Utopia and Monument II. On Virtuosity and the Public Sphere

This exhibition for the public space with its commissioned works became an experiment exploring the question whether the public space can still offer the “space of appearance,” as politically organized space, as described by Hannah Arendt. The exhibition covered a wide range of works from collective models and changes in the psycho-geographical sphere all the way to work; work in which artistic authorship is reduced to a script, with the work being carried out by someone else.

Utopia as a space of thought, the monument as a space of memory: art beyond the museum and gallery negotiating these two imaginary spaces plays an important role in the history of steirischer herbst-festival and has increasingly fallen into disrepute. Last year, the two-stage exhibition project Utopia and Monument above all examined the privatization of the public space. In 2010 it focused on the question as to how art for public space is exposed to the gaze of others but at the same time needs their presence: what transfers, what interventions, but also what disappearance insist on sharing common space?

How do artists deal with this situation of their exposure (as a political act?), how do they react to the expectations and various interests with which they are confronted? What specific abilities and skills do they possess with regards to designing memorials, sculptures, and monuments—that is to say, interventions intended to create public effect, a political terrain of common affairs? What networks and proven co-operations do they avail themselves of? Do they need cunning public relations strategies to make their own work visible in public space in the first place?

The exhibition guide includes an artwork by Andrea Fraser.