Allora & Calzadilla, Claire Fontaine, Lara Favaretto, Sharon Hayes, Santiago Sierra
Perplexed in Public is a series of off-site works and performances taking place across central
London during months of June and July 2008.
The project brings together a select group of international artists whose practice is often the
aesthetic manifestation of a will to express a position within the world, whilst generating an
exchange with an audience – be it an informed public or passers-by. All participant artists have
previously conceived works for public locations and frequently cooperate with other individuals
or groups. Their works suggest different means of sharing and remembering, uncover ways in
which power is embodied and performed and test the limits of the prescribed and self-regulated
ways of expressing oneself in public.
Read moreAs well as sharing a similar desire to articulate a voice within a public context, the works
presented under the umbrella of Perplexed in Public adopt strategies that open spaces of
disturbance and distraction, or frame the setting of a blurred reality or ambiguous scenario. The
title of the project comes from Lawrence Weiner, who has recently commented that the
concept of being an artist was for him to be 'perplexed in public', because the artist's role 'was
to be invested in things that did not have a pat answer'.1 In this respect, Claire Fontaine has
written of the ability of art to create an interruption, a 'salvatory defamiliarisation' that can be a
source of newfound understanding and affects.2 The 'process of becoming stranger' – of
encountering a work or a situation that generates suspension and estrangement – has the
revolutionary potential to subvert one's perception of oneself and of one's own possibility of
power.
Perplexed in Public engages with public sites chosen for their symbolic and historical significance.
The aim is to foster a debate that is central to the work of the artists invited as well as to the
history of London: the use of public space and the engagement in actions of self-expression and
manifestation of dissent. Forty years after 1968, the utopian and somewhat naïve stance of the
60s and 70s has dissipated. Nevertheless, by generating and sustaining situations of tension or
exchange among viewers, participants, and context, art can expose the permeability of the
boundaries and unwritten rules that regiment social relationships and the use of public space.
Denying viable alternatives and creating situations of dysfunction, protest or contrasts, the
artworks presented refuse easy answers and articulate in poetic and challenging ways the position
of those willing to engage in today's society.
Visitor Information
Lisson Gallery 29 & 52-54 Bell Street, London, NW1 5DA
Admission: Free
Hours: Mon-Fri 10am-6pm; Sat 11am-5pm
Nearest Tube Station: Edgware Road
Press enquiries Catherine Mason at Calum Sutton PR
catherine@suttonpr.com +44 (0)20 7183 3577
1 Ann Goldstein, Donna De Salvo, Lawrence Weiner: As Far as the Eye Can See, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los
Angeles, and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2007, p. 60.
2 Claire Fontaine, Ready-Made Artist and Human Strike: A Few Clarifications, 2005, p. 11. The text can be downloaded at
www.clairefontaine.ws
