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.

Catwalk - Sylive Fleury

MAK - Wien  - Rosemarie Trockel

654 THINGS from The United States - Edward Ruscha

<A Public Misery Message> - Critical Art Ensemble

"400" - Manfred Pernice

The World Record - General Idea

Grand Concours International D'Architecture  - Mahe Gilles

Niemandsland - Hans Haacke

Project for the Initiative Mahnmal Homosexuellenverfolgung, Frankfurt  - Jeff Wall

A FAIRLY TALL TOWER, 48,000 Miles High -  - Siah Armajani

Agency of Unrealised Projects
Logo by Liam Gillick
#
Date
Title
Source
Description
Tags
W5095
12.09.2012
(un)realized words - Kathryn Hummel
WWW
(un)realized words Kathryn Hummel (un)realized words is an installation combining photographs and paper objects (used and new) to form an interactive work out of a variety of incomplete/in-progress elements. I do not recall at what age I first began ...
(un)realized words Kathryn Hummel (un)realized words is an installation combining photographs and paper objects (used and new) to form an interactive work out of a variety of incomplete/in-progress elements. I do not recall at what age I first began ...
W3832
19.05.2011
YKB : NYC Yves Klein Blue : A New York City Road. - Jeff Wood
WWW
" felt only night within me and it was then that I conceived the new art. " Kazimir Malevich YKB : NYC is a feature length art-film proposal in which 2 art-handlers driving a truck in New York city experience the city as a grand artwork while the ...
" felt only night within me and it was then that I conceived the new art. " Kazimir Malevich YKB : NYC is a feature length art-film proposal in which 2 art-handlers driving a truck in New York city experience the city as a grand artwork while the ...
W4894
10.08.2012
The Wave - Mac Adams
WWW
'The Wave' 1989. Proposal for the Merchant marines memorial off shore Battery Park New York City. More information can be found on. macadamsstudio.com ...
'The Wave' 1989. Proposal for the Merchant marines memorial off shore Battery Park New York City. More information can be found on. macadamsstudio.com ...
W5458
20.10.2012
Jeffrey Millsaps
WWW
My submission calls for a form of weir to be built at the Schuylkill River Environmental Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The structure, which is designed to aerate the water and allow for the deposit of silt, is built in the shape of skyscrapers... ...
My submission calls for a form of weir to be built at the Schuylkill River Environmental Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The structure, which is designed to aerate the water and allow for the deposit of silt, is built in the shape of skyscrapers... ...
W3500
11.05.2011
MI6 – songs of british intelligence - Suzanne Treister
WWW
Suzanne Treister Director International Corporation of Lost Structures (ICOLS) www.icols.org I will inhabit an apartment inside MI6, British Intelligence HQ, located on the River Thames at Vauxhall, London, for a period of one year. Equipment in ...
Suzanne Treister Director International Corporation of Lost Structures (ICOLS) www.icols.org I will inhabit an apartment inside MI6, British Intelligence HQ, located on the River Thames at Vauxhall, London, for a period of one year. Equipment in ...
U9747
01.01.1968
A House of Dust - Alison Knowles
Unbuilt Roads
The House of Dust was first a computer poem using fortran language. The quatrains are all different, each line randomly connected. The form shifting categories for the house are: the material of manufature, the locations the light source and the inhabitan ...
The House of Dust was first a computer poem using fortran language. The quatrains are all different, each line randomly connected. The form shifting categories for the house are: the material of manufature, the locations the light source and the inhabitan ...
W5175
26.09.2012
Action Office III - Geissler Sann
WWW
Action Office III The first cubicles were designed in 1967 by Robert Propst. The purpose was to give the workers more privacy, to isolate them from sights and noises of an open workspace. Probst consulted for his research mathematicians, behavioral psych ...
Action Office III The first cubicles were designed in 1967 by Robert Propst. The purpose was to give the workers more privacy, to isolate them from sights and noises of an open workspace. Probst consulted for his research mathematicians, behavioral psych ...
W10596
18.10.2012
La clinique - Serge
WWW
contemporary visual art productions do create a fusion & annihilation of passions? After several filmed phone calls to selected random people, the main idea here was to build an anti-dialectical frame, so as to separate a speech of an image that are re ...
