Public art and the making of urban space (original) (raw)
Related papers
2011
The rapid development of the big European cities in the XXth century and the change of the traditional city into a metropolis ga ve birth not only to an extraordinary dynamic artistic culture but also to a culture of i nterpreting, dedicated to the study and explanation of these urban phenomena and their soci al effects. The aim of this paper is to build a bridge between various practices of contemp orary art as they can be found in public art (to be more specific: site-specific art, as we ill see) and a series of disciplines dealing with the studying of urban space: urban sociology, human geography and the anthropology of the everyday, all inspired by critical theories of culture and society. From this point on, we will be able to meditate upon public art’s role in the urban public space.
PhD Dissertation, 2019
This is a socio-spatial research that explores the reciprocal relationship between art, urban space and the public., It suggests that this three-headed intersection, forms a conceptual framework for deciphering the unique urbanism of the city in which they takes place. The research expends the theoretical discourse regarding this relationship beyond the common perspective of art as an urban renewal strategy to position it within the theoretical discourse on urbanism Through a discussion, that ranges between macro and micro perspectives and between art’s ability to reinforce or subvert the socio-spatial structures of the city, this research presents the unique characteristics of Acre as an example for a peripheral mixed city in the Middle East. On the on hand, the research demonstrates how the city’s socio-spatial structures, stemming from the continual Israeli-Palestine conflict, are replicated in the city's artistic activity. This insight is analysed first through a macro perspective of the five theatre institutions, showing how each institution functions as a closed sphere, which addresses only a small part of the population, and therefore fails to challenge the urban socio-spatial power relations. It then proceeds in using a micro perspective, which focuses on the Fringe Theatre Festival, to demonstrate how the city’s artistic hierarchy is translated into spatial segregation, which duplicates the urban segregation and condenses it to the scale of one quarter. On the other hand, this research reveals processes of change in the power structures of Acre's urbanism and highlights art’s part in this process. The macro perspective focuses on the struggle between the city and the Tel Aviv artists’ community in 2017. The accumulation of forces of cultural production, evolved into a city consciousness, which enabled it to stand up for its right to produce and manage its own cultural capital. The micro perspective followed life stories and trajectories of individual artists suggesting that the local theatre field enabled alternative artistic trajectories that progress under different rules from those of the national theatre field. Through these twofaced insights, the research culminates; suggesting that art has the power to bring about changes in cities, not only as part of culture-led-urban-renewal strategies, but also as part of change in the city's socio-spatial structures. In addition to this theoretical contribution on the methodological level, the research presented here contributes super-positioning; a method adopted from architectural practice in order to integrate top-down macro perspectives with bottom up micro perspectives. Utilizing superposition, it combines methods from architecture and urban studies, mainly spatial and historical research, with methods from the social sciences and specifically ethnography. On the empirical level, the study provides a new perspective on the city of Acre, as a mixed peripheral city in the Middle East, examining its relation to artistic activity. It therefore expands upon the body of knowledge dealing with these types of cities and emphasizes how their unique characteristics lead to 'other' forms of urbanism.
Speculating on (the) urban (of) art: (un)siting street art in the age of neoliberal urbanisation
Horizontes Antropologicos, 2019
This paper addresses the current co-optation of street art into an uncritical aesthetic supplement to the process of neoliberal urbanisation, by focusing on its unresolved relation with its own site. This is done in three steps. First, via a perambulating immersion into the complexity of a specific site. Second, via a critical engagement with the form and politics of contemporary street art. Third, via a strategic speculation on the relation between the notions of art, urban and site. Street art’s current impasse, I argue, paradoxically depends on its incapacity to become properly urban. A urban-specific street art, I contend, is not a decorative veneer nor an enchanting disruption to dramatic processes of urbanisation: it is a force-field in which these processes are made visible, experienceable, and thus called into question. The ‘Olympic’ works of JR and Kobra in Rio de Janeiro, and the iconoclastic performance by Blu in Berlin, are used to illustrate and complement the argument.
New UrbaNity'aNd CONteMPOrary FOrMS OF PUbLiC art
erdkunde.uni-bonn.de
In the course of global economic restructuring, 'new urbanity' has become a key concept within German-speaking urban studies. Despite a certain ambiguity, the concept often conveys a positive image of the traditional European city and its supposed urban qualities. The present paper aims to challenge this image by drawing upon contemporary forms of public art. Taking Kenny Hunter's sculpture Citizen Firefighter as a case study, alternative concepts of urbanity are explored. Using qualitative interviews with the artist, the relationship between artistic and academic imaginations of urban life will be discussed. In this way a more balanced image of the traditional European city can be achieved. Zusammenfassung: Im Zuge des wirtschaftlichen Strukturwandels ist "neue Urbanität" zu einem zentralen Begriff des akademischen Stadtdiskurses geworden. Trotz einer gewissen begrifflichen Unschärfe verbindet sich der Begriff meist mit positiven Bildern von den urbanen Qualitäten der alten europäischen Stadt. Der vorliegende Beitrag problematisiert diese positive Bilderwelt durch eine Auseinandersetzung mit Kunst im öffentlichen Raum. Am Beispiel des Citizen Firefighter, einer Skulptur des schottischen Bildhauers Kenny Hunter, geht er der Frage nach, welche Vorstellungen bzw. Konzepte von Urbanität in öffentlichen Kunstwerken verarbeitet sind und welche Schlüsse sich daraus ziehen lassen für eine neue Urbanität, wie sie in der aktuellen Stadtforschung diskutiert wird.
Out in the Streets: The possibilities and implications of making art in the city's public space 1 This paper is the result of an ongoing PhD thesis project about the relations between art, urban space and the city, namely through the ephemeral forms of art that are present in the city's public spaces.
Contemporary Public Art and Dialectical Aspects of the 'Democratization' of the Urban Public Space
Public Art Journal, 2021
This article lays out the claim that every open space is not a democratic space and the plurality of voices does not mean a plurality of discourses and democratic political existence. It discusses why it is important to always take into account the dialectical dimension of the urban space and public art and points to the perils of the ‘democratization’ of the public space. The author alerts us that some public arts are directly commissioned by the government for a more ‘democratic city’ and there are also those artistic projects that confront government-supported public artworks for the ‘democratization’ of the urban space, but display even more autocratic or exclusionary tendencies. She argues that, despite their radical potential, contemporary public art as the consolidator of political publics, does not simply concede the democratization of the public space. These publics can as well be constituted by neoliberal agendas, and even worse, authoritarianism. In the light of this critical perspective, the article asks: What kind of public art can then be appropriate for a democratic public?
New Public Monuments: Urban Art and Everyday Aesthetic Experience
Open Philosophy, 2019
The role and function of public art is currently undergoing some large-scale changes. Many new artworks which are situated within the already existing urban sphere, seem to be changing the definition of public art, each in their own way. Simultaneously, there exists a trend that endorses more traditional forms of public art. Juxtaposing and comparing the aesthetic implications of different types of artworks, it is possible to see how they contribute to the contemporary understanding of the urban sphere. In this paper, I take a look at the explicit and implicit aesthetic values that these simultaneously existing contemporary forms of public art are based on. The cases selected for closer look are examples of prominent and recent works of public art from downtown Helsinki: He who Brings the Light (unveiled in 2017) by Pekka Kauhanen and Running Man (performed in 2016-17) by Nestori Syrjälä. What space and what kind of position is subscribed to the perceiver by these very different types of yet equally established artworks? What kind of experiences and possibilities of participation do these works entail? The focus is on the undergoing redefinition of public art that revolves around these questions.