Sarah Kanouse // Painting
kanouse@students.uiuc.edu
Artist's
Statement
The Public Square
2004
New media, installation, and events
The Public Square
2004
New media, installation, and events
The Public Square
2004
New media, installation, and events
Artist's Statement
The Public Square
"However much the democratic public sphere promises openness and
accessibility, it can never be a fully inclusive or fully constituted political
community. … Conflict, division, and instability, then, do not ruin
the democratic public sphere; they are the conditions of its existence.
The threat arises with efforts to supercede for the public sphere remains
democratic only insofar as its exclusions are taken into account and open
to contestation."
— Rosalyn Deutsche, Evictions
While microphones record museum murmurings in a square claimed as public, people gather to make public what before was merely space.
For the three-week duration of the MFA exhibition at the Krannert Art Museum, participatory events occur daily in public spaces around the city. Museum viewers become speakers by using microphones to rupture the spectatorship, privilege, and permanence of the public museum, and spectators become discussants by joining or questioning the gatherings. The sounds from each location are relayed to the other space to contrast the implicit or explicit limits on engagement established by those who monitor, manage, and control.
