Research Inquiry- Final Project

For my final project, I would like to explore the issue surrounding public art that has become problematic in the public’s eye. In order to investigate this, I want to establish a couple of initial categories to explore this inquiry. The first category is to identify which public art works are viewed as most problematic in the eye of the public and to understand why. Next, I want to explore previous public artworks that have been successful and understand how they were successful in creating a narrative that has lasted through time and been accepted. Finally, I want to create an art practice that is driven by experiential processes to result in the construction of a new, possible piece of public art.

My plan to realize my final project comes from combining my experience and knowledge of history and sculpture. I will use history to offer context, socially and culturally, to public art work that has failed and succeed alike. This will be through a process of image analysis, and historical/ document analysis. Once underway, I will use this process to guide my art practice to push ideas of what public sculpture can be using my skills from sculpting.

The reading I completed to inform this statement was “Sensitive Territories: Performatives Researchers in Arts and Nature”, and it covered methods and benefits to combining art with the sciences to foster societal and cultural change. One facet discussed towards creating research-based art that is successful is the creation of urgency.[1] Urgency frames the issue as truly relevant and creates a sensation, or need, to focus on said issue. I will try to capture this in my historical analysis in concert with public art. Another facet discussed towards creating research-based art that is successful is to “dramatize” and “defuse” the ideas surrounding my inquiry. This will allow me to frame the issue in a way that seems both over-the-top as well as still grounded in reality to an extent.[2] Based on my midterm project, I didn’t put enough of my own sensibilities into my art. This will be a method to pull that out of me more. Lastly, another facet to discussed towards creating successful research-based art is the use of experiential practice. Experiential practice refers to the “mutual interaction with the space, based on the relationships between body and environment, performance and perception, sensoriality and creative impulses. Proposing that from performing experiences, politics, aesthetic, cognitive and poetic issues can emerge as the field of creative possibilities.”[3] Essentially, I am going to go out and record my engagement with public art and see what I take away from the experience of being around it. I aim to encounter as many different attempts at public art as I can in my research due to this, ranging from historical monuments to contemporary abstract works.

[1] Ribeiro, Walmeri, and Daniel Quaranta. "Sensitive Territories: Performatives Researchers in Arts and Nature." Leonardo 51, no. 3 (2018): 289-290. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/698298.

[2]Ribeiro, “Sensitive Territories”, 289-290.

[3] Ribeiro, “Sensitive Territories”, 289-290.