Sometimes public art so seamlessly blends with its environment, it can go unnoticed. KFAI's Matthew Schneeman takes us on a short sonic tour of understated public art along the Twin Cities' Light Rail Transit.

Peace March at the “I Am A Man Plaza” in downtown Memphis this Sunday at 3:00pm.

Americans for the Arts today honored I AM A MAN Plaza among outstanding public arts projects created in 2018 through the Public Art Network Year in Review awards program.

The Tennessee ASLA Chapter, in its continuing effort to recognize excellence in fields related to landscape architecture and environmental design, is pleased to announce the winners for the 2019 Annual Professional Design Awards Program.

Cliff Garten Studio was selected to create the permanent design for the public art component for the project.

Re-Thinking the Future founded to create a new window on international trends in architecture and design that looks for radical solutions for present-day problems.

Learn more about the Walnut Creek history that inspired public art at Broadway Plaza by artist Cliff Garten.

Eight new public artworks have been recently installed in town. They complete Phase III of the Rotating Public Art Exhibiting Program, which places art throughout the city for a three-year period of time.

“Gravity and Grace” is a site-specific large-scale LED public artwork integrated into the architecture of JBG SMITH’s Central Place Plaza in the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia. The LED public artwork is 150-feet long by 15-feet high and occupies the top two bays of the parking structure above the plaza.

Now in its sixth year, “Illuminate SF Festival of Light” celebrates 37 dramatic, eco-friendly light art installations located throughout San Francisco.

The San Francisco Travel Association offers a guide to all of the installations and artists at http://www.illuminatesf.com/.

While we may occasionally bemoan the lack of seasons in L.A., the mild conditions here have their advantages, including making the city particularly hospitable to public art.

Explore the deep texture and landscape of public spaces that utilize the latest technology, design and materials and link people together in a harmonious story-driven environment. Fran Boettcher of AECOM led an esteemed panel of design professionals who are pushing the boundaries and redefining landscape as we know it. The panel included Ignacio F. Bunster-Ossa, Kate Larsen, Cliff Garten, and Jerry van Eyck and took place at Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) Conference, Orlando, FL. 

Live Panel Discussion: The Ephemeral Nature of Appropriated Spaces with Mia Lehrer, Allen Compton, and Cliff Garten

When it comes to creating unique signature designs, architects and interior designers can explore endless opportunities with direct-to-glass digital ceramic printing.

August isn’t traditionally the liveliest month for local galleries and museums, but there’s still plenty to see, including gem-encrusted miniatures crafted for Europe’s aristocracy and a much larger piece built with pull tabs from beer cans. 

Architects and designers are increasingly mindful of the value of public space and its role in the development of our buildings, cities and culture, especially as we begin to measure the impact of public space from New York’s High Line to Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. 

Summer’s longer days mean more time to poke around the city and explore new neighborhoods.

ISLAIS, AT THIRD STREET and Arthur Avenue, celebrates the Bayview. Artist Cliff Garten drew inspiration from Islais Creek’s landscape and the Bayview community’s long history.

The 20-foot blue bronze and stainless-steel sculpture references the estuary’s shape and watersheds and shines with LEDs at night.

A colorful, constantly changing public art installation is now on the way for Rosslyn’s Central Place.

Back in July, we got a sneak preview of Cliff Garten's "Gravity and Grace," a new public artwork created especially for Rosslyn's Central Place Plaza. We also talked to Garten to learn more about his process for creating it. The final artwork went live in mid-August, 2018. We are delighted to have it as a permanent part of the neighborhood! Drop by Central Place Plaza anytime to check it out. 

Cliff Garten Studio is pleased to announce, Gravity and Grace, a site-specific large-scale LED public artwork integrated into the architecture of JBG SMITH’s new Central Place Plaza in Arlington, Virginia.

Last Friday, the Port of San Francisco and the San Francisco Arts Commission today unveiled "Islais," a metal sculpture that's intended to be an official gateway to the Bayview community.

The city of Memphis, Tennessee recently unveiled a public work by artist Cliff Garten to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the historic 1968 Sanitation Workers Strike and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Sculpture, text, and landscape come together to form an important new American Civil Rights Memorial. 

A once abandoned parking lot rife with weeds next to Clayborn Temple has been transformed into a plaza honoring the 1968 sanitation workers. 

Thursday, April 5, the City of Memphis dedicated I Am a Man Plaza, a large-scale public sculpture park and memorial plaza commissioned to pay tribute to the sanitation workers strike and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., near Downtown's Clayborn Temple. 

