1. What is the relationship between the Public Art Project and cities?

The Public Art Project is a program of the Urbanism Directorate of the Department of Transportation and Public Works. It is the first instance of an urban regulatory unit in the central government focused on the qualitative aspects of public space. The prevailing vision in the 20th century had a tendency to represent space in quantitative terms: engineering disciplines and planning understood that all interventions in space, the city and the territory, had to be based on scientific premises; at least on paper. Urbanism (particularly the European model) rejects the false opposition between the practical and the aesthetic.
The Public Art Project pursues the construction of critical commentaries on urban space based on the subjectivity of artists. The traditional city, with its repertoire of spatial arrangements and signs, provides a significant number of opportunities for intervention. However, not all public spaces are urban spaces, and, in that sense, far from assuming a nostalgic ideology, the Project intends to question the wide variety of states and combinations of what is considered “public” and what is “spatial.” For that reason we get involved with many types of places, from a public square in an urban center in the mountains, to the rights of way of freeways and the virtual space of the project’s Web site.

2. Who decides what works will be used, to which artists they will be awarded, how many they will be and their materials?

The public competition announcement initially proposed a list of aesthetic spaces, from community workshops to urban train stations. Then, when the Directorate’s Project for the Revitalization of Urban Centers was formally established, new areas were added, incorporating the design projects at urban centers. In the final analysis, approximately 100 pieces will be created and located throughout the island. An Evaluation Committee appointed by the Governor analyzed the more than 300 proposals received, and, following the recommendation procedures specified in the competition guidelines, continues to consider the areas not awarded. The Evaluation Committee has brought together persons related to art in different ways, trying to maintain a generational balance. Since its creation, the Public Art Project has intended to combine experience with experimentation, and to highlight the work as the most important component, betting on the future and on a constantly evolving culture. We are pleased with the results: a wide array of works in different media and concepts. The Web page (www.artepublico.puertorico.pr) shows the scope of the project. With their works, the artists have expressed that public art is not limited to monumental sculpture; the public will be surprised with the range of media, situations, scales, materials, and siting strategies.

3. Who decides where the works will be located, and based on what criteria?

There is neither a “who” nor a “how.” The location of a public art piece is based on the will of the artist as well as public codes (permits are required from the agencies with jurisdiction over the sites). It is a healthfully complicated process. Artists need to identify opportunities in restrictions and to successfully incorporate them to their work. The image of the sullen genius making decisions in the pseudo-platonic isolation of his workshop/cave does not fit a project such as this one. There is no place either for the technocrat’s vision, addressing the world from the rigidity of the norm and habit when he/she is not able to justify his/her decisions. Occasionally, accidental circumstances have an effect on the location of a work and, without sounding metaphysical, I would venture to say that chance usually improves the product, as is in every creative endeavor.

4. What criteria have been used? Have any models been considered?

The criteria used to select works were published in the competition announcement. Each work must converse with the physical and conceptual space of the aesthetic area for which it is proposed, and should be consistent with the materials to be used and the technical aspects pertaining to the construction of the piece. In addition to general criteria, each work establishes its own critical framework. The Evaluation Committee has had to interact with the critical framework suggested by the work.
It must be added that the Committee has made great efforts to make a varied and lively selection. This project is not predicated on sure bets. There is a healthy and needed risk in any project that seeks to be relevant. Our culture has both conservative elements and a pleasant vocation for invention and fabulous fictions. We like to think that the project addresses both sides with a degree of tension that enriches the work of art. To promote mediating resolutions or a “synthesis” could be the first step toward an art lacking in vitality.
We would have liked to include in the announcement ephemeral or “temporary” pieces, not in the sense of provisional but in their inclusion of the time factor, as in performances. But the lack of a source of funds for capital improvements did not allow such a scope. Moreover, Puerto Rico needed a comprehensive project, that would open the door to future initiatives.
As for the second question, most existing models function in cities with a developed cultural infrastructure. We would like to think that instead of a problem, the relative “virginity” of our environment vis-à-vis public art is both an advantage and an opportunity.  What we have seen in other projects of this type is a tendency to fall prey to extremes: either a patriarchal populism or an arrogant pseudo-avant-garde posturing for an audience deemed to be third world, expressed by the concept of “cool.” We have also seen a mistrust of the object that is part of the postmodern discourse from which some clues were taken. The notion of reintroducing the object with some seriousness meets with skeptics in the modern art scene who, with reason, are afraid of the construction of new meta-narratives. The model we have structured for the project oscillates between this skepticism and the wish to question particular aspects of our cultural environment, with all their inconsistencies, anomalies, and contradictions, without fearing the possibility that new imaginaries will be produced as soon as the previous ones are abandoned.

5. Have you considered the public opinion of residents near the sites where the works will be located?

We are convinced that ultimately the artist is the one who decides how much attention he is willing to pay to public opinion, and the modes of response. We do not believe that a project such as this one should condition artistic subjectivity to a single strategy of dialogue and participation, specially when it originates in a government initiative. There are opportunities in the announcement for direct community participation, as in the community workshops. But that is not the only venue of participation. We also understand that the concept “public opinion” should be questioned. Too often in cultural initiatives it has been used to promote governmental paternalism, or to pose obstacles to the subjectivity of the artist, which we want to promote as part of a relevant comment about the conceptions of social coexistence and the public.
At any rate, the works themselves show different ways of addressing different publics. We do not visualize a monolithic block of public opinion. It seems much more relevant to understand the great diversity of publics in our cultural context. Once we took the step of leaving the halls of museums and galleries, the notion of “place”, as described in the announcement, demands that the artist elaborate the concept of audience by assuming its heterogeneity. Not all works are expected to murmur sweet things in our ears. Some of them will challenge us, as when we see a film that alters our perception of the world and ourselves. 

6. Who is responsible for the safety problems that may arise from a public art project: the artist or the State?

It is a shared responsibility, that does not begin when the work is installed. Each case requires an individual analysis instead of categorical positions about this issue. On the other hand, it should be stressed that each contract requires that the artist has licensed professionals to solve the technical problems of his/her work, and these aspects can range from the selection of construction materials to the dimensions and distribution of components and the stability of the structure.
Lastly, the importance of this project deserves that the public become engaged in the conservation and care of the pieces. The responsibility for conservation should not be defined by the duality artist/state. This is untenable in the context of a public art project.