Multiplying the Horizons of Public Art

This paper approaches the question of public art’s democratic value and its situating in-between policies and politics by engaging with discussions of ‘artist-as-planners’. Here public art emerges less as a work of art than as a process of interrogating and opening new spaces for urban development beyond dominant planning principles. While experiments with ‘artists-as-planners’ are rare, they have nevertheless been promoted in both planning theory and art theory as offering valuable lessons for the planning profession as well as for artists. Specifically, the paper engages with the recent methods support developed by Public Art Agency Sweden in collaboration with six state property developers to support new ways of involving artists in the construction of public institutions.