Description

Madison Square Park Conservancy (MSPC) will mark the 20th anniversary of its influential Public Art program in 2024 with an expanded annual symposium and significant publication for which it seeks support. MSPC’s Public Art program has been a remarkable experiment, offering site-specific art by major and emerging artists to over 50,000 people who daily traverse the park. The symposium, “Advancing Public Art,” will feature all the living alumni artists, as well as cultural leaders and scholars, in critical dialogue around the role of art in urban civic spaces. The publication, “Public Art in Public Space: Twenty Years Advancing Work in New York’s Madison Square Park,” will enlist a diverse roster of voices to consider the nearly 50 public art projects that MSPC has commissioned since 2004 and pressing issues in the field of public and contemporary art. Since 2017, HLF has been the lead funder of MSPC’s annual symposium, which is recognized as a key forum for the national conversation about public art.  
 
This grant advances the AAP’s strategic goal 1a: supporting art museums advancing representation and equity in contemporary society through innovative, art-centered projects that spark dialogues about America’s past and present.