scholarly journals Researching public art and public space

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Schmedling

This special issue is devoted to research on the changing paradigms of public art, and of public spaces. Today all art can be characterized as public since it is mediated via relational networks. The shift of paradigm from modernist art to contemporary art coincides with this shift of paradigm – from consumption to communication – in the sense that advanced art practices had already absorbed the change from individual mediation to relational networks. In the communication network of relations, artists and works are constitutive elements. Without the works and the artists, the relational network does not exist, and vice versa: Without the network of relations, neither artists nor works are made visible. This constitutive reciprocity of relations is decisive both for theorists doing research on public art and art in public spaces, as well as for artists who are doing research in public spaces.

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 18-27
Author(s):  
Aurelija Daugelaite ◽  
Indre Gražulevičiūte-Vileniške ◽  
Mantas Landauskas

The concept of urban acupuncture, which has been gaining ground in recent decades, is based on the activation and revitalization of urban environments using small architectural or landscape architectural interventions in precise carefully selected locations of urban fabric. However, the rapid and unexpected design solutions of urban acupuncture, based on ecological design, nature dynamics, street art, material re-use, can cause different social and psychological reactions of urban population and these reactions may vary depending on cultural contexts. Consequently, in order to implement successful urban acupuncture projects in Lithuanian cities, it is very important to find out public opinion and priorities in the fields of public space management, aesthetics, and public art. The aim of the research was to analyze the opinion of Kaunas city residents regarding these issues. For this purpose, a sociological questionnaire survey was used. The questionnaire containing 20 questions was designed, with the aim to find out the trends of use of public spaces in the city, the attitudes of residents towards street art and other small-scale initiatives in public spaces implemented in the recent years, possibilities of creating landscape architecture based on ecological ideas in urban environment, the attitude of inhabitants towards community spaces and community space design in the city, etc. 100 residents of Kaunas participated in this online administered survey. The survey has demonstrated general positive attitude towards contemporary design trends of public spaces and public art; however, the surveyed population expressed preferences towards fully equipped public spaces offering possibilities for a wide range of activities.


2020 ◽  
pp. 259-272
Author(s):  
Chun Wai (Wilson) Yeung

This paper emphasizes that curatorial practice and site-specific art are essential aspects of the transition from artistic collaboration to collaborative curatorial practice and discovers the new potential of ‘curator as collaborator’ practice to cultivate community-based, collaborative and engaging cultural projects in public spaces. By examining the curatorial residency of my participation in Public Space 50 at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia in 2017, this portfolio investigates how I, as a curator, explore art curation locations and methods to enable students to actively work collaboratively to plan, facilitate and produce public art projects. It asks how to turn public spaces into laboratories; how can student artists work together in public space; how to empower a creative student community through artistic collaboration and how artistic activation can be developed among creative participators of different cultures and backgrounds?


Author(s):  
Deni Setiawan ◽  
Timbul Haryono ◽  
Agus Burhan

The concept of an ideal public space does not just focus on the interests of a particular group or community, but rather focus on the space of social activities that represent each audience or spectator in that society. Arts and cultural activities are part of it; although the concept of public space is still abstract to represent every social individual. However, the presence of public space has created a mediation space for all forms of communication. Mediation space is considered as a crucial feature, not only as a promotional sphere but also as a place to exchange and communicate all forms of ideology, art, and culture. Art activities such as Jogja Fashion Week Carnival and Cosplay clothing performance in public spaces provide opportunities for communities or individuals, to make this activity as a public performance and part of public art. Public art tends to be creative, free, and sometimes not accompanied by a theoretical perspective, as other arts are. Art activities in public spaces which are part of the social and cultural activities are essentially standing on the ideology that have been set up for a particular interest. The interest is disseminated using mass media and advertisment. Audience or public art connoisseur in public spaces should be more intelligent and critical to accept all kinds of art activities and performances. Therefore the performance will have a balanced communication.AbstrakKonsep ruang publik yang ideal tidak saja berbicara kepentingan golongan atau komunitas tertentu, tetapi lebih fokus pada wadah aktivitas sosial yang mewakili setiap pendatang atau penonton. Termasuk didalamnya adalah aktivitas seni dan budaya, walaupun konsep ruang publik masih dapat dikatakan abstrak untuk mewakili setiap individu sosial. Akan tetapi dengan adanya ruang publik telah menciptakan ruang mediasi bagi segala macam bentuk komunikasi. Ruang mediasi ini dipandang penting, tidak saja dijadikan ranah promosi, lebih mendalam adalah untuk bertukar dan tempat komunikasi segala macam bentuk ideologi, kesenian, dan kebudayaan. Aktivitas seni semacam Jogja Fashion Week Carnival dan pagelaran pakaian cosplay pada ruang publik memberikan kesempatan bagi komunitas atau individu, untuk menjadikan aktivitas ini sebagai tontonan dan bagian seni publik. Seni publik ini tentu saja lebih cenderung lebih kreatif, bebas, dan terkadang tidak diiringi dengan perspektif teoretis, seperti yang dilakukan seni lainnya. Aktivitas seni pada ruang publik, merupakan bagian dari aktivitas sosial dan budaya, hakikatnya berdiri pada ideologi yang telah diatur untuk satu kepentingan, yang disebarluaskan menggunakan media massa dan iklan. Penonton atau masyarakat penikmat seni pada ruang publik, harus lebih cerdas dan kritis untuk menerima segala macam bentuk sajian aktivitas seni, sehingga sajian tersebut memiliki komunikasi yang seimbang.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-242
Author(s):  
Carlos Garrido Castellano

