ABOUT
ARTWORK
ARTISTS
CONTRIBUTORS
PRESS
PROGRAMs
ABOUT
ARTWORK
ARTISTS
CONTRIBUTORS
PRESS
PROGRAMs
ABOUT
ARTWORK
ARTISTS
CONTRIBUTORS
PRESS
PROGRAMs

A site-responsive exhibition that unfolds across the city—quietly, unexpectedly, without permission.


Good public art used to happen everywhere. Now it mostly happens nowhere. uncommissioned puts it back where it belongs: the corner where you buy coffee, the construction fence you walk past, the underpass that actually gets you home. Artists work directly in the city, no committees, no approval process. Just work that exists because it needs to.


This is not a show you attend. It's one you stumble upon.

A site-responsive exhibition that unfolds across the city—quietly, unexpectedly, without permission.


Good public art used to happen everywhere. Now it mostly happens nowhere. uncommissioned puts it back where it belongs: the corner where you buy coffee, the construction fence you walk past, the underpass that actually gets you home. Artists work directly in the city, no committees, no approval process. Just work that exists because it needs to.


This is not a show you attend.

It's one you stumble upon.

A site-responsive exhibition that unfolds across the city—quietly, unexpectedly, without permission.


Good public art used to happen everywhere. Now it mostly happens nowhere. uncommissioned puts it back where it belongs: the corner where you buy coffee, the construction fence you walk past, the underpass that actually gets you home. Artists work directly in the city, no committees, no approval process. Just work that exists because it needs to.


This is not a show you attend.

It's one you stumble upon.

Contributors

critics
critics
critics
critics

Pamela Karimi

Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, Cornell University

Pamela Karimi

Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, Cornell University

Pamela Karimi

Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, Cornell University

Pamela Karimi

Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, Cornell University

Mark Jenkins

Street Artist

Mark Jenkins

Street Artist

Mark Jenkins

Street Artist

Mark Jenkins

Street Artist

Shannon Jackson

Chair, Department of Art History, UC Berkeley

Shannon Jackson

Chair, Department of Art History, UC Berkeley

Shannon Jackson

Chair, Department of Art History, UC Berkeley

Shannon Jackson

Chair, Department of Art History, UC Berkeley

Harmen de Hoop

Street Artist

Harmen de Hoop

Street Artist

Harmen de Hoop

Street Artist

Harmen de Hoop

Street Artist

Lily H. Chumley

Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication

Lily H. Chumley

Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication

Lily H. Chumley

Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication

Lily H. Chumley

Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication

curators
curators
curators
curators

the scale of the unseen

the scale of the unseen

we in numbers

3

curators

50

artists

41

cities

featured artists

Public art used to matter. It used to disrupt, challenge, make people stop and think. Now most of it decorates corporate plazas and apologizes for existing. Safe art. Permitted art. Art that won't offend anyone, which means it won't affect anyone either.


The city is already making art—in how people move through space, claim corners, adapt and survive. Graffiti tags are conversations about ownership. Street vendors are curating public life. The artists we work with see this existing creativity and respond to it, not override it. They understand the city is already speaking and work with what's there, not against it.

When artists stop waiting for institutional approval, they start making work for the person rushing to catch the bus, the kid walking home from school, the night shift worker cutting through alleys. Real public art doesn't announce itself with plaques. It just shifts something in how a space feels, how your attention moves, how you relate to the same corner you've passed a thousand times.

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ArtNews

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ArtNews

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ArtNews

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ArtReview

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ArtReview

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ArtReview

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ArtReview

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Hyperallergic

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Hyperallergic

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Hyperallergic

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Hyperallergic

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Wallpaper

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Wallpaper

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Wallpaper

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Wallpaper

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ArtForum

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ArtForum

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ArtForum

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ArtForum

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The Art Newspaper

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The Art Newspaper

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The Art Newspaper

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Brooklyn Rail

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Brooklyn Rail

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Brooklyn Rail

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Brooklyn Rail

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E-flux

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E-flux

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E-flux

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E-flux

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WSJ

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WSJ

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WSJ

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WSJ

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New York Times

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New York Times

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New York Times

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New York Times

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Dossier Art MX

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Dossier Art MX

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Dossier Art MX

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Dossier Art MX

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Gabriela Andrade Gorab

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Gabriela Andrade Gorab

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Gabriela Andrade Gorab

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Gabriela Andrade Gorab

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ArtBABA China

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ArtBABA China

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ArtBABA China

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ArtBABA China

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Susanne Lacy

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Susanne Lacy

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Susanne Lacy

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Susanne Lacy

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Celina Lei

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Celina Lei

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Celina Lei

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Celina Lei

forms & visuals

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