Public: Art/Culture/Ideas
20th anniversary
THE PUBLIC ACCESS COLLECTIVE is pleased to announce the 20th anniversary of the collective’s critically acclaimed journal Public: Art/Culture/Ideas. A special double issue of the publication has been devoted to the question: is the public sphere still a vital concept for art and politics in the 21st century?
No. 37: PUBLIC?
Edited by Aleksandra Kaminska, Janine Marchessault, Jason Rovito.
Alain Badiou, Sean Cubitt, Vilém Flusser, Victor Fowler, Annette Frick, Bettina Funcke, David Holloway, Scott McQuire, Gabriel Menotti, Martin Morris, Wajdi Mouawad, Nikos Papastergiadis, Barbara Rauch, Peter Sloterdijk and more.
No. 38: PROJECTS FOR A SMALL WORLD
Edited by Gregory Burke and Christine Davis.
Fiona Banner, Matthew Buckingham, Maria Eichhorn, Geoffrey Farmer, Christina Forrer, Henrik Hakansson, David Hatcher, Kristan Horton, Oliver Husain, Shelagh Keeley, Glenn Ligon, Kelly Mark, Lynne Marsh, John Massey, Adrian Paci, Seher Shah, Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven, Mark von Schlegell, Et al.
PUBLIC ACCESS
In 1988, the journal Public: Art/Culture/Ideas was launched by the Public Access Collective, a Toronto-based group comprising artists, writers, and curators equally engaged in theory and politics. In conjunction with the publication of the journal, the collective began to curate exhibitions that utilized urban screens as a means to consider the potential of public art for both engendering collective experiences and for inciting debates and raising awareness in a city that was quickly privatizing every inch of shared space. Together, Public and its founding collective aimed to bring together theoretical and critical work with artistic practice and collaborations.
Over the past twenty years, Public has continued its mandate to investigate ideas, theories, and practices of art and culture within the urban context—publishing, in the process, some of the most influential voices in critical theory, including Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Arthur Kroker, Avital Ronell, Giorgio Agamben, Jane Jacobs, Rosalyn Deutsche, Sean Cubitt, Peter Sloterdijk and many others. The landscape underlying the problematic of the public has changed dramatically since the journal was first imagined: spatial topographies have been transformed through new architectures of information and media; temporary autonomous zones have been employed as liminal performative spaces; counter-publics and scenes have been created through events both spontaneous and community-based; and boundaries (national, urban, and personal) have been rendered at once more porous and more policed. These complexities inspire the journal’s ongoing commitment to exploring contemporary politics and aesthetics through philosophy and critical theory.
ONGOING CRITICAL CURATORIAL RESEARCH
The Public Access Collective continues to carry out studies of public, private and civic spaces. Over the next two years, a series of site-specific exhibitions will situate investigations into urban and suburban DWELLING, fostering cross-sector collaborations, community dialogue and new approaches to old problems. With The Leona Drive Project, 8-18th October 2009 ( www.leonadrive.ca ), fifteen artists will transform six bungalows slated for demolition/development on the outskirts of Toronto, Canada.
THE PUBLIC ACCESS COLLECTIVE
Dan Adler, Ken Allan, Chloë Brushwood Rose, Christine Davis, Jim Drobnick, Caitlin Fisher, Monika Kin Gagnon, Saara Liinamaa, Susan Lord, Scott Lyall, Janine Marchessault, Dorit Naaman, Deborah Root.
303 Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts
York University, 4700 Keele Street
Toronto Canada M3J 1P3
416 655 3408
public [at] yorku.ca
