Public Art Program

    Public Art Program
    1313 Newell Road
    Palo Alto, CA 94303

    Elise DeMarzo
    Public Art Program Director
    elise.demarzo@cityofpaloalto.org
    (650) 617-3517

    Nadya Chuprina
    Public Art Program Assistant
    nadya.chuprina@cityofpaloalto.org
    (650) 329-2227
      
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About the Palo Alto Public Art Program

The City of Palo Alto Public Art Program is committed to contributing to the intellectual, emotional, and creative life of the Palo Alto community by creating engaging art experiences and dynamic public spaces for Palo Alto residents and visitors. The Program operates in accordance with Chapter 2.26 of Palo Alto Municipal Code to provide opportunities for the placement of permanent and temporary site-specific public art projects in municipal projects across Palo Alto. Additionally, the Program oversees the implementation of the Ordinance requirement to incorporate public art in private development projects. The Public Art Commission (PAC) reviews and advises the Public Art Program on selection, placement, and care of public art throughout the City of Palo Alto. To get the latest news on the public art projects and activities taking place around Palo Alto, subscribe to our monthly e-news.

About the Collection

The City collection of public art is comprised of approximately 100 permanently sited works and approximately 200 portable works of art in a diverse range of media. All works are commissioned and acquired through a public process. The portable collection features works by artists who have lived, worked, exhibited in, or been inspired by Palo Alto. The artworks are exhibited throughout City facilities and accessible to public on a daily basis. From the land art in the Baylands to the more figurative works, the collection of permanently sited and integrated artworks reflects the diverse interests and populations of Palo Alto. It includes emerging talent as well as well established, world renowned artists such as Fletcher Benton, Betty Gold, Gene Flores and Bruce Beasley. Each artwork is selected with the particular site and audience in mind. View the Public Art Collection Map to explore all locations of permanently-sited artworks in Palo Alto.

Recently Installed

Conversation by Narduli Studio launched in City Hall in January 2016


Susan Narduli's Conversation activates the renovated lobby, inviting visitor interaction and offering a unique artistic experience. The new media interactive artwork is always in flux, as posts and comments appear and change throughout the day. Because it is as much a collaborative tool as a display, it encourages participation. Conversation celebrates freedom of speech and expression. It is the voice of our community making up the ever-changing visual narrative.

Social Media Use Policy applies.

New Artworks Installed at City Hall’s King Plaza

Palo Alto Public Art Program is kicking off a series temporary public art installations on King Plaza, offering new rotating exhibitions on an ongoing basis. Over the next two years, selected artists will activate King Plaza in new and exciting ways, offering visual, musical, and participatory experiences lasting from a few months up to one year in length. Located in front of City Hall, Palo Alto’s King Plaza is the ideal location to establish a sustainable venue for public discourse through the arts. During the current public art master planning community outreach process, engagement with more than 200 residents has revealed a lot of support for more temporary public art offering new and unexpected public art experiences.

Bruce Beasley’s Rondo I installed in the planter on King Plaza will remain until September 2016. The dynamic interlocking circles of the sculpture seem weightless and ready to float or roll away at any moment. The result of years of experimentation with shape and form, Beasley created the Rondo series with the intention of creating art on a large scale that feels effortless and light; something that frames and compliments the surrounding environment.

Recent Press

Palo Alto unveils new sculpture by ‘Lord of the Rings’ artist - Palo Alto Pulse, October 29, 2015

Art in high places - Palo Alto Weekly, October 26, 2015

What’s the big idea in Palo Alto? Mobile Arts Platform offers a new way to share your voice - Palo Alto Pulse, September 22, 2015

Art in the moonlight - Palo Alto Weekly, September 18, 2015

A&E Digest: New public art approved - Palo Alto Weekly, July 27, 2015

Previously Installed Projects

 Confluence by Michael Szabo
  
Confluence is a 14-foot public water sculpture by Palo Alto native Michael Szabo installed on the newly renovated California Avenue near the Caltrain Station.

Confluence welcomes residents, shoppers, commuters and visitors to the new California Avenue. The artwork consists of several gently curved bronze elements with water cascading down the face of the sculpture and splashing on the ground. The dry pump system will recirculate the water to the fountain only losing a small amount to evaporation. Originally commissioned in 2011, the installation of Confluence was postponed to coincide with the California Avenue Streetscape Project.

Brilliance by Joe O'Connell and Blessing Hancock



Brilliance is a site-specific public art installation by Joe O'Connell and Blessing Hancock funded through the City of Palo Alto's Municipal Percent for Art Funds. The artwork was installed in the plaza between the renovated Rinconada Library and Palo Alto Art Center. The artists created a family of six sculptures surrounded by text collected from members of the Palo Alto community in a variety of languages reflecting Palo Alto's cultural diversity. Text on each artwork addresses physical, spiritual, artistic, and intellectual growth. Each sculpture features an interior LED light that is touch-sensitive, allowing viewers to change the lighting colors and shadow on the trees and walkways at night. The sculptures are anticipated to begin lighting at night this fall. An opening celebration will be held at the end of this year.

Public Art Abounds at the new Mitchell Park Library & Community Center

The Public Art Program, in consultation with a variety of stakeholders, formulated an overall plan for the art at the new Mitchell Park Library & Community Center. The four art pieces throughout the facility encompass a diversity of artists and styles.

At the entrance to the facility is an artwork by Bay Area artist Bruce Beasley, whose work is in many major museum collections in the U.S. and aboard, including SF MoMA, Oakland Museum, The Guggenheim Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.


