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.

KEEPING IN TOUCH - Allan Kaprow

Projekt für die Landschaft des Mont-de-Sene (Burgund) im Rahmen eines öffentlichen Auftrags des französischen Kultusministeriums - Markus Raetz

Progetto per Gerry Schum - Guiseppe Penone

La Guerra De Los Simbolos - Victor Grippo

Engel-Detektor - Jakob Gautel & Jason Karaïndros

<A Public Misery Message> - Critical Art Ensemble

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

Unrealized project for Tate Gallery + ICA, 1969 - Gilbert and George

"Free Space" - Michelangelo Pistoletto

Project 1 + Project 2 - Simryn Gill

Agency of Unrealised Projects
Logo by Liam Gillick
#
Date
Title
Source
Description
Tags
W10588
21.06.2014
The Surrey Flame - Jonathan Parsons
WWW
Proposal to re-use the dismantled aluminium Olympic Rings that were sited on Box Hill during the cycling road race of London 2012 The forms that resulted from the way the original aluminium Olympic rings had been deconstructed inspired me to design a s ...
Proposal to re-use the dismantled aluminium Olympic Rings that were sited on Box Hill during the cycling road race of London 2012 The forms that resulted from the way the original aluminium Olympic rings had been deconstructed inspired me to design a s ...
W10357
18.04.2014
After The Flood - Ingrid Mayrhofer
WWW
This project marks the last exhibition of a selection of works on paper from my past 30 years in printmaking, photography and painting. During the July 2013 storm, my basement studio was flooded, and 60 pieces of my artwork were damaged. While the water d ...
This project marks the last exhibition of a selection of works on paper from my past 30 years in printmaking, photography and painting. During the July 2013 storm, my basement studio was flooded, and 60 pieces of my artwork were damaged. While the water d ...
W3612
13.05.2011
Gonna Make you Sweat (2008) - Divya Mehra
WWW
Filmed & edited (2007-2008) during Columbia University's planned expansion in Harlem, Gonna Make you Sweat (2008) had big plans to rival Harlem's monolithic neighborhood endorsements. The work teeters within a space of uncertainty; does it function as a ...
Filmed & edited (2007-2008) during Columbia University's planned expansion in Harlem, Gonna Make you Sweat (2008) had big plans to rival Harlem's monolithic neighborhood endorsements. The work teeters within a space of uncertainty; does it function as a ...
W4503
25.05.2011
The Dead Brushes Society - Paulo Patrício
WWW
The Dead Brushes Society Unrealized project for an exhibition presenting old or/and unused brushes who belong to acclaimed contemporary artists. Brushes they love or with which they did major works (or at least, representative of they're career). That du ...
The Dead Brushes Society Unrealized project for an exhibition presenting old or/and unused brushes who belong to acclaimed contemporary artists. Brushes they love or with which they did major works (or at least, representative of they're career). That du ...
W3489
11.05.2011
The Project for Collective Becoming: Philosophy of Platform - Marc Lafia
WWW
The Project for Collective Becoming Philosophy of Platform Marc Lafia What it is? We are creating a series of global gatherings to introduce and connect people through sociability, philosophic revelry, enjoyment, reflection and action. It involves b ...
The Project for Collective Becoming Philosophy of Platform Marc Lafia What it is? We are creating a series of global gatherings to introduce and connect people through sociability, philosophic revelry, enjoyment, reflection and action. It involves b ...
W3980
21.05.2011
Untitled - Sky Fairchild-Waller
WWW
'Untitled' is a photo and text-based work that explores the poetics of a young mother raising a young girl. Meredith admired the speckles of flour that had landed on her apron. The print was floral; violet and pink flower buds, small and slightly fade ...
'Untitled' is a photo and text-based work that explores the poetics of a young mother raising a young girl. Meredith admired the speckles of flour that had landed on her apron. The print was floral; violet and pink flower buds, small and slightly fade ...
W4613
25.05.2011
'Fish tank of snake eyes' - Valerie Driscoll
WWW
'Fish tank of snake eyes' A glass tank (measuring 60 cm x 60 cm and 40 cm tall). On the base of the tank will stand approximately 50-60 erect penises made from glass. Each glass penis will be life size and will be different in shape and size (preferably ...
'Fish tank of snake eyes' A glass tank (measuring 60 cm x 60 cm and 40 cm tall). On the base of the tank will stand approximately 50-60 erect penises made from glass. Each glass penis will be life size and will be different in shape and size (preferably ...
W4308
24.05.2011
Adam Battestilli
WWW
POEM You view the world Through rose-tinted handsoap In a clear plastic bottle Pressed up against your eye. People ask you why. You sigh, and you reply, Why, it makes everything pink! And helps me rid My fingers of the stink Of ...
POEM You view the world Through rose-tinted handsoap In a clear plastic bottle Pressed up against your eye. People ask you why. You sigh, and you reply, Why, it makes everything pink! And helps me rid My fingers of the stink Of ...
W4958
20.08.2012
Fish Food Living - Eugene Soler
WWW
Fish Food Living By Eugene Soler AUP Submission Three-quarters of the world’s ocean is over fished and with food prices soaring and energy resource depleting, we are constantly living in a society where our food resource is unsustainable, unaffor ...
Fish Food Living By Eugene Soler AUP Submission Three-quarters of the world’s ocean is over fished and with food prices soaring and energy resource depleting, we are constantly living in a society where our food resource is unsustainable, unaffor ...
