ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the notion of spectatorship in the context of contested definitions of the public sphere. Beyond institutional critique, sites, and therefore reflections on varying degrees of publicness, have become the new perspective of art. Britain and London more particularly have been at the forefront of a privatisation of public space, and this has changed the way art occupies outside locations. Because they like to cultivate the exceptional, Artangel have favoured ruined environments and in-between spaces which are often readily accessible because it saves owners costs on security, maintenance and business rates taxed on empty buildings. Besides their economical advantages, these interim spaces, disused shops, houses or buildings, also provide interesting unstable backgrounds against which the works are created – all the while running the risk of being co-opted by commercial interests and a new pop-up culture. The recent reconfigurations of the public sphere and of public space, having accompanied the reconfigurations of art funding and commissioning, are reflected formally in Artangel projects which address this hybridisation between public and private.
