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.

Progetto per Gerry Schum - Guiseppe Penone

Projet pour la Place Saint Léger à Chambery  - Erik Dietman

The Rosetta Garden - Gary Simmons

Monument with Rust - Gustav Metzger

Douglas Gordon - 5 year drive-by; proposal for a public artwork.

Billboard - Jimmie Durham

Project 1 + Project 2 - Simryn Gill

"Ileana, I love you" - Maurizo Cattelan

Grand Concours International D'Architecture  - Mahe Gilles

Just Before Dawn - David Lamelas

Agency of Unrealised Projects
Logo by Liam Gillick
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Date
Title
Source
Description
Tags
W5394
20.10.2012
THE SOUND BARRIER A DUTCH NATIONAL, MONUMENTAL & EPHEMERAL CITY ARTWORK - Harold Schellinx
WWW
THE SOUND BARRIER A DUTCH NATIONAL, MONUMENTAL & EPHEMERAL CITY ARTWORK BY GEERT-JAN HOBIJN, HAROLD SCHELLINX AND KEVIN SCHUIT FOR THE 55TH VENICE BIENNALE (JUNENOVEMBER 2013) About a hundred years ago the Italian Futurists cried out for a total break ...
THE SOUND BARRIER A DUTCH NATIONAL, MONUMENTAL & EPHEMERAL CITY ARTWORK BY GEERT-JAN HOBIJN, HAROLD SCHELLINX AND KEVIN SCHUIT FOR THE 55TH VENICE BIENNALE (JUNENOVEMBER 2013) About a hundred years ago the Italian Futurists cried out for a total break ...
W5135
19.09.2012
The 103rd Kilometer - Sasha Tamarin
WWW
The 103rd Kilometer My work is driven by the need to return to my birthplace, in order to analyze the factors that affected my identity development. My childhood memories are built from stories, images and dreams. When I finally get physically to ...
The 103rd Kilometer My work is driven by the need to return to my birthplace, in order to analyze the factors that affected my identity development. My childhood memories are built from stories, images and dreams. When I finally get physically to ...
W4957
20.08.2012
Pelican Bay maximum-security glass prison - Eugene Soler
WWW
California’s Pelican Bay maximum security prison is more than 150% over capacity with a high number of inmates re-offending after released. Located within a nearby clearing of forest, the proposal is to create a facility for inmate’s rehabilitation by ...
California’s Pelican Bay maximum security prison is more than 150% over capacity with a high number of inmates re-offending after released. Located within a nearby clearing of forest, the proposal is to create a facility for inmate’s rehabilitation by ...
W4300
24.05.2011
Laundry Line - zavick botha
WWW
Washing clothes and laundry lines are common day to day images of human activity throughout most of the world. Although in Western society something so ordinary now takes place behind closed doors. Some people use clothes to express their identity, in oth ...
Washing clothes and laundry lines are common day to day images of human activity throughout most of the world. Although in Western society something so ordinary now takes place behind closed doors. Some people use clothes to express their identity, in oth ...
W4983
27.08.2012
Tappeto Rosso - Judit Pusztaszeri
WWW
“Tappeto Rosso” Tappeto Rosso is a site-specific installation, which served as the preliminary stage of an architectural design. The installation was the result of an in-depth research process addressing various issues surrounding the site known ...
“Tappeto Rosso” Tappeto Rosso is a site-specific installation, which served as the preliminary stage of an architectural design. The installation was the result of an in-depth research process addressing various issues surrounding the site known ...
W5368
19.10.2012
World Trade Center Memorial Proposal - Stephen Canneto
WWW
The design honors and celebrates the lives of those killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. The figurative road to healing begins with a literal journey, with the soaring zenith of the Memorial Spire catching the eye of newly arriving visitors, ...
The design honors and celebrates the lives of those killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. The figurative road to healing begins with a literal journey, with the soaring zenith of the Memorial Spire catching the eye of newly arriving visitors, ...
W3640
14.05.2011
Proposal for a cooperation between a university and myself to solar light up a village in Lebanon.  - Roula Sorour
WWW
I never received any reply to my mail and therefore the project is in hybernation mode for now. Dear Professors, I read about the 2 jordanian bedouin illiterate women who were sent to India for 6 month to train as Solar engineers . Something similar ...
