Performances and Interventions - Art in the Public Realm
‘Performance Art’ is a label that gets thrown about like snow. It seems to be criticised quite unsatisfactorily by some who dismiss it as lazy or easy. Performance Art can be demanding and can require a confidence I am terribly unfamiliar with. I don’t believe art is something you can end up with accidentally. As such, power-cuts are not interventions but their effect on people can be comparatively similar. Where I feel performances and interventions differ from other forms of art, is their stage and their duration; they are unavoidably site specific and temporary.
Art in public spaces instigates a direct interaction with an often unprepared audience. When concerned with galleries or art-spaces, the viewer makes a declaration of consent. They choose to visit and enter the space; they buy in to the idea of being presented with art. If necessary, warnings can be given about potentially offensive material. The viewer can make the choice of entering and experiencing art from a partially informed position; the work is not thrust upon them at any hour or place. We choose to see art and then we seek it out.
In the public realm however, obtaining consent about experiencing art is acquiesced or ignored, sometimes arrogantly. Being preached at when we just want to get down a street is irritating. Public art is not necessarily preachy, but we have no immediate choice about it being there.
Galleries are private spaces, not public spaces. This difference of public and private location is one that fine-artists do not usually have to take into account. For architects and fashion designers, projects that never leave the studio are seen as failures. Personally I can’t deal with art all the time; I want to choose when I experience it. I like to be in control of when I see art. If an artist decides to enter the public realm, they should do so cautiously; the chances are that art-school has not prepared them for presenting to this audience, or that this audience is ready for them.
Do we have a right to choice? Aren’t there occasions where things should be set out for us? We are made daily to choose: which quality of tomatoes do I want to buy? Do I want to get a haircut soon? Shall I be honest with this artist who wants a secret from me?
By undertaking your artistic activity in public you take more responsibility for it. You have chosen to site your activities in public, but why? Why remove yourself from the safety of the gallery? The street is not a neutral space without rules of conduct: it has different rules to art-spaces and different implications, which need to be understood. By setting your work near an art establishment, it is possible your intended audience will dismiss anything unusual, and say to themselves “oh it’s probably just an art project...” therefore refusing to engage with your work. Public spaces are not easy to use, there is no generic public space; they are all different. The whole point of the white gallery space is that it is as free as possible from distractions that may confuse the intentions of artworks within it. This seems to pose the question when is the public realm appropriate for an artist’s intentions?
When a viewer has not consented to being presented with artwork, what do they tend to do when it is presented? To answer this simply, the viewer either engages or refuses to engage with what is being presented. And so we see that the viewer still makes a choice, based on intrigue, a choice to dismiss or to investigate, much like what happens with other art in the gallery context. We shop for ideas.
It is the refusal that further interests me. If you present art in a space where consent cannot be given and someone does not wish to experience it, have you been rude? Have you overstepped the mark? Is this an irresponsible thing to do?
Furthering this, what role are you playing as an artist if you intervene in a public space with an action that the public cannot say no to, that is unavoidable and forces the viewer to engage? An intervention that insists the viewer to do something different, or stops them from what they were doing. Is what I am doing still art, or has it become something else?
This text was commissioned for the It Couldn’t Be Made Up exhibition series at Surface Gallery in 2008. It was written in an attempt to partly contextualise performances and interventions that occurred alongside the private views for the shows.