In Munich, Public Art Designed to Get People Talking Munich, a traditional German city with its picture-perfect beer gardens and grand, historic squares, is not big on avant-garde art happenings. Since January, however, the city has been gradually displaying a series of public works curated by the Berlin-and-London-based artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset, best known in the United States for building a fake Prada store outside of Marfa, Texas. For this project, titled "A Space Called Public/Hoffentlich Öffentlich," which opened on June 6, Mr. Elmgreen and Mr. Dragset invited a number of international artists like the Icelandic musician and performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson and Ed Ruscha to create artworks in public spaces through September. The aim: to create a dialogue about the value of public urban space in today's world. "We have been clinging on to the old ideas about public spaces as a piazza which belongs to a completely different time than the one we are living in now," said Ingar Dragset, sitting in a loft within a former power station in Berlin that serves as the artists" atelier. We think this project will ask a lot of questions: What can public space be? Where is it going? Who is interested in it? How do we share it? One of the first works to go up early this year was a replica of London's Trafalgar Square Fourth Plinth Project by the artists Stephen Hall and Li Li Ren. The original British plinth was meant to have contained a statue of William IV but for a number of reasons remained empty for more than 150 years. In the last decade the space has been revived as a successful platform for temporary commissioned contemporary works. Mr. Hall and Mr. Ren built a similar life-size plinth in Munich's historic Wittelsbacherplatz, next to a bronze statue of Maximilian I on horseback, and invited eight artists to submit their concepts. The winner was announced in mid-March: The local artist Alexander Laner turned the plinth into a micro apartment complete with a picket fence and roof terrace. Mr. Dragset said that he and Michael Elmgreen have often worked in public settings because it inspires more dramatic reactions. "He said it was "rare" that people "are ever shocked or upset by an official exhibition anymore. Whereas when you install something in a public space, it's not even clear if it's art or not. For example, he said, the Prada Marfa project has confused many truck drivers, who stopped there thinking that it was a gas station or convenience store. "They'd be scratching their heads and thinking "What on earth is this?" They might not know it was a sculpture but they had an experience. Through June 21, Munich's City Hall will be turned into an exhibition space and alternative "tourist office." There, art students will be set up to organize alternative tours of the city, to unusual off-the-beaten-track spaces. There will also be a series of performances and interactive events as well as public talks. Everything, including the installed works, will disappear in September. It's time for Octoberfest of course! Mr. Dragset said with a laugh.