Going Public: Creating Visibility in the Field of Art

A call-to-arms for creatives to make their work widely accessible as a political and communal act.

There are many ways to go public in art. There’s exhibiting, publishing, or reviewing. It is only through making artworks public that they become accessible to audiences—a performative act that also involves a marketplace of money and attention. Yet reception is an essential aspect of production.

This book looks at why such reception should not be limited to the art public, positing that going public as an aesthetic and political strategy necessitates an emancipatory practice of public communication that allows, and aspires to, uncertainties, questions, and complexities.

Sigrid Adorf is professor of contemporary art and cultural analysis as well as deputy director of the Institute for Cultural Studies in the Arts at the Zurich University of the Arts. Sønke Gau is an art historian, cultural scholar, curator, art critic, and lecturer at the Zurich University of the Arts. Basil Rogger is a consultant, researcher, and editor. He lectures in design, cultural analysis, and cultural education at the Zurich University of the Arts.