Art and Place Conference (Saarbrücken, 1-4 May 25)

Art and Place Conference.Bridging the Gap between Street and Contemporary.

Saarbrücken, May 1–04, 2025
Deadline: Jan 20, 2025

The Art & Place Conference welcomes papers about art that relates to places.
This includes all forms of art in public space, whether it be graffiti, furtive street art, public art or land art — and whether the result is typically framed as street culture, contemporary art, folk art or outsider art.
“Place” refers here to a physical public setting, whether it be urban or rural, in scales ranging from a corner to a whole city. “Place” refers also to the human and social experience around a physical public setting. Both of these dimensions evolve over time until a setting becomes a different place.

FOCUS OF THE CALL
From the prism of Art & Place, a public artwork is effective when it relates effectively to its context. The Art & Place Conference is interested in papers that study this kind of art and shed light upon its inner workings.
How did the place inspire the art? How did the art adapt to the place? How did the art change the place? Did the place change the art over time? Was the relation between art and space fruitful at artistic, human or social levels? Was it detrimental? How did the human condition of the artist affect this relation? Are there any revealing contrasts or parallels to other cases? What can be learned from these questions regarding art, urban and rural environments, and how people relate to these?
The different art practices within the scope of Art & Place relate to their contexts in different ways. Street art can subtly integrate into a surface, while graffiti will often take over it. Public and land art are often permanent and deployed from above, while furtive art is necessarily human-scale and ephemeral. The Art & Place Conference aims to lay out these different approaches in a shared conversation where common ground and fruitful feedback can be found.

SCOPE OF THE CALL
The Art & Place Conference welcomes papers about the topics described above, whether focused on a particular artwork, a series of artworks, an artist, collective, school, scene, city, area, country or era.
Although open to all forms of art in public space, this Call for Papers specifically hopes to shed light upon two segments of that wider field, both closely related to street art yet seldom discussed in the same conversation.
One is the wide range of artists from the sphere of contemporary art who have worked on lightweight, ephemeral, small-scale, site-specific, performative and often furtive forms of public art. For example Daniel Buren, Ernest Pignon-Ernest, Harald Naegeli, Jenny Holzer or Francis Alÿs.
The second is what could be called “outsider public art”, produced furtively by artists wholly unrelated to the spheres of graffiti, street art and contemporary art. For example Tsang Tsou-choi, Alain Rault, Arthur Stace, Profeta Gentileza, Melina Riccio or the Toynbee Tiler.
This opening instalment of the Art & Place Conference takes place in conjunction with the exhibition “Illegal: Street Art Graffiti 1960–1995” 1, on view at Historical Museum Saar. In keeping with the scope of the exhibition, this call is particularly interested in papers covering topics within the exhibition’s timeframe.

APPLICANT PROFILES
This Call for Papers is open to PhD students and scholars, yet it explicitly encourages applications from non-scholars. We aim to showcase the work of researchers who operate without institutional support — published or unpublished authors, professional or non-professional photographers, rogue archivists, and independent experts who publish their work on blogs, websites and social media.

TIMELINE
– Call for Papers deadline: 20th January 2025.
– Notification of accepted papers: 10th February 2025.
– Conference: 1st—4th May 2025. Lectures will take place on May 2nd and 3rd.

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION
– Participation in the conference is free of charge.
– Abstracts must be written in English. Lectures will be delivered in English.
– Abstracts must be 1500 characters (about 250 words) or shorter in length.
– This call will consider any alternative presentation format such as panel debates, artist discussions, readings, photography or video.
– To apply, please fill out the fields on https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdYdJAwa96FCMj50vaT205ogCrG8X1PO6vET0h8BXPD92nnzg/viewform

Thank you for your application, we hope to welcome you in Saarbrücken.

Unlock & wissensART present
ART & PLACE CONFERENCE
Bridging the Gap between Street and Contemporary
Historical Museum Saar
HBK Saar Academy
Find full information on the conference at art-and-place.com
Read about the conceptual framework of Art & Place here: https://art-and-place.com/conceptual-framework/