Local art for local people

Using Bashi Tatsuro's 'Villa Victoria' (2002) as an example, the activities of commissioning body, 'In Certain Places' is explored. 'Villa Victoria', commissioned by Liverpool Biennial, was immaculately well-realised, generating discourse across age and class, and almost rendering the rest of the Biennial obsolete. Through 'Villa Victoria' the experience of art in multi-work festivals or Biennials is questioned, and an argument made for the experience of singular works, especially in those places considered 'local'. 'In Certain Places' delivers singular works, not works in festivals, so there is no 'frame' to indicate the presence of art, no relationship or structure provided by the works of others, nor any sense of where the work begins and ends. As a result, these pieces must work extremely hard to be articulate, and live or die at the moment of their reception. The work "Local Colour', commissioned by 'In Certain Places', is discussed and how the economic, cultural and social everyday 'bleed' through' the conceit of an artwork. The degree to which the work can act as a 'meniscus' (Kaprow 1993) : imposing its 'fiction' at the same time as making real life visible is seen as a key factor of work in the public realm.