Public art: Attracting tourists or challenging one's perception? A qualitative research on the value of top-down and bottom-up realized art in the public space

Artworks in the public space exist in many different forms and are commissioned or initiated for various purposes. They may be commissioned by municipalities to, for example, put the city on the map worldwide and attract tourists or to promote social cohesion, often existing within the regulations of the public space and the imposed governmental frameworks, characterized by a top-down approach and a hierarchical organization structure. Public artworks can also arise from a local problem or situation, outside of the regulations and rules imposed by authorities with a more horizontal organization structure, which can be considered as realized bottom-up. Within such projects, there is often more room for a more autonomous or critical attitude of the artist, and it offers the opportunity to articulate civil concerns and question existing policy and power structures that exist in the public space. In this thesis, a qualitative research on the value of top-down and bottom-up realized art in the public space is conducted, based on a multiple-case study of the top-down realized artwork Ling Zhi Helicopters and the bottom-up project Zandpoort, providing an answer to the following research question: To what extent and how is a top-down realized work of public art valued differently from a bottom-up realized work of public art? The analysis of the two selected public works of art consists of three different parts, including the initial goals of the work and the motivation for its realization, the goals and intentions of the artist, and the way the artwork is experienced and valued by individual residents, examining what predetermined extrinsic and intrinsic values of art are reflected in each of the stages. For the data collection of the first two parts, a multimethod research approach is employed, including semi-structured interviews with stakeholders and document analysis. To find out how residents experience and value Zandpoort and the Ling Zhi Helicopters, nine respondents for each artwork were interviewed. As this research shows, there seems to be little to no room for sustainable art in the public space with a pure bottom-up approach that evokes discussion and debate in the Netherlands, leading to the selection of a semi bottom-up project. Both artists have implemented the assignment as expected of them and adapted their designs to the imposed goals and rules. In the valuation of both artworks, mainly extrinsic values were reflected, but also various intrinsic values were expressed. Only Zandpoort seemed to be able to change the perception of the audience, as one of the important intrinsic values of public art, however, this did not happen from a critical attitude of the artist in which the local situation or policy was questioned, but in a way that it suited the municipality.