the (un)common place /                                             art, public space and urban aesthetics in europe

I.                                                                   Public space as (un)common place

In the contemporary era, the concept of territory ha become on of the terms of reference through which to measure the transformation of human identity and attempt to delineate a physical representation of it. Terms like flow, frontiers, networks, mobility and control, applied to readings of our cultural space, contribute to defining not only the field within which to interpret the relationship with one's surroundings, but also a new conception of its relationship with space and time, and of how heavily these fundamental axes of experience weigh on this very identity. In this regard, public space can today be defined in terms of a hyperspace that considers man a machine of desires useful only for determining the impulses of consumers reduced to numbers, multitudes. Every square centimeter is exploited for some function (almost exclusively economic in nature), and free space is restricted not only in physical terms but also in terms of denial of self-determination of the individual and of spontaneous socialization. The FEAR of EMPTY space operates as a horror vacui that we hasten to eliminate by applying terms like danger, abandonment and rejection.

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The (un)common place proposes a key to reading the notion of public space through the gaze of artists who interpret it with their works, restoring its complexity and diversity, meaning and value.


//The [un] common place. Bartolomeo Pietromarchi. Fondazione Adriano Olivetti, ACTAR. 2005

A 'common place', a shared vision from Norway to Turkey, from Spain to Bulgaria, from Cyprus to Romania, emerged from this collection of fifty plus artists and projects. Artists, institutions and societies are searching for new ways of experimenting with unexpected forms of cohabitation, mutual understanding and visions of the urban landscape. The book, organized along five thematic chapters, presents a European interpretation of public space in terms of complexity and difference, translation and memory.