Gilda Williams and Roberto Pinto

Public art and an audience for art

The story of the last forty years or so of public art - when it left the gallery; how it acquired social relevance, usability and readability; how it acquired site-specificity - is in part the search for contemporary art for a wider art audience in the first place. Art in the last century has seemed destined to recruit only a diminishing specialised audience, a tiny but real and informed audience that sincerely knows, understands and enjoys the results of new art in an increasingly massified world. In short, art has in many ways remained hopelessly obsolete in the user/producer equation, still functioning in much the same terms as it did decades ago. It deals with unique moments and ideas of artistic creation still generally generated by individuals (art collectives, from Group Material to At Club 2000 to N55, remain the exception) rather than corporations. Multiples and other mass-produced art objects have not achieved anything like the kind of broad public access to, for example, the music industry, even with its recent shift to the Internet. So how can art survive, except as a quaint relic of a bygone scale, in a mass consumer world driven by the multinational, global mindset? Art trades on direct contact in a world where virtual contact is the rule; art thrives on direct producer/intermediary/user relationships (the artist/curator or gallerist/the public or collector), which are often only effective when long-standing personal relationships are forged, in a world of impersonal e-commerce that extends to distant, invisible corners of the globe. It speaks in subtle, non-literal language in a world that prizes high communication and clear readability. Is art really so backward, so out of time?

Gilda Williams from the Arte all'Arte V catalogue, 2000

Public Art

In recent years, especially in the United States, the debate about so-called public art and what kind of art should be exhibited in spaces shared by all has intensified. There, an art object is offered to an audience that has not necessarily requested this encounter and probably does not even want it. It is an audience composed of people who have not paid for a ticket, nor have they intentionally gone looking for art since they have not gone to a designated space such as a gallery or museum. This is why we have often reasoned on how to prevent the work from imposing itself on the space and above all on the context, instead performing its task of interacting and collaborating with it. Also because, unfortunately, it is often the case that works and interventions in public space are conceived and realised by artists within their own studios without any relationship with the territory that hosts them.

To realise how real this danger is, it is enough to turn our attention to the vast majority of monuments and interventions carried out in this century, all over Italy. An enormous heritage of sculptures that has no relationship with the people, who naturally reject it or, at the very least, ignore it. This situation becomes even more difficult to accept if one compares it with our art history, with what one sees in the many Italian art cities, especially the smaller ones. In these places, every artistic object (fresco, sculpture or building), even those created to be placed in an 'internal' or 'private' place, performs a public activity, is a direct means of communication, speaks to people, uses shared symbols and tells stories that are part of the common, religious or political heritage. Of course, these are stories commissioned by the strong powers of the time: the church, the king and the aristocracy, the upper middle class, but the centrality of the relationship with the place and the people who inhabit it is absolutely clear. If one traverses the cities involved in Arte all'arte, one cannot fail to notice that the interpenetration between art and public space is absolutely real, concrete, and it is a relationship that also seeks harmony with the surrounding landscape. One receives a similar feeling when observing architecture. This too has achieved complete harmony with the spirit and dimensions of the place, also thanks to a skilful use of local materials, its natural colours therefore. Buildings that harmonise ìnaturallyî with the concrete characteristics of the place.

Roberto Pinto, from the Arte all'Arte V catalogue, 2000

From the 2005 Arte all'Arte X catalogue

Dear Diary,

I have never felt a great desire to keep a diary (which perhaps says something about my enthusiasm for writing). And having to contribute to this collective writing effort five years after Gilda and I curated it in San Gimignano is problematic for several reasons.

Problem number one: I don't want to fall into the trap of phrases like 'Do you remember...?', 'It was wonderful when...', or, even worse, 'Back in my day...', 'Things aren't what they used to be'. Enough!

Second problem: it is difficult to describe events that happened long ago without lapsing into sentimentality and rhetoric, exactly the opposite of the 'scientific' (or at least supposedly so) style to which I aspire when I write.

That said, there are images that I remember perfectly...

The first time Sislej came to visit the cities, and after proposing the fifth or sixth project (all great), we told him to stop! We could not contain the flood of ideas, possibilities and observations he brought with him. Eventually we managed to exhibit three (I think that's a record).

Kendell, who took us completely off guard by asking us to remake Michelangelo's David in polystyrene (a sort of fast food souvenir?). He actually wanted two copies, to underline that we live in the age of mechanical reproducibility. The extraordinary thing is that those two Davids (based on reproductions and not on the original) were the ugliest (and therefore perfect!) thing imaginable, a shock for all art lovers.

Martin, who subtly subverted our expectations by proposing an impalpable work, made entirely of sound. I still remember the expressions of Lorenzo, Mario and Maurizio, clearly worried: 'How are we going to explain to the mayor that a concert of bells is art?

Alberto immediately felt at ease, talking to people, going to the bar, listening, asking questions and getting information. Friendship, relationships, the spirit of the place... things easy to theorise about but difficult to put into practice... except for Alberto. "A restoration rather than a work?" This too would have been difficult to explain to the mayor, but more acceptable (one could clearly see it in the eyes of our trio): 'In the end he will think it is money well spent...'.

Tania, who conquered the fortress of Poggibonsi with her mixture of fragility and extraordinary power. A performance and an installation, a journey in search of the past and into our unconscious. Something to be seen and experienced... Tania, with her combination of evocation and politics.

Wim, who gave full expression to his perfection and taste for paradox with an installation of local cold cuts and sausages. I remember the faces of the people who unknowingly entered that small room inside a charming church in Tuscany, greeted more by the smell than the images...

And finally Jacqui and Geoff, with their hosting space, but above all the crazy idea of immersing a painting in the old cistern (and all the experiments to stabilise the colours)... and the search for a large wine barrel to shoot a video set in the San Gimignano countryside.

More images:

Carolina, an invisible but omnipresent spirit of Art to Art. I wondered if we would ever have achieved anything without her (and the answer was always no).

Mario, who always added an 's' at the end of words believing he was speaking Spanish when talking to Tania... who then asked me to translate what he had said into English.

Maurizio, tireless, always with a smile and ready to help.

Lorenzo, with his pragmatic efficiency and common sense.

Gilda, of course. One of the few people with whom, despite years of sharing an office (and the day-to-day problems of a magazine), I still feel like working and am happy to see again...

All the Arte all'Arte and gallery staff (who, at crucial moments, gave everything for the exhibition)... extraordinary people.

And finally the final party... Mario dancing? Unmissable... I hope someone filmed it.

Roberto Pinto