The Failures of Public Art and Participation

Cameron Cartiere is a Professor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design (Vancouver, Canada). She is the author of RE/Placing Public Art, co-author of The Manifesto of Possibilities, and co-editor of The Practice of Public Art (with Shelly Willis), The Everyday Practice of Public Art (with Martin Zebracki), and The Routledge Companion to Art in the Public Realm (with Leon Tan) Anthony Schrag is Senior Lecturer in Cultural Policy and Arts Management at Queen Margaret University (Edinburgh, Scotland). He is an artist and researcher and the central focus of his work examines the role of art in participatory and public contexts, with a specific focus on social conflict, agonism and ethics. He has published numerous papers and produced social practice projects both nationally and internationally.

CONTENTS

List of illustrations

Acknowledgments

List of contributors

Introduction

Cameron Cartiere and Anthony Schrag

Part 1

Failure of the Process






Failure of Process: considering permanent works in an impermanent time
Cameron Cartiere






Failure as Success: Sam Durant’s Scaffold, Angela Two Stars’ Okciyapi, and the conundrum of critique.
Erika Doss






On Monumental Failure: A conversation
Paul Farber and Kanyinsola Anifowoshe




Failing Well: Exploring the value of failure through the UK national roll out of Arts on Prescription
Frances Williams




There’s always a story: Epic failings of the American percent-for-art model
Shelly Willis and Janet Zweig






Taking Inventory: digital public art collections and the challenge of physical distance
Lori Goldstein




Running across subsidence, following leaks: The ordinary failure of public art and public infrastructure services
Becky Shaw

Part 2

Failure of Participation




The Failure of Participation: the demos is in the detail
Anthony Schrag






We Thought We Were Going To Change The World! Socially engaged art as cruel optimism
Sophie Hope






Tarde de Sándwiches: The failure of participation in contemporary Cuban art
Celia Irina González Álvarez






How Intimate Public and Participatory Art Fails the City
Leon Tan






No impact on cultural participation? - An analysis of the objective of increasing and widening cultural participation in European Capital of Culture Aarhus 2017
Louise Ejgod Hansen and Hans-Peter Degn






Public Art Ethics and Failure: A postcolonial perspective on failure and the Centre for Political Beauty
Anika Marschall






Dare to Fail: socially engaged public art and its challenges in contemporary China
Meiqin Wang






Epilogue: Reconsidering failure

Harriet Senie

References

Index