Antony Gormley’s ‘Angel of the North’ is undoubtedly the nation’s most recognisable public artwork in recent history. It is a massive steel sculpture of an angel that has transformed the town of Gateshead and its surroundings, and inspired a frantic scramble to commission public artworks all around the country. Every town must have one, it seems. What is often overlooked is the fact that Gormley’s sculpture was universally reviled when it was announced, to the extent that one newspaper compared it with a sculpture commissioned by Hitler (1). So if local members of the public were in charge of the commissioning process, would they have welcomed Gormley’s vision? More generally, can the public really be trusted to choose public art?

We are living in a period of renaissance in public art, with record numbers of public artworks being completed (2). But this resurgence has not been matched by a corresponding rise in the public’s engagement with the art. As Josie Appleton of the Manifesto Club observed: ‘Today’s public art has a phantom quality. It isn’t a response to public demand - we do not have public campaigns to erect a statue to this or that local personage, as there were in the nineteenth century. Public art often appears in local squares unbidden, funded by grants from faceless official bodies. And we barely notice it. There are none of the public processions or rallies that would often accompany nineteenth century unveilings’ (3). Indeed, the perception that public art is being commissioned by stealth, thereby excluding the public from meaningful participation, is at odds with the prevailing catchphrases of our age: transparency, accountability, inclusiveness, and the rest of it. In response, some have proposed the radical approach of deposing what they see as an elitist art establishment in order to allow the public to commission works of public art directly. They argue that the public nowadays are much more sophisticated, so are in a position to do the choosing themselves. But is this just a cheap concession to public participation or is it a real solution for engaging with an alienated public?

Exploring this issue in more depth was the aim of the panel debate, organised by the Art Fund and held under the auspices of the RSA earlier this year, which posed the question: ‘Can the Public be Trusted to Choose Public Art?’(4). To start with, it might be useful to clarify what is meant by public art: it generally describes works of art placed outside of galleries and in spaces that are accessible to the public. This has traditionally taken the form of permanent sculptures such as monuments and statues in squares and parks, as well as paintings in religious and civic buildings. More recently, it appears in an array of innovative forms that incorporate film, photography, interactivity, and even the public themselves. While public art itself is exhibited in full public view, the way in which it is selected is something decidedly murky. What we can say for certain is that it has often been chosen by those who pay for it. And since it has not been funded by public subscription in recent years but by official bodies such as the Arts Council England, it is not being selected by members of the public but by committees of art experts bringing together curators, consultants, commissioners, funding bodies, and local and regional authorities. So the premise of the debate was that these professionals who constitute the art establishment do not trust the public to participate in choosing public art. The point of the debate was not to establish whether this is true in practice, but whether this prejudice against the public can be justified.

Yet there is more to motivate such debates than this question alone. This is because they stand in the shadow of the Big Art Project, a public art commissioning initiative spearheaded by Channel 4 and funded to the tune of £1 million by the Arts Council England, The Art Fund, and others (5). According to David Barrie, director of The Art Fund, it is a unprecedented project: ‘for the first time members of the public have been given the chance to drive the process of choosing, commissioning and creating public works of art’ (6). It worked as follows. Members of the public all around the country were invited to propose a suitable site in their region for a work of public art to be commissioned there. Next, these 1400 or so nominations were reviewed by a team of experts that were selected by the project, who ultimately decided which sites to take forward. In the end, only seven sites were selected, and the lucky site nominators were featured in a companion television programme on Channel 4 called Big Art, which charted the progress of each work (7). It is the perceived success of this project, especially as it is presented in the four-part television series, that is being held up by its promoters as the bulk of evidence in promoting the public’s role in choosing public art. So the debate was also an opportunity to evaluate the Big Art Project. If it really did vindicate the public, then it would shed some light on question set before the panel. But it did not.

