The present publication has two distinct aims. The first is to present in depth a single work of art: A Monument for Historical Change, an outdoor sculpture located in Berlin-Mitte which was completed in September 2004.
The book is also a collection of writings by Clegg & Guttmann on public art from 1990 to 2005, the results of an effort to frame artistic praxis within a coherent and general theoretical vision of socially embedded art.
The two aims are complementary.
Monument for Historical Change is a prime example of the category of Social Sculptures. It is a culmination of earlier ideas about art which combines institutional arrangements, cultural forms and ideational constructs and uses them as building blocks. The Monument was also the beginning of a new direction. It is a work of art designed to function as a conduit to the historical layer of the urban environment.
The essays, interviews and documents collected here provide Monument for Historical Change with the appropriate theoretical context and places it in a lineage of projects leading to it. A detailed chronology is provided of social sculptures, community portraits and spontaneous operas by Clegg & Guttmann from 1990 to 2005.