Perhaps no phrase encapsulates the sentiment of the struggle for freedom, justice, and equality more than “I am a man.”

Sculptor/designer Cliff Garten of Los Angeles says, "I think it’s beautiful. It brings the history of the sanitation workers to strike back to this place, Clayborn Temple, where it began."

As a son of 1968 Memphis sanitation worker, I am not surprised about the many planned activities to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

When Aquileans – a series of 10 sculptures installed along the downtown Seawalk – lit up at the end of September, people warmed up to the public art, and have even started to – daresay – like it.

JBG Smith is working with artist Cliff Garten to use light as a medium to make the Central Place plaza the heart of a larger “Corridor of Light” project in Rosslyn, Ginivan said. The two glass curtainwall buildings have above-grade parking wrapped in a translucent glass façade that glows at night because it’s lit on the inside. 

Adjacent to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Receptor is a site-specific landscape sculpture that evokes a satellite dish receiving communications from a satellite orbiting the earth.

Public art … on dolphins? The new, 20-foot-high stainless steel sculptures are nearly identical, and they’re mounted on the mooring dolphins the cruise ships tie up to.

Juneau, AK (KINY) - Walking along the docks in downtown Juneau is about to be a little more interesting. After about five years of public works, some new sculptures are being erected.

Starting Sept. 27, the city will install a series of 10 sculptures called Aquileans along the Seawalk from Marine Park to the Mount Roberts Tramway building.

This post is part of our Public Art Network 2017 Year in Review blog salon.

"This place is a tribute to that particular struggle and what happened here in Memphis," Ursula Madden, chief communications specialist for the city of Memphis, said. "The feelings from the committee was this is the project that the city of Memphis has to have."

A California sculptor and a Memphis landscape architect will create the "I Am A Man Plaza" here to help commemorate 50th anniversary of the Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

What is one of the biggest art galleries in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area?

It could be the one you rode to work on this morning, if you took the light rail. And for the past 15 years, Valley Metro has been cultivating and showcasing the arts in Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa while it promotes public transportation.

Five finalists have been announced for a new public art project that’s being called the official gateway to Little Armenia.

The monumental stainless steel and LED sculpture Monarch by Cliff Garten envisions the Monarch butterfly and its migration habits as a metaphor for how individuals become stronger by gathering together in communities.

The County Board on Saturday awarded a contract $968,000 contract to California artist Cliff Garten to fabricate and install “four stainless steel, LED-lighted Luminous Body sculptures” that will be placed on the four corners of the Lynn Street bridge over I-66, near the entrance to the Key Bridge.

Cliff Garten Studio is pleased to announce a new catalogue on the landscape sculpture titled Ribbons. This publication tracks the project from initial design phases through its ongoing critical acclaim.   

Many studies have been conducted on the role art plays in reducing anxiety and alleviating depression and chronic stress. Ultimately, as many health and psychology professionals believe, viewing and interacting with art brings physical, mental and social well being. 

The plan was that on May 1, Urban Light, the installation of 202 restored cast-iron street lamps outside LACMA, would go dark for two months for restoration. Then, much to the relief of Instagrammers everywhere, the museum announced that the sculpture that launched a thousand selfies would only go half dark — they'd work on repainting and repairing half the lights while the others remained illuminated. Selfie crisis averted, but still, keep in mind that there are lots of other #lit options for nighttime and twilight shots. Here's a luminous list.

While the idea of art as medicine dates back to antiquity, San Francisco’s newest medical campuses and hospital buildings are taking the art of healing to new heights with a wealth of installations, illuminated sculptures, murals and major works of art. And the public is invited.

Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and chief executive of Facebook, announced on Tuesday that he and his wife would give 99 percent of their Facebook shares “during our lives” — holdings currently worth more than $45 billion — to charitable purposes

Cliff Garten demands more from the future. Always on the move, the veteran sculptor, based in L.A. by way of New Jersey, has several projects currently in the works to not only stack his profile but also progress the art world and technological innovation. 

Cliff Garten is a longtime public artist specializing, in recent years, in site-specific works that experiment with light.

His latest, Los Angeles Opens Its Heart of Compassion, is suspended over the entrance to The Vermont, two new luxury residential towers designed by the Jerde Partnership at the busy intersection of Vermont and Wilshire in Koreatown (across the street from a residential complex featuring a public artwork by April Greiman.

