Public Art: Demystifying the Process

May 19, 2011
New York Foundation for the Arts

In this panel about public art, speakers “de-mystify” the process by talking about strategies and best practices for success, from the perspective of both the artist and the arts administrator.

Moderator:

Rachel Sandweiss Gourvitz
Program Officer, Fiscal Sponsorship, Artspire/New York Foundation for the Arts

Panelists:

Lisa Kim, Cultural Affairs Director of Two Trees Management. Ms. Kim comes from Gagosian Gallery, where she has held several positions including Director of Operations and Exhibitions, private collection manager for owner Larry Gagosian and managed construction of the Gallery’s 24th Street branch. She has also been the director of the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art Program, a program that commissions artists to create site-specific, permanent public art works at City-owned sites. She currently produces the annual Dumbo Arts Festival, seeks out partnerships for public art projects and creative incubators, oversees the cultural growth and promotion of the neighborhood, and formalizes the structure and mission of the Walentas Family Foundation. Lisa Kim was born in Korea and raised in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. She graduated from Barnard College, where she discovered a passion for art and majored in Art History with a concentration in Visual Arts. Kim holds an M. I. D. / in Industrial Design from the Pratt Institute.”

Kelly Pajek, Deputy Director of Percent for Art. In her fourteen years working in public art Kelly has commissioned both emerging, and established artists in the development of over 70 permanent works of art nationally. Prior to joining the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art program in 2007 she spent two years implementing a master plan for Fort Worth Public Art, a then new 2% for art program in the city ofFort Worth,Texas. From 1997 to 2005 Kelly curated and managed public art projects for theNew York Citysubway as part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts for Transit program. Awards for projects Kelly has curated and managed have included the New York City Design Commission Award for Excellence in Design, Americans for the Arts Public Art Network Year in Review, New York Landmarks Conservancy, Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award and the Municipal Arts Society, New York City Masterworks Award.

Mary Miss, Artist. Mary Miss has reshaped the boundaries between sculpture, architecture, landscape design, and installation art by articulating a vision of the public sphere where it is possible for an artist to address the issues of our time. She has developed the ‘City as Living Lab’, a framework for making issues of social and environmental sustainability tangible through collaboration and the arts. Trained as a sculptor, her work creates situations emphasizing a site’s history, its ecology, or aspects of the environment that have gone unnoticed.