Andrea Balart (andreaabc18), Tania Archilla (@taniarse)
In the past, works of art were designed to be admired in the distance. People went to museums and art galleries and they just simply looked at what the painter had created. It was a passive experience. The works of art were designed by only one artist and so, he received all the honours and compliments for the efforts. However, this trend has changed. In the beginning of the twenties, artists start to let their public interact with their works and even to participate in the creation process. This new field of contemporary art is called participatory art and it’s a trend that is being more popular year by year.
Different sectors of culture are trying to be more opened to their audience. So, there are TV series scriptwriters that accept suggestions of their spectators and, depending on the ideas they receive, they can develop more episodes or change the events of the plot. The same happens with the authors of books. For example, the author of romantic novels Federico Moccia, released the third part of the Three meters above the sky trilogy because his readers wanted that the main couple stayed together. In the case of the film industry, if a film has been successful, probably the directors will do a remake or a sequel like Star Wars, X-Men or Scream, because users demand it. And with visual arts?
“Participatory art started on 1916 with the dadaism movement, which was developed as a reaction to the World War I”, says Lourdes Cirlot, an art hisotiran and an expert in the contemoporary art and the avant-garde culture. She explains that during this past century artists have continued to make this type of art, also called open art, to criticise the traditional culture products that were exhibited in museums. This new art consists on engaging the audience in the art-making process and so, the artist is not the sole creator, but is a co-creator of the artwork with the public. In this sense, artists have to options: they can provide some guidelines to the people towards a specific goal or they can let people act freely and sporadically in order the painting or sculpture would be more natural. Depending on the pattern they choose, the results can be very diverse. It’s important to highlight that some of these participatory art takes place mainly in public spaces like parks, squares or in the front of a building. Nevertheless, there are other participatory artworks that are installed in museums and galleries too.
One of the artists that can be included in this category of art is Tania Brugera. She is an activist and a Cuban artist who lives between New York and Havana. Most of her works are related to social and political issues as her 2010 work Surplus Value. This work is inspired on the robbery of the sign “Arbeit macht frei” (Work will make you free) which was at the entrance of Auschwitz concentration camp. In the gallery, participants were selected into two groups: those who could enter to work and others who had to pass lie detector tests as an example of what immigrants had to live.
Another example of this collaborative and open art is the 1967 sculpture Soul city (Pyramid of Oranges) by Roelof Louw. The work was a pyramid created by 5800 oranges which visitors were invited to take and as a result, the piece changed completely while it was being dismantled. In addition, Water light graffiti by French artist Antonin Fourneau, was opened to the public. The work was an outdoor installation in Poitiers (France) made of thousands of LED lights that light up when they were in contact of water. In this case, people could use different materials like sponges, brushes or spray cans in order to draw words or pictures. So, the final result depends on the public creation.
As we already know, part of the essence of art is to make the viewer participate in the values it contains. But which are the reasons why the artists let their public contribute in their work?
Participative works with an implicative tendency are generated from social structures and addressed to them, in an attempt to modify some social forms through the expansion of communitary participation structures. First of all, an participative proposal supposes the knowledge from the artist about the environment in which the work of art will work.
Claire Bishop in the introductory study of Participation (2006, pp.10-17), distinguishes two types of ethical motivations why the artists produce works with participatory intentions. A first reason focuses on the creation of an active social subject, a spectator turned into a collective subject strengthened thanks to the physical or symbolic experience that involves participating. The second reason involves the intention of restoring the idea of community through a collective re-elaboration of meaning. In addition, this type of practices are a way to add endless points of view and interpretations to the piece of art, and not just the one from the artist.
Although there are some economical reasons behind as well, the idea of these artists is not to earn money. These innovative -and currently trendy- experiences can make the artist become popular among the public. As Lourdes Cirlot Valenzuela explains, “if this artist is a very media person and reaches a large audience with millions of people participating online and linked to social networks, this can be a way to make money. In the end this is a formula that allows to be in contact with strong companies that can even finance the product”.
The implicative participation takes place in three different moments: the first is the participation of the artist in the public, the second the participation of the work of art in the formation of the public; and finally, the participation of the public in the work. The phases of this participatory process are interrelated and can take place simultaneously or successively. Works in which participation takes a social form, the artist considers the viewer as a citizen and a political being, and in turn, the artist assumes the role of citizen involved with this social reality.
All in all, the participatory art is an interesting way to change people’s conception of art: the public is no more the passive subject. However, we can’t forget about the limits it sets out because the the key is to understand that the person who has the idea is the creator. The public can help to conclude it but the artist will be always the author.
Sources:
Interview to Lourdes Cirlot, an art hisotiran and an expert in the contemoporary art and the avant-garde culture
http://revistas.um.es/api/article/view/117381/111031
http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/collaborative
http://collectivenext.com/blog/participation-collaboration-lessons-public-art
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/participatory-art
https://www.elperiodico.com/es/tele/20170312/netflix-permitira-elegir-el-final-de-las-series-5886426
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/tania-bruguera-11982
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/louw-soul-city-pyramid-of-oranges-t13881
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