I never received any reply to my mail and therefore the project is in hybernation mode for now. Dear Professors, I read about the 2 jordanian bedouin illiterate women who were sent to India for 6 month to train as Solar engineers . Something similar ...
W4233
24.05.2011
Elise Lammer
WWW
This work is an homage to the lost artwork by John Baldessari "Untitled (after Palm Tree (for Charlemagne)" 1975. This unrealized project aims to collect similar postcards as the ones displayed in Peter Kirby's documentary and recreate Baldessari's lost ...
This work is an homage to the lost artwork by John Baldessari "Untitled (after Palm Tree (for Charlemagne)" 1975. This unrealized project aims to collect similar postcards as the ones displayed in Peter Kirby's documentary and recreate Baldessari's lost ...
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 ...
W3816
19.05.2011
Pittsburgh Passion Project, (Mistaken ID) - Ayanah Moor
WWW
The Pittsburgh Passion Project (2008-2009) probed the relationship between gender identity and sports practices through contemporary performance. In the American imagination, the contours of helmet, football pads, and protective gear have historically ...
The Pittsburgh Passion Project (2008-2009) probed the relationship between gender identity and sports practices through contemporary performance. In the American imagination, the contours of helmet, football pads, and protective gear have historically ...
W5047
03.09.2012
Eulogy for Cheng Beiho  - Robert Linsley
WWW
Unfinished text of the late nineties, intended as one of a group of short stories as and about art. This one is an imagined future eulogy (dated maybe 2020) for an artist of the New China Avant-garde. Eulogy for Cheng Beiho I'll never forget my days ...
Unfinished text of the late nineties, intended as one of a group of short stories as and about art. This one is an imagined future eulogy (dated maybe 2020) for an artist of the New China Avant-garde. Eulogy for Cheng Beiho I'll never forget my days ...
W4585
25.05.2011
land in sight! / land? - Ulrich Ludat
WWW
land in sight! / land? [2011#02] Multimedia-based installation / performance Project description In a container1, of which the doors are opened at an angle of ca. 45°, there are 13 vacuum cleaners2. At the end of the container there is a projection scr ...
land in sight! / land? [2011#02] Multimedia-based installation / performance Project description In a container1, of which the doors are opened at an angle of ca. 45°, there are 13 vacuum cleaners2. At the end of the container there is a projection scr ...
W4379
25.05.2011
“Shifting Images of Marseille”  - Srinivas Mangipudi
WWW
Project Proposal: “Shifting Images of Marseille” The urban city areas are often filled with cars and vehicles of all kinds parked in different places, like parking lots, on the streets, or just moving on the road. These can be turned into dynamic ...
Project Proposal: “Shifting Images of Marseille” The urban city areas are often filled with cars and vehicles of all kinds parked in different places, like parking lots, on the streets, or just moving on the road. These can be turned into dynamic ...
W3540
11.05.2011
New Bridge for Dilligence  - Tomas Pecha
WWW
new bridge for dilligence beer bridge for oversitting. sitting on more chairs, oversitting from place to placeinstead of direct movement and compulsory czech beer.some ideas are thirsty.some need to be oversitted. tommorrow reality. intention of new bri ...
new bridge for dilligence beer bridge for oversitting. sitting on more chairs, oversitting from place to placeinstead of direct movement and compulsory czech beer.some ideas are thirsty.some need to be oversitted. tommorrow reality. intention of new bri ...
W4998
30.08.2012
Lesley Scott Reid
WWW
a project to create images - icons - that represent choices open to a person not get HIV. Each image was to be inserted in one arm bandit machine and be photographed - each line of 4 images coming up being a winner. This work is in archive - if it i ...
a project to create images - icons - that represent choices open to a person not get HIV. Each image was to be inserted in one arm bandit machine and be photographed - each line of 4 images coming up being a winner. This work is in archive - if it i ...
W3728
17.05.2011
Mount of Olives - Felippe Moraes
WWW
The project "Mount of Olives" is constituted by seven scaffolds with different heights, each one with an olive tree in a wooden box with earth inside in the top. The trees must be kept alive by an automatic irrigation system. ...
