Why do we have public art? It was one of the questions a journalist asked me last week when I was being interviewed on the new guide to the art on Umeå university campus. There are of course many possible answers to this question; political, aesthetic and social, so I can only comment briefly on the subject in this blog post.

Historically public art was a way to expose power, either by commissioning a monument or portrait of/for yourself or your family/clan, or by donating an art work reflecting your agenda and placing it in a public area. In modern times more democratic reasons are to be detected in the question of public art. In Sweden there has been a policy since the 1930s that 1% of the building cost of public buildings (or larger renovations) should be spent on art. The reasons behind this policy of spending tax money on art are political. The main argument was that people should be able to see and experience art on an almost daily basis. You do not have to pay entrance to art museums or visit private art collections in order to study art, it can be found in your neighborhood, at work, at schools, in hospitals etc. The other argument is that this policy also guarantees a certain amount of jobs for artists through public commissions.

The commission of public art is organized in different ways depending on the various responsibilities in local or central governments and public institutions, but one very important actor is Statens konstråd (Public Art Agency Sweden: http://www.statenskonstrad.se/en/). For instance Statens Konstråd have until now commissioned 14 site specific art works at Umeå university, one of them is the above detail of Lage Lindell's 95 meters long mural painting from 1970-1972. (You can see the artist sitting with a pair of scissors in front of his very messy work desk, while his wife is studying his work behind it). Another one will probably appear during spring 2015 (outside the Faculty of Arts building). This kind of work is really an important opportunity for artists to make larger projects — and to meet new audiences. It is also a great chance for the staff and students of the university to experience contemporary art.

Art sure makes the space it decorates more interesting and it can be a point of reference, a ground for debate and discussion, or just a plain meeting point. Never forget that art is in many ways a collective experience, something we often encounter with other people — with more or less interaction, communication, talk and debate. The art works interfere in our daily life as much as we want to, occasionally in ways we are not aware of (until an art work is replaced). Sometimes we hate it! It may offend your ethics or aesthetic taste so that it makes you embarrassed for its presence, or feel bad since it does not represent your opinions. Sometimes we love it, because having a great piece of art in your environment can make you feel good, proud and smart! You can also love it because it provokes you, makes you think, argue well or completely change your perspectives. So my question would be: Why don't we have more public art?

On Friday I was devastated by news coming in from Glasgow. The wonderful Glasgow School of Art building by Charles Rennie Mackintosh was on fire. And it looked really bad on photos and films spread through social media with high flames from the roof and lots of smoke coming from the broken windows. Students were preparing for their final exhibitions, and fortunately no one was injured. But the building, its collections and particularly the wonderful library was in severe danger. I felt grief... Can you really mourn a building? I really battled with this question during the evening while my heart was aching...

I wrote my doctoral thesis on the interior design of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald (finished 2003). During that project I had the fortune to work in the Mackintosh archive at the GSA, located in the library. It contained letters, reports from international exhibitions, documentation from local exhibitions, photos and unique, wonderful small water-colour paintings from both Mackintosh and Macdonald and their fellow students. Many tourists walking the guided tours tried to get a glance of the paintings I studied, asking me questions. The library itself was a architectural gem with the interior design and most of the furniture intact. On photos it might look dark and gloomy, but with floor to (over) ceiling windows it flooded with light. The small inserts of color glimmering on the dark pillars of wood created an impression of you being in a forrest — or perhaps more according to its size, in a grove. 

According to the latest news most of the collections and the archives seems to have been saved, together with most of the students works (see: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/may/24/glasgow-school-of-art-fire-uk-government-help-pay-repairs). The building is not completely damaged, but the library is lost. Already plans are being made for the GSA-building to be renovated and the library reconstructed. There is some hope, but still ... can you really feel sad over a building? Short answer: Yes. Long answer: A building can represent a place of experiences, knowledge and aesthetics — if it is destroyed these immaterial values might also get lost. Photographs is a way to remember, but to actually visit and physically move around and use a building is a much more intense, unique and valuable experience.

Today I went for a walk in the park. During lunch I guided a group of visitors through Umedalens Skulpturpark, a public park filled with contemporary sculpture (see this link for more information: http://www.umedalenskulptur.se/us/). 

The collection of 44 sculptures really expose the great variety of this particular artform; sustainable material like stone, metal, wood, and concrete are mixed with more delicate works of textile and plastic. Some are really monumental and almost screaming for your attention. Others you risk missing because of size or form, they may look like they are part of the milieu. The interesting thing is when you look at art actively in an environment like this, everything created by man has a potential of being an artwork. Post-modernism is partly to blame, but you also start looking at the world around you with a different perspective. I notice this every time when I guide groups on art walks, people start looking for the next piece of art and notice potential candidates in a most active and creative way. Art is never just decorative or entertaining, besides containing some sort of message it also involves participation from viewers and this is often a collective experience. The more we share, the more we gain and understand — of the art, of our self and of our contexts.

Above is a detail of one of my favorites in Umedalens Skulpturpark, Jaume Plensa's Nostros (2008). A man sitting on the ground, with the hands folded round his knees, forms this open cathedral. In my photo from the inside, you can see how the head turns into a cupola. The surface is made of letters of eight different alphabets, a collection of knowledge from all corners of the world that unites into becoming the title - Ours. It may be the academic in me that finds hope and comfort in the written word and its possibilities of communication, but I do think there is a great need for a public sacral space for global understanding. This is what Plensa have provided for me in this sculpture and I am ever grateful.