our mission.

More Art is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that collaborates with artists across their careers to catalyze social change by producing meaningful participatory public art for a broad audience.

more art, more agency, more action.

 

More Art — We believe that art should be free and accessible, and we believe that art empowers all of us.

 

More Agency —We believe in the self-determination of everyone. Our process is open, grounded, and flexible.

 

More Action — By providing a platform to experience social issues through art, More Art leads to action that paves the way towards transformation and change. 

 


 

We define public art as a process and/or method of exhibition in a public space that is accessible to a broad audience. 

 

We define a socially engaged practice as involving the public in creating art to build power and agency among participants and strive towards equity and justice. We identify a range of possibilities for this approach. 

 

We believe art and artists are integral to empowering social justice movements by creatively illuminating social issues, engaging new audiences in activism, and catalyzing public discourse.

 

Explore our public art projects + exhibitions here. Find and apply to our programs for artists here.   

 

 

our core principles.

In commissioning and producing socially-engaged art projects in the community, More Art adheres to the following principles:

Quality While presenting and supporting a multitude of perspectives, all our projects meet the highest standards of quality.

Social Engagement – We design our projects as partnerships, maximizing engagement between artists and community participants; likewise, we design our exhibitions to maximize engagement with the broader community and the general public.

Collaboration – We collaborate with organizations that are deeply rooted in their communities to help us shape projects that are culturally sensitive to those communities.

Accessibility – All our projects are free and accessible to the general public.

Relevance – Our projects address ideas and issues that are relevant to the artists and the communities involved. All projects are designed specifically for the public spaces in which they are presented.

our history.

Since its inception in 2004, More Art has produced a wide range of projects reflecting the concerns and challenges of various New York City communities. Our work started in Chelsea, which, like many areas in the city, underwent a dramatic period of gentrification, transforming a working class neighborhood into the epicenter of the contemporary art world but in turn marginalizing many long-time, low-income residents. More Art focused on building collaborations between our neighbors by creating opportunities for a creative community education and public art projects. In 2008, for instance, the month-long Chelsea Art Project featured three public art installations by artists Tony Oursler, Anthony Goicolea, and Nicola Verlato that were directly inspired by Chelsea’s complex architectural history and socio-economic fabric. Over the years, we have built a number of longstanding partnerships with several organizations, including Hudson Guild and the High Line, where artists such as Pablo Helguera (2011) have staged their work. More Art has also worked with public schools including the LAB School for Collaborative Studies, the Liberty High School and the Clinton Middle School for Artists and Writers. Education has always been – and remains – central to our mission. We regularly invite professional artists to work with public middle school students to introduce them to the many possibilities of contemporary art practice and encourage them to investigate their own communities, as exemplified in the projects by Anna Gaskell (2005), Jenny Marketou (2011) and Ofri Cnaani (2013).

In recent years, More Art has reached beyond Chelsea in order to address a broader range of issues and engage a growing audience; Michael Joo‘s work (2007-08) was presented in both Chelsea and Miami while Joan Jonas‘ was exhibited (2011-12) in SoHo and Philadelphia. Expanding on our original mission, we have worked with communities chronically underrepresented in public space, such as senior citizens and war veterans – as evidenced by Kimsooja‘s (2010) and Krzysztof Wodiczko‘s projects (2012); the unhoused through Andres Serrano’s Residents of New York, (2014) and recent immigrants through Andrea Mastrovito’s NYSFERATU: Symphony of a Century, (2017). Consequently, our projects have gone increasingly ambitious, transcending the traditional boundaries of public art and expanding into workshops, lectures and panel discussions. As an example, in 2014 we launched our ongoing Engaging Artists Fellowship which has served 60 emerging artists to date. This comprehensive and holistic approach to public art not only enables us to stress community involvement but also to approach sensitive topics in a powerful and respectful way. In the future, More Art will continue to push the possibilities of art by presenting ambitious projects at the forefront of socially-engaged public art practice.

Download our Strategic Vision Plan for 2019-2022

Download our 10 year anniversary prospectus