Miwon Kwon article

Miwon Kwon One Place After Another; Site specific art and locational identity

The intro chapter was a good overview of "site-specific" work from the late 1960's to the present (see Kara and Ashley's presentation). I am most interested in what Kwon brings up as the shift from site specificity to community specificity in what is coined "new genre public art". This kind of art engages the audience, and the community as active participants in the conceptualization and production of the project.

I was living in Chicago the public art program “CULTURE IN ACTION” came out curated by Mary Jane Jacob. Organized for Sculpture Chicago, it took place over a two-year period (1991-93); artists worked in direct partnership with community members to explore the changing nature of public art, its relationship to social issues, and an expanded role of audience from spectator to participant and offered a new model for art in the urban context.

Kwon divided the works from that show into four different communities; the community of mythic unity, "sited" communities, invented communities (temporary), and invented communities (ongoing). It seems as if it is a difficult task to label public art as a coherent movement as Kwon states that there are numerous inconsistencies and contradictions in the field.

An interesting Project that was going on in NYC in June through Labor Day was by artist Paul Ramirez Jonas' Key to the City. It was a citywide public art project that allows every New Yorker and visitor to open spaces in all five boroughs.