Putting the Public in Public Art: An Ethnographic Approach to Two Temporary Art Installations

Abstract

Temporary public art installations are an increasingly common sight in industrialized cities. This reflects local government and civic organizations’ interest in the potential social and economic benefits of art, as well as artists and curators’ interest in engaging “the public.” Yet little systematic social‐scientific attention is paid to the ways that public art, once installed, affects its site, and the ways that people interact with it. How can these artworks be understood as “public”? What kinds of urban publics do they produce? Approaching these questions as an urban anthropologist, I analyze ethnographic material from two pieces. One of these pieces was Kim Morgan's 2006 work Time Transit, a mixed‐media installation on an operational city bus in Regina, Saskatchewan, which invited passengers to co‐produce the art via text messages. The other piece was Situated Cinema–created by Tom Evans, Craig Rodmore, and Will Vachon in 2012–a demountable micro‐cinema that moved to different sites in Winnipeg, Manitoba, projecting short experimental films about cities. Analysis of the 3,960 text messages sent during Time Transit and interviews and observations conducted at Situated Cinema shows that each installation intervened in the socio‐spatial dialectic of its sites in original and sometimes unanticipated ways. Moreover, each produced and mediated public dialogue in a distinct sense and to different degrees. I conclude by reflecting on what an ethnographic approach can reveal about the publicness of public art—and what it might leave out.

Research on the Application of Synthetic Polymer Materials in Contemporary Public Art

“…Through a systematic study, the discussion of public art materials in the English literature mainly focuses on the sociality of public art [ 21 , 22 ], and public [ 23 , 24 ], cultural [ 25 ] or narrative analysis of materials in specific cases [ 26 , 27 ]. Although some studies presented discussions from the perspective of engineering and materials science, some focused on ceramic materials [ 28 ], and some on the preservation and restoration of public art [ 29 , 30 ].…”

Arte público y espacio público: Una aproximación para el estudio de “públicos” del arte público

“…Bajo esta última idea, resaltan al menos una serie de puntos indispensables que abrigaría el interés mutuo entre los miembros de los públicos frente a obras de arte públicas determinadas. Esto, dado los amplios resultados de investigaciones que la corroboran (Bloomfield, 2020;Horowitz, 1996;Kwon, 2004;Pinochet, 2016aPinochet, , 2016bRadice, 2018;Schacter, 2014;Vernet, 2014;Zebracki, 2014) 14 , existen, a la hora de agruparlas, al menos tres dimensiones que, en mi consideración, dominarían la esfera pública del arte en el espacio público dada la recurrencia de los resultados: a. Correspondiente al nivel técnico de la obra. b. Correspondiente a las emociones propias de los individuos y referente al gusto (Levinson, 1992).…”

Cultural practices and rough sociality in Mexico’s midsize cities: Tijuana, Puebla and Monterrey

“…It can be argued that creativity requires organisational forms that emphasise short but intense encounters (Harvey et al, 2012: 534), or that cultural agents usually rely on ‘loose, ephemeral networks to address the issues surrounding the implementation of creative city policy in ways which oppose it but also seek alternatives’ to it (Borén and Young, 2016: 1). For Radice (2018), the preference for ephemeral artworks reflects ‘local government and civic organizations’ interest in the potential social and economic benefits of art, as well as artists and curators’ interest in engaging the public’ (p. 45). Another answer is that cultural work has become so unstable and precarious that cultural actors cannot commit to any long-term endeavour without too much risk.…”