The communication potential of public art in cultural institution activities

The article examines public art as a communication tool which allows to connect with a broad audience, including regular visitors and non-visitors. The study focuses on the impact of public art on the performance of cultural institutions such as increased attendance, level of engagement, image change, etc. Based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response/S-O-R model (proposed by Mehrabian and Russell, 1974), the study identifies how public art influences the consumption behavior of both current target audiences and non-visitors, and how cultural institutions benefit from its introduction. The research methodology combines qualitative and quantitative methods: case study and online survey among 430 respondents who potentially interacted with public art. The empirical base includes two cases from the practice of St. Petersburg cultural institutions that use public art as an element of communication strategy. The results of the study show that both groups of audiences are loyal to public art objects, 84% of respondents would like to see such projects in the districts where they live. Moreover, contact with public art evokes an emotional response and encourages actions that contribute to the growth of indicators of institutional effectiveness: visits, mentions in social networks, search for additional information about a cultural organization or project. More than 80% of respondents performed at least one of the listed actions. Thus, public art is an important sociocultural and artistic phenomenon that has the communication potential to attract new audiences for cultural institutions. The novelty of the research lies in the integrated approach to the study of the communicative properties of public art and its impact on the audience of non-visitors. This approach allows us to expand the boundaries of research into this phenomenon, which can be useful for theorists and practitioners interested in unconventional strategies of communication with the target audience.