happy that young people got the opportunity to learn to weld and fabricate while honoring this legendary hip hop character, by a Bronx artist who was around the same age when he invented Rappin’ Max Robot.

Fabricators for the win!

Eto Otitigbe - Peaceful Journey

“Get up, party people, listen to this rap / Cause I'm about to go down and put my town on the map / MC Heavy D, delighted you'll be learnin / About the place where I rest, Moneyearnin' Mount Vernon” - Heavy D

https://www.etootitigbe.com/

“Peaceful Journey”

Brooklyn-based sculptor Eto Otitigbe’s proposal for “Peaceful Journey” was selected from among hundreds by ArtsWestchester to honor local hero Heavy D, whose 1987 song of the same title celebrates his hometown of Mount Vernon. 

Abstract in style, the sculpture forms an arch made of Vermont Fantastico Marble, and both stainless and COR-TEN steel. Says Otitigbe, “If you look at the artwork, it doesn’t visually strike you with anything that directly relates to Heavy D’s lyrics or anything of that nature. But what it does speak to is the idea of innovation and the idea of transition.”

After a childhood in upstate NY and Nigeria, Otitigbe attended MIT, and is currently an Associate Professor of Sculpture at Brooklyn College. A polymedia artist with an interdisciplinary practice, “his public art intersects history, community, and biophilic design by using parametric modeling and generative design to transform historical and cultural references into biomorphic forms and patterns that reference nature.”

In an interview in Westchester Arts Magazine, Otitigbe explained that “The hexagon is a signifier for strength and harmony. As one passes under the archway and looks up, the view of the sky is pixelated by a hexagonal grid. Even the surface of the metal will transform over time as the COR‐TEN steel weathers and changes color. The stone monolith also conveys a sense of balance and affirmation while its surface carries an organic fluid pattern; evidence of the stone’s transformation over time.”

“Peaceful Journey”

One has to wonder what Heavy D, who died in 2011 at only 44 years old, would think about this abstract gateway. It is a “peaceful journey,” not a provocation. This sculpture doesn’t evoke nostalgia, political debate, hip hop history or amusement. Perhaps it’s best seen as a memorial closer to what you would find in a cemetery: stately, austere and quietly honoring a beloved (and much flashier) public figure.

It’s been fascinating to delve into the relationship between hip hop and public art. But I know I only scraped the surface. What did I miss? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please comment below! Reading this in your email? Click “Read Online” at the very top right of your email for the website and comment box.

Again, I can’t wait to see all of you on October 15th for the next PUBLIC ART PARTY! I hope to send out the invite next week. In the meantime, please save the date and get ready to dig deep into some of the hottest topics in public art today.

More soon,

Mia

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

How’s everyone doing? Sending strength to everyone limping toward the last day of school…we can do this!

For this third newsletter, I considered writing about Trump’s cuts to the GSA, a possible fire sale of federally-owned public art, and his predictably tacky “Garden of Heroes” idea, but I think we’ve all heard enough bad news of late.

Which brings me to the fun stuff…PUBLIC ART AND HIP HOP!

Did you read “Lupe Fiasco on How MIT’s Public Artworks Inspired His Bold New Rap Project” in Artnet on May 7th? An MIT Visiting Scholar since 2020, where he teaches rap theory and practice (um, can I go to MIT please?), Fiasco became inspired by the huge collection of public art on campus and started improvising outdoors in front of sculptures by Alexander Calder, Antony Gormley, Jaume Plensa (and hopefully some non-white men).

Lupe Fiasco. Photo: Karl Ray.

He’s now recorded 7 tracks available on a self-guided walking tour of the campus public art collection. Has anyone done tour of MIT yet? Tell us about it in the comments!

Jacques Lipchitz, Birth of the Muses (1944–50). Photo courtesy of MIT.

Fiasco originally rapped about the sculptures’ aesthetics, but soon dug deeper: “Initially, it was just like what the piece looks like. But that approach evolved into who did it and why, more biographical stuff. Then it went into just pure expression. The latest work from 2025 is more about what it means to the space, what it means to the institute.”

Now, rappers name checking visual art is nothing new. Since Slick Rick’s Mona Lisa and many times since, rap lyrics have mentioned artists from da Vinci to Basquiat to represent quality and sophistication, brag about wealth, and show appreciation for beauty. 

Slick Rick (clearly a minimalist)

I wondered: has public art been mentioned in hip hop before Lupe Fiasco? And what about hip hop mentioned in public art? 

