While the public art field has grown rapidly, little attention has been paid to preservation. This collection of papers based on presentations delivered at a conference held in Massachusetts in 2001 addresses theoretical questions of permanence and public participation along with specific concerns, such as funding and legal responsibilities.

The Everyday Practice of Public Art: Art, Space, and Social Inclusion is a multidisciplinary anthology of analyses exploring the expansion of contemporary public art issues beyond the built environment. It follows the highly successful publication The Practice of Public Art (eds. Cartiere and Willis), and expands the analysis of the field with a broad perspective which includes practicing artists, curators, activists, writers and educators from North America, Europe and Australia, who offer divergent perspectives on the many facets of the public art process. The collection examines the continual evolution of public art, moving beyond monuments and memorials to examine more fully the development of socially-engaged public art practice. Topics include constructing new models for developing and commissioning temporary and performance-based public artworks; understanding the challenges of a socially-engaged public art practice vs. social programming and policymaking; the social inclusiveness of public art; the radical developments in public art and social practice pedagogy; and unravelling the relationships between public artists and the communities they serve. The Everyday Practice of Public Art offers a diverse perspective on the increasingly complex nature of artistic practice in the public realm in the twenty-first century.

This exciting new collection of essays by practicing artists, curators, activists, art writers, administrators, city planners, and educators offers divergent perspectives on the numerous facets of the public art process. The volume also includes a useful graphic timeline of public art history.

"In this wonderfully bold and speculative anthology of writings, artists and critics offer a highly persuasive set of argument and pleas for imaginative, socially responsible, and socially responsive public art.... "--Amazon.

Young introduces us to examples of portrait art featuring political figures, such as the famous collaborative marble carving of Mao Zedong in the Memorial Hall at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, and others that depict anonymous subjects, such as Situ Zhaoguang's playful sculpture - located on a Beijing traffic island amid busy streets - of a girl engrossed in reading a book, plugging her ears to the noise. China's rich ethnic culture is evident in works such as Yuan Yunsheng's mural at the Beijing airport, portraying the Dai people's Water Splashing Festival (whose nude bather was censored until recently and covered over by plywood). Folklore serves as the inspiration for works such as the collaborative granite sculpture Five Rams in Guangzhou, while historical figures and events from imperial China are the subjects of many works, such as Silk Road, a massive sculpture by Ma Gaihu and others marking the Chinese end of the ancient trade route.

Examining the changing attitudes toward the city as the site for public art.

Sculpture parks and gardens, whether woodland sanctuaries or urban retreats, sprawling sites or intimate oases, offer sculpture lovers and artists alike unique ways to experience the outdoors, sculpture, and the intersections between nature and culture. Since the mid-20th century, these venues have become important tourist destinations and essential aspects of public life in cities such as Chicago, Minneapolis, and Seattle and regions such as Yorkshire in England and the Hudson Highlands in New York. Landscapes for Art: Contemporary Sculpture Parks surveys a wide range of sculpture parks and gardens that focus on contemporary art--from well-established, museum-type institutions to small-scale, non-collecting, experimental programs. The book includes profiles of sculpture parks in the U.S., U.K., Japan, Australia, Lithuania, China, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, India, Latvia, Sweden, and Finland (among others). There are articles on key topics by art critics, landscape architects, and sculpture park professionals and interviews with Isamu Noguchi, Martin Friedman, and Alfio Bonanno.