W4467
25.05.2011
ExpErimEnts and obsErvations - hanna husberg
WWW
ExpErimEnts and obsErvations on diffErEnt kinds of air The project introduces a canalization of tubes with inhalers connected to N2O gas tanks at some public spaces as the auditorium of a theatre or a metro train. Experiments and observations on differe ...
ExpErimEnts and obsErvations on diffErEnt kinds of air The project introduces a canalization of tubes with inhalers connected to N2O gas tanks at some public spaces as the auditorium of a theatre or a metro train. Experiments and observations on differe ...
W5304
17.10.2012
Antarctica Melts Project 1971-2012 - Luciano Zubillaga
WWW
Antarctica Melts Project 1971-2012 The Antarctica Melts Project is a collaboration between artists Luciano Zubillaga and Carlos Ginzburg. It is an extended reconstruction of an historically unrealized ecological project by Argentine conceptualism o ...
Antarctica Melts Project 1971-2012 The Antarctica Melts Project is a collaboration between artists Luciano Zubillaga and Carlos Ginzburg. It is an extended reconstruction of an historically unrealized ecological project by Argentine conceptualism o ...
W4242
24.05.2011
HUMAN CONTACT EXERCISE #1 - Annabelle Craven-Jones
WWW
HUMAN CONTACT EXERCISE #1 Online digital text 2010 ongoing This project is an experiment exploring unknown limits. It exists as an online instruction in the minds of a potentially unlimited number of participants. Who they are and how they will ...
HUMAN CONTACT EXERCISE #1 Online digital text 2010 ongoing This project is an experiment exploring unknown limits. It exists as an online instruction in the minds of a potentially unlimited number of participants. Who they are and how they will ...
W4142
23.05.2011
Get Carter - Cornford & Cross
WWW
Get Carter 1997 We proposed to install a fully operational prison door into the entrance of the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. All other doors and windows into the gallery space were to be closed and sealed. The prison door was to ...
Get Carter 1997 We proposed to install a fully operational prison door into the entrance of the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. All other doors and windows into the gallery space were to be closed and sealed. The prison door was to ...
W4596
25.05.2011
Tulipa Feteo - Derek Curry
WWW
Tulipa Feteo is a work that I hope will eventually result in a new breed of tulip. I have been searching for genetic biologists to collaborate with to cross the genetics of a carrion flower with those of a tulip to create a tulip that will smell like rot ...
Tulipa Feteo is a work that I hope will eventually result in a new breed of tulip. I have been searching for genetic biologists to collaborate with to cross the genetics of a carrion flower with those of a tulip to create a tulip that will smell like rot ...
W5412
20.10.2012
THE ISLAND PROJECT - Pietro Mele
WWW
PIETRO MELE The Island Project Multimedia project I am going to start a campaign of fund raising so as to purchase the private Island of Budelli* for giving it to the Sardinian Government. Despite the island is part of the highly protected La Madda ...
PIETRO MELE The Island Project Multimedia project I am going to start a campaign of fund raising so as to purchase the private Island of Budelli* for giving it to the Sardinian Government. Despite the island is part of the highly protected La Madda ...
W3895
20.05.2011
Editorial Sculpture: Divina Commedia  - Javier Toro Blum
WWW
The Divina Commedia triptych is a sculpture project, consisting in three ovoid metal cast pieces. Each piece has engraved in low relief (1.5mm) one part of the Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. With a 2.5mm typography ev ...
The Divina Commedia triptych is a sculpture project, consisting in three ovoid metal cast pieces. Each piece has engraved in low relief (1.5mm) one part of the Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. With a 2.5mm typography ev ...
W4877
09.08.2012
Dream Vessels - Beth Surdut
WWW
You may find my Dream Vessels Project at http://www.bethsurdut.com/dreamvesselsproject.htm When I posted the concept in 2007, artists and engineers contacted me expecting or hoping that I would provide funding, which is not the case. I hope. ...
You may find my Dream Vessels Project at http://www.bethsurdut.com/dreamvesselsproject.htm When I posted the concept in 2007, artists and engineers contacted me expecting or hoping that I would provide funding, which is not the case. I hope. ...
W5026
31.08.2012
Blow Job - Peter Friedl
WWW
Blow Job Peter Friedl Proposal, Hamburger Kunsthalle, 2004 Blow Job (working title) is an exhibition project dealing with theatricality and its media possibilities. In the form of a monographically structured project, I treat various themes with wh ...
Blow Job Peter Friedl Proposal, Hamburger Kunsthalle, 2004 Blow Job (working title) is an exhibition project dealing with theatricality and its media possibilities. In the form of a monographically structured project, I treat various themes with wh ...
U9478
01.01.1984
Projets non réalisés: - Daniel Buren
Unbuilt Roads
La liste non exhaustive qui suit correspond une á série de projets qui n'ont pas abouti. Ils sont de plusieurs types et les raisons de leur non aboutissement sont également différentes. Tout d'abord, tous sont liés des situations précises et dict ...
La liste non exhaustive qui suit correspond une á série de projets qui n'ont pas abouti. Ils sont de plusieurs types et les raisons de leur non aboutissement sont également différentes. Tout d'abord, tous sont liés des situations précises et dict ...
W3633
14.05.2011
Le déclin du jour - Berger&Berger
WWW
Marché Couvert, Metz, France

