New public art is a live art, made of people and the relations between them. An art that demands to form and to design our public space, one that negotiates with reality. New public art stems from the understanding that every social moment is a performance. That the social is always performative. We are all performing, all the time.
New public art proposes thinking of art beyond the object, focusing on the human body and public space. It broadens the field of artistic action beyond the confines of the museum and into social, political and public institutions.
New public art is based on the passion for politics, the urge to touch one another, to mingle. On the love of conversation, debate, changing positions during a discussion, losing oneself in a crowd, leading, being led, belonging and designing our lives ourselves. New public art realizes the aspiration for sovereignty that every artist, every person, has.
Under the Mountain 2012 is a week of art, life, and action. A celebration of life in Jerusalem, it brings together participants from Israel and abroad for an exhibition located in the public space, in the Media and in state institutions, offering movement, broadcasts, human behavior, social experiments, news, knowledge-exchange events, watermelons, demonstrations and Karaoke.
Everybody has a city called Jerusalem. The beautiful parliament-city and the heart of the conflict, Jerusalem can be anything we want. Like a red fountain in the center of town, rejoice in Jerusalem, be glad about her.
The festival is us. A space is public only if the public takes part in it, in body and in mind. New public art operates according to the same logic by which a meaningful political event is possible only if people congregate around a conflict and re-articulate what they have in common.
Under the Mountain aims to combine artistic practice and public space, encourages artists' engagement with society and society’s engagement with art, and supports the development of artworks in which the public participates actively, in recognition of the relation between artistic action in public space and the advancement of civic involvement and democratic culture in Israel.
Artistic Director: Omer Krieger
Production: Yael Cohen
Artistic Director, The Jerusalem Season of Culture: Itay Mautner