University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Art and time: temporary public art and contentious space

(USC Thesis Other)

Art and time: temporary public art and contentious space

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content

ART AND TIME:

TEMPORARY PUBLIC ART AND CONTENTIOUS SPACE

by

Elizabeth Lidgett

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC, ROSKI SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF PUBLIC ART STUDIES

May 2009

Copyright 2009 Elizabeth Lidgett
ii
Acknowledgments

It has been said, nothing is written by one person without a great deal of support. I wish
to first extend my sincerest thanks to my thesis committee: Anne Bray, Karen Moss, and
Joshua Decter, Director of the University of Southern California (USC) Public Art
Studies program, for their guidance while producing this thesis. I would also like to thank
Ligeia Gorre for her constant support and advice to our class while going through this
process and Janna Johnson for her amazing editing skills. I’d also like to acknowledge
Michael Asher, John Malpede, and Erika Rothenberg for their thoughts on ephemeral
public art and for producing projects that inspire. My gratitude is also extended to my
dear Public Art Studies girls: Lauren Davis, Rebecca Johnson, Sarah Nesbit, and Lauren
Walser. Being able to speak with you all about writing kept me sane many a time.
Most importantly, thank you to my family. I have the best family and friends a
girl could ask for. Thank you Mom and Dad for supporting me. Thank you to my sisters
who were always there when I needed to talk about anything but my thesis. And lastly,
my deepest thanks to Nick Renkoski, for your never-ending patience when I went on and
on about ephemeral public art, for knowing when I needed to work and when I needed a
distraction, for always thinking my ideas were interesting even when I wasn’t sure
anymore, and for being my best friend.
I am very fortunate to know such wonderful people.

iii
Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ii

Abstract iv

Chapter One: An Introduction 1

Chapter Two: George Washington 11

Chapter Three: Freedom of Expression National Monument 20

Chapter Four: Further Analysis and Conclusion 31
A Monument and An Anti-Monument 31
Conclusion 34

Bibliography 40

iv

Abstract

Our society is always changing, always evolving and temporary public art can work
hand-in-hand with the idea of an ever-changing society. Art critic Patricia Phillips has
written about ephemeral works and their advantages for public art, which provides an
noteworthy way to critically look at this type of art. With these ideas in mind, this thesis
attempts to investigate and answer questions by analyzing Michael Asher’s ‘George
Washington’ (2005) and Creative Time’s ‘Freedom of Expression National Monument’
(2004): Do the works discussed create contentious space? Do these ephemeral public
artworks create social exchanges and public dialogue past the end of the project? Do
these temporary public artworks create more of an impact on some issues than a
permanent piece can? Should temporary public art occupy a portion of today’s art
landscape?

1
Chapter One: An Introduction

Loren Eiseley once wrote, “Life is never fixed and stable. It is always mercurial, rolling
and splitting, disappearing and reemerging in a most unpredictable fashion.”
1
Our society
is always changing, always evolving and temporary public art can work hand-in-hand
with the idea of an ever-changing society. Scholars have previously established the idea
that space can act as contentious space. With that theory in mind, this paper will be
investigating and answering several questions: Do the works discussed create contentious
space? Do these ephemeral public artworks create social exchanges and public dialogue
past the end of the project? Do these temporary public artworks create more of an impact
on some issues than a permanent piece can? Should temporary public art occupy a
portion of today’s art landscape?
Rosalyn Deutsche wrote about these same topics when writing about the works of
the artist, Barbara Kruger.
Taking account of exclusions, Kruger treats space not as an entity but a
relationship. At stake is democracy itself, if by this we mean a form a society
where it is possible to question power. For while references to a substantive
ground that unifies a particular social space, or totalizes the space of society as a
whole, naturalize and conceal the exclusions that constitute space, the withdrawal
of the ground has the opposite effect: bringing exclusions to the fore, it allows
them to enter the terrain of contestation.
2

Kruger is able to use public space as a relationship where thoughts and arguments are
stated and implied, where there is contestation and questioning of power. She uses space
as contentious places where art can add to the social dialogue, not just confirm what is

1
Loren Eiseley, Man, Time, and Prophecy, (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966), 27.

2
Rosalyn Deutsche. “Breaking Ground: Barbara Kruger’s Spatial Practice.” Ed. Ann Goldstein,
(Los Angeles: The Museum of Contemporary Art, 1999), 77.
2
already being said. In other words, she uses her art to activate contentious space, just as
the artworks discussed in this paper have.
Before temporary public art or contested space can be examined, they must first
be defined. For the uses of this paper, temporary public artworks are those works that are
not meant to be permanent. Many permanent works are made with the idea that they will
last for 75 to 100 years. Temporary works are often made with the idea that they will only
last for a matter of hours or months. The brevity of the artworks becomes a part of the
piece, where each moment is fleeting.
As for contested space, this is space where people or groups bring their ideas to
the forefront no matter if that means arguing or making others uncomfortable or just
bringing new ideas into the landscape. This is public space where new ideas are
expressed to expand today’s society, not just reconfirm what is already here.
Patricia Phillips is one of the preeminent art critics that regularly discusses
temporary, ephemeral artwork. Her article on temporality in public art tackled the idea
that a permanent piece of artwork may not stand the test of time. Temporary art could be
the solution to today’s world. She wrote:
The late twentieth century has thrown these questions of time and
expectation, change and value into high relief. It is an accelerated,
acquisitive, and acquiescent age in which the presence of enduring objects
has become as quixotic as time itself. What is substantial—what is coveted
and depended on with some certainty, what endures across generations—is
often no longer expressed or communicated by the same symbols. The
visual environment transposes as rapidly as the actions of the mind and the
eye. In both private and public life the phenomenological dimensions of
indeterminacy, change, and the temporary require aggressive assimilation,
not because they are grim, unavoidable forces but because they suggest
potential ideas and freedoms.
3

3
Patricia C. Phillips, “Temporality and Public Art,” Art Journal, Vol. 48, no. 4 (Winter 1989),
331.
3
As artist Barbara Kruger uses space as a place that represents democracy, Phillips
believes that space represents the speed of society and society’s changing values. The
symbols of just a generation before us may no longer hold the same weight today.
Phillips’s article was written twenty years ago. The symbols prevalent in 1989’s society
may mean nothing to the people of 2009. Temporary public art can be the answer to this
idea of an ever-changing society, which means an ever-changing viewing public. When
Phillips writes of the “phenomenological dimensions of indeterminacy, change, and the
temporary” she is talking about examining these issues methodologically and historically
to find new ways to approach public art. Temporality can and does offer public art
practitioners and agencies the chance to critically take on projects that change as often
and with our society.
Speed has become a part of our society and the space we occupy. Because of the
internet and expanding technologies the old adage “nothing lasts forever” seems to be
even more prevalent in today’s world. Author Paul Virilio has frequently written about
speed and information. For one particular article, he wrote specifically about the “twin
phenomena” facing today’s strategists.
The twin phenomena of immediacy and of instantaneity are presently one
of the most pressing problems confronting political and military strategists
alike. Real time now prevails above both real space and the geosphere.
The primacy of real time, of immediacy, over and above space and surface
is a fait accompli and has inaugural value (usher a new epoch). Something
nicely conjured up in a (French) advertisement praising cellular phones
with the words: “Planet Earth has never been this small”. This is a very
dramatic moment in our relation with the world and for our vision of the
world.
4

