The Contemporary City- Art in the City, the City in Art

This Book examines an interplay between discourses on the city that stress the

need for rational-functional order and art’s imaginative deviations from the topdown

structures of urban life. Moving between theory and praxis, the book

situates the city as both a concept and physical construct through which lives and

possibilities are shaped or defined. In response, certain modalities of art create

spontaneous, non-rational and playful interludes that risk escape from the urban

apparatus and a hyper-valorisation of rational order. A three-part framework is

used to discuss this push-pull dynamic and to assess the strategies of shock,

performative embodiment and intervention that emerged in post-war art

movements and in contemporary performance and participatory art practices.

The book examines how the disturbances introduced by artists throw the city

construct into sharp relief, making it visible and activating momentary encounters

where new modes of expression can emerge.

This Book offers a new approach to interdisciplinary studies of art and urbanity.

The book aims to delineate how the city—as concept and construct—is made

visible through artistic practice and in turn challenged or interrogated. Students,

researchers and professionals with an interest in the interaction between art and

urban studies will discover a new perspective on how urban conditions and issues

have been addressed through artistic practice. The book contributes to an

evolving discourse in the urban humanities through an exposition of the city’s

default construct that is made visible or reimagined through visual art in public

spaces.

Elisha Masemann is an independent researcher and educator and holds a PhD

in art history from the University of Auckland (2018). Masemann has lectured in

the medical humanities at the University of Auckland and has received research

awards in New Zealand and Germany, including the Kate Edger Charitable Trust

Postdoctoral Research Award and a Women in Research (WiRe) Postdoctoral

Fellowship at Westfälische Wilhelms Universität Münster. With Cameron Cartiere

(Emily Carr University of Art + Design) and Leon Tan (Unitec), Masemann coauthored

‘Mapping art in the public realm 2008-2018’ in The Routledge companion

to art in the public realm (2021).