Ação do público como instauradora da obra: propostas participativas na arte contemporânea

Abstract

This work deals with the opening of the work of art to the participation of the public in contemporary art. Participation stands for the relation with works of art that need the objective interference of the public and make their involvement and their action part of the process of the construction of the works. The choice for this theme is a response for the curiosity and interest in understanding proposals that happened inside and outside the exhibition spaces, and which provoked the public to act and interact among peers, committing with the development of the work. In the first instance the contemplative context is approached, then the theorists and artists thoughts that start to consider the viewer as a participant too, one who address meaning to the work of art, giving it wholeness. A series of proposals in the 1960s that literally embrace the idea of a participant public are then explored, proposals that make the public involved objectively in the instauration of the work. These proposals motivate the experimentation of the body and physical action of the public with the works, seeking to promote freedom in a moment renowned for its political context of repression. In a second moment, the understanding of the expansion and the persistence of participatory proposals in contemporaneity is sought, as a strategy of the artist abdicating total control over the work of art and its meanings and as a form of relation between work and public today understood in the sense of a shared production. Matters discussed are the motivations and denials of contemporary artists who continue nowadays to involve the public directly in the process of construction of their works. At last, the unpredictability and the risk implied by participatory attitude are discussed. These factors run through both the artist s attitude, by opening his/her production to the interference of the other and the attitude of the participant public, engaging in a proposal which is still open. It is sought to demonstrate therewith how the relations are transformed and even the distribution of the roles between artist, work, and public in the participatory proposals and in which way they can represent opening for experience. Guy Brett, Claire Bishop, Jacques Rancière, and Laurent Goumarre are the main references working as a basis for this investigation. This work points to the comprehension that the unpredictable participation of the public is able to enrich the works of art and the view of the artist himself/herself concerning a proposal, at the same time that it can become a significant experience for the participant public.