Art, Public Authorship and the Possibility of Re-Democratization

Abstract

The subject of this article is a large public art project by German artist Jochen Gerz, which was part of the urban regeneration programme, the Phoenix Initiative, in Coventry City, 1999–2004. The study presents a short historical backdrop to Gerz's work by way of defining ‘public authorship’ of which the Coventry project is one example. It extends the literature on contemporary counter-monuments by assessing Gerz's artistic strategy in using a monument to exploring the conditions of public culture and the possible shape of a cultural public sphere in the contemporary city. The public art project lasted over five years and was a mechanism by which the political issues at stake in the public life of Coventry, particularly the socio-historic conflicts that are constitutive of its civic identity, were articulated. The study argues that public authorship succeeded in identifying some crucial coordinates in the political constitution of public culture in Coventry but, in the face of competing civic rhetoric and new urban policy initiatives, the project remains an open inquiry. This article concludes by identifying some critical lines of inquiry for future studies in art's critical role in the public sphere.