Situation Leeds: Contemporary Artists and the Public Realm : May 05/07

To situate is to unsettle, to shift from one position to another, testing for effect, for decorum, for truth. It is to dis-locate.

Adrian Rifkin, Ingres Then, and Now

‘Situation’ is a word typically used to describe a particular time, place or event. Perhaps more accurately it denotes a series of factors or variables that comprise a moment or milieu. In the case of Situation Leeds, the title refers to the specificities of an art scene that has grown out of very unique circumstances and challenges, historically and in recent years. Following on from the 2005 festival, ‘07 showcased a total of 74 projects across the city of Leeds, ranging from public sculpture, performance, interventions, and site responsive work. Unlike larger city wide festivals, Situation Leeds does not commission large scale works or foreground internationally renowned practitioners, nor does it enforce a rigid curatorial criteria. Instead, the festival excels at showcasing a vibrant and responsive scene of artists that are both curious and dedicated to a flourishing locality shaped by a marked shortage of public venues allocated to the visual arts, and an ongoing struggle with visibility. Out of these conditions has emerged an energetic artist-led scene, stretching its limbs and finding spaces for art where there haven’t been before. It is within this inspirational context that the idea of a situation-led festival was born.

The following four essays have been commissioned by a subcommittee of volunteers interested in gaining a plurality of interpretations of the festival in relation to wider issues. We hope to provide insight into the multiple ways that ‘art in the public realm’ can be explored, disturbed or overturned, challenging the binary approach to works as permanent or temporal, local or global. Instead of working to identify or fix a sense of local or regional identity within a national or international context, it is perhaps more useful to see the festival as a shifting realm from which ideas can grow and transform within its own boundaries. In other words, Situation Leeds can be seen as an unfixed territory that comes to embody a number of voices responding to a unique place and time, rather than resting on a relational position to national and international festivals. The role of critical voices here becomes crucial, as they interpret and ‘situate’ specific ideas and happenings within and outside the festival for a wide range of audiences within and outside the city. Through these diverse voices we hope to dislocate the festival from a comparative analysis or critique, and instead put our ‘situation’ in dialogue with others.

This extended conversation has revealed a number of critical approaches. In Gail Day’s ‘Social Geographies of Contemporary Art’, we are offered a view from a global capitalist position, one that considers both regional and international perspectives of artists as they decipher and navigate political and geographic spaces. Day’s paper raises some interesting points about the invisibility of the ‘social’ and the way in which art can function to highlight these underlying processes and coordinates within a given location. Paul Usherwood’s ‘Public Art and Controversy’ tackles the broader topic of ‘public art’ as we have come to understand it, focusing on permanent commissions and public response. Discussing Wolfgang Weileder’s project, HOUSE-CITY (Newcastle, 2002), Usherwood explores the difference between a ‘forum for discussion’ and what he sees as a culture-led urban regeneration project. Tim Brennan’s conversation with Monty Canstin, Director of Museum Vaults, in ‘On Matters’ deals with the phenomenon of the artist/curator and the autonomy of the artwork as it is formed and shaped by place. Brennan considers Situation Leeds as an instance of cultural encultration that takes place apart from the influences of wider art markets and discourses. Rebekka Kill engages with Situation Leeds 07 most directly, providing a series of overheard dialogues between others throughout the festival in, ‘Skirting Around Situation Leeds: Eavesdropping from the Edge’. Her text drops in and out of projects, recording the thoughts and responses of audiences alongside her own.

We were surprised to receive such a varied critical response to the festival. The event raised a number of issues around selection criteria, ‘quality control’, access and navigation, recording and quantifying responses, and ways of qualifying ‘success’ as a highly subjective and abstract measure. Perhaps one of the most valuable outcomes of Situation Leeds 07 was the strong representation of local identity within the Leeds art scene, capturing a shared moment when artists and their projects became visible to audiences, and to each other, in a way that would not have been possible otherwise. An honest, reflexive approach to the production and presentation of art in the public realm exposed underlying truths about practising artists, the work they produce, and the public that came in contact with these processes. From the 14th to the 27th of May 2007, the scene became seen, articulating a situation that is specific and particular to the city of Leeds.

Lara Eggleton