Temporary Architectures For Ephemeral Construction Sites

Numerous works and artistic practices are linked with the field of renovation not only through the use of particular materials and tools, but also by having recourse to devices that emphasize site, (re)construction, or the process of project implementation. For this issue, we asked our authors the following questions: Do works that draw on renovation revive the key issues and challenges of the in-situ intervention at specific sites charged with history or a non-artistic vocation? Do they somehow strive to challenge the conception of the artwork as a finished object? Do these practices problematize a relationship with the past, a return to a former state, or the restoration of an initial situation? Or, on the contrary, do they convey the desire to transform and renew? And finally, do artists approach renovation as a means to lay emphasis on recycling and salvaging, or is their focus turned towards the consumption of the new, calling to mind the excesses of overconsumption in the process?

In response to these questions, our 80th issue brings together analyses of works by artists who, by occupying and transforming buildings condemned to demolition, or by elaborating ephemeral structures — functional or not, broach the subjects of social space, gentrification, and urban renewal policies. At the cost of excessive modernization, the last often ignore the contexts and inhabitants affected by their measures. This issue also brings to light interventions motivated by the playful desire to invest existing architectures by reactivating the stakes of in-situ art through hospitable and practicable works in whichthe public is invited to relax, circulate, or even climb. While some structures created by artists-renovators are based on traditional construction models, others constitute utopian proposals in anarchic forms and are integrated, like appendages, prostheses, or grafts, into existing architectures. In all cases, the introduction of constructions in the public realm, as well as the transformation or diversion of various spaces and buildings by obviously questioning their use value, draws attention to tensions deriving not only from the domains of carpentry, art, and architecture, but also from our social fabric and political concerns. Several pertinent examples serve to illustrate these reflections.