VORTRAG: Renata Lucas – a minor course correction

This time, on Long Thursday, there will be a lecture by Jacques Heinrich Toussaint (curator of public art, Dortmund):

Course Correction: Art in Public Spaces Between Intervention, Commission, and Urban Transformation

What happens when a minimal shift alters the way a space can be inhabited or appropriated? Renata Lucas’s work *Falha* (2003/2024) serves as the starting point for a lecture that uses this specific artistic gesture to explore fundamental questions about art in public spaces: What does it mean to intervene in urban space? Under what conditions can art in public space actually make a difference—rather than merely serving as decoration?

The lecture traces the history of art in public spaces from the “Art in Architecture” movement of the Weimar Republic to the present day and explores the conditions that make artistic interventions in urban space possible in the first place. Using exemplary projects, it demonstrates how art can act as a catalyst for urban transformation—provided the city creates the framework for it.

Dr. Jacques Heinrich Toussaint is an art historian and curator. Since 2022, he has headed the Public Art Department at Kulturbetriebe Dortmund, based at the Museum of Art and Cultural History. His research focuses on the history and theory of public art in Germany, France, and Italy.