- Home
- Community
- Community Engagement
- Public Art
Public Art
To enhance and enrich Golden Valley's public environment for its residents, businesses, and visitors, the City developed a program to encourage collaborative projects and provide a mechanism for including public art throughout the community.
Public art, whether owned by the City or not, could include sculpture, murals, fountains, statues, or other form of two- or three-dimensional work in any physical medium appropriate for the location.
All public art must meet criteria outlined in the City's Public Art Policy (PDF). This includes review against adopted and standardized criteria, approval, and formal acceptance by the City for installation in or on public locations (e.g., publicly owned buildings, publicly owned land, or other locations leased or provided to the City through donation, easement, or other means).
Public Art Process
Selection of public art selection is managed in cooperation with Golden Valley Arts (GVA), a nonprofit organization that provides funding and leadership to stimulate and advance the arts throughout Golden Valley.
GVA will solicit and develop proposals for public art, secure and develop funding, and evaluated submitted art for approved by the City Council.
Each public art proposal will be announced to the public at a regular City Council meeting and then made available for public review and comment for a minimum of 30 days.
Current Installations
The City features public art at Brookview and City Hall to give local and regional artists the opportunity to display, and by the artist’s choice, sell, their artwork in a location visible to the community.
Artwork is displayed in both buildings in rotating terms (generally three months each). The City sends RFAs to the art community and art facilitator groups twice a year. Art is selected in advance for each term of the next year.
Request For Artists Summer & Fall 2023/2024 (PDF)
2022/2023 Art Exhibit Schedule
- Summer: June 15–Sept 13, 2023
- Fall: Sept 18, 2023–Jan 8, 2024
The City commissioned local artist Susan Armington to create an artistic representation of Golden Valley as a community. It is displayed in the main lobby of Brookview.
https://www.gvcfoundation.org/golden-valley-artsThe City of Golden Valley’s street banners mark the entryways to downtown Golden Valley along Winnetka Avenue, Golden Valley Road, and Rhode Island Avenue N. These 26-inch x 96-inch banners serve to enhance community identity, aesthetics, and pride. When the need for new banners in 2017 coincided with adoption of Golden Valley’s new Public Art Policy, the timing was perfect to incorporate community art into the project.
To solicit art for the banners, the City asked Golden Valley Arts to coordinate a search for submissions from local artists. The goal was to showcase the variety and quality of art in the community while having a connection to Golden Valley in some form, whether it be residency, recreation, history, schools, employment, or subject matter.
Drawing inspiration from the area’s history as Lilac Way, initial concepts moved from screening and murals on the ramp walls to the three dimensional features of a destination sculpture. Goals included a design that reflects all of the population and engages with park visitors.
The result is a sculpture that spells “WE” to represent togetherness as a community, the border between Golden Valley and St Louis Park, and West End. Flanking the sculpture are three-dimensional 18-inch-wide benches that spell Golden Valley and St Louis Park in 24-inch-deep letters and allow for physical engagement. These fabricated steel or aluminum structures will have powder coat finishes in a stylized lilac pattern.
After months of planning by City staff and fundraising by Golden Valley resident and Hopkins High School student Eve Clarkson, the Peace Pole was installed on City Hall campus adjacent to the water tower parking lot Oct 16, 2018.
The 8-foot tall Peace Pole features the peace declaration in eight languages, two on each of the pole’s four sides.