Art as a ‘Public’ Issue
Friday 7 November 2008 10.30am - 6pm

A one-day symposium to celebrate the launch of OPEN 14 - an anthological publication examining how art and its institutions inform notions of public space. The publication contains a diversity of texts that tackle the impact of globalization on the public role of art by contributors including 16Beaver, Bik Van der Pol, Chantal Mouffe, Nina Möntmann, Simon Sheikh, Sven Lütticken, Maria Hlavajova and BAVO.  

Organised by Situations, in partnership with SKOR, the Netherlands and the Serpentine Gallery, London, this symposium will bring together an international panel of writers, curators and artists to consider the interrelations of place-based practice and how ideas of ‘publicness’ are explored in art, its institutions and its audiences. Given the increasing commercialisation and privatisation of the public sphere this symposium asks how can art and curatorial practice respond to the specifics of place and duration as a means of rethinking the ways in which we engage with, conceive of and reclaim public space as a counter- social, political and cultural site in need of re-invention?

Speakers include BAVO, Freee Art Collective, Chantal Mouffe, Simon Sheikh, Sally Tallant, and Tom van Gestel.

Booking Information

Tickets: £10/ £8 concessions (lunch is not provided) book via info@london.goethe.org or call +44 (0)20 7402 6075

Location: The Goethe Institute, 50 Prince Gate, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2PH. For further information visit www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/knt/anf/enindex.htm

For further information about Open visit www.opencahier.nl