Jerde Partnership’s The Vermont, consisting of glassy 23 and 29-story mixed-use towers on the corner of  Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles’ Koreatown, opened last summer. But one of its most memorable features, LA’s Heart of Compassion, a sculpture by Cliff Garten covering the bulk of its above-ground parking structure, is only now officially open.

Cliff Garten Studio's newest piece is in consideration for two Architizer A+ Awards in the Architecture Plus Light Category. Public Voting begins on March 17th on Architizer's website. Read about the project on ArtfixDaily Artwire. Cliff Garten Studio's newest piece is in consideration for two Architizer A+ Awards in the Architecture Plus Light Category. Public Voting begins on March 17th on Architizer's website. Read about the project on ArtfixDaily Artwire.

In one of the largest transactions of its type in the state this year, a luxurious new high-rise apartment and retail complex in Koreatown has sold for $283 million.

When the U.S. General Services Administration decided to renovate the federal office building at 50 United Nations Plaza in downtown San Francisco for its own use, officials set out to make the building a model of environmental sustainability.

The maybe, possibly, almost finished new luxury apartment project at Vermont and Wilshire (also known as The Vermont) is getting bedazzled at this very moment with the art piece called "Los Angeles Opens Its Heart of Compassion" by famed local sculptor/artist Cliff Garten. 

The latest installment of GSA's "A Year in Review," produced by the Design Excellence program, highlights each of GSA's 11 regions and the award winning work being built around the country.

In an event organized by Los Angeles County Arts Commission on Monday, May 12th, 2014, Cliff Garten opened his studio doors to visitors in order to discuss his work and the challenge of creating art that is integrated into landscape, architecture, and infrastructure.

This huge, gorgeous bridge makes a statement about its environment: the pattern calls back to "disturbance caused by oil infrastructure" and production in the area.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village - of public and private partners - to reconcile the competing interests of commerce and conservation. A recently reopened highway bridge in an oil-rich area of Los Angeles County represents just such an effort.

What might a crime-scene investigation look like as a work of art? For the answer, you'll want to visit the Denver Police Crime Laboratory in Denver, Colorado. 

A short video overview of the design, fabrication and installation process behind the Luminous Crossings public art project, created by Cliff Garten, and located in downtown Calgary. ​
 

Ribbons is a landscape sculpture for the Art and Architecture Program of the General Services Administration, at 50 United Nations Plaza, San Francisco, CA. The courtyard design transforms the classical symmetry of the 1932 Arthur Brown building, by inserting a sculptural matrix of paving, seating, fountains and planting into the building’s 20,000 sq. ft. courtyard. 

Cliff Garten Studio (http://www.cliffgartenstudio.com) have designed Ribbons, a site-specific artwork for the Art and Architecture Program of the GSA Courtyard of the Federal Building at 50 United Nations Plaza in San Francisco.

A sprawling, wondrous exhibition, "Tapping the Third Realm" presents the work of thirty-four artists who deal with ideas of spirituality through four main avenues, as stated by the curators, and include "conjuring, communication, collaboration and chance." 

A ribbon design in the courtyard by artist Cliff Garten incorporates plans by the original architect, Arthur Brown Jr., the mastermind behind City Hall and three other Civic Center landmarks.

Thousands walk past, but few may notice on the freeway overpasses, downtown city streets, train stations and bus stops across America. The artwork of Cliff Garten is ingrained in the modern landscape.

Los Angeles–based artist Cliff Garten has just completed his latest commission: Ribbons, a series of landscapes and sculptures in the courtyard of the Beaux-Arts 50 United Nations Plaza in San Francisco.

Project decorates 7th Avenue and marks free fare zone in downtown Calgary.

Cliff Garten will be exhibiting two new pieces as part of Tapping the Third Realm, at the Ben Maltz Gallery of the Otis College of Art and Design.

Cliff Garten to speak at the Urban Land Institute in Los Angeles on a panel of experts discussing art that adds value to private and public development.

To enter Cliff Garten’s Venice studio is to encounter a visual dialectic of public and private that speaks to our times. On one wall is Being and Home, an impressive suite of 10 independent sculptures depicting living creatures, all meticulously rendered in different materials; on the other wall are images of the artist’s large-scale, collaborative public projects, designed with his three-person team. 

A new crop of high-design bridge replacements has L.A. poised to remake its image.

About a century ago, Los Angeles undertook a massive infrastructure project, building 14 historic bridges spanning the L.A. River. 