Abstract The main objective of this article is to understand the ways in which Lebanese artists are dealing with issues of normativity and legibility while operating in public spaces. By looking at the work developed by Temporary Art Platform (TAP) during the last ten years, I argue that public art has been crucial in the production of alternative understandings of civic agency and the public space. Simultaneously, by looking at A Few Things You Need to Know When Creating an Art Project in a Public Space in Lebanon, a toolkit designed by TAP in 2014, I intend to problematize the lexicon and strategies that are usually associated with understanding art activism, both as forcefully contextual and provisional.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-187
Author(s):  
Raino Isto

Abstract This article examines the role that monumentality—and efforts to critique it—have played in shaping the experience of public space in post-socialist Albania. It considers artistic and architectural strategies often labeled ‘counter-monumental’ because they were first developed as a way to challenge authoritarian and nationalist monumental structures from the past, and it argues that in Albania these counter-monumental strategies have become wedded to centralized state power. In the conditions of neoliberal capitalism, projects that aim to undo traditional monumentality can effectively obfuscate political agendas. In Albania, where Edi Rama—the current Prime Minister—is also a practicing artist, the discourses of contemporary art have served to increase the centralization of political authority, and the work of architecture and design firms such as the Brussels-based group 51N4E have reinforced the symbolic power of the state at the same time that they claim to open public spaces up for citizen participation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 890-909 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Zebracki ◽  
Jason Luger

Responding to geography’s digital and political turns, this article presents an original critical synthesis of the under-examined niche of networked geographies of public-art practices in today’s politicised digital culture. This article advances insights into digital public art as politics, and its role in politicising online public spaces with foci on: how digital technologies have instigated do-it-yourself modes for the co-creation of art content within peer-to-peer contexts; the way art is ‘stretched’ and experienced in/across the digital public sphere; and how user-(co-)created content has become subject to (mis)uses, simultaneously informed by digital ‘artivism’ and a new global politics infused with populism.


ILUMINURAS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (56) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolina Gallo Garcia

Neste artigo, apresento a obra da artista francesa Sophie Calle (1953 - presente) como um vetor para investigação acerca do espaço público, indagando o papel que as práticas artísticas críticas (Mouffe, 2013) podem desempenhar no questionamento da pressuposição democrática de tais espaços a partir dos conceitos de dissenso, aqui compreendido enquanto racionalidade política não consensual, e da partilha do sensível, que nos permite vislumbrar potencialidades da arte enquanto ferramenta política (Rancière, 1996; 2009). A partir das obras Suíte Veneziana (1980), The Detective (1981), The Address Book (1983), The Bronx (1980), Phone Booth (1994) os conceitos de dissenso e partilha do sensível serão articulados para análise das imagens e à luz dos registros textuais da artista sobre estes trabalhos.Palavras-chave: Sophie Calle; Flânerie; Performance Urbana; Partilha do Sensível; Dissenso.  SOPHIE CALLE’S FLÂNERIE: REFLECTIONS ON PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPACESAbstract: In this article, I present the artwork of the French artist Sophie Calle (born 1953) as a medium to investigate the public space, inquiring which role that critical art practices (Mouffe, 2013) can play in questioning the assumption of democracy given to public spaces from the concepts of dissent as a non-consensual political rationality, and the distribution of the sensible, which allows us to glimpse the potential of art as a political tool (Rancière, 1996; 2009). From the artworks Suite Venetienne (1980), The Detective (1981), The Address Book (1983), The Bronx (1980) and Phone Booth (1994), the concepts of dissent and distribution of the sensible will be articulated for the analysis of images and the artist's textual records of these artworks.Keywords: Sophie Calle; Flânerie; Urban Performance; Distribution of the Sensible; Dissent.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galina Yankovskaya

The article examines typical features of images and themes of the past as they appear in contemporary Russian art, within the context of the presentist regime of historicism and as a part of public history. This research focuses on the works by Mikhail Pavlyukevich and Olga Subbotina, as well as Chaim Sokol, all of them the artists for whom image of the present is determined by the experience of the past as an incomplete process. The analysis focuses on the factors that ground this important place that the past occupies within the space of contemporary art practices. The article explores intersections between history in public space and contemporary art. The author argues that the development of public history rooted in participatory culture, as well as de-monopolisation of expert knowledge and non-academic languages constituting the discourse on the past, shares similarities with many characteristics of contemporary art practices. In these practices the public actively participates in the artistic processes, an artist loses their status as a demiurge, while site-specific character of artistic projects necessarily rests upon the exlporation of the history of place and the immersion in memory. A palimpsest, in which inseparable interpenetrating layers of the past appear through one another, becomes a metaphor both of public history and of one of the trends in contemporary art. Keywords: presentism, public history, contemporary art, Mikhail Pavlyukevich, Olga Subbotina, Chaim Sokol


Ritið ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-103
Author(s):  
Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir

In this article I discuss how various collective art projects involving artists and curators using the city as an exhibition site have transformed artistic discourse in Iceland. Chantal Mouffe´s conception of public space as a battleground and art practices as agnostic interventions into this space raise questions about the branding and commodification of art and cultural institutions. Mouffe believes that despite the unrestrained commercial control of the urban landscape, artists still have the possibility of intervening in the political and economic status quo. Employing Mouffe´s analyses as a guiding principle, the study confirms that the permanent value of art in public spaces need not be limited to individual artists’ form, style or content, but may be capable of mobilizing political, critical and artistic discussions within the urban community.


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