The Everyday Practice of Public Art

Art, Space, and Social Inclusion

Cameron Cartiere, Martin Zebracki, Cameron Cartiere, Martin Zebracki

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317572022
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Scienze della comunicazione

The Everyday Practice of Public Art: Art, Space, and Social Inclusion is a multidisciplinary anthology of analyses exploring the expansion of contemporary public art issues beyond the built environment.

It follows the highly successful publication The Practice of Public Art (eds. Cartiere and Willis), and expands the analysis of the field with a broad perspective which includes practicing artists, curators, activists, writers and educators from North America, Europe and Australia, who offer divergent perspectives on the many facets of the public art process.

The collection examines the continual evolution of public art, moving beyond monuments and memorials to examine more fully the development of socially-engaged public art practice. Topics include constructing new models for developing and commissioning temporary and performance-based public artworks; understanding the challenges of a socially-engaged public art practice vs. social programming and policymaking; the social inclusiveness of public art; the radical developments in public art and social practice pedagogy; and unravelling the relationships between public artists and the communities they serve.

The Everyday Practice of Public Art offers a diverse perspective on the increasingly complex nature of artistic practice in the public realm in the twenty-first century.

PART I

The social practice of public art

THROUGH THE LENS OF SOCIAL PRACTICE

Considerations on a public art history in progress

Cameron Cartiere

The year 1989 will be remembered for numerous events, many of which marked the end of an era: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the break-up of the Soviet Union, the last days of apartheid, the Tiananmen Square massacre that brought an end to pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing, the final hours of the Reagan era (the end of Thatcherism was not far behind) and the end of the cold war, officially declared over by presidents Bush and Gorbachev.

Against this backdrop of political endgames, 1989 was a significant year for public art in North America. It was the year that Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc was removed from Federal Plaza in New York City. It was also the year that artist collectives such as Group Material and ACT UP were starting to lead the charge to combat ignorance and prejudice in the midst of the AIDS epidemic, turning the Silence = Death pink triangle into a warning symbol that change was not only needed, it was no longer optional.

While politicians were closing the book on many of their failed endeavours, 1989 was also the year that a new chapter was being opened in the art world. In particular, it was a year of planning and preparation for the expansion of a changing category of public art practice: Projects such as Places with a Past, Mapping the Terrain and Culture in Action were in development – complex projects that required the coordination and cooperation of numerous groups of artists, volunteers and community stakeholders. As with the end of any decade, new trends and concerns became more manifest as collectively we looked back on the accomplishments and failures of the field, and planned ahead for the challenges of the next ten years. There was an uneasy energy, particularly in the museum world, as curators and educators grappled with how best to develop exhibitions and programmes for 1992 (which would celebrate the quincentenary of Columbus’s arrival in the ‘new world’) in light of the emerging backlash coming from the multicultural movement. Soon, this collective planning and exploration would usher in a new approach to public art that would eventually come to be known as social practice.

This chapter examines a very specific and personal historical trajectory of socially engaged practice within the larger context of the public art field. This presents a challenge, as – despite the fact that public art touches the daily lives of millions of people and that millions of dollars are spent commissioning public works around the world, leading to a proliferation and diversity of art created for the public realm – critical recognition of public art remains limited and our engagement is often based on individual influences and encounters that do not fit neatly into an easily quantifiable ‘public’.

Public art is a complex, multifaceted discipline, and it is this very diversity and multiplicity that lies at the heart of its struggle not only for critical recognition but also for an understanding and recognition of a shared history. Indeed, with such an analytical challenge overshadowing the field, it is not surprising that those engaged in a less permanent or object-based practice might want to distance themselves from the moniker of public art (though it has been my experience that many social practice artists who are not willing to refer to their work as ‘public art’ are nonetheless willing to access public art funding). However, I would argue that disavowing oneself from the expansive field of public art also means cutting oneself off from the compelling and engaging history of those who have spent decades working in the public realm. I find this most evident when talking with students and emerging artists who have stumbled into this type of activity.