4
Paul Virilio. “Speed and Information: Cyberspace Alarm!”, CTheory.net.
www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=72
4
Virilio points out how fast our world moves because it values immediacy and
instantaneity. Temporary public art can work well with the idea of speed. Nothing lasts
long in our world with the advent of the internet, constantly changing advertisements and
the television. People move at terribly fast speeds to get from one place to the next,
always moving because there is always more to do. If information and people are always
moving and changing then the argument can be made, so should our art.
It is not only the issue of speed in our society that temporary public art can
address. It also is able to deal with the idea of satisfying a diverse viewing public.
Maarten Hajer and Arnold Reijndorp write of this in their book, In Search of Public
Domain.
…The essence of public domain: different groups become attached to a
particular place and somehow or other they must reach a compromise. Which
codes should dominate there? What behavior should be tolerated? Who is allowed
to ask whom to adapt? These are questions that are part and parcel of meaningful
public space. From our viewpoint, a cultural-geographic analysis must tackle both
the analysis of the production of all kinds of places and the analysis of the specific
way in which those places are used or consumed, sometimes contrary to the
intentions of the producer. In the network society everyone puts together their
own city. Naturally this touches on the essence of public domain.
5

No public art practitioner or agency is able to answer these questions. The best that they
can do is to create projects that address the many facets of public life. One such facet is
time. Taking that into consideration, with a short-lived experimental project, a
practitioner is not held back by the same constraints as with permanent works. This is
because of a variety of reasons, for one, a wider variety of materials can be used because
they do not need to stand the test of time. For instance, the Community Redevelopment
Agency of the City of Los Angeles creates permanent artwork through their Art Program

5
Maarten Hajer and Arnold Reijndorp. In Search of Public Domain, (NAi Publishers, 2002), 15.
5
that will hopefully last 100 years. The materials that will last 100 years compared to just
one month are much more limited. The cost for an agency to create a temporary project
can be much less than creating a permanent project. Short-lived projects do not need the
same maintenance funds as their longer-lived counterparts. With those two factors in
mind, artists are able to be much more experimental with their work when dealing with
the temporary. In Phillips’s article she wrote about this being an advantage.
I think that the problem is that public art has sought to define itself without
assembling all of the data and before entertaining all of the complex and
potent variables it must accept and can express. Public art has been too
often applied as a modest antidote or a grand solution, rather than
perceived as a form for investigation, articulation, and constructive
reappraisal. Although it is at an exploratory stage, public art is treated as if
it were a production of fixed strategies and principles.
6

Phillips is saying that there is so much information out there in the world, and it is
constantly growing, and perhaps practitioners have become set in their ways too soon.
Perhaps even, practitioners should never become set in their ways. Temporary public art
could be a way to break out of this plateau of fixed strategies and principles. As Hajer
and Reijndorp stated and Phillips believes, an analysis and an investigation are called for
both public domain and public art. Defining public domain can be problematic, but as has
been stated, for the purposes of this paper it will be looked at as a contentious space.
Spaces where the views, beliefs and morals of all people that use one place converge and
meet. One “grand solution” as Phillips puts it would not be successful. One overall
solution would not work for so many diverging viewpoints from today’s society.
Eleanor Heartney writes of how public art fits into public space and how a new
way of creating public works is emerging.

6
Phillips, “Temporality and Public Art,” 331.
6
…Recently, however, a third approach has begun to surface in the work of
artists like Dennis Adams, Alfredo Jaar, Kryzsztof Wodiczko and Jenny
Holzer that conceives of the city as a locus of competing interests,
ideologies, and languages, and infiltrates preexisting forums and forms in
order to dramatize rather than resolve conflicts inherent in modern life.
7

Heartney believes that public space is a contentious space where one universal idea or
value set can no longer be used. She once wrote “The old-style public art assumed that
the culture shared particular values, that they are certain heroes from the past that we all
emulate, that they are certain ideas that we hold sacred. More and more, in our pluralistic
and fractured citizenry, that idea has become suspect.”
8
Temporary public art is a logical
solution to this issue. Many projects that work with the idea of public space as
contentious space, instead of one permanent project that attempts to address many people
but instead reaches no one. In addition, temporary projects can be more relevant and
responsive to current events.
If temporary public art is the answer to a diverse public space then one question to
be asked is; what types? The possibilities almost seem endless with short-lived
experiments because brevity is not an issue, almost anything can be done. For example,
Alfredo Jaar’s Rushes (1986) poster project was coordinated with the Metropolitan
Transit Authority and the advertising space in their Spring Street subway platform.
Using just a month as his time frame, Jaar placed images of abject poverty amid the gold
rush in Brazil, where advertisements trying to lure people away from their money usually
hung. He then wove in advertisements for the current world gold prices in New York,

7
Eleanor Heartney, Critical Conditions: American Culture at the Crossroads (Cambridge:
Cambridge University, 1997), 133.

8
Eleanor Heartney, Inside Public Art.
http://www.thephotographyinstitute.org/journals/1998/eleanor_heartney.html
7
Frankfurt and London. The artist did not place any explanation along with the project.
People were asked to form their own conclusions. As Phillips writes, “…the success of
this political production was the sense of urgency and dislocation embodied in the
temporary…The content was underscored by the immediacy and brevity of the
installation. The fact that it appeared almost as spontaneously as it disappeared helped
accentuate the urgency of the ideas.”
9

Through many examples of temporary public art, although the materials and
intent of the projects differ, one thing remains the same: ephemerality. Jaar’s Rushes had
more of an impact because of the brevity of time it was exhibited. However, Rushes also
underscores the idea that temporary public works can work with the notion of a
contentious space. Jaar chose that spot specifically because the Spring Street subway
platform is used on the line to Wall Street. The artist wanted to reach people and
confront them with this international issue on their way to the financial district. Jaar’s
project would not have been as successful if it had been a permanent project. If it had
been a permanent project, it is possible that it might not have been created at all. It is not
an unusual occurrence for a public art practitioner or agency to have a temporary project
green-lighted because it is only for a limited time period. This may mean that temporary
projects can be more confrontational than the average permanent piece.
Temporary projects are not limited to any one form. Short-lived projects can
really be an umbrella term for performance pieces, dance, procession, street theatre,
projects made from ephemeral materials, video works, and time-based projects. For the

9
Phillips, “Temporality and Public Art,” 335.
8
purposes of this paper, however, the two temporary projects examined will be limited to
sculpture.
The impetus of this paper comes from the writing of Patricia Phillips:
The ephemeral artist’s intention, and our acceptance of ephemeral work, is
inseparable from the work’s ordinary perishability…Gifts can be short-lived or
lasting. Some are ignored or “used up,” whereas others are passed on for
generations. Some are remembered long after material evidence of the giving has
deteriorated and decayed; thus Krzysztof Wodiczko suggests that his short-lived
art really “appears” only after the projectors are turned off. Ephemeral public art
may appear to reach an end, but its potential for creating social exchange and
public dialogue remains encouragingly imminent. This is the promising paradox
and conceptual challenge of the temporary in public art.
10

This paper will investigate how temporary public art fits with the notion of public space
as a contentious space. Wodiczko’s idea puts forth that the meaning of his short-lived
works only comes to focus after they are over. His projects are often brief but live on
through their impact on the viewing public. Wodiczko’s suggestion brings to mind these
questions: Do the meanings of projects linger on and effect society once the projects are
finished? Can public artworks create change? Thinking of temporary works as gifts
addresses brevity but also, perhaps, the possibility of creating a discussion. If we create
temporary works with the goal of creating a discussion instead of a blanket one-size-fits-
all statement then we may find an encouraging answer to diverse public space.
The first project to be discussed to answer these questions will be Michael
Asher’s George Washington project at The Art Institute of Chicago. The work was first
completed in 1979 for the 73
rd
American Exhibition and then was revisited again in 2005.
Asher was invited to create a project for the exhibition and instead of creating a new
object, he worked with a sculpture that was already at the Institute. The sculpture of

