Privacy / Publicity: Is private thought the necessary corollary of public space?

The public sphere is always tightly tied to dominant ideologies, which in turn delimit what is possible and what is not, what is real and what is pure fantasy. As a result, many people and positions are excluded from public space. Political theorists such as Nancy Fraser and Michael Warner have argued that under these conditions we need multiple publics, or what they call counter-publics—conversations within which smaller groups of people can build arguments, gestures, and practices in opposition to the dominant culture and at a distance from it. It is only through the preservation of certain forms of privacy that we can have meaningful forms of public space.

Furnishing Positions is a serial publication that focuses on the paradoxical nature of public space. Its standard form is an 18”x18” broadsheet, consisting of an artist’s project on one side and a text on the other. It will be published once every two weeks for three months, starting September 15, 2014, with each issue focusing on a specific paradox. As a serial, each issue builds on earlier editions. As each issue is published, it will be hung and made available for free in the Blackwood Gallery, posted to the gallery’s website, postered in public sites, and circulated electronically. As the exhibition progresses these broadsheets will accumulate, generating and animating conversations in the space.

When we saw with our own eyes the video stills of the mayor smoking crack and heard with our own ears the mayor lying about smoking crack, we finally confirmed what we already knew. The mayor smoked crack. And the mayor lied. When we saw the leaked video of US military pilots murdering innocent journalists in Iraq (and heard the pilots’ real-time commentary as they glibly rejoiced in their kills), we finally confirmed what we already knew—that war is hell. We tend to think that such confirmation is required in order to transform speculation into fact, and lingering doubt into unshakable confidence. Without the smoking gun we are stuck, always one clue short of closing the case. But what if it is the other way around? What if the confirmation of what we already know effectively undermines our confidence and keeps us further from the truth? What if it is the lack of assurance and the absence of any buried treasure that sharpens our critical qualities and brings us closer to understanding the logic of how things work? What if, finally, radical politics emerges not from a righteous and committed knowing, but from a hesitant not-knowing and a creative mobilization of our critical limits?

00, Six Paradoxes, 15/09/2014
Adrian Blackwell

01, Affinity / Disagreement, 15/09/2014
Abbas Akhavan | Kanishka Goonewardena

02, Representation / Presentation, 29/09/2014
Dylan Miner | cheyanne turions

03, Materiality / Immateriality, 14/10/2014
Greig de Peuter | Paige Sarlin

04, People / Things, 27/10/2014
Karen Houle | Kika Thorne

05, Privacy / Publicity, 10/11/2014
Eric Cazdyn | Charles Stankievech

The Furnishing Positions broadsheets are all available for free download. To order free printed copies of any or all of them, please send an email including title(s), number of copies, and your mailing address to: blackwood.gallery[at]utoronto.ca.