Mr. Lajos Heder

Working on a Public Site

Posted by Mr. Lajos Heder, May 17, 2010 0 comments


Mr. Lajos Heder

Public art provides direct and on-going encounters between non-art viewers and artists’ ideas and artwork. These encounters become part of the everyday life of communities, not mediated by the filters of galleries and museums. Members of the audience of public art are not conditioned by art world expectations, they may not even know that they are encountering "art". The challenge of the artist is to catch the attention of the general public, to move the audience. By creating these kinds of encounters, public art can build community culture and can catalyze community regeneration. For me, this takes art-making back to a more essential mission than traditional making only in the studio. By drawing its energy from site, community and setting, public art can help regenerate the art world itself. A culture that often gets stuck in closed circles of commercial product making, art-star making and the echo chambers of critical studies. To commence a project with a site visit, to encounter strangers in a strange place, to look and search intensively with eyes and ears wide open, gives each project an exciting new impetus.

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