{"id":56713,"date":"2017-03-06T10:00:25","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T15:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=56713"},"modified":"2017-03-07T09:49:05","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T14:49:05","slug":"artful-city-year-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2017\/03\/06\/artful-city-year-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Artful City: A Year in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By: Jeff Biggar and Ilana Altman<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Artful City<\/a> was formed in 2015 with a simple mission to investigate public art in Toronto and spark a dialogue about its limitations and opportunities. The City\u2019s downtown was continuing to develop at breakneck speed, but the role of public art in shaping the public realm around new buildings seemed like an afterthought. Meanwhile, knowledge of how public art is commissioned and funded was restricted to insiders. In our minds, a growing interest in public art suggested a need to streamline public discourse on the topic with discussions of how works get produced, including representing all the professionals and community groups involved. As a starting point, it felt appropriate to understand the evolution of public art from an historical perspective. We wanted to understand the past to situate the present, so we could ask the right questions and raise the most important issues that may start to push public art in new, forward-thinking directions. On that note, we are excited to share with you some of activities of the collective from the past two years.<\/p>\n

In early 2016, the Artful City launched a blog series with Spacing to convene a conversation about public art in Toronto, provoke questions about policy and governance issues, and stimulate dialogue and debate among artists, architects, developers, consultants, policy wonks, city officials, and educators who have a stake in public art and its contribution to the city. Our contributors represented these groups of people, with pieces ranging from measuring the success of public art programs<\/a>, to interviews with artists pushing the boundaries of how public art is conceived and consumed,<\/a> and calls for revamping Toronto\u2019s public art commissioning process with artists in mind.<\/a> Cognizant that many folks consider public art to be more than autonomous objects in space, the blog included perspectives on the role of community arts as public art<\/a>, as well as pieces that capture a growing argument for temporary and durational work over permanent<\/a> ones. We also took these issues offline and put them in conversation at the FORMS festival<\/a> and Losing Site<\/a>, an upcoming panel discussion co-presented by OCAD University and the AGO. It remains clear from our contributors\u2019 passion for the subject that the interest in public art is alive and growing.<\/p>\n

While the blog series continued, the Artful City was hard at work on an ambitious mapping effort to better understand the growth and composition of Toronto\u2019s public art landscape over the past 50 years. We spent a year gathering data, in collaboration with the Martin Prosperity Institute<\/a>, from isolated City databases and consolidated everything into one central place. The result is a first-of-its kind visualization of formally tracked public art projects. The work is presented in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario, and currently on view in their Community Gallery<\/a> until May 21, 2017.<\/p>\n

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The Artful City Public Art Mapping, 1967-2015. (See slideshow below for timeline).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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