City-centre public art, online
Now that Birmingham has the money for New Street Station, Urban Initiatives are on board for the city-centre masterplan, there’s a date for the Library start (24th Nov 09 to end Xmas 2012), the new BIAD is almost underway, and various others schemes worth billions in the pipeline — the following websites might be useful for artists starting to think about the possible public art benefits in the city centre, via a percent for art from these schemes…
Details and photos of how £2m was spent on public art for the new Bull Ring…
City Public Art map for Birmingham, with photos…
Also, Audientia is a ten-person diary of various responses to public art in Birmingham, commissioned by Public Art West Midlands (later Longhouse, now Multistory)…
And, of course, Birmingham + public + art (183 images) on Flickr…
… and sculpture + Birmingham + UK (174 images)
Art on the Streets has an online photo gallery from Positively Birmingham (Chapter 7), drawn from the Birmingham Library Picture Library.
There’s also the 1998 survey book by George Noszlopy, Public Sculpture of Birmingham: Including Sutton Coldfield, a 250-page volume from Liverpool University Press.
The Public Monument and Sculpture Association has a central Midlands page with photographs of a wide range of public sculptures and distinctive mouldings all over the region. Although, sadly, it seems they have no thumbnails.
Finally, should you want to get deep into the policy-wonk aspects of why the city centre looks the way it does, there’s a Routledge book for planners Remaking Birmingham: The Visual Culture of Urban Regeneration (2004).
Related on D’log: a city-centre ready for locative art — because public art isn’t only about sculptures, railings and fountains.
