Kunst im öffentlichen Raum
The term "art in public space " at first requires a definition of public space. It refers to, distinguished from private space, freely accessible spaces in which art can happen. It is usually about urban spaces such as pedestrian zones, public buildings, streets and green areas but also natural landscapes.
A prerequisite to place modern works of art in public spaces is, first of all, their liberation from any museum context. From this autonomy of art, the wish to put the work into a new context and to legitimize the work's location through the concept of the so-called site specificity also arises. Site specificity is graspable from a formal aesthetic perspective on the one hand, when art works react to their surroundings, when they reference them and, consequently, are made exclusively for this particular location. On the other hand, a reciprocal action with regards to content can be observed if a work of art has a location's deeply symbolic content as its topic and, for instance, serves the objectives of a culture of remembrance. Ever more often, art in public space enters a synthesis with concepts of urban planning.
Since the 1980s, a socio-cultural, functional and esthetic component of art in public space has been developed, especially when artists integrate the observer into their work, by offering direct opportunities to participate, by offering food, seats or means of recreation. In the context of a socio-cultural background, there are also works that actively influence society and are therefor regarded as "Interventions", whereas the borders between artistic creation and socio-political control become indistinct.
As manifold as the expressions of art in public space are in terms of contents, comprising, among others, variants such as Land Art, Graffiti and Street Art, the materials are just as manifold, that artists such as Angela Bulloch, Carsten Höller, Sakarin Krue-On, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Lois Weinberger make use of.
