ARTISTS IN PUBLIC # 3
Interfering With Reality: Mike Bonnano (The Yes Men) and Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas
Friday May 27 at 1:30 PM
Location:
Stedelijk Museum,
Paulus Potterstraat 13, Amsterdam
Entrance:
Valid museum ticket
Reservations:
www.stedelijk.nl
Language:
Englishwww.skor.nl
Which strategies do artists employ if they want to expose their works in the public domain? ARTISTS IN PUBLIC is a series of artists’ lectures about the conditions specific to working in public space. The ARTISTS IN PUBLIC events are initiated to focus attention on artists’ perspectives and on the genesis and development of public artworks. Artists who relate to public issues or who explicitly deal with social or political topics have developed approaches to ensure that their works actually do contribute to the debate. They do this by being provocative, by exposing secrets or abuse of power, by working directly with the public or with groups of people, or by breaking through the boundaries between art and ‘real life’. Each edition of ARTISTS IN PUBLIC features two artists who show specific projects they have created in relation to these four approaches.
Interfering With Reality: Mike Bonnano (The Yes Men) and Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas
How do artists guard or cross the line between art and real life?
One way to engage in discussion is to try to infiltrate the field of your subject, make it look like you or your work is part of that field, and then to play with peoples expectations. The Yes Men visit corporate or governmental conferences masquerading as experts on a relevant topic, and use their lecture to propose an outrageous idea – one that could be serious but clearly crosses the line of decency. Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas do not disguise themselves as anything other than artists. They intervene by developing social structures and organisational forms that directly affect reality. Their work focuses mainly on the transition of their country Lithuania from a Soviet to a capitalist state, and in its approach combines art action, protest and absurdity. How does this artistic mixing of reality and fiction work? What types of discourses does this practice intervene in? And for the artist, where does reality begin and fiction end, or vice versa?
ARTISTS IN PUBLIC is initiated by SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain and is part of a broader public programme. Mediapartner: De Groene Amsterdammer
