In the knowledge that cities are more than the sum of static architectures and are created performatively as a result of social processes and public actions, the relationship between art, city and public space has been increasingly discussed in recent years. The lecture by Heinz Schütz takes up an important aspect of this debate and deals with performative and participatory art in urban space.
The focus is particularly on performative urbanism of the 1960s and 1970s. Under the auspices of institutional and social criticism, artists took to the streets as the site of a physical and ideal democratic public sphere. Carried by the avant-garde utopia of a reconciliation of “art and life”, they replaced the object character of art with personal action. With happenings, actions, performances and interventions, performative urbanism took place in a climate of social awakening, which aimed at a democratization of society by overcoming traditional hierarchies, social paralysis and political repression. The lecture will draw attention from this period to the present in order to relate artistic practices of the “second avant-garde wave” to the current situation.
Heinz Schütz is a curator and art theoretician in Munich. In 2008, he initiated the research and exhibition project “Performing the City” for Lothringer13, Städtische Kunsthalle Munich.
A lecture to the exhibition “Florian Hüttner. Fluss-Verschlag”.