10
Patricia C. Phillips, “Temporality and Public Art,” in Public Art by the Book, ed. Barbara
Goldstein, 99 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005.)
9
George Washington that Asher chose had been standing in front of the museum since
1917, and the sculpture was then brought indoors to an interior gallery for the first time to
be surrounded by European objects from the late eighteenth-century.
The effects of this project have been felt in the art community ever since. James
Rondeau wrote:
With subtle yet complex alterations, Michael Asher’s work responds
directly to situations within institutions—more precisely, to the ways in
which an art museum or exhibition space presents itself and the objects it
displays. Although Asher’s work is context specific, the consequences and
influences of his thinking are far reaching. In recent years, his art and
teaching have acquired legendary, almost mythic, status; the precedent of
his varied achievements has informed contemporary practice to such an
extent that it has in many ways (not all of them unintended) become
invisible.
11

Although the George Washington project was a short-lived piece, its effects were far
reaching. More so, I argue, than the effects of a permanent piece could have had. If the
piece had stayed placed in its new home of Gallery 219, the sculpture would have
ultimately become a part of the very establishment that Asher was questioning.
Asher’s work addressed institutional critique, re-contextualizing of modernism
and how monuments function. His conceptual practices have influenced generations of
artists and their works. Perhaps, one such project is Freedom of Expression National
Monument, co-presented by Creative Time and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
Freedom was also a revisited project, first created in 1984 for Art on the Beach and
revisited in 2004 by architect Laurie Hawkinson, performer John Malpede, and visual
artists Erika Rothenberg. The work constituted of a giant red megaphone and a platform

11
James Rondeau, “Introductions and Acknowledgements”, in Michael Asher: George
Washington at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1979 and 2005, by Whitney Moeller and Anne
Rorimer, 11 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2006).
10
for a person to stand on and speak out. Also in contrast to Asher’s work, which was
inside the walls of a public institution, Freedom was placed in the middle of Foley Square
in lower Manhattan. The work enabled people to step up and speak out on the day’s
issues, similar to Speaker’s Corner in London’s Hyde Park, allowing their voices to be
heard. As Maureen Sullivan for Creative Time wrote the project also addressed issues of
the national monument, hence the name.
Freedom also challenges our assumptions about the role of civic
architecture, which the artists gesture towards by naming the artwork a
“national monument.” Unlike Washington D.C.’s monuments, this
temporary intervention is constructed on a human scale with affordable
materials. Rather than venerate great men and enduring institutions,
Freedom honors the ordinary and everyday.
12

Just as Asher had aimed to challenge institutions and even national monuments, Freedom
also does. Although, it challenges a different type of institution: mass media and partisan
politics where sometimes voices are lost. If it had been a permanent piece it may not have
been created and placed in Foley Square. The timeline and materials would have had to
been changed and thus changing the project.
With Michael Asher’s George Washington and Creative Time’s Freedom of
Expression National Monument as my guides, the issues of contentious space, ephemeral
public art, social exchanges and today’s society will be addressed.

12
Maureen Sullivan, Creative Time Press Release, (July 26, 2004, New York), 1.
11
Chapter Two: George Washington

Temporary public artwork can be used to address some topics more effectively
than a permanent piece. The Alfredo Jaar example in the introduction, the artwork was
able to show the people traveling to New York’s financial district a major international
problem, even for just a short while. This first main example, Michael Asher’s George
Washington project, done at the Art Institute of Chicago, was able to address a smaller
scale issue of institutional critique at the institute that has gone on to inform
contemporary practice. Asher’s George Washington addresses several different ideas
including the ideas of monuments, documentation, and displacement. As with many of
Asher’s projects, through his work he questions the logic of some organizational
structures. In this case, Asher is questioning the logic of how museum institutions
function. This artwork can also be used to answer the questions: Do these works create
contentious space? And do these ephemeral public artworks create social exchanges and
public dialogues past the end of the projects?
Asher’s project with the Art Institute originally created in 1979 was revisited in
2005. For the 1979 George Washington project, Asher relocated a sculpture of George
Washington by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1785-91), from the front of the Art Institute to a
new location within the museum. The relocation was to Gallery 219, which was a replica
of an eighteenth-century salon. Additionally, Asher replaced the tall concrete base of the
sculpture, and instead placed in on a low wood platform. Again in 2005, when the project
was revisited, Asher relocated the sculpture to another room within the museum, this time
to Gallery 220 which houses European works of the same time period as the Houdon
12
work. This time however, the sculpture was cleaned so it no longer had the green tint
from decades of being outside and the piece was set directly on the floor with no base.
13

Whitney Moeller’s essay in the George Washington catalogue for the 2005
revisiting of the project talks of Asher’s practice:
Since the late 1960s, Michael Asher has devised groundbreaking aesthetic
strategies to critique institutional conventions of display and challenge the
parameters of sculptural practice. Insistently avoiding the creation of
material objects for installation, Asher relies exclusively on an
institution’s existing framework to highlight the conditions that structure
the presentation, and therefore the reception, of artworks. By making
subtle alterations to the context at hand, Asher amplifies the previously
concealed or unobserved complexities of the support systems that share
viewers’ perceptions.
14

Moeller’s quotation highlights the way that Asher specifically chooses projects to
critique the institutional context. Asher is able to amplify “the previously concealed or
unobserved complexities” with this project because of the subject and location, but also
the duration of time. The sculpture was relocated in 1979, only for the Art Institute’s 73
rd

American Exhibition. If the sculpture had stayed in its new location, it would have
become a part of the institutional process that Asher was critiquing. There are, of course,
institutional processes to consider, and how exhibitions change throughout the year.
Beyond that, however, is the idea that it is the collateral material and the way he frames
his action that makes this intervention effective. If the sculpture had remained in the
center of Gallery 219 but the surrounding pieces changed over time, the work would lose
the original intention. Asher is able to question the institution by making subtle

13
Whitney Moeller, “George Washington at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1916-2006”, Michael
Asher: George Washington at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1979 and 2005, by Whitney Moeller
and Anne Rorimer, 17 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2006).

14
Moeller, “George Washington at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1916-2006”, 15
13
alterations, in this case, moving the Washington sculpture from outdoors to within the
museum context, moving the sculpture down to eye-level, specifically questioning public
space and where and why a sculpture like this should be placed in or out of a museum.
The project is a reflection of where the sculpture had been placed previously and
presently. It changes the way the piece is seen because now the viewers look at the work
with new eyes and begin to question the museum’s framework. Viewers begin to wonder
why any piece of artwork is placed anywhere. Why did the curators make the decision to
place that painting there? Why is this sculpture here?
To further this example, Maarten Hajer and Arnold Reijdorp’s writing shows that
“a cultural-geographic analysis must tackle both the analysis and the production of all
kinds of places and the analysis of the specific way in which those places are used or
consumed.”
15
Asher is imploring the public to question the public domain specifically
tackling these ideas within the museum context. Pushing those that enter the museum to
question why the institution is used in such a way. By displacing the sculpture from
indoors to outdoors, Asher questions why any artwork is placed anywhere.
After the sculpture was removed from its original location outside of the museum
in 1979, it was never returned there. Perhaps Asher’s project changed the way the
sculpture was seen, not only for the museum visitors but also the curatorial staff. In fact,
the staff had such a hard time figuring out where the piece should then reside after the
exhibition, that it was placed into storage and then relocated to the Chicago Mayor’s
office before returning to the museum for the 2005 revisiting.

