Going Public

Going Public

Going Public is an exhibition of three parts; Erwin Van Doorn and Inge Nabuurs present their project …but now it needs to be done…, Lee Joss will for the first time reveal an archive of events from last year’s Edinburgh Festival, and alongside, BAVO, operational managers for The Office For Artist Participation, introduce a new model of arts policy from Rotterdam.

This exhibition is concerned with work that involves the use of the specifics of site as key to their character and as a result cause an uninvited interruption of what is termed public space. “We are free until we reach the fences” – in the work of Erwin Van Doorn and Inge Nabuurs the surroundings that form their backdrop have lost their potency. The locations are given meaning by an action and an object. In this case site is used as part of a triangulation of real, imagined and symbolic context. The actuality of fact is not important, and any authority of fact is questioned, reduced to document indicators. The reality of the story is not the goal, identifying with it is.

Elaborating from ideas and themes of re-writing history, of deconstructing the authorship involved in documentation and the responsibility of didactically ‘going public’ with information, the Embassy also present the archive of Lee Joss. Lee Joss appeared on the scene around last May. Re-surfacing with tales of intervention and promises of altering the coordinates of the city, Lee would subsequently allow artists a break from themselves in the form of an act in collusion with forced festivity.  A self-proclaimed authority figure and festival junkie, Lee took the opportunity of a readymade audience expectant of constant performance, to produce another layer of reality.

The constant flexibility of Lee’s identity is sympathetic towards the anti-autonomous sentiments expressed by BAVO, whom the Embassy also welcome. BAVO have been given a platform to introduce their proposed programme for best practice from the Office For Artist Participation of Rotterdam. They will deliver a series of presentations to an Edinburgh audience, propagating a hardline approach towards artist’s role in economic, social and spatial policy.

By showing this work together, as three distinct projects but with interlinked parts, there is an attempt to present a different way of working and to question the artist’s position in society. Instead of occupying a critical distance, the work shown here cannot claim the moral high ground, it is fully embroiled in a process reenaction and over-identification. By adopting the conditions of certain situations, whether that be the regeneration policy of Rotterdam, the cultural acceleration of the Edinburgh festival or the haunted corners of Europe, Going Public attempts to deal with what characterises the commons in the current moment and what the notion of ‘public’ might mean now.

Accompanying Publication

 

Programme of talks and events:

Artist Talk – Erwin Van Doorn and Inge Nabuurs

Sunday 27th March, 2-3pm

Join us on Sunday afternoon for an informal discussion around the work of Erwin Van Doorn and Inge Nabuurs led by Harry Weeks (Ph.D candidate, The University of Edinburgh)

The Office For Artist Participation – Web Conference

BAVO will present their programme in the form of a video conference and invite questions and discussion around their proposals. There are a number of sessions taking place over the run of the exhibition:

– Friday 1st April 2-4pm

– Friday 8th April 2-4pm

These live meetings are open to the public alongside invited participants. To request a brochure please email info@embassygallery.org.

Gallery Tour with Lee Joss

Sunday 10th April, 3-4pm

Lee Joss will lead a gallery tour of the work on display in relation to the archive.

BAVO, Erwin Van Doorn & Inge Nabuurs, Lee Joss