Does the Artist Need to Be Present? The “Paradigm of Visibility” and Art Practices in Public Space

Abstract

The thesis of my paper is that art participatory practices in public space have a paradoxical potential to avoid a paradigm of visibility. What I call the paradigm of visibility is a formula of social presence of art which is based on a necessity of occupying a certain physical or symbolical space and an effort to sustain it. This kind of public presence of art is traditionally considered to be a guarantee of its value in terms of both artistic and social legitimisation. A question arises if this formula has an alternative. It seems that participatory art practices in public space – focused on production of objects and searching for social impact and social efficacy – can formulate a different model of presence of art (of its production and distribution) than object-based art.