Public realm?

Public realm as a term is used in many ways, and so has, therefore, multiple meanings. In the Guide to the Liverpool Biennial there is a page (p. 14) that is headed Public Realm with some reflections by Sorcha Carey on the different contexts for art in the biennial. The gallery is;

• a natural habitat for MADE UP, a space for dreams and make-believe. Visitors come fully expecting to leave 'real life' at the door, and to engage with the world through representation, invention and fiction. MADE UP in the public realm lets the genie out of the bottle, unleashing its themes, ideas and processes onto the streets to find their place amidst the everyday.

She goes on to say that:

• Much of what we describe as 'public space' or 'the public realm' is rendered invisible by sheer force of habit.

Number 13. on the MADE UP route of the Liverpool Biennial is the 'public realm' commission by Diller Scofidio + Renfro called Arbores Laetae, Latin words associating trees with joyfulness rather than squirrels, dogs or birds, and it is a good bit of fun watching trees gyrate in a little bit of green space beneath the Anglican Cathedral.



But public space or public realm can be understood in quite a different way, and a way that could include the gallery rather than define how the gallery may have a specialized purpose that differentiates itself from other spaces of everyday life and cultural value.

An alternative proposal set out here is that public space could be defined, not by the relative accessibility of spaces but by the use of those spaces (and this could include all kinds of situations) to a public purpose.

Richard Sennett in his book The Fall of Public Man emphasizes how urban social practices and the use of spaces in the European context shifted from one where stranger spoke to stranger, to one where stranger surveyed stranger. In the 18th century the spontaneous exchange among strangers (often of differing classes too) was part of the life of the market, of haggling, and coming to an agreement as to value, an agreement in relation to the specific transaction of the "there and then". That is how Lloyds of London began, as a coffee house where business could be undertaken. The invention of the consumer and the department store in the 19th century put a stop to this, with fixed prices, printed matter, agendas, diaries, special offers on terms defined by the seller. No wonder that the modern museum is not far short of a parody of display and the fetishization of objects found in the Big Store. The 'quietism' of a gallery space suppresses the loud and energetic exchange of ideas. Trying to disturb this cultural economy is a risky ploy, but is worth it in the long run. The use of the Bluecoat hub for the e-space lab international, the Philosophy in Pubs debates and the "free thinking" debates recently held at FACT are symptomatic of the fact that those bored with the status quo want to use spaces, socially, intellectually and creatively! Art museums could become market places for ideas, not simply for the display of ideas, but for haggling over ideas, arguing for shared values, for purpose!

Posted by Philip Courtenay