Anti-Architecture: When the Relationship Between Sculpture and Architecture Goes Wrong

Art as a generator of social change has become synonymous with community-centred urban regeneration initiatives, an art form that tackles socio-economic, political, and environmental issues, with the aim of creating a collective conscience, and which may seek to influence policymaking. These initiatives can be generalised into two main groups: one which tries to redefine the aesthetics of poverty by applying cosmetic improvements to existing structures to highlight their sculptural properties and to create an image of safety and prosperity, and a second one where the artists use socially informed methodologies to try to subvert the underlying social frameworks to alter them and produce new models which could generate progress. This paper proposes a critical reflection on the former, highlighting the shortcomings of cosmetic approaches to complex urban situations and the risk they pose of perpetuating their condition, in the context of sculpture practice and governmentally and privately funded interventions.