the citizen artist

To better understand the possibilites that are offered by showcases such as the abandoned call boxes, I am reading books and articles that analyze the ideas behind the need for public art. The introduction of The Citizen Artist, which can be read below, provides a good explanation. It suggests that there is a need to unify art and the “real world”. Art on Call most likely is aimed at linking the neighborhoods of DC to the art world, at least on a superficial level. I am proposing to further this relationship and allow young artists to take charge of the development and realization of artworks within these public spaces.

The Citizen Artist: 20 Years in the Public Arena. Originally Published by Critical Press, 1998. From the Introduction by Steven Durland.

Artists who used to regularly appear in the pages of the magazine were dropping out of sight. When we tracked them down we found that they were now doing art with at-risk youth or in prisons or hospices or just in their neighborhoods. They believed that the arbitrary separation of art world and real world had made them less effective as artists, and caused them to call into question their commitment to the public. This new sensibility didn’t necessarily reject the art world, but rather viewed it as one of many contexts in which art could exist. It followed that the context of art was just as crucial to its success as the form and content.

These artists have chosen to invest themselves directly in the public in such a way that they are no longer viewing the public from the outside, but rather are an integral part of that public. In such a context, the art that develops is a direct reflection of the particular culture in which it is created. This creates an entirely different relationship between the artist and the public, because where the artist is invested in the public, the public is invested in art. The art need be no less innovative or experimental when the public views the work as developing from a common experience.

The irony, or course, is that this is not really a new context for art at all, but rather one of the oldest—the artist as an integral part of a larger community. It’s a traditional context that is still common in many societies and even within isolated subcultures of our own society. But it’s in direct contrast to the isolationist view of the artist that has dominated Western culture.

It’s the “artist as citizen,” a concept that seems so obvious that one can only wonder how it became so alien. Is it a threat to traditional Western art practice? Hardly. Nor should it be. It’s to everybody’s benefit that the arts have multiple contexts in which to thrive. Socially committed, community-engaged artists add depth to our culture and re-enchant their chosen publics, coming back to the reason why art was ever important in the first place.