Joyce Pomeroy Schwartz is a curator, lecturer and public art consultant with a unique concentration in public art policy, modern and contemporary art for architecture and the landscape in the broader context of cultural, urban and environmental revitalization.
In 1968-1971 she founded “The Photographer’s Gallery,” the first gallery in New York City exhibiting photography as fine art.
She was Director of Commissions at Pace Gallery in New York from 1972-1982, implementing public sculpture projects with Pace artists.
In 1982 Joyce founded “Works of Art for Public Spaces, Ltd.”, dedicated to working with American and International artists creating major works of Art for Architecture. She is also one of the founding board members of ARTTABLE.
She recently established the Harold and Joyce Pomeroy Schwartz “Archives of Public Art” at the Fales Special Collections/NYU Bobst Library, of artists’ monographs, photographs and papers available for public art historical research. It now includes the archives of the Public Art fund and Creative Time.
In July 2023, Joyce released her book: “The Private Eye in Public Art”, published by Oro Editions.
On this episode of The One Way Ticket Show, Joyce shares her one way ticket to 25 years into the future to know what her two great-granddaughters are doing then.
During the course of our conversation, Joyce also reflects on:
· Her lifelong love of art – particularly Native American and African Art - stemming from her visits as a young girl in the late 1930s to the Brooklyn Museum, the Met and MOMA (which she used to ride to solo via the subway)
· Visiting the 1939 World’s Fair and the futuristic GM pavilion
· The general role art plays in questioning and opening ones mind
· The role of public art and how it moved beyond sticks & stones to the art of ideas and place-making
· How public art shapes a space rather than fills it and how it provides a common cultural cue
· How from the very start, Chicago got public art projects right
· Collaborating with groundbreaking artists including: Louise Nevelson, Tony Smith, David von Schlegell and Isamu Noguchi
· Creating the Irish Hunger Memorial in New York City
· Arshile Gorky’s lost (then found!) murals at Newark Airport
· Why artists are the only narcissists she’ll ever forgive.