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Afterword: in/ter/ceptions and in/tensions – situating Suzanne Lacy's practice

This essay offers a critical situating and analysis of key concerns of Suzanne Lacy’s practice from the perspective of both contemporary cultural issues and the specific historical conditions and contexts under which her territory, modes and strategies of public art interventions and engagement have evolved. As a case study of one of the leading ‘first generation’ activists of socially-engaged and participatory art, the essay deals with the in/tensions between assisted and shared authorship and art market conditions that focus on commodification and depend on the ‘reduction’ to a singular artistic identity as trademark. This invited and peer-reviewed essay evolved from Mey’s research track record on sculpture and art in public, and through her work as Strand Leader of ‘Art and its Locations’, one of two research project spaces in ‘Interface: Centre for Research in Art’, University of Ulster. Her sustained research engagement in the area of art in public led to an invitation to participate in the core group of ‘Working in Public’ (Prof. Anne Douglas, Robert Gordon University), which centred around the critical re-consideration of ‘public art’ in the international domain and was motivated by the practice concerns of Suzanne Lacy. Mey’s particular interest in situating Suzanne Lacy’s four decades of work related to the function of art in the public domain and issues of public pedagogies, the role of the artist within contexts of art-led regeneration as well as practice agendas that had been increasingly informed by collaborative and participatory approaches in relation to capitalist art market conditions. Participating in ‘Working in Public’ and publishing this essay have led, amongst other things, to being recommended by Grant Kester for an essay commission for On Policing Dialogues. An Exploration of Neighbourhood Relations of Power, exhibition by Dublin based Collective What is the Story? The Lab, Dublin, 2010.