A Public Space 2003 - 2010

A Public Space 2003-2010
Install Dimensions: Variable
120 Images contributed by participants as 35 mm negatives and digital files (see Participant Lists below). Multiple venues and presentation mediums: 12 x 16” archival prints mounted on coreplast, digital projections, and 4 x 6’ poster.

The project brings together individual photographic perspectives to create a composite portrait of iconic public plazas in five cities: Daley Plaza, Chicago, IL, essay by Dan S. Wang; Main Street Square, Houston, TX, essay by Dr. Christopher Kelty; Hopkins Plaza, Baltimore, MD, essay by Stephanie Barber; Horton Plaza, San Diego, CA; and Pioneer Courthouse Square Portland OR.

Each installment invites six participants from different backgrounds to photograph the same public space and recommend another participant to do the same. The daisy-chain invitation results in twenty-four images for each city. The varying perspectives are at once, dramatic, sly, austere, inscrutable, unique, marginally overlapping or at times redundant, simultaneously depict the idiosyncratic and communal nature of the urban landscape. The project is a collage that pieces together and/or takes apart the idea of authorship, authority, and the ownership of public space.

As with other photo-based project of this period: Social Event Archive, Between Sleep and Awake and Brightest Stars, Druecke’s A Public Space explores the structure of individuated collectives as a means to understand his place as citizen and artist.

Selected images from Daley Plaza, click on image to enlarge

In a piece published in InterReview (2007), Druecke writes that A Public Space “resurrects the old cubist strategy of using multiple perspectives. In this case, layering happens across a series of images rather than on a single page. But the effect is similar. Just as in historical cubism, there is interplay between perspectives, meaning is both added and subtracted, and the subject matter is simultaneously collapsed and expanded.

Of the process and the resulting depictions of public space, Stephanie Barber (catalog essay for APS Hopkins Plaza, Baltimore, 2009) says that “Druecke's use of strangers and their perspectives in the creation of what is essentially a portrait is neither a collaboration nor could it be clearly said to have been created by Druecke. … It is a portrait of portraiture and a portrait of interconnectivity and influence.”

Christopher Kelty (catalog essay for APS Main Street Square, Houston, 2004) writes that “these photographs represent a weave of people and relationships.” In an essay for Glasstire, Amanda Douberley likewise writes that “What becomes important in [A Public Space] isn’t so much the differences between photographs, as the social network they describe.

A Public Space: Main Street Square, Houston TX, Exhibited at Project Row Houses Fall 2004

Main Street Square Images contributed by:
Aaron Beasley
Benjamin Buggs
Ebony Mcfarland
Fernando Ruiz
Guy Hagstette
Jamal Cyrus
Jasmine Quinerly
Jennifer Watson /Antonio Buggs
John Plauche
Katie McMillian
Kenneth James Beasley
Lavine Thomas
Maria DeLeon
Michael Valenzuela
Michelle Barnes
Oriana McMillian
Paola Morsiani
Ralph De Leon
Robert Muhammad
Roger Huffine
Roya Shanehchian
Ruben Ortega
Tomas Brunke
Vicki Rivers

A Public Space: Hopkins Plaza, Baltimore MD, Exhibited on the Charles Street Bridge July 17-19th, 2009

Hopkins Plaza Images contributed by:
Adam Robinson
Aparna Jonnal
Britney Layton
Christiann Savage
Chrissy Nesbitt
Christina Ralls
Cindy Pare
Clyde Duplichan
Eric Leshinsky
Fred Van Dyk
George Schmaltz
Jerry Lazarus
Jessica Pane
John Schwallenberg
Kevin Blackistone
Marc Riccobono
Megan McShea
Natasha Tylea Cooke
Ross Dixon
Susan Crane
Teresa Duggan
Theresa Segreti
Thomas Hollowak
Tim Kearley/Anabel Kearley

A Public Space: Horton Plaza, San Diego CA, Exhibited at Open Engagement, Portland OR 2010

A Public Space: Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland, OR, Exhibited at Open Engagement, Portland OR 2010

Pioneer Courthouse Images contributed by:
Amy Sakurai
Bill Flood/Anahelena Goodman-Flood
Brian Foulkes
Courtney Rodgers
David Morrison
Domenica Mendoza
Doug Macy
Ernesto Dominguez
Emily Hicks
Ethan Selzer
Francesca Frattaroli
Gene Faulkner
Hannah Rockey
Kali Ladd
Katherine Gaier
Laura Reid
Mathew Miller
Nick Fish
Olivea Sitea-Walters
Sarah LaPonte
Stephan Cridland
Stephen Thompson
Teresa Alonso
Thom Dickinso

A Public Space: Daley Plaza, Chicago IL, Exhibited in CTA Public Pedway 2006, Closing Celebration, Mess Hall

Daley Plaza Images contributed by:
Brittany Patch
Charles Hall
Craig West
David Sutherland
Edra Soto
Eric Hau
Eric MacDonald
Jennifer Geigel
Jennifer Montgomery
Jno Cook
Jordan Marsh
Julie Burros
Keith Dumbleton
Kim Mitseff
Laurie Palmer
Martha Chiplis/John Dunlevy
Mary Murphy
Nancy Aten
Pete DiAntoni
Ronald Barliant
Sally Timms
Tracey Stevens
Tracy Szatan
Vikram Sanghani/Nilay Mistry