During the 1980s and 1990s the Fairmount Park Art Association organized a series of benchmark programs with lasting influence on contemporary public art practice. These programs explored links between public art and various disciplines, including architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning and investigated the pivotal role that public art can play in the design of cities and public spaces. The Fairmount Park Art Association is the nation's first private, nonprofit organization dedicated to integrating public art and urban planning.

Learn about some of the Art Association's benchmark programs!

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Form and Function

Light Up Philadelphia

Public Art in America '87 Conference

Form and Function: Proposals for Public Art for Philadelphia

To bridge the gap between public art and ordinary life, the Art Association initiated the pioneering program Form and Function in 1980. The Art Association invited artists to propose public art projects for Philadelphia that would be utilitarian, site-specific, and integral to community life—works that would be integrated into the public context through use as well as placement. Each artist was asked to give meaning or identity to a place, to probe for the genius loci, or the "spirit of the place." The Art Association's intention was to respond to the needs of a changing city, as well as to accommodate the expressions of individual artists.

The resulting proposals, which ranged from lighting to the design of community parks, expanded the definition of public art in the early 1980s. An exhibition of the proposals as "works in progress" at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts encouraged community dialogue. A catalogue of the projects accompanied the exhibition.

The first proposed works to be installed (in 1982) were Rafael Ferrer's El Gran Teatro de la Luna and Siah Armajani's Louis Kahn Lecture Room. Red Grooms's Philadelphia Cornucopia was carried out that same year as an independent project by the Institute of Contemporary Art. Richard Fleischner's proposal for the new campus of Community College was thwarted when the site plans were unexpectedly changed, although his concepts were later realized through a fruitful collaboration with Mitchell/Giurgola Architects for the Columbia Subway Plaza. Jody Pinto's Triple Tongue Pier was slowly transformed, and the resulting Fingerspan was installed along the Wissahickon Creek in 1987. Martin Puryear's Pavilion in the Trees was installed in 1993 in Landsdowne Glen, behind the Horticulture Center. Other proposals were submitted by Scott Burton, Dan Flavin, Red Grooms, John Hedjuk, Robert Irwin and Barry Le Va. The Form and Function catalogue contains complete proposal descriptions.

Light Up Philadelphia

The Fairmount Park Art Association launched Light Up Philadelphia, a study of the potential for creative urban lighting, in 1985. Inspired by the spirit of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, who declared, "Great technical problems will be solved when the intuition of the artists will direct the research of engineers and technicians," the study investigated the history and future of creative lighting in Philadelphia and sought to integrate artists' work into urban planning initiatives. It examined how lighting and new technology can improve a city's "livability" and suggested new visions for the use of public art to create and enhance public space.

Five artists studied the prospects for lighting around the city. Proposals suggested creative means to increase residents' and tourists' sense of security; encourage mobility and enjoyment of the city's resources after dark; emphasize sculptural and architectural treasures; and increase local pride in neighborhoods and commercial districts.

David Ireland's inquiry considered the elemental forms of daylight and firelight and proposed "friendly fires" that would use gaslight to outline the crowns of public buildings, to declare entranceways to commercial buildings, and to create communal gathering places in vacant lots.

Philadelphia native Phillips Simkin proposed PHILADA, a broad range of related lighting systems, including new urban structures, interactive community gateways, and lighting around the city's boundaries and landmarks, that would inform both the traveler at great distance and the resident within a given neighborhood.

Leni Schwendinger's Equate Time with Distance focused on a three-mile refinery site that served as a dismal gateway from the Philadelphia International Airport to Center City. The proposal suggested a sequence of events that would evoke historical and geological time, energy, and travel for the "vehicular viewer" driving past the refinery.

Mierle Ukeles proposed a "light energy-exchange system for a city in search of itself," a vision of light that would originate at the democratic "navel" of Philadelphia's City Hall and pulse throughout the city to a network of nine significant sites that symbolize "redemption, revivification and reconnection" to nature.

Krzysztof Wodiczko proposed an illumination of the City Hall tower that would transform the historic structure into a symbolic communications system with contemporary meaning. A series of pulsating light codes would inform residents of different events occurring within the city.

Public Art in America '87

To foster national discussion about the issues surrounding public art, the Art Association organized the conference Public Art in America '87. The conference was the first national, interdisciplinary forum to examine public art in its broadest context through the perspectives of politics, urban design, cultural anthropology, and the social sciences. Keynote speakers, respondents, case studies, issue panels, and technical workshops focused on four themes: Politics, Power, and Patronage; Creating Public Spaces; The Experience of Cultural Diversity; and Public Life and the Public Arts. Public Art in America '87 exceeded all expectations in terms of attendance, participation, communication, and influence. It has been followed by—and set the standard for—numerous regional thematic symposia.

The conference's more than 100 speakers included: Vito Acconci, John Ahearn, Houston Conwill, Jackie Ferrara, Sam Gilliam, George Hargreaves, Jamake Highwater, Barbara Hoffman, Douglas Hollis, Nancy Holt, Joyce Kozloff, Andrew Leicester, Mary Miss, Jaquelin Taylor Robertson, Tim Rollins, Betye Saar, Martha Schwartz, Richard Sennett, Buster Simpson, Rigoberto Torres, Billie Tsien, and Joel Wachs.

Public Art in America '87 was generously supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts.