Unlike unrealized architectural projects, which are frequently exhibited and circulated, unrealized artworks tend to remain unnoticed or little known. But perhaps there is another form of artistic agency in the partial expression, the incomplete idea, the projection of a mere intention? Agency of Unrealized Projects (AUP) seeks to document and display these works. Whether censored, forgotten, postponed, impossible, or rejected, unrealized projects form a unique testament to the speculative power of non-action.

AUP follows the publication entitled “Unbuilt Roads: 107 Unrealized Projects,” collated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Guy Tortosa after several years of international research conducted in the late 1990s. Twenty years later, the Agency of Unrealized Projects was formed in collaboration with Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle, and an open call for unrealized projects was issued for its first public exhibition at ArtBasel in 2011. The open call will continue until all unrealized art projects are compiled.

Battery Park City - Per Kirkeby

Milan House (AC/DC & Joy Division) - Liam Gillick

Cruzeiro Do Sul, (Southern Cross) (Crucero del Sur) 1969-70* - Cildo Meireles

Just Before Dawn - David Lamelas

Aus: Katalog 'Kunst bleibt Kunst' - Hans Peter Feldman

654 THINGS from The United States - Edward Ruscha

MAK - Wien  - Rosemarie Trockel

The pyramids...to be seen to be believed - Jonathan Monk

KEEPING IN TOUCH - Allan Kaprow

d'un projet dédié aux victimes de la Shoah. - Christian Boltanski

Agency of Unrealised Projects
Logo by Liam Gillick
#
Date
Title
Source
Description
Tags
W4617
25.05.2011
Tia-Simone Gardner
WWW
The project that I am working on is a more involved video project, developed out of an installation of stills, that will re-narrate, and re-edit, Ousmane Sembene's 1966 film 'La noire de.' I began the ground work for this project over a year ago while thi ...
The project that I am working on is a more involved video project, developed out of an installation of stills, that will re-narrate, and re-edit, Ousmane Sembene's 1966 film 'La noire de.' I began the ground work for this project over a year ago while thi ...
W4744
26.05.2011
Gema Alava
WWW
Glenn D. Lowry Director The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53rd Street New York, NY 10019 January 20, 2009 Dear Glenn, The best way I can think of introducing myself after the brief conversation with you tonight is to say that, ...
Glenn D. Lowry Director The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53rd Street New York, NY 10019 January 20, 2009 Dear Glenn, The best way I can think of introducing myself after the brief conversation with you tonight is to say that, ...
W4589
25.05.2011
Joseph Moore
WWW
I hear words, half spoken words, and weeping both melodious and in staccato. Hands clap to the rhythm of music. A young man runs laps around the perimeter of the church’s large nave. There is the sound of voices that approach language albeit an incompl ...
I hear words, half spoken words, and weeping both melodious and in staccato. Hands clap to the rhythm of music. A young man runs laps around the perimeter of the church’s large nave. There is the sound of voices that approach language albeit an incompl ...
W3525
11.05.2011
Paper Wave - Tilly Shiner
WWW
Drawing for a human- scale wave, made from paper and biro pen. Using only the pressure of the pen to induce sculptural form from a flat surface. Referencing a common motif of the sublime, this work suggests something ordinary with extraordinar ...
Drawing for a human- scale wave, made from paper and biro pen. Using only the pressure of the pen to induce sculptural form from a flat surface. Referencing a common motif of the sublime, this work suggests something ordinary with extraordinar ...
D10803
09.09.2012
Untitled  - Theo Eshetu
DAAD
W3801
18.05.2011
Wish Fountain  - T. Mikey
WWW
Website: tmikey.com/wish Wish Fountain is over 512 square feet of Glowing, Flowing Water Cascading down the sides of an 18 Foot High Transparent Pyramid. Wish Fountain is over 512 square feet of Glowing, Flowing Water Cascading down the sides of ...
Website: tmikey.com/wish Wish Fountain is over 512 square feet of Glowing, Flowing Water Cascading down the sides of an 18 Foot High Transparent Pyramid. Wish Fountain is over 512 square feet of Glowing, Flowing Water Cascading down the sides of ...
W4079
23.05.2011
O.K & K.O Bank - O.K & K.O Bank
WWW
This was a proposal realized for Neón Parallax Project in Geneva, Schwitzerland. This is an ambitious and singular public art project that will provide with luminous artworks to set on the roofs of buildings around the Plaine de Plainpalais Imagine a ...
This was a proposal realized for Neón Parallax Project in Geneva, Schwitzerland. This is an ambitious and singular public art project that will provide with luminous artworks to set on the roofs of buildings around the Plaine de Plainpalais Imagine a ...
U9711
01.01.1989
2 Architecture Towers - Robert Irwin
Unbuilt Roads
A competition won in 1989 Tower One: was proposed to sit in a roundabout next to the Chicago river .. 65' (feet) in height, the base an octagonal cast iron construction stands on a slightly mounded cast rubber base ... eight triangular beams thrust upw ...
A competition won in 1989 Tower One: was proposed to sit in a roundabout next to the Chicago river .. 65' (feet) in height, the base an octagonal cast iron construction stands on a slightly mounded cast rubber base ... eight triangular beams thrust upw ...
W10362
18.04.2014
Building Of a Heterogeneous Space of the Disappearance - Daniel Castellanos Reyes
WWW
Building Of An Heterogeneous Space Of The Disappearance will be an ephemeral construction shaped as one of the present balconies in what it used to be the Gebäude Des Reichsstatthalters Und Der Gauleitung. This proposal pretends to make an historical ...
Building Of An Heterogeneous Space Of The Disappearance will be an ephemeral construction shaped as one of the present balconies in what it used to be the Gebäude Des Reichsstatthalters Und Der Gauleitung. This proposal pretends to make an historical ...
U9665
01.01.1967
Unrealized Turtles 1967 - Joseph Grigely
Unbuilt Roads
Basically, a short history about why I never became an illustrator of turtles - of wild animals - or of anything else At Birchland Park School, Mrs. Donahue taught art and Mrs. Corliss taught music. The art classes were okay because I drew turtles all ...
Basically, a short history about why I never became an illustrator of turtles - of wild animals - or of anything else At Birchland Park School, Mrs. Donahue taught art and Mrs. Corliss taught music. The art classes were okay because I drew turtles all ...
W5148
23.09.2012
La hora 103 - Albert Negredo
WWW
La hora 103. Mental and/or pencil on paper. ...
La hora 103. Mental and/or pencil on paper. ...
W4806
07.08.2012
We Don't Even Know How to End This Misery - Kristin Tårnes
WWW
The text is the voiceover of a film I made about an unrealized collaborative project while I was an exchange student in Berlin in 2007. The two images are stills from the same film. Even though the original project was unrealized, a work about the unreali ...
The text is the voiceover of a film I made about an unrealized collaborative project while I was an exchange student in Berlin in 2007. The two images are stills from the same film. Even though the original project was unrealized, a work about the unreali ...
W3948
20.05.2011
¿Che pasa?/Doesn't matter! - Beatrice Crastini
WWW
Project presented to Frieze Committee, year 2009 In any case i think that this project was in advance before of the Italian "bungabunga" scandal. Project: ¿Che pasa?/Doesn't matter! Recession, crisis, war, record price per barrel, unemployment, ...
Project presented to Frieze Committee, year 2009 In any case i think that this project was in advance before of the Italian "bungabunga" scandal. Project: ¿Che pasa?/Doesn't matter! Recession, crisis, war, record price per barrel, unemployment, ...
W3823
19.05.2011
Unproduction Network - Stefan Riebel
WWW
10 | to not realise | media space effort, time | June 2009 After one month of intense research and conceptual effort I have fully worked out a new interactive crossmedia project. Kunst ist heute fast überall zu jeder Zeit und für jeden Zweck v ...
10 | to not realise | media space effort, time | June 2009 After one month of intense research and conceptual effort I have fully worked out a new interactive crossmedia project. Kunst ist heute fast überall zu jeder Zeit und für jeden Zweck v ...
W4594
25.05.2011
Monastic garden in an edge space of a retail park, London, UK - Peter Ainsworth
WWW
Monastic garden in an edge space of a retail park, London, UK Space that is on the peripheries of major roads and towns has a distinctly singular usage: to consume. Out of town shopping malls, retail parks have an inexplicable draw, yet they also have ...
Monastic garden in an edge space of a retail park, London, UK Space that is on the peripheries of major roads and towns has a distinctly singular usage: to consume. Out of town shopping malls, retail parks have an inexplicable draw, yet they also have ...
W10660
10.08.2014
Condensed Playground: Le Pendu femelle, "Underskirt (detail)" as Postpartum Uterus Involution - Sheridan Lowrey
WWW
A commercial metal swing set (with one swing on center) and three-row aluminum bleachers in close proximity. Swing orientation is bi-directional. The piece should include a performance reenacting the dynamics of Fragonard's The Swing, 1767, and Duchamp's ...
A commercial metal swing set (with one swing on center) and three-row aluminum bleachers in close proximity. Swing orientation is bi-directional. The piece should include a performance reenacting the dynamics of Fragonard's The Swing, 1767, and Duchamp's ...
W5267
13.10.2012
Olga Motchalova
WWW
Здравствуйте! Предлагаю Вам проект (так увиденный мною) для участия в акции «Санаторий искусств». ДАВИДОВА ДЛАНЬ (ПРОИЗВЕДЕНИЕ КАТАРС ...
Здравствуйте! Предлагаю Вам проект (так увиденный мною) для участия в акции «Санаторий искусств». ДАВИДОВА ДЛАНЬ (ПРОИЗВЕДЕНИЕ КАТАРС ...
W4529
25.05.2011
Jaime Szczepanski
WWW
In 2006, I initiated a serial photographic project of static, frontal shots of closed storefronts in Paris, along with videos of storekeepers closing their shops. The material was to be amassed and combined in a stroboscopic video montage, tentatively tit ...
In 2006, I initiated a serial photographic project of static, frontal shots of closed storefronts in Paris, along with videos of storekeepers closing their shops. The material was to be amassed and combined in a stroboscopic video montage, tentatively tit ...
W5402
20.10.2012
AHIMSA  - Tiziana Pers
WWW
The project is composed by a series of photograph, a performance, and an installation that will remain after the action. Ahimsa is an ancient Sanskrit term meaning 'do not harm' (literally: the avoidance of violence - himsa). It is an important tenet of t ...
The project is composed by a series of photograph, a performance, and an installation that will remain after the action. Ahimsa is an ancient Sanskrit term meaning 'do not harm' (literally: the avoidance of violence - himsa). It is an important tenet of t ...
W5443
20.10.2012
The beauty of Your Desintegrated Details - Marco Tavolaro
WWW
Project description in one sentence. “The beauty of Your Desintegrated Details” is a mapping projection based installation made with canvas, projectors and animation. WHAT - What is the Project about specifically? The project deals with perceptio ...
Project description in one sentence. “The beauty of Your Desintegrated Details” is a mapping projection based installation made with canvas, projectors and animation. WHAT - What is the Project about specifically? The project deals with perceptio ...
W5082
07.09.2012
The sign that would attract people to an empty area.  - Annika Eriksson
WWW
The sign that would attract people to an empty area. For the show When Attitudes Become Form Become Attitudes at Wattis Institute in San Francisco this year I wanted to place an illuminated sign in the vast empty lot just behind the institution, a l ...
The sign that would attract people to an empty area. For the show When Attitudes Become Form Become Attitudes at Wattis Institute in San Francisco this year I wanted to place an illuminated sign in the vast empty lot just behind the institution, a l ...
W3674
15.05.2011
The Warhol Machine - Johanna Thompson
WWW
The Warhol Machine is a mechanism that will bring 15 minutes of fame to everyone. It is an installation in Times Square, New York City, consisting of a video camera in a booth, a visitor inside the booth and in front of the camera and the already installe ...
The Warhol Machine is a mechanism that will bring 15 minutes of fame to everyone. It is an installation in Times Square, New York City, consisting of a video camera in a booth, a visitor inside the booth and in front of the camera and the already installe ...
U9282
22.11.1992
Proposal for a permanent video installation for the NYC headquarters of Sony Corporation - Dara Birnbaum
Unbuilt Roads
INSTALLATION DESCRIPTION: At one end of the proposed installation space (main dining area designated for Sony employees), a wall is used to support a video wall or projection screen, which displays a seam-less flow of large-scale images. These large-s ...
INSTALLATION DESCRIPTION: At one end of the proposed installation space (main dining area designated for Sony employees), a wall is used to support a video wall or projection screen, which displays a seam-less flow of large-scale images. These large-s ...
W4491
25.05.2011
An unrealized high relief sculpture project from Istanbul. - Dilara Akay
WWW
An unrealized high relief sculpture project from Istanbul. In October 2010 I was asked to propose a work for a building of a leading Turkish retail operation brand's headquarters in Istanbul. I made the presentation at the beginning of February 2011. And ...
An unrealized high relief sculpture project from Istanbul. In October 2010 I was asked to propose a work for a building of a leading Turkish retail operation brand's headquarters in Istanbul. I made the presentation at the beginning of February 2011. And ...
W3772
18.05.2011
Mirek Lumens Proposal 2007, Mirek Chicago Proposal 2006 - Robert Mirek
WWW
Mirek Lumens Proposal 2007 Mirek Chicago Proposal 2006 ...
Mirek Lumens Proposal 2007 Mirek Chicago Proposal 2006 ...
W3653
15.05.2011
Modular trajectories - Nikolay Zanev
WWW
Modules (15X15X15cm.) polymer, Black board The distinction of homomorphism displayed on lattice of vectors relation between groups, modules generated by one element as identity component for every one. Correspondence one by one in specifics trajectorie ...
Modules (15X15X15cm.) polymer, Black board The distinction of homomorphism displayed on lattice of vectors relation between groups, modules generated by one element as identity component for every one. Correspondence one by one in specifics trajectorie ...