As we’ve noted before, sculptor Cliff Garten is one of the lucky artists who gets to remake the urban landscape.

Hopefully, you will never be inside the Crime Lab because, unless you're an employee, you'd probably be in the form of a smear on a glass slide. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the public art there.

The Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area gets a fancy new bridge next week--the Baldwin Hills Gateway has rails designed by local sculptor Cliff Garten and marks "the entry into the Baldwin Hills Parklands, the last two-square miles of open spaces in the Los Angeles basin.

Rail~Volution is a conference of passionate people who want to engage in thoughtful discussion about building livable communities with transit. Join us on October 15th at 4:30pm when Cliff will participate in a panel discussion on the role of public art within transit infrastructure and community development entitled “The Art of Transit” along with Jorge Pardo, Erik Takeshita with Moderator Laura Zabel.

There are rare artists whose work crosses so many disciplines that categories fall short. And Cliff Garten’s “civic sculptures” stretch into the worlds of architecture, landscape architecture, urban infrastructure, and master planning.

The building is shaped like a double helix and was constructed with an aesthetic touch with light-up DNA strands, shockwave and bullet sculptures by artist Cliff Garten.

Thanks to the "one percent for the arts" program, some features engage the brain's right side, such as sculptor Cliff Garten's "NeuroStars" and photographs produced from scanning electron microscope imagery by David Scharf. 

Cliff Garten speaks at +D: Intersections and Shared Ideals Across Design Disciplines at The Annenberg Community Beach House, Santa Monica, CA.

Sculptor Cliff Garten is known for his grand public pieces. His wife, Molly Reid, is a residential architect. The couple's first collaboration: an overhaul of a dilapidated house and garage on the 11,000-square-foot lot.

Cliff Garten will kick off SCI-Arc's Spring 2012 Lectures with "Civic Material" at W.M. Keck Lecture Hall on January 18 at 7pm.

Last week Cliff Garten joined San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) for the kick-off of the renovation and green upgrade of the historic Federal Building at 50 United Nations Plaza. 

Cliff Garten Installs 40-Foot-Tall Column in Dallas Cityplace Development.

About a dozen cyclists rode the outer edges of the neighborhoods surrounding the Central Corridor light rail project Sunday, led by art and planning consultant Blaine Merker.

South L.A. isn’t well known for its public art, with the exception of Watts Tower. But a site-specific work about to be unveiled at the Martin Luther King Center for Public Health, the first new building to open on the rehabbed Martin Luther King Jr. Medical Center campus, may change that.

A stunning sculpture by Cliff Garten titled "Schooling," is a testament to the power of public art to transform settings into distinctive places that foster identity and community, invite reflection and add graceful notes of beauty and aesthetic to otherwise impersonal environments.

Two new garages by Brooks+Scarpa architects are not expensive or fancy or even architectural masterpieces. They are simply good improvements on a difficult building type. And they should be considered a model to cities building future utilitarian structures.

Long Beach, a city of many aesthetic wonders both natural and man-made, got another recently—something that seems a little of both. ‘Sea Spires,’ a trio of 16-foot-tall stainless steel towers illuminated at night by LED lights, appear at first to be alive. Their curvaceous pods suggest glistening sea creatures. Or perhaps they’re humanoids? They are “guardian-like,” the artist, Cliff Garten has suggested.

When it comes to urban infrastructure—from bridges to transportation systems to master plans—architects impart a sense of place and a human scale. But equally important are basic structural capabilities. Wide, attractive sidewalks are of no use if adjacent streets are too narrow to carry traffic. The interplay between these values defines success, say both architects and engineers. 

Cliff Garten participated in FORM magazine's panel titled "Infrastructure: The intersection of design, engineering and imagination" and discussed bringing art to large-scale infrastructure as a way of improving the urban landscape. 

As Garten explains, “This project identifies the grand architectural history of Lancaster Avenue as a touchstone for its future. The sculptures twist and stretch the Classical and Art Deco orders of the avenue into new forms of a similar, but different, grace and power.”

Why Tech Giant Whacked Its Swampy Art Installation; Trouble With Berkeley Sedge
 

Say one thing for the people of this Bay Area city: When they proposed combining new landscaping at city hall with a public art requirement and the community's desire for a memorial to local veterans, it showed optimism. 

Memorial sites offer a public counterweight to wars' ravages.

Why are healthy people checking into cancer clinics? Joanne Chen reports on medicines optimistic new prescription.