In Reconstruction of the Tower of Babel, Swiss artist Nikunja challenges the idea that a multitude of cultures and languages is an obstacle for reaching the truth. By inviting people all over the world to send a brick, on which they are encouraged to paint, write and decorate, Nikunja constructed a new tower of Babel. The new institution celebrates and affirms multiculturalism, multi-nationalism, multi-racism and mutli-ideologism, and gives its authority and ownership to each individual. In the artist's words, "... one actually needs the foreign, the unknown, existentially, to realise one's own Self. For at that moment, Love appears, Joy appears, unquestioned and beyond reason, as an existential fact."
INSIDE OUT is a large-scale participatory art project, started by artist JR, that transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work. Everyone is challenged to upload black-and-white photographic portraits, and the digitally uploaded images will be made into posters and sent back to the participants. Similar to The Gift, participators receive the artwork to place anywhere in their own communities.
Since the installation of the platform almost a year ago, students in Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis have been contributing to this evolving piece at the school's print shop the Print Altar.
Brian Gonzales, creator of the platform, the work as an opportunity for Herron’s printmaking community to "play the role of author, editor, and observer all at once... the audience no longer relies on a lone artist, an expert gatekeeper of knowledge, to tell them what is valuable or worth knowing."
Part of Pallet City, an interactive public art project made almost entirely from recycled shipping pallets, by artists Katherine Gressel and Jeremy Reed, juxtaposes different common uses of the pallet as an art/building material, and invites participation and feedback, simultaneously raising questions about practicality and aesthetics of pallet use.
For the exhibition Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present in Museum of Modern Art, Abramović performed in the atrium every day the Museum was open between March 14 and May 31, 2010. Visitors were encouraged to sit silently across from the artist for a duration of their choosing, becoming participants in the artwork. Through silently breathing and eye-contacting with the artist, participants are challenged to find their presence in the public space.
T Magazine recently posted a video of Abramović training the performances at the exhibit and discussing performance art.
