Reinventing the arts institution under the condition of past-publics
Dr Andrea Phillips is Professor of Fine Art and Director of PhD programmes in the Art Department at Goldsmiths. Andrea lectures and writes about the economic and social construction of publics within contemporary art. Recent and ongoing research projects include: Curating Architecture, a think tank and exhibition examining the role of exhibitions in the making of architecture’s social and political forms (AHRC 2007-2009: http://www.art.gold.ac.uk/research/archive/curating-architecture/), Actors, Agent and Attendants, a research project and set of publications that address the role of artistic and curatorial production in contemporary political milieus (in collaboration with SKOR 2009-2012:http://www.skor.nl/eng/site/item/actors-agents-and-attendants-ii-programme), co-director with Suhail Malik, Andrew Wheatley and Sarah Thelwall of the research project The Aesthetic and Economic Impact of the Art Market, an investigation into the ways in which the art market shapes artists’ careers and public exhibition (2010-ongoing), Public Alchemy, the public programme for the Istanbul Biennial 2013 (co-curated with Fulya Erdemci), Tagore, Pedagogy and Contemporary Visual Cultures (in collaboration with Grant Watson and Iniva, AHRC 2013-2014:http://art.gold.ac.uk/tagore/), How to Work Together (in collaboration with Chisenhale Gallery, Studio Voltaire and The Showroom, London 2014-ongoing: http://howtoworktogether.org/).
In Critical Issues in Public Art / Season II, we take a closer look at the North American tradition of “Public Practice”. In particular, we will examine how this tradition overlaps with, but is also distinct from, the Western European orientation. We will discuss the renewed interest in materiality, the tactile, and craft traditions in contemporary art practice. How does this tendency relate to the trend towards social engagement that is so characteristic of the art of the 1990s and 2000s? The use of relational and participation-based strategies, often referred to as “art as social practice”, has been viewed as the adequate critical response to the consumer-orientation of Western culture. The renewed interest in forms of art that are, if not exactly object-based, then at least concerned with materiality and craft traditions, seems to mark a new point of departure. Ever since Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev’s dOCUMENTA (13), numerous major exhibitions have claimed the critical potential of this new tendency. In the light of this new direction in contemporary art practice, the lecture series will examine the following questions: What is implied in the reintroduction of the concepts of materiality, the tactile object, and the idea of autonomous into the discourse of public art? What conditions apply to critical art practice in the public realm? What role should art play in our public space?
KORO (Public Art Norway) initiates dialogues, workshops and publications to stimulate debate about topical issues within its field. Our lecture series Critical Issues in Public Art investigates the conditions that apply to art in the public realm. Debates concerning art in the public realm often evolve into political debates about fundamental principles. We consider it both relevant and essential to encourage discussion about, and reflection on, issues that affect us as well as other individuals and institutions in our field. The lectures are open, but the main audience is professional practitioners in the field of contemporary art: artists, curators, producers, architects, planners, researchers and students, among others. Previous lecturers include Jasmina Cibic, Mechtild Widrich, Paul O`Neill, Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk, Knut Åsdam, Thomas Hirschhorn, Rosalyn Deutsche, Marianne Heier, Claire Doherty, Nato Thompson, Apolonija Šušteršič, Eva González-Sancho, Suzanne Lacy and Maria Lind.
Critical Issues in Public Art season II is curated by Trude Schjelderup Iversen and Nora C. Nerdrum (KORO).
