Here are my ten favorite public art projects for 2010.

Some I like because they are just plain beautiful, and some are rich with content. Artists are thinking about the environment and how to make the world a better place.

Cool Water, Hot Island.

Cool Water, Hot Island, New York, New York

Molly Dilworth

This is a semi-temporary installation to refresh and revive the streetscape and to mark Times Square officially as a pedestrian-only zone. It is a graphic representation of NASA’s infrared satellite data of Manhattan, and appears to be a cool, refreshing river of water flowing down Broadway. The design’s color palette of blues and light hues reflects more sunlight and absorbs less heat—improving the look of these popular pedestrian plazas while making them more comfortable places to sit.

Luminous Reeds, Everett, Washington

Dan Corsen

This work is at a middle school and is made of integrally dyed and thermoformed florescent Acrylic, Sintra, paint and UV lighting. The piece imagines a reed bank and the reflections of the stars in the water between the green bending stocks. As marshy wetlands act as the transition between land and water (like high school marking the transition between a child and an adult), Corsen was inspired by the complex interplay of forces and growth in these dynamic interstitial areas. Cobalt blue sky (or is it the water?) marked with celestial constellations became the launching point for hundreds of twisting, luminous reeds (or are they shooting stars?).

Cloudbreak.

Cloudbreak, Denver, Colorado

Catherine Widgery

The jury assembly room at the Denver Justice Center is a 14′ high, 41′ wide and approximately 18″ deep colored glass wall made of glass and steel. Light bursts from behind dramatic storm clouds seen through a layer of over 12,500 glass tubes that ‘push’ like a cloud through the metal frame of the wall in low relief. Lit by the sun in the morning, Cloudbreak changes throughout the day with the changing light. At night the image is visible through the exterior glass as it glows from the interior lighting. In Cloudbreak, light is a metaphor for insight and clarity in justice.

Unseen/Seen: The Mapping of Joy and Pain, Minneapolis-St. Paul

Rebecca Krinke

Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, Oct 2010 – January 2011

A temporary traveling work of public art challenged conventional ways of seeing the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul. The project created the setting and the opportunity for the public to map where they experienced joy and pain. The project’s sculptural setting included a unique table-like object that contained a custom map of Minneapolis-St. Paul.

cool(E)motion, Greenland

Ap Verheggen

A new sculpture, installation installed on an iceberg in Greenland, hopes to engage viewers on the topic of climate change. Using the dramatic, frozen landscape as a back drop, the huge sculpture was flown in by helicopter because the ice was too thin for sled dogs. The artwork can be viewed live via camera connection until the iceberg melts and the sculpture disappears into the sea. In theory, its journey could last for two years, ending on the east coast of the American continent.

Electromagnetic Fall, Flushing, New York

Carter Hodgkin

For Remsen Science Hall at Queens College, this 3-story mosaic is based on atomic particles moving through space. The parameters of the building space and a simulated particle collision are keyed into computer code in a procedural drawing process. A nucleus of particles emits from the top floor, falling to the bottom. Other particles travel down corridors, wrapping around nine columns. Based on a digital image, each pixel becomes a tile. This project bridges the historical use of mosaic in public places into a modern scientific digital imaging vernacular.

Camera Rosetum.

Camera Rosetum, Brooklyn, New York

Sean Capone

Video and computer animation of stunning floral bouquets are projected on buildings, ceilings and beneath the Manhattan Bridge as well as on the walls at MoMA and the Chelsea Museum.

The Home of the Stars, Bronx, New York

Ellen Harvey

This mosaic, installed at Yankee Stadium, depicts the sun set and the stars. The mosaic consists of eleven hand-made 18 ft. by 6.75 ft. panels and industrial glass. The panels show a sunset and moon and star rise in 15 minute increments, starting at 6.30pm (the time most Yankee fans would be arriving at the train station for an evening game) and ending at 9 pm. Of course, given the light pollution of the city, the stars in the final panels of the mosaic would never actually be visible to the naked eye.

What is Missing? San Francisco, California and around the world

Maya Lin

This latest memorial project of Maya Lin’s includes multiple science-based artworks – some permanent, some temporary. They are designed to bring awareness about the present sixth mass extinction of species and to connect this loss of species to habitat degradation. The work emphasizes that by preventing deforestation, we can both reduce carbon emissions and protect species and habitats. Part of a series–entitled “What Is Missing?”–is a listening cone of bronze and reclaimed redwood, made to an oversized scale reminiscent of a fallen sequoia log. It is a simple, sleek shape embodying a profound concept, and its power unfolds gradually. Approach the large end and you’ll hear animal voices wafting from the opening. Images flicker from the dim interior. Look closer, and at the far end, some 20 feet away, you’ll see orangutans, Red Knots, gray wolves, Bald Eagles, a jaguar.  You have to squint to make out the details; if the sounds reverberate and distort on their way along the passageway, it’s Lin’s way of illustrating both the dimming hopes of endangered species, and the fact that they’re not yet entirely out of our reach. “This Earth is incredibly resilient, and what once was can come back if we let it and we give it space,” Lin said at the opening. “But how can we protect it if we don’t even see it as existing?”

All Things Within All Things

All Things Within All Things, Norfolk, Virginia

Matthew Gray Palmer

I would be remiss if I didn’t bring your attention to at least one of the Norfolk Public Art Program’s projects. The fabricated aluminum sculpture depicts a life size African elephant made up of approximately 7,000 butterflies. The large golden butterfly made of an elephant sits on the trunk. Matthew says, “There is pleasure at the spectacle of this massive creature composed of such light and delicate creatures and vise-versa with the golden butterfly being composed of elephants. This metaphor expresses our potential to embrace our diversity, put aside our differences in exchange for our commonalities; to move beyond our perceived separateness with compassion for all things in realization that “I” and the other are one and of the same universal manifestation of life.”