Utopia and Monument I. On the validity of art between privatization and the public sphere

Utopia and Monument was conceived as a two-year project at styrian autumn in 2009 and 2010 and picked up the question of the validity of systems of value. This exhibition for the public space provocatively negotiated two concepts that have largely vanished from the debate on the public sphere: utopia as a space of possibility and the monument as a space of memory. For both are gateways to possible other forms of organization of the public sphere that allow us to ask, again and again, who really owns the public sphere.

Utopias and monuments have both come up for tough, critical analysis in recent years, challenging or even fighting against their validity, particularly in relation to works of art. Contemporary artists working in and with the public space have increasingly replaced their works with objects of communication and action, thus developing a kind of public practice that sets out to annul the contradiction between art and the public sphere, at least to some extent.

But that which we call the public space has itself changed drastically over the past twenty years, becoming the plaything of various, above all economic, interests. With the effect that all contradictions that really condition the public sphere and that are negotiated in it (or driven out of it) now need to be reformulated – along with the possibilities of manipulation available to art. So, what is the validity of art—is it still a relevant field of social debate at all? Can the public sphere still be recovered as a space for debates of equal validity, for talk, opinions, and interests, given that it is above all commercially governed?

The exhibition guide includes an artwork by Michael Zinganel.