Arte pubblica. Artisti e spazio urbano in Italia e Stati Uniti

Since the Sixties, inside and outside the contemporary art system, forms of participatory art and political activism have started: an example of this path has been public art. The latter includes performances and installations, taking places outside the traditional location appointed to art - in public spaces such as streets, squares and gardens – and acting as spatial claim instruments, connecting the urban areas with the people that live there.\r\nThe book reflects on this phenomenon having as points of observation the cities of Turin, Bologna and Trieste in Italy, Seattle and Chicago, in the United States, and sets out the results of a qualitative research studies carried out among the communities of artists living in these cities.\r\nit contributes to the ongoing debates about the transformations of contemporary cities, which has long invested urban sociology and, more recently, has become a concern in the sociology of culture. It also explores the possibility to build bridges between these disciplines and the production of art in public space known as Public Art. The cases show how contemporary Public Art requires a redefinition of the “public” role of art and artists: as it tests new strategies of symbolic communication in public space and it tries to get in contact with the local dimension, Public Art becomes an innovative formula of representation of the territory.