艺术公共性概念是在20世纪90年代以来中国当代艺术逐步介入社会的情境下被提及并广受关注的。随着国内艺术界对此的关注与探讨，艺术公共性逐渐成为当代艺术中的一个重要话题。近年来，中国当代艺术所涉足的公共空间日益多样，而介入公共空间的方式也逐步变得多元，在此过程中，当代艺术不断扩展了自身的外延，当代艺术作品也越来越贴近公众生活和反映时代精神，体现了艺术家对社会问题的关注与反思。与此同时，社会学的方法论也开始被引入到当代艺术实践中。由此，当代艺术与“为艺术而艺术”、独立自省的艺术有了很大的不同，开始更多介入社会和反映社会。一方面，当代艺术不断突破现实的藩篱，将自身的发展建构在与社会的交流与对话之上，然而，另一方面，其与社会公众之间疏离的问题没有根本解决，一些以“公共”为名的当代艺术相当多不具公共性。那么，艺术公共性包含什么样的特征？是通过哪些方面的努力实现的？价值取向何在？本文将当代艺术现象放置社会情境之中观察，以艺术何以“公共”作为重点研究对象，同时，注重理论的阐述，对有关问题的反思，在此基础上进行价值判断。当代艺术借以实现公共性的几个方面的实践为，艺术介入公共空间、艺术关注社会、传播与批评作为“中介”、公众参与和自由交流。当代艺术的“公开”是其自身进一步介入社会和走向“公共”的必要条件。服务于社会和公众，关注公众精神和反映公众生活，是艺术公共性的价值所在。而自由交流等则是必备的形式，由此引发公共领域的开放和参与主体间的互动。当代艺术走向“公共”的目的，应在于创造一个人们相遇交流的契机，旨在培育自由交流的艺术空间。人们需要有一种方式能够通过共同参与和交流，在欣赏艺术和因艺术而对话的过程中，培育公众精神与公共意识。艺术公共性的研究，旨在引起艺术家更多的关注和自觉的探讨，同时，寄希望于在当代艺术活动过程中互动沟通平台的建立，从而有助于公众参与，有益于当代艺术观念的传达与接受，能够使当代艺术所蕴含的社会问题在一个自由交流、互动的平台上得到普遍的关注与探讨，从而也有助于公众的精神历练以及所有参与者的自觉、自省。
The concept of Publicity of Art has been mentioned and widely concerned since 1990s, under the scene that China contemporary arts have been intervening society gradually. Along with the concern and exploration of the domestic artistic circles, Publicity of Art gradually becomes an important topic in contemporary arts.In recent years, the public space that contemporary arts intervened increased increasingly and the ways by which the public space be intervened became diverse gradually. During this process, the contemporary arts expanded its own extension continuously and some works began to reflect a concern for social issues and introspection. At the same time, Sociological methodology was introduced to contemporary arts practices too. Thereout, contemporary arts began to intervene and reflect society more and more, which was quite different from the arts of independence and introspection – ‘Arts for Arts’.On the one hand, the contemporary arts break the stipulation of the actuality continuously and construct its own development on self-social interaction and dialogue. However, the alienation between contemporary arts and the public has not been fundamentally resolved. Quite a number of the contemporary arts in the name of public don’t have the character of publicity. Well then, what characteristics does the publicity of art contain and through what efforts to achieve these characteristics? What is the value orientation? This article takes how can arts be public as main research object by observing the contemporary arts phenomenon in social context. At the same time, this article prefers to the expatiation of theory and introspection of related problems and on this foundation to give value judgment.The contemporary borrows with several aspects of practices to carry out the publicity. These practices are arts intervening public space, arts concerning society, transmission and criticism as ‘intermedia’, public participation and free communication. Serving for the society and the public, carrying about public spirit and reflecting public life is the value of publicity. The establishments of free communication and other practices are absolutely necessarily and then through these to arouse the opening of social dialogue space and ‘interactive change between subjects’. The purpose of the contemporary arts walking up to public with efforts should be to create a chance for people to meet and communicate. People need a way to participate and communicate with each other, and then to foster public spirit and public conscious.The purposes of the research of the publicity of arts are to arouse more artists’ attentions and self-conscious exploration and to facilitate the creation of contemporary arts to be beneficial to the achievement of multi-values. This research pins its hope on that more and more artistic creations could make an interactive communication platform, where people meet and communicate and which is helpful to the opening dialogue in public field and the delivery and adoption of the contemporary arts conceptions. To get far-ranging concerns and studies by putting the social problems contained in arts on a free-communicated, active platform also administers to public psychic exercises and all participators’ sonsciousness and introspection.
