Making Public, Lecture with Paul Ramírez Jonas

Join us for an artist talk with acclaimed New York–based artist Paul Ramírez Jonas, presented as part of the University of Glasgow’s Thinking Culture events programme in collaboration with Take Me Somehwere. With his large-scale project Public Trust unfolding outside GoMA, we’ll hear directly from the artist about the ideas, histories and urgencies that shape his work.

This lecture will focus on Paul Ramirez Jonas’ projects in the public realm, and expand on his ideas on how art can engage meaningful, self-reflective participation by an every day public. Since the 1990s, Paul Ramirez Jonas has sought to challenge the relationship between artist, viewer, and artwork. Through his practice he seeks to challenge the definitions of art and the public and to engineer active audience participation and exchange. In Public Trust, presented in over a dozen cities in the USA, England and Mexico City, he has asked participants to examine the value of their word, each individual declared a promise recorded in a drawing consistent with their beliefs. Key to the City (New York, 2010, Birmingham UK, 2022) involved tens of thousands of participants and distributed keys that opened multiple sites across the city. The keys served as a vehicle for exploring social contracts pertaining to trust, access, and belonging.

Whimsical and sincere, he thinks of his works as monuments rather than as sculptures -- as situations that address a public, often without an author, and communicate collective ideals, histories, and dreams rather than the individual expression of the artist.

His selected solo exhibitions include a 25 year survey at the Contemporary Art Museum Houston in 2017; Museo Jumex, Mexico City; The New Museum, NYC; Pinacoteca do Estado, Sao Paulo, Brazil; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut; The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; a ten year survey at Ikon Gallery (UK) and Cornerhouse (UK). He has participated in the 1st Johannesburg Biennale; the 1st Seoul Biennial; the 6th Shanghai Biennial; the 28th Sao Paulo Biennial; the 53rd Venice Biennial and the 7th and 10th Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre, Brazil. In 2010 his Key to the City project was presented by Creative Time in cooperation with the City of New York. In 2016 his Public Trust project was presented by Now & There in Boston. In 2022 Key to the City, was presented by Fierce in Birmingham, UK. He is a Professor and Chair of the Art Department at the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University. His most recent large scale project, was a participatory monument, installed in the National Mall in Washington DC USA in the summer of 2023.

Access

This event will have live captioning.

There is a hearing assistance system in the lecture theatre.

Language: English with English Captions

Venue and Seating:

Lecture Theatre, The Hunterian Gallery (Basement). Wheelchair accessible via lift. (View full Venue Access information for Lecture Theatre at the Hunterian Gallery)

Seating: Seated. Gently tiered seating bank with handrail. Two rows step free. Wheelchair spaces available. Plastic fixed seats with padded seat cushion and no arm rests.