Public Spaces

In her article Kwon presents three “distinct paradigms”:

• " Art-in-public-places”
• “Art-as-public-spaces”
• “Art-in-the-public-interest”

All obviously relate to the works that Kwon mentions, works that have been placed in the public eye. While it is true that placing artwork in public spaces means that a larger audience will be able to view it, does this serve the interests of the artist, or the public? I would assume that these works would fit more than one of these paradigms, for example, a work that was designed specifically to fit in an area as a decoration for a public space would also be relevant to the place where it will reside. Maybe something along the lines of a memorial relevant to the context of the area, or a work commemorating an important event relevant to the area. At the start of her article Kwon talks about two “failed public artworks”. These are presented as examples of art that is definitely not in the public interest. Or maybe artwork that was designed to be but didn’t really fulfil its purpose and became something more as something that just sat in a public space. Ultimately when one is designing a work for a particular area, two important ideas factor in; the place where it will sit and how the people who live in this place will react to it. I believe these works failed because they didn’t fulfil the needs of both of these concepts.