Mexican muralists, Bauhaus and Russian avant-garde artists were central to these visions of public art-making, drawing attention to issues of ecology, infrastructure, social mobility and urban spatiality; along with muralists at Santiniketan such as Nandalal Bose and Benode Behari Mukhopadhyay, who showed that public art does not only thrive at urban centres. Many works have also been either demolished by authorities for various reasons or simply destroyed by natural disasters, making their longevity dependent crucially on the conditions of the place they are sited at.

Early career artists may use public art, including murals, to showcase the breadth of their talent and vision, while senior artists are motivated by a desire to bypass private collections as the sole context for their art-making. Anonymous artists usually execute radical protest art on walls—such as Banksy’s street art pieces on the separation wall in Palestinian West Bank.

Public art can often be subsumed under the effort to ‘beautify’ city spaces—an instinct often described as ‘artwashing’. While many artists are committed to projects of aesthetic improvement and beautification as envisioned by municipal or state authorities, others see it as a euphemism for attempts to gentrify neighbourhood spaces, leading to an escalation of real estate value and displacing original residents eventually. The formation of designated art districts also adds to these concerns. Indian artists like Shanu Lahiri were committed to improving the aesthetic standards of public spaces in cities like Kolkata. However, her famous public statue, Parama, which was lodged at an E. M. Bypass crossing, was summarily removed by state authorities in 2014 ‘by mistake’.

Kamayani Sharma on Kolkata’s subversive political graffiti, visible between 1960 and 1990: ‘It was a multi-layered and textured conversation between the frequently anonymous artist, the public and the constructed environment. Ranging from drawings of Naxalite party workers killed by the police sketched using pieces of charcoal taken from their funeral pyres to Portraits of Indira Gandhi in psychedelic colours, these images were subversive, irreverent, socially aware and gave vent to a deeply felt resentment and anger against the establishment.’ What kind of materials were traditionally used? Swapan Ghosh, a prolific graffiti artist and wall writer for the Communist Party of India (Marxist), says, ‘In the old days we would make posters with alta [the red liquid used by Bengali women to decorate their feet] and ink on newspapers.’

Aside from governmental bodies, corporate funding and institutional grants are other regular sources for sponsoring public art projects today. Public art across history also tells us a lot about the major patrons of art in a particular region, whether they were private individuals and corporate bodies, or civic authorities in an influential municipality. Moreover, as artists like Anjolie Ela Menon have suggested, late-career artists also seek the opportunity for doing public art for another valuable reason, the desire to have their work seen regularly: 'Painting is arduous work and in the active, creative years that remain I’d rather do works for public spaces. So much of my output has disappeared into private collections that I would like to remedy that if possible. Railway stations, airports, hotels, public buildings—these are the great patrons of the future, as temples, churches and palaces were in the past.'