Paul Druecke
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Paul Druecke (born 1964) is an American artist based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since 1995 Druecke has been creating and exhibiting projects that deal with public space, social interaction, and personal identity. His projects take the form of public events, exhibitions, multi-media works, and books; the projects invite participation and blur traditional notions of authorship. His work is best understood within the context of conceptual art.
Druecke’s work is influenced by a variety of sources including Allan Kaprow's Happenings, Bernd and Hilla Becher’s taxonomic photography, and the socially focused work of Rirkrit Tiravanija, Temporary Services, and Harrell Fletcher. Dan S. Wang writes in his essay, Notes On A Public Space, “Because (Druecke’s) project combines the two—specters of possibilities and pleasure—in a single gesture, it further erodes the gulf separating public and private.” [1]
Regarding the project, A Public Space, Druecke writes, “Structurally, the project approximates—on a micro-level—the larger contingencies of real-world politics and social validation. As in the voting booth, participants make their contribution while simultaneously being subsumed into the larger societal pool.”[2]
[edit] Work
Druecke is best known for A Social Event Archive, the project he originated and ran from 1997 to 2007. The Archive focuses on vernacular photography, gathering together 700-plus snapshots which, according to the official submission guidelines, “document a social occasion, public or private, and may be current or historical.”[3] The Archive has been exhibited in venues across the United States, via the project website, and in limited edition books. David Robbins, who describes the Archive as “a People’s Photography,” comments that the pictures reveal “the theatricalizing influence of cameras upon the human community.”[4]
Druecke has used the camera to related democratic effect in other projects, including Between Sleep and Awake, 2003-05, and A Public Space, 2003-ongoing. A Public Space consists of five installments each taking place in a different city.
Public space is an important theme in Druecke’s oeuvre. In Bright Sun Partial Shade, 2005, he commissioned an artwork by Scott Wolniak for desolate Market Square Park in Houston. Unlike most public art, this one was unsolicited by the city; it was thus as much generous offering as illegal littering, a fact played on by the work itself, a weed-like sculpture which Wolniak fashioned out of trash. Druecke nevertheless invoked the kind of pomp and circumstance called for when a new public work is unveiled: he issued a press release, invited important officials, and held an unveiling ceremony. The ensuing controversy was written about in the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Press.[5]
[edit] References
- ^ Dan S. Wang, "Notes On a Public Space," Catalog for Daley Plaza installment (2006) [1]
- ^ Paul Druecke, “It's My Public Space,” interReview Journal 07 (2007), [2].
- ^ “Submission Guidelines,” A Social Event Archive, [3].
- ^ David Robbins, “Party Platform,” in A Social Event Archive, Volume 3, Milwaukee: Art Street Windows, 2000, n.p.
- ^ Jennifer Mathieu, “A Weed Grows in Market Square,” Houston Chronicle (June 4, 2005); Kelly Klassmeyer, "The Little Weed that Could," Houston Press (September 1, 2005) [4].