The piece created for Palo Alto, Arpeggio V, is an arch-like granite form that makes a beautiful gateway to the new community center and library.  While the sculpture does not move, it implies motion and interaction between the shapes that it captures. The piece resonates with the programming of Palo Alto's diverse community and the varied activities taking place at the new facility. The granite from the sculpture is echoed in the architecture and landscaping throughout the complex. for more on Bruce Beasley visit www.brucebeasley.com. Image by Palo Alto Pulse.

Artist Roger Stoller, of Portola Valley, was selected to create a signature piece for the entryway of the library. The artwork, Cloud Forest, was inspired by El Palo Alto and the coastal redwoods that rely on the coastal wings to spread their seeds for future generations. Cloud Forest is a latticework of stainless steel that appears to flow through the glass entrance to the library and continue inside. Stoller writes, "Just as a book can offer entry into another world, Cloud Forest, will transform the library entrance into a steel-forest portal of abstract shape and light."



Artist Mark Verlander created the dynamic 16-panel mural, Follow Your Heart, after meeting with youth in the community and asking them what living in Palo Alto means to them. The individual hanging panels, installed in the new teen center, may be rearranged and reversed to show different images on the back.

A series of six shiny owls in two poses by Dallas-based artist Brad Oldham, Whimsy & Wise, greet visitors entering the library and community center site.

The sculptures physically reflect the environment around them while creating a protective vehicular barrier for visitors to the library and community center. The artist was inspired to create playful sculpture that youth would enjoy interacting with. Oldham says, "Each kid walking in to the library will see his reflection and become part of the sculpture."








We created a Mitchell Park Public Art Map which shows the locations and provides descriptions of seven artworks throughout the park.

Past Projects

Universal Woman by sculptor Nathan Oliveira returns to the Palo Alto Art Center
Universal Woman, a large-scale bronze work by internationally acclaimed artist Nathan Oliveira, was installed at the Palo Alto Art Center's Sculpture Garden in May.



Throughout his life, Oliveira (1928-2010) maintained strong ties to the City of Palo Alto. He taught at Stanford University. The artist's local studio was located on the corner of Emerson and Hamilton in downtown Palo Alto for 25 years. The Palo Alto Art Center exhibited Nathan Oliveira's work in 11 group exhibitions since 1970s, and featured the last significant solo exhibition of the artist's work before his death and the first exhibition focusing entirely on the artist's sculpture, Nathan Oliveira: The Painter's Bronzes in 2008. This exhibition - unparalleled in its sized and scope - included many of the artist's last works, in addition to bronzes produced as far back as 1963. This critically lauded show was accompanied by a monograph funded by the Palo Alto Art Center Foundation. Featured in the exhibition Nathan Oliveira: The Painter's Bronzes, Universal Woman was temporarily sited in the Art Center's historic courtyard for two years following the exhibition as a long-term loan. At the start of the Art Center's renovation, the work was returned to the Oliveira family. In 2013, Joseph Oliveira and Lisa Lamoure generously donated Universal Woman to the City's public art collection.


New Artworks for the Regional Quality Control Plant
Oakland-based artist Martin Webb installed his artwork Riding the Currents at the entrance of the Regional Water Quality Control Plant and Household Hazardous Waste Station. Webb's artwork is inspired by the Baylands environment, one of the largest tracks of undisturbed marshland remaining in the San Francisco Bay. A group of eight reclaimed wood posts that make up the artwork echo the wooden structures that can be seen jutting out of the wetlands. The posts reveal abstract forms of the streams, reeds, and grasses native to the Baylands. Migratory flocks of stainless steel bird silhouettes reflect  the sunlight to give their shapes a sense of movement. $0$0In addition to Riding the Currents, created a mural on the recycled water tank. Positioning the mural in the trellised seating area created an effect of the outdoor room, a recreational and educational area for the plant employees and visitors. Its design, visually bright and alluring, echoes the Baylands landscape and highlights the role of WQCP and the staff working there.

 

Temporary Projects

Questions About Your City by Anthony Discenza
A new temporary installation by Oakland conceptual artist Anthony Discenza hopes to spark community conversations with 20 provocative, signage-based artworks installed downtown on existing light poles. Discenza has said that he views street signs as a powerful, impact tool to connect with his audience. The neutral text for the Palo Alto project is derived in both tone and content from English-as-a-Second-Language conversation questions. Like many other Discenza artworks, this project relies on ambiguity and humor to engage the public. The questions touch on subjects applicable to many communities, while addressing recent topics of discussion specific to Palo Alto. Intended to inspire the public to think about the issues affecting the Palo Alto community in an unexpected and humorous context, the pieces will be "discovered" by the public over the course of their six-month installation. 

Discenza states, "I'm interested in situations involving some degree of ambiguity or ambivalence; in a lot of my text-based work, the identity of who is speaking, and what position they're speaking form, is made deliberately somewhat unclear - a lot is left for the viewer to determine. I am much less interested in taking a particular stand or position in my work, and much more interested in having the work act as a kind of trigger for some interior experience or dialogue on the part of the viewer". Discenza's solo and collaborative works have been presented both nationally and internationally, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, the Getty Center, and the University of California Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive. Discenza previously created an installation for the Palo Alto Art Center in the fall 2012 as part of their Community Creates exhibition, celebrating the re-opening of their facility.

Click here to view a copy of the text incorporated into the signs and map of all of the art locations.

The Permanent Collection Maintenance Program

The Pubic Art Program is hard at work undertaking an ambitious maintenance and restoration project for the permanent collection. Many of our artworks are being cleaned and receiving preventative treatment to protect them from the elements. Some of the works that have received more aggressive treatment or repair are: Albuquerque by Gayle Wagner, Rrrun by Marta Thoma, and Nude in Steel by Hans Wehrli. If you notice vandalism or artworks in disrepair, please call the Public Art office immediately at 650-329-2227. Thank you!