Examining the Big Art Project more closely uncovers its latent hypocrisy: it claims that the public are in control when it looks more like they are being guided along by the benevolent hand of Channel 4. And there are tell-tale signs of this mollycoddling. The nominators for each site were matched with their own arts curator, appointed by the Big Art Trust, who was the person actually responsible for managing the project. Internationally renowned artists such as the Portuguese artist Jaume Plensa, the Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, and the Danish artist Jeppe Hein were flown in from all around the world to visit the sites, where they were shown on the programme strolling around town and engaging irate locals in community meetings. Site nominators were also seen to be doing a fair amount of travelling themselves: the Beckton team going to Chicago to see Anish Kapoor’s reflective blob ‘Cloud Gate’, the miners from St. Helens going to Germany to see Richard Serra’s ‘Slab for the Ruhrgebiet’ atop the Schurenbach mining tip, and the residents of a divided Belfast estate going to Crosby Beach to see the iron men of Antony Gormley’s ‘Another Place’. This makes for good television, but it is not clear who was paying for all this expenditure, which is hardly representative of the kind of resources available to the average member of the public. If it was funded by Channel 4, then it would appear that no expense was spared in the bid to guarantee a good outcome. Might this be to avoid the embarrassment that would result if the public were really in charge, instead of them being managed by officially-sanctioned curators and experts?

Despite the implausibility of the model of public arts commissioning proposed by the Big Art Project, there are some that still consider the project a success. One such figure at the debate was the artist Andrew Shoben, who was the only panellist in favour of the public. He was also the only one to participate in the project itself; his commission involved getting schoolchildren in Burnley to paint the town in invisible inks. He stated that the best process for public art is one where the artist consults with the public, and drew on the perceived success of his segment on the programme to argue that engaging the public in the creative process does, in fact, work. Because of his self-proclaimed success, he asked us to move past the view that ‘the artist knows best all the time’, and admit that we can trust the public to choose public art. But this is a premature conclusion. Allowing the public to be consulted by the artist or perform as they are directed is not the same thing as trusting the public to decide on the art they want to see. In Shoben’s model, the public are powerless to change the artist and can only influence the art at the discretion of the artist, who is the one really in control. This is very different from what most people understand ‘trusting the public’ to imply, which is that the public would be given the freedom to select the art that suits them. So his defence of the public is disingenuous, because it relies on masquerading a limited form of public participation in place of a more legitimate role for the public.

Shoben presented another reason for empowering the public, which is that the alternative is unacceptable: a society in which an elitist art establishment gets to choose. He said the only reason the art establishment still exists today is because it promotes the illusion that its so-called experts possess a body of knowledge that the general public lack. He argued that we should depose these self-appointed elites, not only for the fact that they are frauds, but also to be consistent: since we don’t accept elites in other parts of our lives, we shouldn’t accept them when it comes to art either. But Shoben is wrong to assume that elites are undesirable and to imply that they must be rejected, because this does not really accord with our values. His distorted understanding of elitism masks the ways in which we encourage—and indeed celebrate—elites in our society, such as in sports. And in the professions, for example, we admire those who have acquired practical knowledge through extensive training and experience, such as lawyers and surgeons. ‘You wouldn’t want to be operated on by a citizen surgeon,’ an opposing panellist observed. So in the same way that we trust our health professionals when it comes to our health, we should also trust the art professionals—artists, brokers, critics, curators, and consultants—when it comes to art. After all, they study art to a higher standard than the average person and, through their work, develop considerable practical experience in their specialisations. Besides, Shoben’s criticism is undermined by a note of hypocrisy: he advocates a model for public art where all power rests with artists and not the people. So he is, in fact, an elitist himself.

Is Shoben right to dismiss the body of knowledge that the art experts possess? We know it often requires some degree of formal training and professional experience to succeed in the art world, so art experts must have some knowledge that the average person lacks. Perhaps Shoben is not denying that the experts possess any knowledge at all, but arguing instead that their knowledge is not necessary to appreciating art, something that any one of us can do. Yet this is hardly a worthwhile point, since nobody is suggesting that we might need a degree in art history in order to admire a painting. What we require from art experts isn’t their appreciation, as Shoben implied, but their professional judgement. To illustrate the difference, consider the case of buying a house. When working out how much you are willing to pay for a house, you might offer more or less than the asking price based on your own needs. But if you were asked about the fair price of the house, you might try and be more objective than that, and imagine whether the house is any good for other people. It is this attempt at objectivity that experts like chartered surveyors can provide, which they acquire through training and experience. In the same way, art experts really are the best people we have to value works of art and to decide whether they are any good. So they do have some knowledge that makes them better suited to choosing public art than the rest of us, that is, their ability to judge works of art fairly.