The project "Mount of Olives" is constituted by seven scaffolds with different heights, each one with an olive tree in a wooden box with earth inside in the top. The trees must be kept alive by an automatic irrigation system. ...
W4374
25.05.2011
Proposal for culture (an interactive installation)  - Thessia Machado
WWW
Proposal for culture (an interactive installation) I’ve been thinking about the different ways in which organisms can perceive their environment and adapt to it — capturing and responding to either images, air vibration, or smells, sounds, flavors, ...
Proposal for culture (an interactive installation) I’ve been thinking about the different ways in which organisms can perceive their environment and adapt to it — capturing and responding to either images, air vibration, or smells, sounds, flavors, ...
W10503
05.05.2014
Brookside Re-seen - Nicky Hamlyn
WWW
The project is a film that would have been made in Brookside Close, Liverpool, the actually existing cul-de-sac of houses in which the long-running TV soap opera 'Brookside' (1982 - 2003) was filmed and set. My plan was to go to Brookside Close and make a ...
The project is a film that would have been made in Brookside Close, Liverpool, the actually existing cul-de-sac of houses in which the long-running TV soap opera 'Brookside' (1982 - 2003) was filmed and set. My plan was to go to Brookside Close and make a ...
W5897
18.10.2013
Sempervirens - Matthijs Muller
WWW
W11011
04.04.2016
Writings Jobs - Fani Zguro
WWW
“Writings Jobs” is a project that has started in 2001, by developing texts in high dimensions in public spaces (are different productions from 2001 to 2002, but the most special one l made was at historical advertising Armani close to Via del Orso in ...
“Writings Jobs” is a project that has started in 2001, by developing texts in high dimensions in public spaces (are different productions from 2001 to 2002, but the most special one l made was at historical advertising Armani close to Via del Orso in ...
W10982
24.12.2015
Notes Toward a Temple - The Legacy
WWW
This proposal seeks to confront problems in the disciplines of art and architecture in an ecological age. (1) Our infrastructure and aesthetic culture does not attune itself to the ever present crisis of nuclear waste, the bi-product of nuclear energy, wh ...
This proposal seeks to confront problems in the disciplines of art and architecture in an ecological age. (1) Our infrastructure and aesthetic culture does not attune itself to the ever present crisis of nuclear waste, the bi-product of nuclear energy, wh ...
W4619
25.05.2011
Fly me to outer space  - Spiros Hadjidjanos
WWW
Fly me to outer space This project explores new power relations between a networked public and the artist as well as the process of funding an artwork through crowdfunding to its extreme. The idea of this project is a journey to outer space with the for ...
Fly me to outer space This project explores new power relations between a networked public and the artist as well as the process of funding an artwork through crowdfunding to its extreme. The idea of this project is a journey to outer space with the for ...
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 ...
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 ...
W5481
21.10.2012
Jae Yeon Chung
WWW
This work is about an imaginary private emergency shelter underneath church crypt. The work consists of a short video and two installed pieces, one inside and one outside the church, which demarcate the entrance and the exit to the emergency shelter.... ...
This work is about an imaginary private emergency shelter underneath church crypt. The work consists of a short video and two installed pieces, one inside and one outside the church, which demarcate the entrance and the exit to the emergency shelter.... ...
W4511
25.05.2011
Big Pending Coloured Glass Pipe Organ - Tina Braegger
WWW
Big Pending Coloured Glass Pipe Organ (Unrealized, Mai 2011) (50m x 36m x 18m Pending Coloured Glass Pipe Organ, Uyuni salt desert, Bolivia) What (form): It has long since been an idea of mine to build a big pending pipe organ out of co ...
Big Pending Coloured Glass Pipe Organ (Unrealized, Mai 2011) (50m x 36m x 18m Pending Coloured Glass Pipe Organ, Uyuni salt desert, Bolivia) What (form): It has long since been an idea of mine to build a big pending pipe organ out of co ...