professional membership

Featured Member

Cliff Garten works on one of six sculptures for the Avenue of Light, Fort Worth, TX, Fort Worth Public Art. 7’x3’x36’, stainless steel plate, LED light, copyright Cliff Garten Studio.

Good public art is good urbanism and good urbanism is good business. Cliff Garten

Cliff Garten generates site integrated public art projects which collaborate with urban design, architecture, landscape architecture and engineering to challenge the assumptions of how public places are built and used. Through a diversity of materials, methods and scale, the studio is committed to the expressing the potential of public spaces and public infrastructure in varied urban and natural contexts. Hear from Garten, artists presenter at the recent Public Art Master Planning Knowledge Exchange, December 5-6, 2008, Arlington and Reston, VA.

Garten’s studio is based in Venice, CA, and has completed over 40 major public art projects nationally and internationally from Alaska to Dubai, the studio successfully navigates a breadth of scales from city-wide public art planning to intimate locales. Current projects include a public art infrastructure project as part of the Kenneth Hahn Bridge in Los Angeles, CA, a chandelier lighting structure for University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison, WI and lighting streetscapes in Fort Worth, TX and Arlington, VA where Garten recently presented and unveiled his proposal for Corridors of Light at the Public Art Master Planning Knowledge Exchange.

The Knowledge Exchange discussed the importance of public art planning and visioning especially during tough economic times. The conversation emphasized the timely importance of public art integration in our nation’s infrastructure. Garten stated:

“The next great challenge and opportunity for art in the public realm is the design of public works infrastructure which is aesthetic, informative and legible to the American public. In a time of diminishing resources and economic crisis, it is an eminently democratic idea that we could celebrate the systems that make our cities work through a building process that recognizes sculptural thinking and the role of artists on equal footing with the practical necessities of engineering. What we gain by exposing the role of infrastructure in the delivery and discharge of urban resources is the education of the American public and a better looking public realm.”

Cliff Garten is the recipient of two Individual Artist Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bush Foundation Fellowship for Individual Artists, the Bush Foundation Leadership Fellowship and the Jerome Foundation Travelling Artist Grant. The American Society of Landscape Architects has cited many of his works for design excellence as well, his projects have been recognized in the Public Art Network’s Year in Review. He has a Masters of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design and a Masters of Landscape Architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design.