Course detail
Art in Public Space. The Investor, the Function, Perception
FaVU-UMFPAcad. year: 2021/2022
The course focuses on the basic strategies of placing works of art in public space within the Central European cultural framework from the 19th century to the present. It will introduce their specific functions and formal solutions, as well as the changing content of the terms "the public/the public one", "public space" and "collective representation", both in the contemporary discourse and in selected sociological, empirical and art history approaches. Through representative examples the students will be acquainted with the variable relationship of heteronomy and autonomy on the axis of a political assignment and an artistic solution, as virtually every artistic work in public space can be understood as a political act with political implications. In addition to the strategies of placing art in public space, a special attention will be paid to their disposal: the so-called "minus effect" that accompanies the removal of "undesirable" sculptural works (especially memorials). This practice is also linked with the heritage protection of both official and civic nature. The first part of the course will present "a history of city construction" and installation of artworks in relation to urban design. We will also focus on the current situation where traditional urban monuments are beginning to lose their symbolic significance and visual appeal, and artists seek (often outside the official institutions) to create alternative interventions in public space and at the same time to seek more effective expression strategies aimed at the wide - and very diversified - urban audience. We are also interested in the process of the appropriation of these subversive artistic expressions by the power representation. These topics will be reflected through the crucial category of urban public space.
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Course curriculum
2. The uncertain meaning of the term of "public space", its symbolic ownership and legitimate use
3. Historical changes: the public space as a basis of the traditional composition of city (Giambattista Nolli, Otto Wagner, Camillo Sitte); the collapse of tradition - abstract functionalist urbanism (Le Corbusier)
4. Attempts to return to the traditional urban forms, generic city, "metastatic" urbanism - the renewal of Barcelona
5. From the park to the shopping mall: the tension between the private and public dimensions of urban space
6. A memorial as a political act; "memorial disputes" as indicators of social and political changes
Significant examples in the Czech Republic: the Marian Column in the Old Town Square, the Liberation Monument at Vítkov in Prague)
7. The Communist-era planning development: systemic installations of works of art in public space
8. Damnatio memoriae and the "minus effect": the removal and demolition of sculptural monuments
(The Stalin Monument at Letná in Prague, The Communists in the Moravian Square in Brno)
9. The apparent autonomy: the contemporary artistic works in public space and their correspondence with the official assignment
10. Examples of top-down and bottom-up strategies (The Monument Manual)
11. The current curatorial and artistic approaches. Finding a consensus among the "statues in the streets" and the contemporary dematerialized art concepts
12. The current strengthening of the role of the state as the assigning authority
13. Artistic works as a commentary on the history of the 20th and 21st centuries (domestic and foreign examples).
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Classification of course in study plans
- Programme VUM Master's
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective