A center for contemporary art worthy of the name cannot simply be a place that exhibits nomadic art commodities, but must be a place where art happens, where the people who make art come together to create something new. It is in the nature of contemporary art practices, which deal with rapid changes in every aspect of life, that exhibitions not only show what has been done, but also what is possible, even what it is necessary for art to accomplish. The exhibition is a creative process that begins with the art institution and ends with the public. Artists are somewhere in the middle, essential but no longer autonomous, as they were when it was possible to believe in ‘art for art’s sake.’
When a creative process becomes a matter of merely reproducing an artist’s ideas, it ends with a mere commodity, another object in the chain of consumption.
As an architect, committed to the idea that art participates in transient social situations, I hold as my ideal that the object of art is the product of a free dialogue between creative people. The final result should be different than the initial design. Of course, free dialogue, like creativity, is risky. Its outcome is not entirely controlled, its product not guaranteed to conform to anyone’s expectations. Not everyone, therefore, is prepared to take the risk, especially those responsible for spending large sums of public money. For this reason, many arts institutions remain committed to the older, ‘masterwork’ idea of art. Perhaps they are right to do so. Perhaps it is only the masterworks that will endure. But I, and the public, who live in the volatile and uncertain present and not in a secure posterity, must be grateful to the works of art that resolutely share this risky space and time with us.
Lebbeus Woods
10 May 2007