15
Maarten Hajer and Arnold Reijndorp, In Search of New Public Domain: Analysis and Strategy,
(NAI Publishers, 2002), 10.
14
In addition to relocating the sculpture in 2005, Asher intensely researched the
provenance of the sculpture to create a detailed chronology that was handed out to each
visitor of the exhibition. In addition to the handout each person received, a Plexiglas case
was placed on the far wall of the gallery, which displayed further documentation of the
history of the sculpture.
16
Even more information was put together for a large archival
display of all the information Asher’s research had uncovered that was installed in the
Ryerson Reading Room within the museum. This included everything from letters from
the museum to reserve a bronze copy in 1917, to documentation about the likeness of the
sculpture to the real George Washington’s face. This documentation is further altering the
public concept of the work by showing the public the usually unseen work done by a
museum. This documentation offered the viewers a chance to look at the project with
new insight. Previously, viewers were only able to look at the final product of museum
exhibition. However, with these materials, Asher gives the public the power to
understand the process of an artwork from being made to being displayed. Not only this
but Asher’s work uncovered that the work had not been properly handled.
The final installment of the archival exhibition addressed the sculpture’s
conservation history. Not once in forty-three years did the Ferguson Fund
committee urge the museum to treat the deterioration of the bronze
brought about by prolonged exposure to the elements, but it was also a
direct violation of Benjamin F. Ferguson’s will.
17

Benjamin Ferguson had donated the sculpture originally to the museum with
specific guidelines outlined in his will. Asher’s work allowed the public to see how the

16
Moeller, “George Washington at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1916-2006”, 18.

17
Moeller, “George Washington at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1916-2006”, 24.
15
work had been mistreated and the work was promptly treated for deterioration, although
perhaps still not to the extent the work needed.
With Asher revisiting the 1979 project, in the 2005 version he was able to analyze
in a broader context the changes within the institution over that period of time, as well as
the history of the sculpture. The documentation of the work ultimately made the sculpture
more accessible to the public and was meant to have the staff re-examine their own
policies.
Asher is giving the Art Institute of Chicago curators and patrons this information
and in return he is trying to change policy. Perhaps, they will offer the reflection
necessary to examine their current curatorial practices or to go even further by
implementing change. Asher’s approach was specific to the site and in turn, left little
other than documentation after the exhibition was over.
18
As with many temporary
projects, it may seem that all that is left is documentation, but major effects are left after
just a short period of time. As Martha Buskirk writes:
Asher managed, with this act of recontextualization alone, to draw
attention to the definition of a monument, the impact of categorization by
period and author, the process of preservation and conservation, and
distinctions between original and copy within the hierarchy of a museum.
The relocation of the sculpture from its position outside, standing in front
of the museum, to the European art galleries pointed out the different ways
this sculpture might be read—as a sculpture of Washington, and therefore
connected to United States history, or as a work by Jean-Antoine Houdon,
a French sculptor, which, in the context of a history of art written
according to artists’ proper names, would be more appropriately
contextualized according to period and national origin of its maker. The
move also brought into focus the sculpture’s uneasy function as a
monument, a role that it had been give by its placement in front of the

18
Martha Buskirk, The Contingent Object of Contemporary Art, (Boston: Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, 2003), 171.
16
building, even though the life-sized representation had not been designed
for that purpose, particularly with respect to scale.
19

Asher was able to address all of these topics in the short period of time of an exhibition.
With this act of moving the sculpture from its original location, Asher brings to front the
idea of monuments. While the sculpture is meant to represent George Washington the
man, the idea is changed when put into context. It has connections to both French and
American history, so in which gallery does it belong? Does it belong with other works by
French artists of the same period or contextualized with other works of American
history? The documentation and preservation of the sculpture also was important to
exhibition. Although the exhibition is over, the documentation remains. This same
documentation that provides a historical context also showed that the museum staff had
not properly cared for the sculpture. With one sculpture displaced, many topics arose.
In an interview with Michael Asher we discussed his ideas about public space as
contentious space and the George Washington project for the Art Institute of Chicago. He
started out with mentioning that he thought that museum space could be considered
public space but it is lessened because of the accessibility for the museum. From there we
discussed how public space can be used.
Elizabeth Lidgett: Do you believe that public space is a contentious space?
Furthermore, do you believe that temporary public artwork fits with this notion?

Michael Asher: This work was mean to be totally discursive. It was meant to start
debates and arguments. That’s how I use it, but that’s not how every artist uses it.

19
Buskirk, The Contingent Object of Contemporary Art, 173.
17
Most artworks that I see today are more in the service of substantiating a single
point of view.

EL: In respect to temporary public artwork, do you believe that it has a potential
to create a social exchange? And even after the piece has ended?

MA: I hope that it does. I see people making reference in their writings today.
Hopefully, it is still entrenched in the argumentation that it tried to answer.
20

Asher believes that temporal projects have the ability to create or show social exchange
so he continues to create them. His work for Projekt Skulpter Munster, Untitled
(Caravan), has been a repeated temporary project during each exhibition since 1977. It is
the only work to have been a part of every Projekt Skulpter Munster since its inception.
Asher has photographed the caravan in the same several locations around Munster,
Germany, during each exhibition for the past 30 years. The photographs are a
documentation of the city changing over a period of time. The same caravan has been
used all three times, as well. The city changes but the caravan does not.
Finally, after discussing the George Washington project and temporary public
artworks it was important to understand what benefits Asher believes temporary public
works have.

20
Michael Asher. Telephone interview. 11 Jan. 2009.
18
MA: Public space, public sphere is a place where people are constantly moving in
and out of. Why wouldn’t public art respect that same time and space as other
people and objects do?
21

Although, I argue that Asher’s work would not have been able to become a
permanent work in the institution because it would have become a part of the very
institution it was critiquing, I can see beyond that now. As Asher commented on during
the interview, thinking in a very pragmatic way, the work would never have been able to
become a permanent fixture. Museums move their works for new exhibitions several
times a year and an artist would not be able to demand a work stay in its same position
forever. The context would constantly change, and therefore the work’s meaning would
constantly change.
Re-addressing the initial questions, Asher’s words on public space and
contentious space prove to further my argument. As he said, “This work was meant to be
totally discursive. It was meant to start debates and arguments. That’s how I use it, but
that’s not how every artist uses it.” The work was meant to use the museum space as a
place where ideas come together and are discussed instead of having it “substantiate a
single point of view.” Thus, showing that this work has created a contentious space
within the museum context. Also, this work has created a public dialogue past the end of
the project. The documentation from the 2005 exhibition created change because of the
institutional critique. The sculpture was cared for because of the documents showing it
had been mistreated. Also, the sculpture never returned to its original location outside of

21
Michael Asher. Telephone interview. 11 Jan. 2009.
19
the Art Institute because the project changed the way the curators viewed the work.
There are many benefits to short-lived artworks. Many people, objects, and points of
view come and go through any single space on any given day. Temporary public
artworks offer a way to respect that same idea, where many works can be shown over a
period of time.

20
Chapter Three: Freedom of Expression National Monument
Freedom of Expression National Monument is able to address: Does this work
create contentious space? And do these temporary public artworks create more of an
impact with some issues than a permanent piece can?
Freedom was first commissioned by Creative Time in 1989 for their annual Art
on the Beach program, then recommissioned in 2004. Creative Time is one of New
York’s City’s non-profit public arts presenters, the other notable one being the Public Art
Fund. Its also one of the most important agencies creating temporal projects in the United
States. Having been around for over 35 years, the organization has created hundreds of
temporary public art projects throughout the city. Anne Pasternak, Creative Time’s
director, wrote of how their agency works.
Creative Time projects happen where we work, commute, and pass by.
They aren’t presented in an institution designated for art; instead they
happen in unlikely, unexpected, and even impractical places. They happen
in places some of us have forgotten, or neglected, or taken for granted.
Creative Time projects are where we live. And the vast majority of our
audiences have no way to connect our efforts and little if any idea that
Creative Time is the nonprofit entity that has been making these unusual
art encounters a reality all these many years.
22

23

Freedom was placed in the middle of New York City in Foley Square, which
could be considered the same way as a city’s “commons” once were. A temporary piece
of art fits with this notion because the commons were always changing and evolving