Taking a different approach, Shoben suggested the public are the ones entitled to choose public art because they effectively own it. This is not due to a legal claim, but due to the fact the artwork intrudes on their public space and that they are the ones who have to live with it on a daily basis. He thought that imposing aesthetic taste on communities is undesirable and outright arrogant in this democratic age of ours, where people are increasingly feeling empowered to decide their own priorities, so people should have a greater say in the commissioning process. But even taking this into account, does it really follow that the public should then be put in charge of public art commissioning? For one thing, it might be argued that public artworks do not only serve the needs of their local communities but are national treasures as well. And the nation has a right to expect world-class art wherever it might be situated, which may conflict with the interests of local communities. And even though a sense of public ownership is important, surely it must be of a greater concern whether the art is any good or not, especially when it is funded by the taxpayer. If it is the business of the art experts to assess and value works of art, why not trust them to choose works of art that are of the highest standard for the available budget?

The other panellists did not agree with Shoben. The Cultural Adviser to the Mayor of London, Munira Mirza, was sceptical of greater public involvement in the commissioning process. She argued that it doesn’t necessarily improve the quality of art, because it’s possible to end up with mediocre art regardless. She went on to say that it isn’t always a good idea to involve the public because it might take many years for them to warm to a work of art. Trusting initial public reactions might end up sidelining good artists working in the avant-garde, whose work is almost always initially unloved. She illustrated this with the example of Antony Gormley’s infamous ‘Angel of the North’, which was reviled by just about everyone—the critics, the press, and the public—when it was unveiled in 1998. Ten years on, it is now Britain’s most well-known public artwork and serves as a source of inspiration for communities looking to regenerate their towns and cities through public art and its knock-on effect on tourism and job creation (8). So how can public ownership be the overriding concern for public art when public taste can change so dramatically in just a decade? While ownership is certainly valuable, it is not a good enough reason to put the public in charge of art commissioning.

What united the three panellists who argued against public consultation was their impassioned support for the autonomy of the artist. They defended the freedom of the artist to create their art without the meddling of politicians or, more to the point, the need to answer to the public. In doing so, they framed the debate not in terms of a tired establishment versus the public stance but in terms of being pro-artist. One of the panellists who took up this position was Jonathan Jones, art critic for the Guardian. He made his point by way of an analogy: since we don’t tell rock stars like Bob Dylan what songs to write or how they should play them, why should we impose restrictions on artists working to create public art? It is a double-standard, and is therefore unacceptable. But this approach overlooks a number of crucial differences. Pop music is relatively unconstrained, whereas public art is constrained by contract (an artist may have to compromise their vision from the start). Pop music enjoys the support of the general public, whereas public art invites the same hostility as most contemporary art (witness the ridicule directed at Turner prize nominations). Pop musicians are largely respected, whereas artists do not seem to command much respect outside of the art world (they are routinely vilified in the media). So Jones’ appeal to treat artists like rock’n'roll legends does not really accord. Another defence of the artist came from Munira Mirza. She claimed that forcing artists to conduct ‘box-ticking’ exercises—to ensure there is a social dimension to the art or that a public consultation has been performed—tends to result in kitsch. However, she conceded that this conclusion was her own, and that there was not enough research conducted in the area to support it.

The fourth panellist at the debate, the artist Grayson Perry, went further than both Jones and Mirza. He also believed that art that is negotiated—through public consultation, for example—results in kitsch, second-rate art. But he went on to explain this is because public taste itself favours kitsch over quality, which is why it cannot be relied upon to choose public art. Serving on the committee for the Fourth Plinth project, he reviewed suggestions from members of the public as part of a public consultation but was unimpressed: ‘If the public had to decide what would go on the fourth plinth, you’d have Lady Diana, riding on a dove, winning the Battle of Britain’. He also cited a number of examples of kitsch championed by the public despite being rejected by the art establishment: the ‘cartoon fat ladies’ of Beryl Cook, the ‘nostalgic soft porn’ of Jack Vettriano, and the graffiti work of Banksy, the ‘favourite of the coffee table anti-capitalist’. In his view, the public also have wrong expectations for public art; they think it should be a combination of ‘theme park plus sudoku’, evoking the reaction ‘Wow… What does it mean!?’. While Perry’s judgement drew on his experience of around thirty years as an artist and his involvement with public art commissioning projects, his malcontented stance risks drifting into hyperbole. Are the public really the homogeneous mass of philistines he makes them out to be? Surely there are many regular people that champion talented artists and have more sensible expectations for public art.