When taking on the challenge of considering a history of public art for The Practice of Public Art (Cartiere and Willis 2008), my concern was with the position of public art in the broader context of art history, grappling with a definition of public art that could embrace the vast spectrum of activity that falls across a field as diverse as ours. That field includes sculpture, performance, activism, social engagement, place-making, monuments and memorials, and a range of other artistic practices that are difficult to categorize but share the common ground of existing in and for the public realm. There was also the challenge of considering the public relationships between temporary and permanent works, particularly during a time when many arts administrators were considering how to revisit the definition of ‘permanent’ in relation to the accession and de-accession of their public art collections. Should that be five years, ten years, an indefinite period of time? An additional consideration was determining what our ontological position was in terms of defining the public realm within the context of public art practice. Here we recognized the need to expand beyond publicly owned streets and buildings, parks, rights of way and civic spaces to include privately owned spaces that allowed public access (such as shopping malls, banks, housing developments, etc.), airports and other transportation hubs that required a ticket (metros, buses, ferries, etc.) and even private works that were in the public view. Taking an expansive position on this territory allowed for a broader inclusion of the everyday spaces we move through where unexpected encounters with art might occur.

Meanwhile, if the last two decades have not been overly kind to public art in terms of its academic recognition, the field of social practice within public art has been quietly evolving, building a critical mass in terms of its tangible real-world outcomes, and therefore its influence on practitioners in the field as well as on thinkers and educators. But an examination of the history of social practice requires a different positioning. All histories are subjective. It is an old adage that states, “history is written by the victors.”¹ If social practice is based on lived experience (Thompson 2012), would the history of such a practice not then be a very personal and highly variable reflection of the past? Even if there were an agreed upon starting point (Alan Kaprow’s first use of the term ‘happening’ in 1957, or the often referenced formation of the Situationists also in 1957), the selected path through the following years would vary greatly depending on the personal experiences, professional interests and political influences of each author.²

The fact is, social practice is rooted in the real world – in people, relationships and communities. A more effective way to analyse its true impact is therefore to look at its evolution through personal, professional and political perspectives. By examining the development of social practice through this multifaceted lens, this chapter will develop an overview of how contemporary public practice is now being shaped by it; chart its gradual recognition in academic and educational circles; explore the relationship between social practice and public institutions; and trace some of the significant contributions of social practice to public art history.

Social practice as a lived experience

In the anthology, Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art From 1991–2011, Creative Time curator Nato Thompson takes up the challenge of unpacking the multiple layers of a practice that spans the gamut from theatre to architecture, design to dinner parties, political activism to media campaigns. But in doing so, he also points out the limitations of the current language used in the contemporary art world to describe and define the nature of this range of work.

Socially engaged art may, in fact, be a misnomer. Defying discursive boundaries, its very flexible nature reflects an interest in producing effects and affects in the world rather than focusing on the form itself. In doing so, this work has produced new forms of living that force a reconsideration and perhaps new language altogether.

(Thompson 2012, p. 32)

Thompson is certainly not the first writer to raise the inadequacies of a discursive language to address an art form that has quickly evolved beyond the parameters of contemporary critical debate (Phillips 1999, Cartiere 2008, Bishop 2012). Rosalind Krauss took up the cause in her seminal essay, “Sculpture in the expanded field” (1979) as sculpture moved off the plinth and into the landscape with the likes of Richard Long, Mary Miss, and Walter de Maria. In 1989, Suzanne Lacy was developing a collective, critical response to the radical changes in public art as works continued to expand from public sculptural forms to public practices.³ Lacy was serving as the Dean of Fine Arts at the California College of Arts and Crafts⁴ and I had just taken up the role as coordinator of exhibitions and public programmes for the college galleries. It was through this position that I had a front row seat to the discussions and debates that would manifest the terminology for ‘new genre public art’ as I embarked on an adventure with Lacy and a team of intrepid artists, curators, educators, students, as well as dedicated volunteers attempting to ‘map the terrain’ of a particular form of public art that had moved off the traditional plinth and into the realm of community life.

Professional interests: engaging the institution – institutional critique redux

The evolution of the phrase, “new genre public art” is most often associated with Lacy’s anthology, Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art (1995), but for a handful of writers, curators, artists, project managers and volunteers, the phrase evokes memories of hours of talking (facilitated discussion groups, lunchtime breakout sessions, hallway catch-ups, choreographed dinners and animated dialogues at the bar); months of planning, coordinating and managing the countless details of a substantial public programme and retreat (flight bookings, equipment, transportation, meals, press, documentation, etc.); and the years of influence (curatorial, artistic, academic) this singular event has had on the lives of those who participated in the process.

