One Day Sculpture', June 2008-June 2009

Aisthesis. Pratiche, linguaggi e saperi dell’estetico

In this paper, we draw attention to temporal aspects of works of art displayed, performed, or held in public spaces, generally designated as public art. We argue that the debate on public art has been biased towards discussing the spatial. We focus on the “temporariness” of public art, the primary temporal feature that has been under scrutiny in recent philosophical literature on public art. We explore arguments it has been woven into. In particular, we discuss and reject using temporariness as the mark dissecting the realm of public art into two different artforms and argue that it is just one of many temporal properties public artworks have and can use to bear meanings. We outline other ways works of public art bear temporal features and interact with temporal properties of spaces they occupy, and argue that those too are, potentially, aesthetically significant. We illustrate some of these with an example of a particular public artistic site, the open-air art gallery «ArtWall» loc...

2014

'Mechtild Widrich's astonishing and original book connects performance histories, feminist theory and speech act theory to elucidate the "event character" of public art by contemporary artists. With her bracing formulation of the "performative monument" and her probing analysis of photographic documentation of live acts, Widrich advances a powerful argument about the stakes of spectatorship, temporality and collective memory.' Julia Bryan-Wilson, Associate Professor of Contemporary Art, University of California, Berkeley ----------------------------------------------- 'Rigorously researched and argued, this important book will become required reading not only on the history and theory of performance art but also on the history of the "performative" itself as it has transformed public art and commemoration. With ideals of participation and engagement now commonplace in these arenas, Performative monuments shows us in vivid detail how these new ideals emerged and how problematic they have become. Ultimately, this book offers a hopeful message that art can perform its own investigation of the social world and lead us to engage in new and better practices of collective responsibility.' Kirk Savage, Professor, History of Art & Architecture, University of Pittsburgh -- . --------------------------------------------- "A slide projection of a Balkan capital city with the government buildings painted out; a Trojan horse made of scrap wood looming above the Venice lagoon; a lead column signed as resistance against neo-fascist tendencies; a tunnel made of stone and glass to commemorate the victims of National Socialism. All these interventions in the art-historical tradition of memorials and monuments were in fact made by performance artists. How does this fit into the common story that sets the seemingly transient live art of the 1960s, with its anarchic street actions, in opposition to official monument culture? I argue that performance, once reputed as an antipode to the monument in its ephemerality and messy embodiment, in fact holds the key to its contemporary revival. This transformation could only take place, however, through the exploration of problems internal to performance: how to document or otherwise visually symbolize ephemeral, undocumented, even impossible actions. In solving this problem through the self-conscious use of documentary photography, film, and diagrammatic collage, performance artists found themselves referring to the past: not just their own and that of their actions, but of their political and cultural context, which, more than the act itself, proves elusive for later audiences. Performance, made durable and rhetorically powerful through photographic documents, thus gave rise to a kind of monument that was self-reflexive, taking account of its conditions of possibility and involving the audience in conventional transactions with binding social force. For the first time, there is the possibility of the ‘democratisation’ of history in these monuments through the delegation of authority from artist and state to the public, but with democratisation comes the danger of subjective self-indulgence and reassuring spectacle. Connecting speech act and photography theory with media and memory studies, my book is an original contribution to the current debate on performance and art in public space, re-evaluating both the supposed one-time encounter of performance art and its loss to documentation, and the assumption that contemporary commemoration has democratically turned ‘against itself’ through countermonuments that refuse authority."

A few weeks ago I was asked to write about public art, possibly because of my affiliation with the Tentative Collective and our intermittent art experiments (situated often outside the gallery). I said yes without hesitation, only to discover a paralysis in zooming out of my own practice to reflect on what public art is. As an artist working in different kinds of urban space in Karachi, the question of what is 'public art' sets up a very limiting framework of binary discourses regarding both space (as either public or private), and art (the is-it-or-isn't-it debate). The number of assumptions built into these two words lead to circular conversations about assumed publics, places, and art that oversimplify meaningful study of works in their specific contexts.

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.

Artlink, 2010

Until recently, there have been two prevailing paradigms of art in the public arena. One is exemplified in the thinking of design theorists such as Kevin Lynch in The Image of the City (1960), when he inadvertently provided urban designers and planners with a ready reckoner for understanding the role of public art in the city.1 His chapter on the The City Image and its Elements, introduced concepts of paths, edges, districts, nodes, landmarks and various interrelationships of these. All were niftily diagramised, photographed and articulated in words readily communicable to urban designers and planners. Using such a lexicon, public art could be written up for civic authorities in instrumentalist policies that put a special value on integrated art and design. Eye-catching pathways, arty seats, colourful murals, identity and place-inspired gateways, and landmark sculptures could now be readily incorporated in new master plans. Public art, it was believed, could help make public spaces memorable.

This report compares the cultural value of two public artworks – Alex Hartley’s durational, dispersed Nowhereisland and Damien Hirst’s permanent, single-sited Verity that arrived in Ilfracombe in 2012. It assesses their contribution to reflective and engaged citizenship, local identity, regeneration, cultural tourism and legacy. The study responded to a methodological gap by developing a group-based participatory method - the visual matrix - that enables participants to express affective, aesthetic and cognitive experience of public art. The study compares methods and findings and triangulates with interviews and media analysis. Part 1 discusses the research methods and compares results. Part 2 discusses theoretical and conceptual foundations and analysis of the visual matrix, drawing on Alfred Lorenzer’s depth hermeneutics, the Deleuzian metaphor of rhizomatic thinking, Wilfred Bion’s conceptualization of reverie and containment and Donald Winnicott’s theorisation of transitional p...

2017

My Master's thesis on public art. I got a grade of distinction for the thesis.

1997

OSLO PILOT — a project investigating the role of art in and for public space — laying the groundwork for OSLO BIENNIAL FIRST EDITION, 2018

OSLO PILOT — a project investigating the role of art in and for public space — laying the groundwork for OSLO BIENNIAL FIRST EDITION To make art in and for the public domain today is to engage with the precariousness that both defines and threatens our experience of it. OSLO PILOT (2015–17)—a project investigating the role of art in and for the public space—laying the groundwork for Oslo Biennial First Edition brings together 38 previously published texts spanning the past 80 years and 19 commissioned texts exploring art in public spaces and spheres. It also includes an edited transcript of the symposium, organized by OSLO PILOT in the fall of 2016, “The Giver, the Guest, and Ghost: The Presence of Art in Public Realms.” The publication embodies the idea of the city as a prerequisite and basis for work, and focuses on the conditions of public space as a field where many agencies, identities, and interests meet and are made visible.

The history of public art in Singapore spans almost the entire duration from its founding in the 19th century to the current day. The practice of commissioning sculptures for public spaces has also evolved from having those with commemorative purposes, such as memorials, to contemporary installations which encourage visitors’ interaction. This dissertation analyses the trends in the development of public art in Singapore, particularly in the Civic District area. It attempts to relate these trends to a larger context of urban design and societal development over three time periods, namely the Colonial period, the Post-Independence period and the Contemporary period. Instead of looking at sculptures as standalone entities with narratives separate from its surroundings, this research aims to highlight two new aspects: firstly, to show that the symbolism imbued in each sculpture is an amalgamation of the planning authority’s vision, the commissioning organisation’s agenda and the artist’s interpretation of these objectives. Secondly, it will show the impermanence of a public artwork’s symbolism over time. The significance of a sculpture is constantly shaped by an overarching place or even national identity. Conversely, the higher the resonance of a sculpture with its visitors (i.e. a tourist landmark), the more likely it might influence the area’s development plans, especially in a historical and cultural area like the Civic District.