22
Anne Pasternak and Lucy Lippard. Creative Time. (Princeton Architectural Press, 2008), 10.

23
One of its most notable ones being the Tribute in Light, the temporary light installation
memorial for September 11, 2001. It was project that received national coverage and was highly
emotionally charged.
21
throughout the year. Not one but many things would occupy the space through the
seasons. Patricia Phillips wrote about this idea.
Public art is about the idea of the commons—the physical configuration and
mental landscape of American public life. The commons was frequently a planned
but sometime a spontaneously arranged open space in American towns, but its
lasting significance in cultural history is not so much the place it once held in the
morphology of the city as the idea it became for the enactment and refreshment of
public life—its dynamic, often conflicting expressions…. The commons was the
stage where the predictable and unexpected theatre of the public could be
presented and interpreted. It was the physical and psychic location where change
was made manifest. The kind of agitation, drama, and unraveling of time that
defines “public” occurred most vividly and volatiley in the commons. It was not
the site of repose or rigidity.
24

Foley Square is being used, in this instance, as New York City’s commons. As a
place, where for three brief months, the “unexpected theatre of the public” was presented.
This project fits with the idea of public space as a contentious space because it supports
the kind of characteristics that define “public” such as “agitation, drama and the
unraveling of time.” Freedom was not created to be a passive artwork that was meant just
to be looked at by visitors.
Freedom addresses this topic of public space as a space where anything can
happen—or perhaps anything can be said. This project shows that through temporary
public artwork it is possible to “carve out moments of meaning and experience.” In 1984
Creative Time commissioned Freedom of Expression National Monument for their
annual Art on the Beach (1978-1985) program and was recommissioned in 2004.
It is also important to note the many changes pertinent to this project that
happened between 1984 and 2004: The Culture Wars, the NEA crisis, and the
suppression of artistic freedom, all of which affect the context of this piece. Between the

24
Phillips, “Temporality and Public Art,” 333.
22
conservative Presidents George Bush (41) and Ronald Reagan an atmosphere was created
that caused a huge reaction from artists around the United States. Where art fit in the
broader American context was in question. New works were considered indecent or anti-
religious and older masterpieces were no longer seen as valued works.
During this Culture War, in 1989, the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA)
came up for a five-year budget review. Senator Jesse Helms believed that the NEA
should no longer receive funding because it supported art that was deemed too dangerous
and morally corrupt. He specifically targeted the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe
and went as far as to distribute copies of Mapplethorpe’s works to fellow committee
members. No art controversy has caught the same fire as this 1989 controversy.
25
Senator
Helms’ mission eventually did not succeed, as the NEA is still around today. Finally, it is
important to note that the 2004 revisiting of Freedom was done so during the Bush (43)
administration and the Iraqi war. New York City was a different backdrop in 2004 then it
was in 1984, partly because of the Culture Wars but also because of September 11, 2001.
Those issues and more were certainly on the minds of visitors.
Originally in 1984, when the piece was first created, thousands of people came to
the beach to speak out about a wide variety of issues: AIDS, poverty, the environment
and human rights. People would speak, yell, and sign into the giant megaphone
desperately trying to have their voices heard.
26
In contrast, in 2004, the country was in the

25
Kriston Capps, “Jesse Helms: The Intimidation of Art and the Art of Intimidation,” The
Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kriston-capps/jesse-helms-the-
intimidat_b_112874.html

26
The New York Times wrote in their review, “Anyone who wants to can mount the platform
and speak his or her mind. Try it. It’s an American tradition, to be exercised in the art world and
everywhere else.”
23
middle of an election season so the topics changed but oddly many stayed the same.
Architecture critic Herbert Muschamp saw the need for this project to be revisited in
2003, writing in the New York Times that, “The need for such a public platform has
never been greater than it is now.”
27
Apparently, Creative Time was thinking just the
same thing because the project was recreated less than a year later.
Creative Time’s Freedom gives passersby the chance to speak their mind and
exercise the right of free speech. In contrast to Asher’s piece that was within the walls of
a museum institution, Freedom is in the middle of Manhattan where anyone would be
able to walk by it. This site was chosen specifically to be able to confront viewers with
the opportunity to speak out and the opportunity to hear those that are speaking out
saying whatever is on their minds. It was also placed in Foley Square for a classical
reason of using a town square as a place to speak your mind. Art critic Miwon Kwon has
written about the shift in public art towards the pursuit of using public space as a
contentious space.
…A dominant drive of site-oriented practices today is the pursuit of a
more intense engagement with the outside world and everyday life—a
critique of culture that is inclusive of nonart spaces, nonart institutions,
and nonart issues (blurring the division between art and nonart, in fact).
Concerned to integrate art more directly into the realm of the social, either
in order to redress (in an activist sense) urgent social problems such as the
ecological crisis, homelessness, AIDS, homophobia, racism, and sexism,
or more generally to relativize art as one among many forms of cultural
work.
28

Freedom being placed into the middle of Foley Square was a piece of art in a “nonart”
space. It was using the site to address the urgent social problems of the day, both in 1984

27
Herbert Muschamp, “Picturing the New Ground Zero,” The New York Times, August 31, 2003.

28
Miwon Kwon, One Place After Another: Site Specific Art and Locational Identity, (Boston:
MIT Press, 2004), 20.
24
and twenty years later. Kwon mentions topics that were important for visitors to talk
about during the piece. These are not topics that use the space as a way to substantiate
one single point of view; they are topics that bring new and controversial ideas to the
square.
The issues that were spoken about through the megaphone were issues that not
everyone in the public space would agree upon, making the space a contentious space and
creating a social exchange and public dialogue. The urgency of the piece was
emphasized with the time limitations of the piece, Freedom was only up in 2004 for 3
months. Just as the brevity of the piece underscored Alfredo Jaar’s Rushes, these issues
were also emphasized by the immediacy of the piece. This project would not have
worked the same if it had been made a permanent piece. In fact, if it had been proposed
as a permanent installation it would probably never have been green lit by the city. This
is because permanent projects that are controversial in nature are harder to have cities
agree upon than those same projects done temporarily. This is one reason why time and
contentiousness can lead to temporary public art. For an artist, if an artwork could create
contentious space then time can become a major factor. Limiting the time the piece is
available underscores the urgency of the message but also may help the work to be
approved for public space.
By giving New Yorkers a chance to speak their mind, the work underlines the
idea that public space is a place where anything can happen. With this temporary project,
someone may pass by and hear what the people have to say and the next time they come
25
to the square the work is gone.
29
The silence in the square may make those who
experienced the project think back to what they had heard when the square was full of
noise and people speaking their mind. The work is able to create meaning even after it
has ended, perhaps in a way that permanent works cannot. It brings up the Henri
Lefebvre’s idea of public space. Rosalyn Deutsche wrote:
Henri Lefebvre, the urban theorist who coined the phrase “the production
of space,” refers to…late-capitalist space as “simultaneously the birthplace
of contradictions, the milieu in which they are worked out and which they
tear up, and, finally, the instrument which allows their suppression and the
substitution of an apparent coherence.”
30

Freedom allows a myriad of topics to be introduced into the public realm. These topics
are always around and an issue but they are being brought to the forefront with this
project. The megaphone was aimed towards the buildings that surround Foley Square as
if to say, this message was being aimed at the City Hall and local courts.
Freedom not only addresses the ideas of free speech and democracy but also the
idea of a national monument. Creative Time wrote about their project saying:
Freedom also challenges our assumptions about the role of civic
architecture, which the artists gesture towards by naming the artwork a
“national monument.” Unlike Washington D.C.’s monuments, this
temporary intervention is constructed on a human scale with affordable
materials. Rather than venerate great men and enduring institutions,
Freedom honors the ordinary and everyday.
31

National monuments in the public realm have sought to assimilate some common notion
between all people. They have sought something common that all citizens can get behind

29
A review in Frieze Magazine said it made visitors think “about a time when having a voice and
a stepladder and a lunchtime crowd could actually be expected to change a few minds or even
spark a riot.”