Immediately I was flooded with memories, from my Mom’s boyfriend publishing one of the first books on graffiti art when I was a kid, to walking by the Comandante Biggie mural a million times when I lived in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Hip hop street art is alive and well all over the nation, and this is just one NY example of many. 

There’s a long and storied history of murals celebrating or memorializing hip hop legends, and graffiti is a core visual expression of hip hop culture:

“Colloquially, we tend to think of hip-hop as the predecessor and blueprint for contemporary rap. But hip hop describes a collection of cultural production, which includes four pillars; MCing (lyricism), DJing (audio), breakdancing/b-boying (movement dance), and graffiti/writing (visual). Other facets of this youth-led subculture include fashion, language/slang, and knowledge of the movement and its influences…Other modes of street art, like murals, installations, and posters put up without permission are distinguishable from writing and graffiti, but can still overlap.” -Lucy Ferguson, Krog Codex, an archive of Atlanta graffiti art

Tribute to late Hip-Hop producer and MC, MF DOOM. Digital Photograph, June 17th, 2023. Krog Codex Archive, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia.

From the heyday of individual artists like Lady Pink making art with spray paint and no permits, to music festival murals, and even corporations like Spotify and Snapchat finding yet more ways to make a buck off Black culture (I hope local artist J. Cole got PAID), murals are low cost, high impact artworks that often become beloved members of the local community.

Lady Pink

Contemporary artists like Nina Chanel Abney paint murals that fuse politics and hip hop aesthetics, not just in urban downtowns but on a greenway trail in North Arkansas. How does the meaning of this work change for audiences in very different locations? I would love to watch local daytrippers encounter this mural in the wild.

Nina Chanel Abney, “Mull it Over, 2020, Bentonville Razorback greenway trail. Part of the public art initiative called ARkanvas, a statewide engagement curated by women-led global curator group Justkids and commissioned by OZ Art in partnership with Unexpected, bringing public art by world-renowned artists to Arkansas communities.

If you’re like me, you may be wondering: what about sculpture? Is there three dimensional public art inspired by hip hop? Does it mainly honor individuals and rappers, visualize rap music, express the aesthetics and sensibilities of hip hop culture and fashion? Does it have sound, is it kinetic, fun, interactive? The answer is YES. ;)

In fact, public sculpture inspired by hip hop is so varied, I’m going to write an entire newsletter about it! So as the Jungle Brothers said (yes I am that old)...

Come on, come on and stick with me
I'll keep things the way they should be
Keep your house until you sweat
'Cause you ain't seen nothin' yet

Please comment below with your favorite examples of hip hop in public art, including your own!

Any hip hop public art projects in the works? Let’s give these artists a shout out.

Until next next time…

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

Hi public art peeps,

I hope everyone isn’t worn out from mentally willing the clock to tick faster on this Friday (here in the western hemisphere)! The week is almost over….really. I promise.

I’d like to share a terrific article, “Beyond the Bronze: How the Public‑Art Process Shapes—and Sometimes Strangles—Creative Possibility” by Iryna Kanishcheva and Oaklianna Caraballo, on the website Monochronicle. They clearly lay out the many frustrations that artists and art administrators feel about the RFQ process, and ask some important questions.

READ HERE: https://monochronicle.com/beyond-the-bronze/

For example, why do we have to write a one page letter of interest for an RFQ that asks about our “approach” to the project, a 250 word version for another opportunity that explicitly demands the opposite, and a third RFQ that only wants an artist statement crammed into 1,000 characters? It’s maddening. 

Same for renaming our images 20 different ways, some to be uploaded into a platform, others embedded in a PDF to be emailed. If high school students can apply to 1,000 colleges with a common application, why can’t we standardize RFQ’s?

Kanishcheva and Caraballo also confront the issue of “community engagement” discussed in my previous newsletter. What does community engagement mean? And how do we know when it’s been a success? Is it necessary? Who evaluates it?

The article asks how the composition of a public art panel or jury affects the outcome. I think almost every public artist has experienced presenting their work in front of a group of people, some of whom look bored out of their minds, or are visibly checking their watches. Were they assigned by their boss to be there? Are they even interested in public art? 

One suspects that the outcome of such a panel will likely be a commission to a very experienced (often white male) artist who has realized a version of the same proposal in 10+ other places. No risk, questionable reward.

This type of panel structure can also affect choice of medium or form. Metal or stone are safer bets than materials like light, video, projection and other less clearly “durable” or “low maintenance” materials. 

