The Landscape of Public Art Research: A Knowledge Map Analysis

This is the first article to date that employs a knowledge map analysis to provide insights into the landscape of public art research, a multidisciplinary area that is concerned with issues around the geographies of art, space, and community. This study uses bibliometric analysis and knowledge visualization tools provided by CiteSpace mapping software to review scholarly journal output on “public art” since 1964—which is the first occurrence of this term in an article indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection database covering English-language journal publications. The analysis reveals the value of bibliometric analysis for engaging data on the growth and popularity of public art as a research landscape—which is perceived as both a research field and research discourse. Accordingly, this study constructs knowledge maps, and thereby trends, of popular topics and networks of authors and institutions that have emerged in the public art research landscape. Such knowledge maps exhibit a “metageography” of cross-disciplinary connections within public art research (where these knowledge maps in themselves can be rendered as artworks, too). This study, as such, provides new reference points for scholars to position themselves in, and further deepen bibliometric investigation into, the landscape of public art research.