The New York non-profit Creative Time hosted a symposium entitled "Revolutions in Public Practice", curated by Nato Thompson. A second edition to the daylong conference presented last year at the New York Public Library. This time, comments from its first iteration were taken under consideration and the forty+ speaker conference was broken down into two full days, allocating time for group panels as well as lengthy Q&A sessions.

The event gathered an impressive lineup of international artists, curators, and thinkers that picked up on the still unresolved conversations from the year before about the confusing parameters of 'social' art practices. In the curatorial statement, Thompson asserts that "what constitutes a socially engaged art practice remains a mystery that either evokes strong feelings or, strangely enough, a determined ambivalence." And while it is still unknown to whom this type of art speaks to, he continues by saying that "the Creative Time Summit preaches to an audience that does not yet exist."

As a frequent lecture attendee, I was pleasantly surprised by Creative Time's efforts in oozing what could have been two excruciatingly long days. A thoughtful arrangement of topics, alternating dense sessions with lighter ones and a playful and smart format with musicians allowed for the event to run incredibly smooth and on time. For this, the strategy used in the first edition was brought back: a big countdown timer across the stage and live music announced when the speaker's time was up, gradually raising the volume until all you could hear were music notes. The fantastic music program that ranged from cello to sitar and hang drums gave way for easy transitions between speakers.

The event was divided into eight categories: Markets, Schools, Food, Geographies, Governments, Institutions, Plausible Art Worlds and Regional Reports. These broad titles allowed a wide spectrum of practitioners to fit within a same slot, i.e. e-flux's Anton Vidokle (this time presenting Time/Bank) and Danish artist collaborative Superflex under Markets, architect Eyal Weizman and performance artist Regina José Galindo under Geographies, W.A.G.E. collective and scholar Thomas Keenan under Institutions, and so on. Each of the sessions was first put into context by a fifteen-minute keynote presentation. At it's best, the Summit presented critical insights to a diverse range of contemporary issues, that although not always addressed as art per se, it was within the context of art practices that they (ideally) were to be discussed.

A purposefully (?) emotional performance by Andrea Fraser, whose keynote presentation opened up Institutions, addressed the unavoidable complexity of having to work side by side the institutions. Tears seemed to almost fall when she went on with a broken voice to describe the painful and ongoing struggle of coping with these complexities.

Less constructive was the Schools panel, introduced by Cooper Union's School of the Art Dean Saskia Bos, which included the highly publicized art collaborative Bruce High Quality Foundation, who evoked a vague sense of "anti-ism" by proposing an ambiguous "alternative" model in their university. Fraser later pointed out—not in the context of Schools, but conveniently used here to make a point—that "it can be often very dangerous to propose and pursue alternatives without at the same time engaging in an explicit and specific critique of current situations, because it can slip into escapism, reproduce ideologies of voluntarism, and have a lot of other unintended consequences."

As impossible it is to control every aspect of a conference's intellectual direction, it must not go without saying that Thompson presented himself as an outstanding moderator, where in many cases he took direction in the Q&A sessions in search for a constructive critical discourse. Unfortunately very few audience questions took the opportunity to discuss crucial subjects relating to the presentations, often presenting their thoughts through pointless commentary. Perhaps in the future an edited selection of thought-provoking question could be preselected?

Undoubtedly, the Summit was an intense and productive—high's and low's included—marathon that once again tried to clarify the conditions of social practice and present distinctive models of cultural production within a social sphere. It is a given that many fruitful discussions occurred as a consequence, but the question still remains: Who is the public? This still remains to be seen, but in the meantime, we must brush off cynicism and anti-everything attitudes to begin to truly deal with the complex social conditions of the world today. And as impossible as it is to quantify the success of the Summit, the effort in trying to understand what this unique condition of working within a social context is valuable and worth revisiting, and gives us a lot to look forward to for next year.


The Creative Time Summit Revolutions in Public Practice 2 included presentations by Danielle Abrams, Basekamp, Saskia Bos, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Chen Chieh-Jen, Chto delat/What is to be done?, Phil Collins, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Agnes Denes, Dilomprizulike, Claire Doherty, Eating in Public, F.E.A.S.T., Amy Franceschini, Andrea Fraser, Regina José Galindo, Gridthiya Gaweewong, Shaun Gladwell, InCUBATE, The International Errorist, Jakob Jakobsen, Thomas Keenan, Kickstarter, Laura Kurgan, Surasi Kusolwong, Dinh Q. Lê, Learning Site, Aaron Levy, Chus Martínez, Otabenga Jones & Associates, Trevor Paglen, Clair Pentecost, PLATFORM, J. Morgan Puett, Oliver Ressler, Laurie Jo Reynolds, Bisi Silva, Superflex, Anton Vidokle, W.A.G.E., Eyal Weizman, and Stephen Wright. With Rick Lowe, recepient of the second annual Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change.