ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the kinds of engagement with works of public art at the sites of their installation as pursued by members of the public generally and by artists. It illustrates that people engage actively and bodily with works of art in urban public space in ways that are both independent of and closely related to their meanings and that affirm, resist or extend those meanings. Symbolism is also of little, if any, significance when the artworks provide convenient props for displaying additional, newer works of art or other kinds of objects. Memorials and monuments are popular destinations for tourists and for those people who have a personal connection to the events or persons being commemorated. While many artworks are routinely ignored and so become 'invisible' as Austrian author Robert Musil noted with respect to monuments, at other times and in other cases visitors, passers-by and artists make them visible by the various ways they physically engage with them.