What the article does not broach is the (to me) essential question of what is public art for, anyway? Why is all of this money, time and energy devoted to the commissioning of art for public spaces, and what is expected in return?

Is the purpose to beautify, memorialize, create wayfinding, placemake, or elevate the history of a community? To illustrate a narrative about a place or people? Is it to support visual artists by giving us opportunities to make ambitious art that we could never afford to create otherwise?

Many artists have expressed frustration to me about this last point. They ask, “If this RFQ was for art, why did an architect or designer win? They aren’t artists, and what they make isn’t art, it’s design. How is that fair?”

It seems to me, as a New Yorker who remembers the Richard Serra “Tilted Arc” controversy and several others, that the increasing bureaucratization of public art may also stifle artistic risk-taking and innovation. When art has to be likable by everyone from the billionaire real estate developer to the bored panelist to the local grandma, what is lost? Are these systems and requirements actually filtering out potential greatness?

I’d love to know what YOU think! What kind of changes, if any, do you think would benefit the public art world, and public art in general? What work isn’t getting chosen that should be, and why? What barriers have you experienced to a successful public art project?

Please share your thoughts in the comments! Or email them to me and I will post them anonymously: studio@miapearlman.com.

Have a great weekend, and Happy Mother’s Day to all my fellow moms!

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com

Welcome to INSIDE/OUTSIDE! Whether you joined the PUBLIC ART PARTY in person last Wednesday, hope to attend the next one (more about that below) or are reading this from another continent, I’m thrilled to meet you here.

My name is Mia Pearlman, and I’m a sculptor, public artist, and the organizer of last week’s PUBLIC ART PARTY.  In conjunction with my solo exhibition INSIDE/OUTSIDE at FXCollaborative in Brooklyn, NY of new work and a retrospective of my public art, I decided to create a community building event for all of us.

You see, every time I go to a public art panel in NY, I look around the audience and think, “There are probably 50 people here I would like to meet, or some I may already know, or who might even want to meet me.” Then the panel ends, and we all run to the subway! There’s no time to schmooze (that’s Yiddish for “talk in an informal and warm manner”).

I realized that we don’t have natural places to connect. Public art doesn't have gallery openings, residencies or art fairs. The only way we will come together as a community is if someone makes it happen. I figured that since I have this show up until May 21 about public art, that someone could be me! So I concocted an evening with a little bit of panel, and a whole lotta schmooze.

THE PANEL

We were honored to hear from a powerhouse panel from different sectors of the public art world, moderated by yours truly. The audience ranged from artists to fabricators, public art administrators, architects, private art consultants, real estate developers and more. 

Panel from left: Mia Pearlman (artist and moderator), John Usdan (CEO of Midwood Investment & Development), Margaret Johnson (Principal and Senior Curator at UAP), Kendal Henry (Assistant Commissioner of Public Art, NYC Culture), Sandra Bloodworth (Principal of Bloodworth Arts International), and Kimberly Landa (President of Kinzelman Art Consulting).

I came up with an unconventional format, because everyone in this room was an expert in their field: I asked the panelists questions, and then they asked the audience questions, with a Q&A at the end. With a 45 minute time limit to maximize schmooze time and six panelists, my goal was to keep the conversation inclusive, brisk and relevant to all. 

My first question was to Kendal: how do you balance the trend for community engagement/research/input/etc with the aesthetic and other demands of public art? 

Many artists had privately expressed frustration to me that RFQ’s increasingly demand some type of “community” engagement, input or activity, without defining what that means, whether artists will have support to make it happen, how long it takes, the cost, or what the outcome is supposed to be. 

Some artists like this requirement, but others feel like it’s just another hoop to jump through, and doesn’t necessarily lead to better artistic outcomes or a warmer response from the community.

Kendal explained in detail how his team navigates these demands by ensuring artists have copious research about each site’s local community, and structuring community involvement throughout the process. But in the end, the commission is awarded on the basis of artistic merit above all. 

He asked a thought-provoking question: what is community engagement? 

Kendal pointed out that everyone in the room probably has a different definition of what that means. This question will definitely be the subject of a future newsletter, so please share your definition of “community engagement” in the comments section (you have to create a login and password to comment).

Each of the panelists made so many interesting points, I could write a book! Here are some highlights:

Response to John from Rose DeSiano, artist

Sandra asked the audience which public art works filled them with awe, and people called out many names, from Hilma’s Ghost (recently installed mosaic in the subway at Grand Central) to Jaume Plensa’s heads and more. She emphasized that the MTA brings art to the public realm to impact peoples' day to day lives and create memorable experiences.

