Mapping Ethics in Public Art
Following and building upon, Mapping the Future: Public Art in Scotland, three public seminars organised by PAR+RS, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, and Creative Scotland, October 2010, this joint proposal seeks to disseminate some of the insights from those events in respect of salient ethical aspects of public art practice. This is in advance of a more detailed report and publication of findings, which might constructively draw upon the debates to be generated by the Stills event.
This paper focuses on one prominent theme offered to the Mapping discussions by Dutch artist Jeanne Van Heeswjik. For Van Heeswjik a productive ethics can emerge from that form of participatory art practice which facilitates ‘temporary fields of intervention’ which in turn foster the ‘intensification of trivialities’. By these means, the citizen experiences a constructive encounter with their own locale, one which lingers in lore if not in artefact: the encounter might be termed ethical by Van Heeswjik as she encourages the participant to ‘act up’ in their environment and to take ownership of the locale for the duration of the project and beyond.
Questions which emerged from discussion of Van Heeswijk’s practice, especially, and also from the presented work of Graham Fagen and Tracy Mackenna & Edwin Janssen, relate expressly to the following suggested inquiries:
• What is the role of aesthetics in relation to the ethical and the political?
• Should the artist be subject to the same ethical codes and responsibilities as practitioners from other disciplines?
• Is the viewer’s relationship with an artwork ethically different from our other encounters with objects, knowledge, individuals and communities?
With contextualisation by way of reference to Ranciere’s observations on the paradox of political art, and David Schwartz’s defence of art as dress-rehearsal for democratic politics, the paper speculates in conclusion on the ways in which practices explored at Mapping the Future: Public Art in Scotland might offer models for thinking further about how to circumvent Ranciere’s identified risk of critical art practice promulgating consensus by hubris or by accident.
Biographies
Dr Ken Neil is an academic, writer and Head of the Forum for Critical Inquiry at The Glasgow School of Art. He studied painting and the history and philosophy of art at Edinburgh University as an undergraduate, before achieving an MFA in Painting from Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) in 1995. He completed a PhD in art theory in 2003, while teaching Humanities and History of Art at ECA and the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. From 1999 he was lecturer in Contextual and Critical Studies at Gray's School of Art, taking on the Headship of Fine Art and Fine Art Critical Studies in 2002. In 2005 he led a new MFA in Critical Social Art Practice for Gray's before being appointed Head of Historical and Critical Studies at The Glasgow School of Art in 2006.
His research interests cover three broad territories: theories and philosophies of the real; issues of tradition and access in contemporary art education; and, contemporary art practices with an emphasis on theories of the public domain. Recent publications and conferences along these lines include: ‘The Rules of Collective Art’, AAH Conference Session, March 2010; 'Accessing and Decoding Communities of Cultural Capital', paper at 'Lifelong Learning Revisited', Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning, University of Stirling, June 2009; 'Realism, Reification, Pragmatism', paper at 'Visualising the Everyday', School of American Studies, University of Nottingham, September, 2008; 'Telling Stories: the films of Duncan Campbell', MAP, Edinburgh: MAP Magazine/SAC, Issue 15, Summer 2008; 'Surface Depth: The Photorealism of Fred Schley', exhibition catalogue; An Tuireann, Skye, March, 2006; 'Steven Duval: Courting the Public' in Aberdeen: A Social Laboratory, Monika Vykoukal (ed.), Aberdeen: Peacock Visual Arts/SAC, 2006; 'Art of the Public' in MAP, Edinburgh: MAP Magazine/SAC, Issue 4, Spring 2006; 'Double Trauma: Mute Art of Terror' in Art In The Age of Terrorism, Graham Coulter-Smith and Maurice Owen (eds.), London: Paul Holberton International, 2005; 'Repeat, Entity, Ground: Visual Art Practice as Critical Differentiation' in Thinking Through Art: Reflections on Art as Research, Katy MacLeod and Lin Holdridge (eds.), New York: Routledge, 2005; 'Institutionalised Fine Art Research As Stigmatised Knowledge' in Journal of Visual Art Practice Online, NAFAE, 2005.
Professor Tracy Mackenna is Chair of Contemporary Art Practice at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD), where her roles have included Head of the School of Fine Art, Associate Dean of Art & Media and Acting Dean (2010). She regularly speaks and writes on contemporary art and on art in higher education. Committed to the development of the arts through active participation, contributions through advisory roles and board memberships include; Glasgow Sculpture Studios (a Founding Director), Hospitalfield Arts Programme Strategy Group, Pier Arts Centre’s feasibility study into new academic partnerships in the Orkney Islands, MAP magazine, Botanic Garden Dundee, Scottish Sculpture Workshop, DCA Dundee Contemporary Arts, Art Connexion France, CCA Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Pépinières Européennes pour Jeunes Artistes, Paris & London; and to policy as a member of the Reference Group, National Policy for Public Art, Scottish Arts Council.
Since 1997 she has worked collaboratively with Edwin Janssen. Their art practice is a discursive site for production, social engagement, participation and reflection. Central to exhibition projects are environments that integrate art making, presentation, exchange, education and reflection. Research explores the mediation of history and personal archives, construction of identities, museum culture and the role of creative writing in visual practice. Activities take the form of exhibition projects, exhibitions, publications, public commissions, curation and writing. Over the last decade major projects and publications have been commissioned by, amongst others, P3 Art and Environment, Tokyo, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, the Netherlands, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Ikon Gallery Birmingham, Migros Museum, Zürich. Public commissions include The Merchant’s House Garden, Kirkcaldy, I put my name on everything, The Tron Theatre, Glasgow and a major commission for The Scottish Office, Edinburgh.