?Public art excludes no media, materials, or process.  It can require years of planning, consultation and approval to develop, or it can occur spontaneously and unsanctioned.  It can be momentary or lasting.  It can at once excavate the past and envision the future.  With a broadening of the conception of public, it can happen at almost any time, with anyone, and virtually anywhere?even in galleries and museums and other private settings.  Public art is always art.?

Patricia C. Phillips

Public art is not the grinding, arduous discovery of a common denominator that absolutely everyone will understand and endorse.  It actually assists in identification of individuals and groups and what separates them, so that agreement on a common purpose is an impassioned deliberation rather than a thoughtless resignation

Patricia C. Phillips

from Public Constructions in Mapping the Terrain; New Genre Public Art, ed Suzanne Lacy, pp69. Bay Press, Seattle, Washington, 1995.

Patricia C. Phillips is professor of art at Cornell State University of New York, and was former editor-in-chief of Art Journal.

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