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B. Holub, C. Doherty, F. Erdemci, C. Mouffe, J. Warsza, S. Sheik, B. Theis, A. Draganovic, A. Budak et al.:
"This troublesome, uncomfortabel and questionable relevance of art in public space";
Vortrag: Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdansk (eingeladen); 23.11.2012 - 24.11.2012.

http://outdoorgallerygdansk.eu/symposium/texts/

In Search of a Possible Paradigm
Art in Public Space, out in the wilderness, so to say. Art beneath its protected context of the exhibition space is uncomfortable for almost everybody. For artists and exhibitors, the amount of unpredictability is sometimes overwhelming: weather and light, humidity and ambient sound can't be fully controlled. And on top of this, there is the audience! People who often aren´t even aware of encountering an art work. Sometimes they would probably be very surprised, if someone told them that they are considered to be the audience of something. As a consequence, often enough people confronted with public art feel helpless in front of or even disturbed by what the art world accounts for an important work of art. That happens in exhibition places too, but the advantage is that the museum audience choose this experience deliberately.

So, why bother? Why don´t we just stay inside our protected compound of the gallery? Or at least in a place that is clearly marked as an exhibition space? Why do time-based, immaterial interventions have to happen in public space, why do we have to challenge the public? Artists, curators and institutions have answered this question in very heterogeneous ways over the last decades: Public art was and is seen as non-commercial, as anti-elitist, as the attempt to embellish even poorly designed living environments, as an opportunity for a broader audience, which does not have the means to frequent museums or galleries, to access contemporary art, and many believe that public art has the power to change urban and social systems.

These are ambitious goals for such a doubtlessly difficult enterprise as public art. Beside the above quoted problems of public art activities, one has to take issues like economical inequity, uneven knowledge-distribution and tiredness of common participatory practices summoned by current democratic systems into account. Because one thing goes without saying: public art can´t be carried out in solitude; interaction and collaboration are part of its nature.
http://outdoorgallerygdansk.eu/symposium/texts/

public space, art, transformation process, paradigm, public art, Gdansk,