All I want to say is that, they don't really care about us?

I was walking around Newtown the other day and outside the Commonwealth bank (in hindsight probably a deliberate choice) there was this guy/girl (couldn’t tell as they were covered entirely) wearing a gas mark and the names of Middle Eastern countries pinned to her/his shroud. The performer stood still, covering King Street with a kind of black cloud. Going up to him/her a sign loudly stated, “This is an artistic performance”. I’m pretty sure I understood this before I read the sign but I internally thanked the performer for allowing me not to confuse his/her display with a bank transaction or a Commonwealth bank employee. I was walking around Petersham too, and on one brick wall facing a main road was a mural of some sort, picturing butterflies, skyscrapers and (what seemed to me) an attack of a 50-foot woman. Under the painting was a note that stated “This is a HSC artwork, please respect”. Surprisingly, no taggers have touched it (this is also similar to the sign posted under the iconic indigenous flag wall in Newtown, which the public [and teenage vandals] seemingly respect). Now, I raise these ‘public’, site-specific art works as examples because we as an audience are told they are artworks. There is no second-guessing, no confusing it with council initiative, modernist architecture or cooperate branding; there is no destroying it, or disrespecting it, or degrading it--we understand that before us we are digesting art. Do we need to? Is Meryline Fairskyes central trippy train tunnel installation (although commissioned) for me, or is it just to make Railway Square a pretty place? Do we need tags under every public work to know it is for us? Is it for us?