The resulting collection of texts did not merely evolve out of the project but was always an integral part of the overall structure of the programme. Writers were invited to develop their initial ideas in advance of the event and these ideas served as the platform from which we could all discuss and debate the evolution of the field at that particular moment. My role was to work with the planning team to coordinate the public programme at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1991). The event was designed as a kind of town hall meeting with an impressive roster of performers and speakers⁵ such as Suzi Gablik, Walter Hood Jr and Patricia Phillips who poked, prodded and provoked a debate into being around our collective understanding of how public art was changing as a reflection of our current social conditions. I remember the lecture hall at SFMOMA’s former location in the San Francisco Legion of Honor being filled to capacity, so much so that we had to set up an overflow room to accommodate the public demand to attend the event (it was here that I learned that in the field of social practice, no job is too big or too small, it just needs to get done). I also remember running the microphone up and down the aisles from speaker to speaker as the evening unfolded and ushering the retreat attendees onto buses as we shuttled off into the night, heading north to Napa Valley for two days of intense discussions that would expand on those initial ideas and eventually result in the writings that completed the anthology.

While much of the Mapping the Terrain event was planned, including the topics for the discussion groups and the order of speakers, this was a living event filled with unexpected obstacles, unplanned opportunities and unforeseen outcomes. This was a major shift from my previous curatorial experiences of gallery exhibitions and artist lectures. The countless hours of unseen labour involved in the complex planning and management of Mapping the Terrain were similar to those I had encountered in a gallery context; however, the unforeseen and unpredictable effects of the project were radically different. Within a museum or gallery context, an exhibition or programme is often curating for a public. But this project was fundamentally different from any work I had been involved with previously. Mapping the Terrain was not only opening up the potential of curating with a public, it was also exploring the concept of curating in public.

Political influences: socialists living in a capitalist world

One of the participants and writers at Mapping the Terrain was Mary Jane Jacob and in 1991 when the event took place, she was between two significant curatorial projects that radically influenced not only my curatorial trajectory but also, I would venture, impacted on a generation of young curators and artists around the world. The first exhibition, Places with a Past: New Site-Specific Art in Charleston had opened for the Spoleto Festival on 24 May and ran for three months, closing on 4 August 1991. So when Jacob came to San Francisco in November of the same year for Mapping the Terrain, her experience in Charleston was still quite fresh. The exhibition featured an impressive selection of artists: Christian Boltanski, Chris Burden, James Coleman, Houston Conwill, Estella Conwill Majozo, Joseph DePace, Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Gwylene Gallimard, Jean-Marie Mauclet, Antony Gormley, Ann Hamilton, David Hammons, Ronald Jones, Narelle Jubelin, Liz Magor, Elizabeth Newman, Joyce Scott, Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, Alva Rogers and Barbara Steinmen. The works within this exhibition were a radical departure from those that had been developed for previous arts festivals and biennials. The artists involved produced works that were reflective of the specific locations in which each was sited. They not only responded to the topography of specific locations (both natural and artificial physical landscapes) but each grappled with the unique history, political context and/or social condition of the places selected. Many of the works were installations based in unusual locations (a former jail, a disused auto repair shop or a church), but a few ventured far outside the confines of an enclosed environment to sit boldly in front of the public eye. These were not works that occupied the traditional territory of the public plaza or the raised plinth. These were works that were firmly rooted in the neighbourhoods in which they were sited – works that not only spoke to a specific public but also to the social and cultural concerns of that public.⁶ This exhibition was not one curated for the usual festival art crowd of collectors, gallery owners or corporate funders. This was curating for a public.

In his extremely favourable New York Times review of the exhibition, critic Michael Brenson noted:

The sailing was not always smooth. The exhibition did not appeal to Gian Carlo Menotti, the founder and artistic director of the Spoleto Festival U.S.A., who threatened to resign over it at a board meeting last October. “It was not his idea of art”, said Claudia Keenan of the festival’s press office. At the same meeting, however, he agreed to go along with what the board wanted. “He has in some ways resigned himself to the show,” Ms. Keenan said (1991).

Given the critical success of the exhibition, one would think that Menotti might have reconsidered his initial position on the exhibition. However, as noted in Brenson’s 2013 reflection piece on Places with a Past,

Menotti did not want this exhibition. On May 30 (1991) Allan Kozinn reported in the Times that “in an extraordinarily fiery statement, delivered to the board on Monday, Mr. Menotti attacked the show again, describing it as ‘nothing more than silly, sophomoric stunts, justified by even sillier explanations.’ When a member of the board quoted Michael Brenson’s favorable review of the exhibition in the New York Times on Monday as part of a resolution in support of the curator, Mary Jane Jacob, Mr. Menotti stormed out of the meeting.” Two years later, Menotti resigned from the Fe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• List of contributors
• Introduction
• PART I The social practice of public art
• PART II The education of a public artist
• PART III The spatial fabric of public art and social practice
• PART IV Visual timeline
• References
• Index