For whom do site-specific art structures provide territorial services? The case of European peripheral areas

Abstract

What type of site-specific outdoor art structure is more likely to induce and catalyze artistic territorial services and for whom are these services intended for? Answering this question will help the understanding of territorial impacts of such art projects in European peripheric areas. This article is based on the analysis of a European database on 128 site-specific outdoor visual art structures informed by 36 distinct criteria like accessibility, location, institutional statuses and funding, initiator and audiences, site-specificness criteria, etc. A typology, produced by the statistical analysis of this database, shows that three main intelligible categories dominate site-specific art initiatives: ‘art-washing sculpture parks’, ‘territorial art of peripheries’ and ‘eco-artistic front of art projects’. They all have different kinds of specific interactions, sometimes critical, with the local territory. They act differently as artistic territorial services (ATS) providers. ATS in Spain (Cesar Manrique artworks in Lanzarote Island) show how art is transformed into mass-tourism attraction; in France the Forêt d’ Art Contemporain in Nouvelle-Aquitaine and in Greece, the Vovousa Festival in Epirus, show how art can reinforce territorial identity and environmental commitment, but with very mixed benefits to the local economy.

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