30
Rosalyn Deutsche, Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics, (Boston: MIT Press, 1998), 262.

31
Sullivan, Creative Time Press Release, 2.
26
like Abraham Lincoln or remembering fallen soldiers. However, this work in particular is
almost the anti-monument. It specifically addresses how we are different rather than
similar. It celebrates the different things each person would want to say when stepping up
to the megaphone. The piece is a temporary work and the urgency and the brevity of the
project emphasize its topics. This is unlike most national monuments, which are meant to
be everlasting.
Also, in order to speak into the megaphone the participant had to climb a twenty-
one foot long ramp to reach the six-foot tall platform. The architectural scale relates to
the viewer’s body because the visitor and their ideas are the one being raised up to a
position of importance and respect. Living human beings expressing themselves are the
focal point, not a stone sculpture of a great man. For a brief moment this project honors
the everyday person, the contradictions in everyday life. Instead of looking to the past it
is celebrating the present.
Katy Segal writes in her article, “Puppy,” that public art of today is shifting away
from the messages of public art from the past.
The public art of the past—say, the religious frescoes and public statuary
of rulers made in the Renaissance and still visible all over Italy—delivers
clear messages. The doge is strong and benevolent, and Venice will defeat
other city-states; …Christ died for our sins. And the messages are clear, in
part because they were being sent to well-defined publics: citizens of a
particular city, people who attended a particular church… Things are not
so simple for contemporary art at the beginning of the twenty-first
century.
32

Publics of today can no longer be defined so clearly. Particularly in New York City,
which can be considered the melting pot of the United States. On any given day the

32
Segal, “Puppy,” 36.
27
people who walk through Foley Square will be of different class, race, gender, sexuality
and ethnicity. However, there may be a way to bring out the common traits instead of the
differences.
This project contradicts past ideas of national monuments because of this
interaction. Many national monuments are just sculptures made of stone or steel where all
a visitor can do is look. With Freedom, however, the very thing they are celebrating—
freedom of speech—is actually being displayed. There is actual communication. In the
book Not A Cornfield, the authors, Lauren Bon and Manuel Castells, discuss how actual
cultural communication is very difficult to accomplish.
Because in a highly competitive economy with an individualistic and
consumerist culture, it is very difficult to find common codes, what I call
protocols of communications. However, historically there is a common
non-verbal form of communication that can bring people together in
shared feeling: art. With art you don’t need to articulate explicitly or to
even know for sure that you share the same feeling. You just need to feel
together in the presence of an art process. Throughout history, art has been
the means by which people who could not communicate or express their
feelings to each other could simply feel together. Either in the time and
space, or sharing humanity in different times and spaces.
33

This writing taps directly into the main function of Freedom, although it certainly did use
verbal communication. The project in the middle of the square, for a brief three months,
was able to bring people together. With the idea of the art process, people were able to
express how they are individuals but also how they are part of a larger group. The piece
was able to bring people together by speaking and listening. Each person that would stop
in the square to listen was a part of a larger group that was brought together by the shared
feeling of art. Freedom is able to bring people together on the different levels. Bring

33
Manuel Castells and Lauren Bon, “Another City is Possible,” in Not A Cornfield, ed. Janet
Owen Driggs, 111, (Los Angeles: Not A Cornfield, LLC., 2007).
28
people together in time and space by gathering around the square to listen and by a shared
humanity by listening to each other’s voices. Visitors were able to feel together because
they were in the presence of an art process.
During two separate interviews, one with John Malpede and one with Erika
Rothenberg, I was able to speak to two of three creators of the piece. Through e-mail I
asked both artists the same few questions, which touched on the temporary nature of the
piece as well as the location.
Elizabeth Lidgett: Do you believe that the message of temporary public artworks
live on once the project ends? If so, how?

Erika Rothenberg: You never know when you create a piece whether it will
capture people's imaginations. Freedom of Expression National
Monument certainly did; most don't forget it once they've experienced it. Plus, the
press paid it a lot of attention both times it was installed (1984 and 2004), which
drew more viewers and introduced it to a worldwide audience.

John Malpede: Yes. Ideas travel, float, live. Your interest proves it.

EL: How do you feel the location of the project affected the message?

ER: Freedom of Expression National Monument was installed twice, at two
different sites in Manhattan.
In 2004, we chose a site right in the thick of the city that added another layer of
29
meaning to the piece — Foley Square, which is surrounded by Federal and State
courts, and flanked by City Hall. Proximity to the courts was great for our
audience of passersby, many of whom climbed up and shouted through the
megaphone.
It was interesting to me how different the two sites were, and how each worked
very well, in its own way. There are public art projects that are designed for a site
and couldn't really be anywhere else — my permanent installation in Los
Angeles, The Road to Hollywood, is an example of that — but Freedom of
Expression National Monument could work really, really well almost anywhere.
It's basic, it's powerful, and it's fun.
34

JM: Location was prima---> pointed right at World Trade Center.
35

So, did this temporary public artwork create more of an impact with these issues than a
permanent piece could? As was discussed earlier, some projects work better as temporary
public artworks for the purposes of exhibition in public space. The project, for example,
would probably not have had the great location of Foley Square as a permanent piece.
This work created contentious public space because of the issues addressed. The
contentiousness of the piece, along with the time, leads to temporary public art. Even
though it was a short-lived project, it, like all ephemeral works, has potential to go
beyond its physical restraints to continue on promoting and encouraging a cultural

34
Erika Rothenberg. E-mail interview. 28 Jan. 2009.

35
John Malpede. E-mail interview. 26 Jan. 2009.
30
dialogue. Both Malpede and Rothenberg believed that this piece and works like it have
the ability to live on through their messages. Freedom is a piece that illustrates this well.
Although, the actual construction of the piece is no longer there, perhaps the ideas
presented by visitors who spoke into the megaphone linger on. The piece was centered on
the time it was shown and therefore the urgency of its message.

31
Chapter Four: Further Analysis and Conclusion
The Monument and The Anti-Monument
George Washington and Freedom of Expression National Monument are two very
different pieces. First, they differ in the ways the audience interacts with the works.
Asher’s piece demands contemplation but no major interaction. Freedom, on the other
hand, is a structure that invites participation. It is larger than life and relates to the
viewers body by raising the speakers above the square and lifts them up to monumental
status. Secondly, they inhabit totally different types of spaces. George Washington was
taken from a public location outside of the Chicago Art Institute to a more private
environment inside the museum. Freedom occupies two very public locations during the
original piece and its reinvention: the beach and Foley Square. These two locations are
very accessible and free for people in New York City. While Asher’s work privatized the
sculpture, the museum can be considered a semi-public location. The Chicago Art
Institute has free general admission, which means during its open hours anyone in the
city could visit the project.
The point of Asher’s project is partially not to deal with the “publicness” or
privatization of the piece; it is more about the displacement of a public monument and to
recontextualize it within a museum as an institutional critique. Of course, one thing that
both projects have in common is that they deal with the idea of a monument. Freedom is
represented as the anti-monument and George Washington as the more traditional (if
displaced) monument.
32
Michael Asher wrote about treating the sculpture as a monument but manipulating
the history that it was meant to represent.
This kind of artwork in fact uses history indirectly, without acknowledging its
sources, but it incorporates them, covertly creating a pretense to history. The
indirect use of history is accomplished as a formal synthesis, without
understanding the motivation for using it. This aesthetic manipulation of history
also responded to the viewer’s given inclination and longing for historical
experience. If history is thereby falsified, it does not only mean that a denial of
history is operating, for it also complements and continues the ahistorical position
of modernism. My installation at the Art Institute of Chicago did not only return
the sculpture to its historical boundaries but equally so to its cultural boundaries,
both historical and contemporary.
36

