Introduction to 2021 special issue of JAC on art in public spaces

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Introduction outlines the thematic framework of this special issue of Journal of Aesthetics & Culture. It begins by identifying some of the common concerns and leitmotifs that interconnect the individual articles. It then gives summaries of the individual contributions and situates them within the common thematics of this special issue. The articles examine some recent changes to the ways in which contemporary art and curating operate in various kinds of public spaces and engage different types of participants and publics. The articles explore how these changes are linked, on the one hand, to migration-induced transformations to society, and, on the other, to transformations endemic among the arts. The latter include a turn in art institutional and cultural policies towards a participatory agenda. They also involve a reorientation in politically engaged art and curating towards art activism, (radically) democratic forms of participation and alternative models of co-production and coexistence.