90.5 WESA: The city this week began accepting applications from artists for $500,000 in projects in its five regional parks, including Frick, Schenley, Riverview, Highland and Emerald View; those funds are part of an Allegheny Regional Asset District (ARAD) Art in Parks grant. City officials said another $300,000 will go toward other projects later this year.
12 comments:
I am so excited for these art installations. I think that this is a wonderful opportunity to feature art from BIPOC artists and I hope that the people in charge of selecting artists recognize this opportunity and are inclusive in their selections. I have always loved the idea of public art installations and they seems to add so much to the city that they are in. Because of this I can't wait to see what the chosen artist can do with the given budgets to improve my city that I already love so much. The chosen parks for these installations are also some of my favorite and I will definitely be making a point to visit all of the pieces once they are finished. The freedom that these artist are being given in their creations is also ver y exciting, and the impute from the community will guarantee very different and unique pieces in each park.
This is so wonderful. I am glad the city is investing in art for its public spaces. It is going to help local artists so much. I have always thought that the best cities to visit have the best art. Certain murals and sculptures can become part of a cities identity so I think this initiative will also benefit Pittsburgh’s tourism. I was happy that they said they wanted a diverse pool of applicants it made me even want to apply. Although I’m probably not actually qualified since I’ve only sculpted one bronze monument. I hope they commission some murals as well as sculptures. In parts of the city with closed shops I’ve seen some pretty cool murals covering the boarded up windows. I think they did that to increase moral/hope because of the sad nature of what the pandemic has done to the local business. Who wants to look at boarded up windows? Anyway, I can’t wait to see all the art at the end of this!
This really reminded me of another aspect of my life that has been taken away by COVID, the public performances. Although the article mainly discusses the art installations that have more to do with sculptures or buildings, I miss walking on the street and stopping for a bit watching the street performers playing their instruments or guerrilla events. Arts that we randomly encounter on the streets offer different type of joy as we don’t usually expect to run into them, different from the theatrical performances where we actually need to buy a ticket and go to certain location to watch the performance. Anyway, it is really nice to read that city is providing the local artists the space to express their creativity, and even though I could not watch them with my own eyes at the moment, I look forward to going to Pittsburgh to see the artworks from various artists.
I love this! I’m so glad to see Pittsburgh funding public art and supporting local artists and artist teams. Hopefully, there will be a large group of artists selected to create proposals. We are all well aware of how hard hit the arts have been due to the pandemic. Public art is such an important element to brighten public spaces and also give space for people to use their voices. Seeing public art during my day-to-day life is wonderful, and I am excited to see these commissions come into being throughout my time here in Pittsburgh. It will give me more excuses to explore the city– something I absolutely love to do! While COVID obviously restricts how much I am out and about, I hope to see more of the art here in Pittsburgh, especially in the parks, soon. $800,000 sounds like a lot of money; I look forward to seeing this move forward.
I was so excited to see and read about an article about Pittsburgh! I just moved here for the first time for the second semester, and it’s great to be introduced to the artistic culture and community here. With the many museums, theaters, and pretty architecture, having these sculptures is so fitting for the culture here. I have yet to take a stroll around Schenley or any of the other parks listed, so it will be a great treat to see how these public art projects develop and come to fruition. Given that Pittsburgh isn’t the wealthiest city, I am grateful for the money the city has allocated to this. It really shows the sense of culture Pittsburgh is fostering and I am looking forward to getting more familiar with it. I wonder if the city would ever want to add more art throughout the city in forms of galleries and statues you would see around the streets simply walking around from place to place.
This is certainly an exciting use of funds from the government and reminds me of the works-projects administration. The great depression truly led to some fantastic examples of art and ingenuity, all publicly funded. Especially during this pandemic, artists were the first to go out and will probably be the last to come back and extraneous spending has been put on hold by many companies. Frick and Schenley are the two parks I really know well and most of the art I can think of are statues from quite a long time ago which is both simultaneously sad and exciting. The nice part is that even if the statues were built 70 years ago, they are still standing, but the sad part is that they don’t represent our current society. Schenley has the current statue of Cristopher Columbus that has been recommended to be pulled down and replaced with something more contemporary.