 2010 City of Metz, France

 Structural Engineer : Bollinger + Grohmann (France) 

The advent of artificial light, which grew strongly during XXst century,
has gradually freed the man from the natural rhyt ...
Marché Couvert, Metz, France

 2010 City of Metz, France

 Structural Engineer : Bollinger + Grohmann (France) 

The advent of artificial light, which grew strongly during XXst century,
has gradually freed the man from the natural rhyt ...
W5244
09.10.2012
Legal Notices - Aniko Doman
WWW
Graphic design -- corporate communication Project title: Legal Notices Graphic designer: Aniko Doman Client/employer: Clark County School District, Nevada, US (a public K-12 educational institution, serving over 300,000 students) ...
Graphic design -- corporate communication Project title: Legal Notices Graphic designer: Aniko Doman Client/employer: Clark County School District, Nevada, US (a public K-12 educational institution, serving over 300,000 students) ...
W4313
24.05.2011
Unreal cities  - Emilio Said (Mexico City)
WWW
Emilio Said Unreal cities Informal architecture zone The diverse social dynamics that gather in the public field generate mechanic interactions to shape bonds between the city and who transit in it. By this way, Said´s work is integrated in ...
Emilio Said Unreal cities Informal architecture zone The diverse social dynamics that gather in the public field generate mechanic interactions to shape bonds between the city and who transit in it. By this way, Said´s work is integrated in ...
W5471
21.10.2012
La Gioconda Project - Gabor Ösz
WWW
Introduction A few years ago, when I first visited the Louvre, I was surprised to see that the signposts giving directions for the painting La Gioconda already started at the gates. As I was to learn later, there exists a form of cultural pilgrimage t ...
Introduction A few years ago, when I first visited the Louvre, I was surprised to see that the signposts giving directions for the painting La Gioconda already started at the gates. As I was to learn later, there exists a form of cultural pilgrimage t ...
W3597
13.05.2011
Heman Chong
WWW
I wanted to purchase the coffee table in Room 503, Hong Lou Hotel, Lianzhou, China and to mount it as a monument for all the shady deals that have been worked out over this table at a solo at Vitamin Creative Space in Guangzhou. ...
I wanted to purchase the coffee table in Room 503, Hong Lou Hotel, Lianzhou, China and to mount it as a monument for all the shady deals that have been worked out over this table at a solo at Vitamin Creative Space in Guangzhou. ...
W5459
20.10.2012
Temporary Projection Installations for the Survivors of Atrocities. - Gavin Halm
WWW
Summary: Listings of the names of survivors (and their extended families through the present) are projected upon the walls and surrounding grounds of sites where atrocities have taken, or are currently taking, place. The thousands of names could be projec ...
Summary: Listings of the names of survivors (and their extended families through the present) are projected upon the walls and surrounding grounds of sites where atrocities have taken, or are currently taking, place. The thousands of names could be projec ...
U9903
01.01.1994
Art and Ourselves: A Proposal for the city of Nordhorn - Allen Rupperssberg
Unbuilt Roads
see my catalog from the Magazine. The complete text is there. (eventually reasons why the work has not been realised) Political Previous Publications (?) Catalog from where art Magazine 1996 Exisiting Documents: to be requested from No ...
see my catalog from the Magazine. The complete text is there. (eventually reasons why the work has not been realised) Political Previous Publications (?) Catalog from where art Magazine 1996 Exisiting Documents: to be requested from No ...