She also described the methodology used by MTA Arts and Design to guide artists at every step, including community research and engagement, and how having a defined procurement system with clear guidelines prevents mismanagement, political interference, and other types of problems.

Sandra’s advice about systems was partially a response to John, who related that as a real estate developer, commissioning public art can create major headaches. He said that “outside groups” and “special interests” can hijack the art process to interfere with zoning, permit approvals and construction. Sandra suggested that hiring an in-house public art administrator would prevent these issues.

John’s comments sparked some controversy, but led to a spirited conversation. Some people responded that public art is an opportunity to collaborate with the local community, that this friction isn’t necessarily conflict. The inherent tension between having a strong artistic vision and appealing to regular people is what makes public art unique. One artist said (I’m paraphrasing) that he did not want his work to aid gentrification.

The purpose of this event was to learn from each other, and whether or not we agree, I believe that hearing other perspectives can only help us collaborate.

We also discussed the importance of educating the client, whether that’s a corporation, developer, members of a public art jury or a municipal project lead. 

Kimberly explained how educating her public art clients and private art collectors is a long term investment that produces big results. For example, clients may not know at the start of a project what type of art they want, their aesthetic preferences, budget, and other considerations. Her role is to help them clarify these goals and desires in order to select the best artist and work for their site.

Comment from Curator and Arts Planner Jennifer McGregor

Margaret was kind enough to answer the dreaded “tariff question,” as she often works with artists to have their work fabricated in Shanghai with UAP. I asked specifically if tariffs and other economic conditions (the depressed commercial art market, material costs, inflation, supply chain issues, etc) had affected artist selection or the ambition of clients to commission art. Happily, she hasn’t seen it affect her projects in those ways so far.

We could have gone on for another hour, but then we would have missed…

THE PARTY

Good cheer, lots of food, and a ridiculous amount of wine…

As I’d imagined, there is a huge hunger for community in the public art world!

I charged the audience with a mission: “Your quest tonight, should you choose to accept it, is to talk to every other color and shape name tag in the room.” Everyone accepted with gusto.

Proudly showing off our primary color and shape name tags (each sector got their own), we got down to business: having fun.

It’s hard to describe the vibe of a good party, but I can say that the enthusiasm to meet, reconnect, talk and make friends was off the HOOK. Some people had traveled from California, Florida, Colorado and elsewhere just for this event to meet new people. Others ran into colleagues from decades-old projects. One woman exclaimed to another, “You exist from the neck down! I’ve only ever seen you on Zoom!”

New and old friends, unite!

In fact, at 8:30pm, having demolished the food and most of the absurd quantity of wine and beer I’d supplied, they had to push us out the door. When I finally got downstairs 10 minutes later with all my serving platters and extra drinks, about 20 people were still partying on the sidewalk. As one attendee told me the next day, “it was wonderful.”

The party’s success was also thanks to two amazing volunteers: my husband Albert Marques (fresh off a sold-out tour) and Xenia Diente, Deputy Director of Public Art for the NYC Department of Design and Construction. Thank you both!

Duffield street afterparty!

WHAT’S NEXT?

About 200 people have asked me when the next PUBLIC ART PARTY will be. Pencil in September 2025 and April 2026. I’m working on it!

Both parties will be in NYC, but if you can’t attend, I encourage you to create a local event! Buy some beer and invite other fabricators to your shop. Moderate a panel of local experts. Have BYOB public art studio visits. It doesn’t have to be big or fancy or expensive. The key word is community.

TALK AMONGST YOURSELVES

Before the next PUBLIC ART PARTY, please use the comment section to talk, make recommendations for the next party, share takeaways from this one, and ideas for future newsletters. Make friends, hire each other, connect! 

PLEASE NOTE: you have to create a login and password in order to comment.

This newsletter will be sent approximately once a month, or as I have free time (haha, what is free time?). Future issues will cover topics mentioned above, public art news, interviews, and more. Please forward it to anyone who would be interested!

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

We are currently living through a political, economic and climate crisis that affects us all. We need each other now more than ever! To make it through this, we have to come together to share advice, commiserate, rally, test out solutions and find ways forward. And we will.

Thanks for reading alllllll the way to the end. I can’t wait to see you in the comments!

Mia Pearlman
http://miapearlman.com