This is such an exciting and worthwhile endeavor for the city of Pittsburgh to be pursuing. At a time in our country where there are so many blatantly racist sculptures still up on municipal land (Pittsburgh included), it is exciting to see that PGH is pursuing and supporting the sharing of art in our public places like the parks. Living off of Wilkins Ave, I am one block away from the Wightman park which was just recently redesigned to be a more modern style park. The playground is a super interesting form and all of the structures and terraces are extremely unique. Across the park, there are several featured sculptures that light up at night. This is so much more welcoming than seeing a bronze statue of some racist white man that doesn’t say anything about us as a culture of people. These new works going up in parks are much more reflective of our diverse population and I am extremely excited that this is something Pittsburgh is committing to.
As a current resident of Pittsburgh, this is really exciting. Winter is currently coming to a close, which means that milling around parks and the general outside world is going to become a lot easier and more comfortable, which also means that it will happen more frequently. Not only are these monuments going to help create an environment that will be much more pleasing to look at, but they will also create jobs. Someone is going to have to make these pieces, to the very least install them. Overall I think that the city’s investment in the arts will be worthwhile. These are long-term projects, so it makes me happy that they are now underway. Funding the arts often reads like a luxury and not a need, but if we look back at what we have been doing this past year – watching movies and tv shows, reading books, re-decorating our spaces – it becomes abundantly clear art is a necessity: it’s part of what keeps us going.
I love this! Very exciting for Pittsburgh to be doing this. I am really liking this on the heels of Pittsburgh's decision to remove the Christopher Columbus statue in Schenley Park, and now this initiative will give so many artists in the community a chance to engage with the city and become more known, hopefully, many of whom will be BIPOC. This will be a great investment in the community not just for the artists, though. Hopefully the government funding this project will further stimulate the economy through paying artists, public works (for installation and planning and stuff like that), advertisements and promotions (which will hopefully engage the public and there may be for fiscal ripples from that). Since winter is coming to an end, there will be better weather for enjoying public art (unless it's super rainy in Pittsburgh during the spring. I wouldn't know. I've never had a spring semester in Pittsburgh).
It is great to see such a significant investment in the arts, especially during the pandemic where these artists are likely struggling. I also appreciate how they are handling the applications, looking at qualifications rather than proposing pieces; therefore, artists can cooperate with the city to make exactly what is needed. I was part of a town council for the arts back home, where we received a certain pool of money, and artists in the town applied to us for a scholarship or financial support toward their art. It was interesting to learn what gets funded and what gets rejected, and I grew to learn that everyone on the council truly cared for their community. I look forward to seeing what this grant will help Pittsburgh accomplish. Pittsburgh is a city with so much character, and investing in local artists to bring forward even more individuality and sense of community is a great idea consistent with the identity of the city.
This initiative to ramp up public art in the city of Pittsburgh is absolutely incredible and I am so happy to see our tax payer dollars going to good use, especially during the pandemic. In the age of social distancing and gathering outside due to the pandemic, our public parks have become an escape for citizens from all walks of life to enjoy the outdoors and congregate in a safe and distant way. By adding public art to these integral parks, we are beautifying and showing that we care about our natural spaces and the outdoors. I am very surprised at the amount of money that they city government was able to allocate for the public art project, a whopping 800,000 dollars across five parks. Something that I found interesting about the article was the fact that artists were not submitting proposals for art installations and sculpture, but just a sense of their qualifications for the job and then leaving the content of the art to have public input.
I think this is an incredible movement and opportunity for any artist in the greater Pittsburgh region. I never knew that public funding for new art installations was a thing, but I believe this is a wonderful opportunity for perhaps lesser known artists to be able to express their art to the general public. I also really appreciate the application process, basing less on a specific proposal for an art piece, but more of a resume of qualifications, and based on that, artists will be matched with specific areas or parks in which to create their designs with the added bonus of input from the public. I think this concept will allow for such a diverse and wide range of artists, and is an excellent opportunity for artist and community collaboration. I also love the fact that these installations are not privately funded, but rather a community-based tax funded project, especially considering there will be opportunities for public input, so the people will have a say in the art pieces they will be living by, and which were partially funded by their tax contributions. I cannot wait to see what new projects will pop up over time.
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