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Research Project

Art and Public Life

Project Team:

2014 – 2017

Project Summary

What is a public? How do real and virtual spaces, architecture, and media help to create publics? Artists, critics, and scholars considered these questions with attention to new concepts of art as “social practice” and complex, modern notions of public space.

Research Team

Theaster Gates

Theaster Gates

Professor of Visual Arts and the College; Director of Arts + Public Life

University of Chicago

Theaster Gates lives and works in Chicago. Gates creates work that focuses on space theory and land development, sculpture and performance. Drawing on his interest and training in urban planning and preservation, Gates redeems spaces that have been left behind. Known for his recirculation of...

W. J. T. Mitchell

W. J. T. Mitchell

Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor, Departments of English, Art History, and Visual Arts

University of Chicago

W. J. T. Mitchell teaches in both the English and the Art History departments and edits the interdisciplinary journal, Critical Inquiry, a quarterly devoted to critical theory in the arts and human sciences. He works particularly on...

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