What is interesting about the debate is that all the panellists that argued against the motion saw public participation as yet another layer of bureaucracy that impedes the artist’s creative process, rather than as a challenge to the art establishment status quo. It would seem that this defence of the artist’s autonomy is a recent phenomenon, because it is at odds with the more utilitarian history of public art, which has seen it at various times serving a religious purpose, as an instrument of state propaganda, or as a way to forge a common identity. What this reveals is that the purpose of public art is today being contested between the aestheticists that believe in public art for art’s sake, and the utilitarians that think art should serve a useful social or moral purpose.

Beyond the purpose of public art, both the debate and the Big Art Project reveal that the style of public art is also being contested. The aestheticists trust the vision of the artist regardless of the end result, whereas the utilitarians are wary of art that they perceive as being too abstract, because they suspect its incomprehensibility masks a secret contempt for the common people. Countering this kind of public disaffection, the aestheticists ask: why should art be reduced to the lowest common denominator, especially in the case of public art? Shouldn’t it be executed to the highest possible standards and reflect the best work that the nation can produce, regardless of how it is perceived? Yet public opinion cannot be ignored, and the debate has shown that we should try to reconcile artistic freedom with the perception of public ownership. To this end, Munira Mirza proposed a fresh solution: give artists the space to work without creative constraints, but also give the public the choice to remove unwanted works of art after a reasonable period of time. This compromise makes it possible for artists to still create avant-garde art that challenges society—which may not be appreciated right away—while preserving the sense that the public have a right to influence what is displayed in public spaces.

The challenges of engaging the public with public art and contemporary art in general greatly overlap. It is difficult to argue that the public, as a whole, are today not more appreciative of modern art than in the past. But if many members of the public are as dumbstruck by modern art as the community representatives depicted on the Big Art Project, then there is still a long way to go. While it is reassuring that many of the site nominators came around to respect—and even love—modern art in the end, this appeared to be the result of much effort on the part of the organisers to educate them and provide them with the opportunity to visit public artworks around the world. And while there is evidence to suggest that young people are today increasingly engaging with art as never before (9), there are many adults that did not have such opportunities in their youth and who might still cling to the unfortunate view that art is a form of pageantry for the privileged. Perhaps if the public were better educated about art, they might gain the respect that would allow them to shape public art commissioning in a meaningful way, instead of being asked to participate in consultations as a mere bureaucratic formality.

1) BBC Tyne, ‘I feel like a proud dad’, 14 February 2008 (last retrieved 11/8/2009).
2) Statistics from the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association database in Josie Appleton, ‘Who owns public art?’, in Culture Vultures: Is UK arts policy damaging the arts?, London: Policy Exchange, 2006.
3) Josie Appleton, The return of “statuemania”’, spiked, 23 September 2004.
4) Can the Public be Trusted to Choose Public Art?, RSA, London, 20 May 2009.
5) Channel 4, ‘World-renowned artists sign for Channel 4’s Big Art Project’, Press Release, 24 August 2007.
6) Arts Council England, ‘The Big Art Project unveils plans for major new work in St.Helens’, Press Release, 8 May 2008.
7) Arts Council England, ‘Big Art’, Press Release, 26 May 2008.
8) Mick Henry, ‘The Angel Story’, The Angel Symposium: The effect of public art on regional culture, economy & politics, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, 15 May 2008.
9) The chair of the debate, Jon Snow, cited record numbers of schoolchildren passing through the Tate museums each year. See also Jon Snow, ‘Reaching Out’, in Tate Modern: The First Five Years, London: Tate, 2005.