Abstract
The concept of urban regeneration emerged with the importance of a social and cultural approach in the reflection of indiscriminate urban development in the late 1980s. Meanwhile, public art, which combines artistic elements with public space, is utilized to enhance and brand the city image. Having the advantages of relatively short construction time and its strong visual effect, public art has been introduced in many cities as urban regeneration strategy. The purpose of this study is to find out how public art is related to urban regeneration and used as an important means in urban regeneration by analyzing its urban regeneration characteristics and roles, and the actual implementation method of public art projects as well. A comparative analysis of three selected contemporary public art projects showed that each project had executed in different ways in terms of implementation method according to the conditions and the circumstances in the region. Having said that, the analysis of the urban regeneration characteristics of selected projects revealed a common trends. In all three cases, the role of the users and the public was excluded at the early stage of the project due to the emphasis on the role of the operating and the performing actors, but the role of public participants had increased and the public more actively intervened in the implement process, strengthening the public art's democratic and process-oriented character. In conclusion, it was confirmed that contemporary public art is gradually being used as a medium for social and cultural urban regeneration from the means of physical regeneration.