SAN FRANCISCO ARTS COMMISSION'S PUBLIC ART PROGRAM
BACKGROUNDER

The Arts Commission’s Public Art Program was established by the City Arts Enrichment Ordinance in 1969. One of the first of its kind in the country, the Arts Enrichment Ordinance provides for two percent of the construction cost of civic buildings, transportation improvement projects, new parks, and other above-ground structures such as bridges, to be allocated for public art. It also provides an allowance for artwork conservation funds and allows for the pooling of art enrichment funds for interdepartmental projects. The Program is administered by the mayoral-appointed San Francisco Arts Commission and is overseen by the Visual Arts Committee, a subgroup of the Commission.
 
The Public Art Program provides curatorial expertise and project management for the implementation of the Arts Enrichment Ordinance. The Program’s goals include promoting a diverse and stimulating cultural environment to enrich the lives of the City’s residents, visitors and employees. Typically, public art is developed and implemented in conjunction with the overall design and construction of each project. The Program encourages the creative interaction of artists, designers, city staff, officials and community members during the design of City projects, in order to develop public art that is specific to the site and meaningful to the community.
 
In addition to being its 40th anniversary, 2009 has been a landmark year for the Public Art Program. The year kicked off with the installation of Tony Labat’s Big Peace IV, a sculpture commemorating the 50th anniversary of the symbol’s creation, at Patricia’s Green, located on Hayes Street. In February, renowned environmental artist Patrick Dougherty created a new work, titled The Upper Crust, comprised of 4,500 pounds of freshly cut willow saplings interwoven into the tops of the sycamore trees located on the plaza across from San Francisco’s City Hall. The Upper Crust was joined by several other public art projects at the new Portola Branch Library, J.P. Murphy Clubhouse, Harvey Milk Center for Recreational Arts and the San Francisco Zoo. At the Americans for the Arts Convention in June, the recently completed The Language of the Birds, located in North Beach, by San Francisco-artists Brian Goggin and Dorka Keehn was honored as one of America’s best public art projects.
 
Other current, comprehensive public art projects include the installation of over one hundred original artworks at the new Laguna Honda Hospital, which will open in the spring of 2010; San Francisco International Airport’s Terminal 2, completion slated for 2011; the Central Subway, scheduled completion in 2017 and the Transbay Terminal, projected completion in 2019. For more information about current and past projects visit www.sfartscommission.org/pubartcollecion.org or follow us on Facebook at SFAC Public Art.

Contact: Kate Patterson, SF Arts Commission kate.patterson@sfgov.org