The ‘Publicness’ of Public Art: Access, Actor, Interest Approach

Abstract

Once we think of public art, a series of questions come to our mind: What is the ‘publicness’ of public art? Is any public artwork exhibited in a public space ‘absolutely’ public? Could a public artwork be ‘more’ or ‘less’ public than any other? Is it possible to define the extent of publicness of an artwork with different forms of representation? This article, focusing on the question of ‘publicness’ of public art, aims to find out answers to these questions. Taking a glance at the literature of the ‘public’ and ‘private’ terms, it uses the three criteria of ‘access’,’actor’ and ‘interest’, put forth by Benn and Gaus in 1983 to define these concepts, and it seeks to define and discuss the ‘publicness’ of public art. This research ultimately aims to provide with a model or an empirical instrument to be used specifically in the fields of urban planning and design. The article is composed of four sections. The first section discusses the accessibility of public art, the second part focuses on the actors of public art and the third section widely explains the multiple interests which public art serves for. In the final section, the article concludes the discussions on the three dimensions of publicness of public art.

Keywords

• public art
• public space
• public
• private
• publicness
• privateness
• access
• actor
• interest

Kamusal Sanatın ‘Kamusallığı’: Erişim, Aktör, Fayda Yaklaşımı

Abstract

Kamusal mekanda sanattan bahsedildiğinde aklımıza bir dizi soru gelir: Kamusal sanatın ‘kamusallığı’ nedir? Kamusal mekanda sergilenen herhangi bir sanat eseri ‘mutlak’ kamusal mıdır? Bir kamusal sanat eseri, diğerine göre daha ‘az’ ya da daha ‘çok’ kamusal olabilir mi? Kamusal mekanda farklı temsil biçimleriyle sunulan sanat eserinin ne kadar ‘kamusal’ olduğu tanımlanabilir mi? Ölçülebilir mi? Bu makale, kamusal sanatın ‘kamusallığı’ sorunsalına odaklanarak, bu sorulara cevap aramayı hedeflemektedir. ‘Kamu’ ve ‘özel’ kavramlarıyla ilgili yazına hızlıca göz attıktan sonra, bu kavramları tanımlamak için Benn ve Gaus’un 1983’te ortaya attığı ‘erişebilirlik’, ‘aktör’ ve ‘fayda’ ölçütlerine dayanarak, kamusal sanatın kamusallığını tanımlamayı ve tartışmayı hedeflemektedir; özellikle kent planlama ve tasarım alanlarında yapılacak araştırmalarda kullanılabilecek bir araç (ya da model) sunmaya çalışmaktadır. Makale dört ana bölümden oluşmaktadır. İlk bölümünde, kamusal sanata erişim, ikinci bölümünde kamusal sanatın aktörleri ve üçüncü bölümünde ise, kamusal sanatın çok yönlü faydalarına bağlı olarak ‘kamusallık’larının nasıl değişebileceği tartışılmaktadır. Sonuç bölümünde ise, kamusallığın üç boyutuna bağlı olarak yapılan tartışmanın sonuçları özetlenmektedir.   

Keywords

• kamusal sanat
• kamusal mekan
• kamu
• özel
• kamusallık
• özellik
• erişim
• aktör
• fayda

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