Asher works with the idea of a national monument and by displacing it extends it to its
full potential to its historical and cultural boundaries. Its history becomes a more
important part of the piece, partly because of the documentation, but also because of the
context. By being placed in Gallery 219 and 220, the facts of the work are brought to the
viewer’s attention. Should the piece be viewed with the French collection because of the
French artist Houdon? Or should it be placed with the other American art historical
pieces because of the subject? When Asher places the sculpture in a new context he is
addressing the idea of a monument and also creating an institutional critique.
Freedom, in contrast, works towards the idea on an anti-monument. While
George Washington is in the form of a typical public monument, remembering a great
man in our history, Freedom celebrates great people of today. It is a work that is meant to
use the space as contentious space, instead of addressing one event that is supposed to be
universal to us all, the anti-monument speaks to what is different. Visitors are meant to
“stand up and speak out” and express whatever idea comes to mind. These topics are

36
Michael Asher. Writings 1973-1983 on works 1969-1979. (Nova Scotia: The Press of the Nova
Scotia College of Art and Design, 1983), 219.
33
underscored by the brevity of the piece. The temporal nature of Freedom makes each
message, no matter the issue, urgent. Also, as was stated earlier, the anti-monument status
is furthered by the interaction encouraged. George Washington was a monument that
was only meant to be looked upon and to represent our nations first president. It’s a
bronze statue that is static. Freedom, however, is actually participating in the amendment
it is representing.
The final important similarity between the two pieces is the temporal nature in
both pieces construct contested space. George Washington was only in the museum for
the months of the exhibition, and during such a short time it changed institutional policy.
The displacement of the sculpture, and documentation that accompanied the revisiting,
resulted in better treatment of the sculpture and the confusion of where to place the
sculpture after. Asher’s institutional critique proved to be so effective that the museum
staff could no longer find a location for the Houdon sculpture that they felt would be
appropriate. After the most recent Asher project, the Institute has placed the sculpture in
storage and that is where it remains today.
The brevity of Freedom gives each spoken topic a sense of immediacy and those
topics also create contested space. The message here is not that we are all the same; it is
that we each are dealing with different issues, and each of them are important. Some of
the topics such as AIDS, homophobia or sexism are not comfortable issues. They are not
things people talk about in polite conversation, but this is not a space created for such
conversation.

34
Conclusion
In this conclusion, it seems best to end with the same way that the paper began. The
original questions that this project aimed to answer are as follows: Do the works
discussed create contentious space? Do these ephemeral public artworks create social
exchanges and public dialogue past the end of the project? Do these temporary public
artworks create more of an impact with some issues than a permanent piece can? Should
temporary public art occupy a portion of today’s art landscape? This paper has sought to
create a thoughtful investigation of these questions.
Let’s start at the beginning with the idea of public space as contentious space. Is
there contention in public space and do these works create it? Contentious space is a topic
that has been discussed for years and has been established. For example, Henri Lefebvre
thought there was contention in public space. As he wrote, “public space is a place where
everything can happen anytime,”
37
and that space is “simultaneously the birthplace of
contradictions, the milieu in which they are worked out and which they tear up, and
finally, the instrument which allows their suppression and the substitution of an apparent
coherence.”
38
Public space is a place where everything can happen anytime because the
people that occupy public space are varied and diverse. Temporary public projects have
the ability to reflect the spread of democracy and create social change. Public space has
the ability to be contentious space, but it is not always. The temporary artworks in this
paper have activated the contention in the space. The George Washington project proved
that a displaced monument could provide a successful critique of an institution. Such a

37
Castells and Bon, “Another City is Possible,” 110.

38
Deutsche, Evictions, 262.
35
critique that could demand its viewing audience to question why any piece is placed
anywhere. This was a project that was not reconfirming the thoughts of the curatorial
staff; it was a piece that purposely went against the grain and created contested space.
Subsequently, Freedom was a project that brought contention to public space in the
middle of New York City. This work also brought new topics and arguments to the ears
of the public and the government buildings that surround Foley Square. These projects
prove that public art should not always be used as a one-size-fits-all solution because our
differences, not our similarities, are what define public space.
Asher’s George Washington does not succeed as well as much as Freedom on
answering this question. Although the Art Institute of Chicago is being considered a
public space for the uses of this paper, it is still a space that visitors would need to seek
out. In the case of Freedom, visitors of the project may have gone to seek it out or they
may have stumbled upon it. Perhaps, Foley Square is on a person’s way to work and one
day they happen by it unintentionally. While the audience for the Chicago Art Institute
piece may have been more limited, the audience for Freedom could be potentially
unlimited. With this in mind, Freedom is a piece that takes on the idea of contentious
space. The work provided a place to “step up and speak out” about whatever issue came
to mind. These issues ranging from homophobia to poverty were, obviously, not topics
that were going to please everyone who heard. They were issues that were meant to stop
people in their tracks and to have them really think about what they were hearing. It was
not a piece that was intended to only represent love and happiness. These issues were
meant to create controversy and to spark a social dialogue. Which, of course, brings us to
the next question to be answered.
36
Do these ephemeral public artworks create social exchanges and public dialogue
past the end of the projects? Patricia Phillips and her ideas and temporary artwork have
been dominant through this paper. The idea of comparing temporal artworks to gifts, in
particular, is worth revisiting. By comparing short-lived works to gifts, Phillips is able to
show what is most promising about ephemeral works. The gift is no longer around but the
memory and the idea of it is lasting, just as the ideas of the artworks still linger with us.
Asher’s work for instance, completely changed the way that the Art Institute of
Chicago dealt with the sculpture of George Washington. The work never returned to its
original location outside of the Institute. In fact, after Asher moved it to Gallery 219 and
220, the museum placed it into storage and has not been displayed since. Asher’s work
was meant to be an institutional critique that questioned how museums operated. By
placing the sculpture in 219, the visitor questioned first why the sculpture was there and
second questioned why each piece in the room was there. Asher was able to create a
public dialogue about museum practices with the visitors and to actually create change
within the institution itself. Though this is only speculation, it is possible that visitors that
saw George Washington now look at each museum they enter in a completely different
way. Perhaps, this message is passed on to the people they are with and then those people
pass the idea on.
Freedom is a more problematic example. The work itself, of course, created a
public dialogue while the piece was displayed. The work is entirely about creating
dialogue and exercising your freedom of speech. However, the question is what remained
after the piece was taken down? Asher’s piece was able to create visible change that
could be recorded. The documentation from the exhibit is still left behind, as well as its
37
effects. The fact that the sculpture has been residing in storage since the last exhibition
can show that Asher’s critique had an impact on the curatorial staff. Freedom’s impact is
more difficult to track. Again with the speculation, I believe that Freedom’s impact does
live on. As artist John Malpede wrote in our interview “ Ideas travel, float, live. Your
interest proves it.”
39
Also, Erika Rothenberg mentioned the press that surrounded the
revisitation of the project. With both George Washington and Freedom documentation
proves to be important. Documentation is a concrete way to prove that the essence of a
temporal project can continue to exist. The actual physical presence is gone, but like a
gift, the ideas linger on.
The physical presence of the piece brings us to the next question put forth: Does
temporary public artwork create more of an impact with some issues than a permanent
piece can? After further review, this question can be deeply problematic. For the
purposes of this paper, impact is being defined by any actual changes implemented such
as the change in museum practice after the Asher work. Unfortunately, we are not able to
poll every single person who encountered the piece and how it changed their lives, if at
all. There is something to be said about impact and length of time a piece occurs. In the
case of Asher’s work, if the statue had been placed in a permanent, fixed location, the
project would have lost its impact. The George Washington statue would have become a
part of the very institution it was attempting to critique. In the case of Freedom, the
everyday materials may not have lasted or stood the test of time. But more importantly,
the urgency of the ideas was underscored by the fact that the project was only temporary.
Visitors needed to voice their important opinions while they could. Perhaps, with the

