Public space is both a battlefield and stage for those visions and ideas in which a society puts its faith. At a distance, it also discloses that which is blindly supported in this society. One can survey it as if it were a kind of societal relief, or a contemporary witness of history, as it reveals both conscious and unconscious orders and structures.

In those times when the common faith in ideas is particularly strong, signs of this faith are placed into public space in the form of monuments which make beliefs concrete to us, alert us of the destructive power of faith, and signal the successful displacement of other beliefs.

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The loss of faith in grand ideas has shown its effect by the occupation of public space by private interests. As a result, less public space is reserved for the monumental. The new landmarks follow the logic of commerce. The power of the consumer and the economy is reflected in the layout and occupation of public space - chalkboards with menu options, billboards displaying the fashions of the season, pavilions for company meetings, closed-off zones for large-scale events.

“Between purchases they savor the spectacle of the constant disintegration of the complexes to which they belong … Were the Mediterranean lapping at the avenue’s edges, the shops could hardly expose themselves in a more windowless fashion. They disgorge a stream of commodities that serves to satisfy creaturely needs; it climbs up the facades, is interrupted at street level, and then shoots with redoubled force up into the heights on the far side of the crosscurrent passerby. … No one invented the plan according to which the elements of the hustle and bustle scribble a jumble of lines into the asphalt. There is no such plan. The goals are locked in the individual little particles, and the law of least resistance gives the curves their direction.” (S. Kracauer).

With the decline of grand narratives, the selling-out of public space into the form of a street fair has fully begun. That which gains ground is less utopian, and just as less monumental in its space requirement, however, no less hungry and, as a diversified phenomenon, particularly assertive.

Under the title “Utopia and Monument”, Sabine Breitwieser has developed a two-part program for the “Steirischer Herbst” festival, in which she applies art to a discourse on public space. Examples of the unspoken being openly expressed on the street – understood here as a social platform for self-exhibition – are sought out. At the same time, the scope of art for public statements is tested, as well as its competitive power within the struggle over limited public space.

Fourteen international artists were invited to participate. Until October 18th, they explore the question of the validity of art between privatization and the public sphere. Part Two of “Utopia and Monument” will follow next year. (wh/jn)

In 1771, Louis Sébastien Mercier published the novel 2440, which depicts an utopia of a convenient, more ideal, distant future world. Utopias had already existed in the past. However, in Mercier’s utopia, the ideal world is not stumbled upon – for example, through a storm in which one is shipwrecked and washed up onto the shore of the ideal place – but rather a result of a linear history that is played out through human action. “Some were immediately enlightened from the beginning, but the majority of the nation was still careless and childlike. Gradually, the population became more intelligent. We still have much more to accomplish than what we have created so far. We are only halfway there,” according to the caretakers of the future regarding the intermediate conditions of the half-realized utopia. Mercier’s narration of the gradual realization of an ideal world carried out by mankind is a modern vision – with human capital, reason, and faith, as applied to technical, rational progress, as its focal points.

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The modern visions of progress exploded upon its realizations. This we had to recognize in the centuries that followed. The modern project is halfway down a path which leads it further, however not necessarily forward, and the faith in this common path of mankind towards an ideal world, whose vision Mercier calls “The Dream of All Dreams”, eventually fades. Generally speaking, both on the large and small scale, the conception of a more optimal world multiplies, and instead of one movement towards reaching one big goal, juxtaposition and constant flux of means and ways takes its place.

The sculptures and public interventions of the Canadian artist Michel de Broin refer to a certain extent to the intermediate conditions of this halfway point. They capture those transformations that have resulted from the greater history of modern progress, objects which are already slightly outdated but still determine our everyday life: for example, the car, that status symbol of progress, which is usually only used by one person at a time, consuming gas and destroying the environment. However, at the same time, de Broin’s works also refer to the many new formulas for progress: a general slowing-down as a strategy for environmental protection, a balanced economy without a loss of energy, postindustrial visions of sustainability – and the appropriate means towards this conversion which occupy our life.

De Broin’s work translates and highlights such visions of optimization and reveals their inner tendencies and contradictions, sometimes through exaggeration, but often only through showing examples of possible realizations. He breaks down the restrictive definitions of old and new forms of dogmatic idealism without becoming didactic. His style corresponds more to that of one who is playing hooky from such lessons, summoned by his instinct for playful exploration, poking fun at the “progress” and “efficiency” that is holding back the world. (wh/jn)