Site specific interventions

Sites for the exhibition of art work have moved beyond the traditional places of the museum or gallery. In addition, exhibitions themselves have also evolved into spectacular events like the VeniceBiennale, the Muenster sculpture projectsor Documentain which art works are situated throughout the urban environment and within all the various realms of social activity.
The seminar is a survey of the evolution of the different art practices relating to site specific and other public art projects or interventions which take place outside of the traditional museum environment, including sculpture, installations, graffiti and performances specifically conceived of as forms of artistic discourse situated in public spaces and/or within the routines of everyday life.
The class includes a discussion of selected theoretical works relating to this art praxis as well as an analysis of specific projects and work that have significantly shaped the dimensions of this area of activity. Additionally, students will apply the ideas and issues contained in readings and discussions to situations and locations throughout the city.
The seminar led by: Allan Siegel

Readings to include selections from the following:

Albright, Deron.  “Tales of the city: applying Situationist social practice to the analysis of the urban drama” in the journal Criticism, Volume: 45. Issue: 1 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003)  Page  89+.
Crimp, Douglas.  “Redefining Site Specificity” in On the Museum in Ruins (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993) pp. 150-186 ISBN-10: 0-262-53126-7
Deutsche, Rosalyn.  “Tilted Arc and the Uses of Democracy” in Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996) pp. 257-268 ISBN-10: 0-262-04158-8
Groys, Boris.  “Marx After Duchamp, or The Artist’s Two Bodies” in E-Flux Journal #19 (October 2010) pp. 1-7
Kluge, Alexander and Negt, Oskar.  “The Public Sphere of Monuments - the Public Sphere and Historical Consciousness” in The Public Sphere and Experience (currently out of print)
Ross, Kristen. “Henri Lefebvre on the Situationists: An Interview with Henri Lefebvre,” Interview conducted and translated 1983 by Kristen Rossin the journal October 79 (Cambridge: MIT Press, Winter 1997)
Marchart, Oliver.  “Some basic observations on the difficult relation of public art, urbanism and political theory” in stadtmotiv* 5 Essays on Architecture, City and the Public Sphere(s) Editors: Andreas Lechner & Petra Maierthe (Wien: selene, 1999) ISBN 3-85266-111-0
Mitchell, William J.T. “The definition of ‘post-modernism’"
Moholy-Nagy, László. “Space is a reality”
O’Doherty, Brian. “The Vernacular Glance” quoted by Anne Ring Petersen in Chapter 16: “Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger at Times Square” in “The urban lifeworld: formation, perception, representation”, Editors: Peter Madsen & Richard Plunz (London: Routledge, 2002) p. 369 ISBN 0-415-23403-4 (hbk)
O’Neill, Paul. “Three stages in the art of public participation: The relational, social and durational” in dérive 39 (2010) pp. 1-10
Sassen, Saskia.  “Making Public Interventions in Today’s Massive Cities” in Static. Issue 04– Unaccommodated (The London Consortium: November 2006) pp. 1-8 http://static.londonconsortium.com/issue04/
Tsui, Hilary. “Art interventions as alternative place−making; Urban cultural exchange between Vienna and Hong Kong,” in dérive 33 (2008) pp. 1-5
Phillips, Patricia. “Creating Democracy: A Dialogue with Krzysztof Wodiczko” in Art Journal, (Winter 2003) pp. 32 – 47