39
John Malpede. E-mail interview. 26 Jan. 2009.
38
controversial nature of the topics being discussed, or in some cases shouted, the city may
not have agreed to a permanent work of this nature, thus, showing how time and
contentiousness can lead to temporary public art. So while it is almost impossible to say
whether a temporary public artwork can create more of an impact in some instances than
a permanent piece, it is possible to say that some messages are more effective because of
their ephemeral nature.
Finally, after all of this information, we come to the final question: Should
temporary public art occupy a portion of today’s art landscape? Is temporary public art
the answer to today’s society? Because of the projects examined, I believe that temporary
public artwork is an answer to today’s society, but not the only. As Philips wrote, she
wanted ephemeral works to be used “as a form for investigation, articulation, and
constructive reappraisal. Ultimately, I believe, because today’s viewing public is so
diverse, it should be celebrated by using several different forms of art to reach them.
Ephemeral public artwork needs to be one of the prominent forms used by today’s public
art practitioners and agencies.
I hypothesized when I first began writing that at the end of this paper I would be
able to answer each of those questions with a resounding ‘yes’; this is not the case.
However, I do believe that the questions have been answered to the best of my ability. Is
public space contentious space and do these projects create it? Yes, I argue that it is and
they do. Do these ephemeral public artworks create social exchanges past the end of the
projects? Yes, I believe they do. Is temporary public artwork the answer to today’s
society? Well, it is certainly one of them.
39
Temporary public artwork has the potential to live on through the ideas and
discussions raised past its physical ending. As Eiseley wrote, “Life is never fixed and
stable.”
40
Art is the same. Ephemeral public artwork is a reflection of our ever-changing
society and contentious space; a mirror to our dispositions, in flux.

40
Eiseley, 27.
40
Bibliography

Asher, Michael. Telephone interview. 11 Jan. 2009.

Buskirk, Martha. The Contingent Object of Contemporary Art. Boston: Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, 2003.

Cantz, Hatje. Public Art/ Kunst im offentlichen Raum. Edited by Florian Matzner.
Germany: Ostfildern-Ruit, 2001.

Capps, Kriston. “Jesse Helms: The Intimidation of Art and the Art of Intimidation,” The
Huffington Post. [Available Online] Posted July 15, 2008.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kriston-capps/jesse-helms-the-
intimidat_b_112874.html

Castells, Manuel and Lauren Bon. “Another City is Possible.” In Not A Cornfield, edited
by Janet Owen Driggs. Los Angeles: Not A Cornfield, LLC, 2007.

Dietz, Steve. Public Sphere_s, Available [Online]
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/public_sphere_s/public_sphere_s,

Deutsche, Rosalyn. “Breaking Ground: Barbara Kruger’s Spatial Practice.” Edited by
Ann Goldstein. Los Angeles: The Museum of Contemporary Art, 1999, 77.

Deutsche, Rosalyn. Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics, Boston: MIT Press, 1998, 262.

Eiseley, Loren. Man, Time, and Prophecy. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966.

Hajer, Maarten and Arnold Reijndorp. In Search of New Public Domain: Analysis and
Strategy. NAI Publishers, 2002.

Heartney, Eleanor. Critical Conditions: American Culture at the Crossroads. New York:
Cambridge, 1997.

Heartney, Eleanor. Available [Online]
http://www.thephotographyinstitute.org/journals/1998/eleanor_heartney.html

Kwon, Miwon. One Place After Another: Site Specific Art and Locational Identity.
Boston: MIT Press, 2004.

Malpede, John. E-mail interview. 26 Jan. 2009.

41
Moeller, Whitney. “‘George Washington’ at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1916-2006.” In
Michael Asher: George Washington at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1979 and
2005, by Whitney Moeller and Anne Rorimer. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago,
2006.

Muschamp, Herbert. “Picturing the New Ground Zero,” New York Times, August 31,
2003.

Pasternak, Anne and Lucy Lippard. Creative Time. New York: Princeton Architectural
Press, 2008.

Phillips, Patricia C. “Creating Democracy: A Dialogue with Krzysztof Wodiczko.” Art
Journal, Vol. 62, no. 4 (2003): 32-49.

Phillips, Patricia C. “Temporality and Public Art, “ Art Journal, Vol. 48, no. 4 (Winter,
1989): 331-335.

Rondeau, James. “Introductions and Acknowledgements,” In Michael Asher: George
Washington at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1979 and 2005, by Whitney Moeller
and Anne Rorimer. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2006.

Rothenberg, Erika. E-mail interview. 28 Jan. 2009.

Segal, Katy. “Puppy Love.” In Plop, edited by Jeffrey Kastner, Anne Wehr, and Tom
Eccles. New York: Merrell, 2004.

Sennett, Richard. The Fall of Public Man, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1974/1992.

Smith, Roberta. “ART REVIEW; Caution: Angry Artists at Work,” New York Times,
August 31, 2004.

Sullivan, Maureen. Creative Time Press Release, July 26, 2004, New York.

Trainor, James. “Freedom of Expression National Monument,” Frieze Magazine. Issue
87, November-December 2004.

Virilio, Paul. “Speed and Information: Cyberspace Alarm!” CTheory.net.
www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=72

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Our society is always changing, always evolving and temporary public art can work hand-in-hand with the idea of an ever-changing society. Art critic Patricia Phillips has written about ephemeral works and their advantages for public art, which provides an noteworthy way to critically look at this type of art. With these ideas in mind, this thesis attempts to investigate and answer questions by analyzing Michael Asher's 'George Washington' (2005) and Creative Time's 'Freedom of Expression National Monument' (2004): Do the works discussed create contentious space? Do these ephemeral public artworks create social exchanges and public dialogue past the end of the project? Do these temporary public artworks create more of an impact on some issues than a permanent piece can? Should temporary public art occupy a portion of today's art landscape?

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

Temporary or permanent? Considering time, memory and history in public art projects

PDF

Making art public: mobilizing public art through technology

PDF

Four women, four public art projects, four decades: exploring socially conscious public art and social change

PDF

Changing spaces: Machine project, critical pedagogy and reinventing the museum

PDF

Art and cultural diplomacy in the international exhibition: documenta 1 and Prospect.1

PDF

Community engaged art: no longer a form of resistance?

PDF

Tom Marioni: artistic intoxication

PDF

Reflections on contemporary art and the rhetoric of community

PDF

Fostering vital places: public art and the revitalization of the Los Angeles River

PDF

Cultivating the arts in rural communities of the San Joaquin valley

PDF

Lapses in memory: slavery memorials and historical amnesia in the United States

PDF

Mediating sand and sea: video landscapes by Israeli women artists

PDF

Coastal public art: an innovative way to disseminate ocean science

PDF

The multivalent platforms of alternative art publications as agents of authentic cultural change

PDF

Public art in Houston: administrative structure analysis and artist guidebook

PDF

"Necessity knows no law": artist-run spaces & the spatial politics of Tijuana's public domain

PDF

A plastic picturesque: notions of public as projected through the works of Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol

PDF

Interpreting participatory art

PDF

Public art as liberatory pedagogy through performance methodologies

PDF

Victory Gardens 2007+: making art as if the environment matters

Asset Metadata

Creator Lidgett, Elizabeth (author)

Core Title Art and time: temporary public art and contentious space

School School of Fine Arts

Degree Master of Public Art Studies

Degree Program Public Art Studies

Publication Date 05/05/2009

Defense Date 05/01/2009

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag contentious,OAI-PMH Harvest,public art,space,temporary,Time

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Bray, Anne (committee chair), Decter, Joshua (committee member), Moss, Karen (committee member)

Creator Email Lidgett@usc.edu,LizLidgett@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m2187

Unique identifier UC1461825

Identifier etd-Lidgett-2802 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-236467 (legacy record id),usctheses-m2187 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Lidgett-2802.pdf

Dmrecord 236467

Document Type Thesis

Rights Lidgett, Elizabeth

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu