{"id":1308,"date":"2009-06-03T08:59:02","date_gmt":"2009-06-03T15:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2009\/06\/a_different_kind_of_cultural_i\/"},"modified":"2009-06-03T08:59:02","modified_gmt":"2009-06-03T15:59:02","slug":"a_different_kind_of_cultural_i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/a_different_kind_of_cultural_i.php","title":{"rendered":"A different kind of cultural infrastructure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"piano.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/images\/piano.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 20px 20px; float: right;\" height=\"239\" width=\"180\" \/><\/span>London&#8217;s <i>Sunday Times<\/i> reports on an initiative to <a href=\"http:\/\/entertainment.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/arts_and_entertainment\/music\/article6396043.ece\">place 30 pianos in public locations throughout London<\/a>, to encourage impromptu sing-alongs among strangers (want to find one? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.streetpianos.com\/london2009\/\">look here<\/a>). Each piano will be decorated by an artist to relate to its surroundings &#8212; much like other public art initiatives featuring cows or pigs or furniture. A piano tuner will be bicycling around to the pianos to keep them maintained and tuned. <\/p>\n<p>The installation is part of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.singlondon.org\/\">Sing London<\/a> festival, and is the work of public artist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lukejerram.com\/\">Luke Jerram<\/a>, who has done <a href=\"http:\/\/www.streetpianos.com\/\">similar installations around the world<\/a> over the past two years.<\/p>\n<p>Like all public art, the installation&#8217;s success will be defined by the complete strangers who interact with it. More than most public art, this particular installation demands more responsibility, care, and protection from its public to ensure the pianos aren&#8217;t damaged or destroyed.<\/p>\n<p>But on the face of it, it&#8217;s an extraordinary public expression of art, and an open invitation for anyone with any measure of talent or courage to perform music in a public space. This is cultural infrastructure, on a different scale than a new concert hall or museum, but with similar intent. Makes me want to fly off to London just to sing along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>London&#8217;s Sunday Times reports on an initiative to place 30 pianos in public locations throughout London, to encourage impromptu sing-alongs among strangers (want to find one? look here). Each piano will be decorated by an artist to relate to its surroundings &#8212; much like other public art initiatives featuring cows or pigs or furniture. A [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}