contemporary visual art productions do create a fusion & annihilation of passions? After several filmed phone calls to selected random people, the main idea here was to build an anti-dialectical frame, so as to separate a speech of an image that are re ...
W3511
11.05.2011
Brand New Door - Brian Hubble
WWW
In exchange for a discount on my bill, I built a door for the makeshift storage unit adjacent to my mechanic’s garage. I wanted the door to be functional but look as if it had been there for years, fitting in the weathered environment. I collected mater ...
In exchange for a discount on my bill, I built a door for the makeshift storage unit adjacent to my mechanic’s garage. I wanted the door to be functional but look as if it had been there for years, fitting in the weathered environment. I collected mater ...
D10802
01.01.1995
The museum as sleeping quarters for a man of the street - Danilo Duenas
DAAD
Adorned* with 5 very tall constructive paintings made of “formaletas”* and tape and 11 smaller paintings on canvas with two colors installed in the exhibition hall of the “Museo Nacional” in Bogotá (a former 19th century panopticon), I had imagin ...
Adorned* with 5 very tall constructive paintings made of “formaletas”* and tape and 11 smaller paintings on canvas with two colors installed in the exhibition hall of the “Museo Nacional” in Bogotá (a former 19th century panopticon), I had imagin ...
W4058
23.05.2011
Karl Jensen
WWW
“Yet as the ever-woven verdant warp and woof intermixed and hummed around him, the mighty idler seemed the cunning weaver; himself all woven over with the vines; every month assuming greener, fresher verdure: but himself a skeleton. Life folded Death; ...
“Yet as the ever-woven verdant warp and woof intermixed and hummed around him, the mighty idler seemed the cunning weaver; himself all woven over with the vines; every month assuming greener, fresher verdure: but himself a skeleton. Life folded Death; ...
W4582
25.05.2011
Three Genetic Drifts  - David Brooks
WWW
Three Genetic Drifts wooden boardwalk, pedestrian tree (ficus benjamina or equivalent) anchored in concrete planter, crane and hoisting equipment Dimensions variable [proposal for London parking garage] Boardwalks are user-friendly infrastructures that ...
Three Genetic Drifts wooden boardwalk, pedestrian tree (ficus benjamina or equivalent) anchored in concrete planter, crane and hoisting equipment Dimensions variable [proposal for London parking garage] Boardwalks are user-friendly infrastructures that ...
W4244
24.05.2011
Hophornbeam Hill - McKendree Key
WWW
Hophornbeam Hill From August 2nd - September 3rd, 2009, I lived in the woods in Vermont on a hillside known locally as Hophornbeam Hill. ...
Hophornbeam Hill From August 2nd - September 3rd, 2009, I lived in the woods in Vermont on a hillside known locally as Hophornbeam Hill. ...
W4844
08.08.2012
Oliver Klimpel
WWW
Concept for Urban Intervention / Wayfinding / Local Indication of former Stasi Detention Centre in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, a compound of the State Security in East-Germany. City of Berlin, invited competition entry, 2006 Shortlisted, Not Realised ...
Concept for Urban Intervention / Wayfinding / Local Indication of former Stasi Detention Centre in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, a compound of the State Security in East-Germany. City of Berlin, invited competition entry, 2006 Shortlisted, Not Realised ...
W5484
22.10.2012
Missile images - Paul Nulty
WWW
To propose to make a series of photographs made at scheduled demonstrations at the Saab Borfors systems field site in Karlskoga Sweden. Images are to show ground to air missiles such as the RBS 70 and recent RBS 70NG being demonstrated and tested in a ...
To propose to make a series of photographs made at scheduled demonstrations at the Saab Borfors systems field site in Karlskoga Sweden. Images are to show ground to air missiles such as the RBS 70 and recent RBS 70NG being demonstrated and tested in a ...
W5245
10.10.2012
No.2 - Jim Bay
WWW
No.2 Come on Jim, make it happen. Do it. Focus. You can do it. I know that what you do isn't easy, but you chose this path Jim and have been treading it a good many years now. This fear, is amateurish. Come on Jim, you have lived, loved and lost. You h ...
No.2 Come on Jim, make it happen. Do it. Focus. You can do it. I know that what you do isn't easy, but you chose this path Jim and have been treading it a good many years now. This fear, is amateurish. Come on Jim, you have lived, loved and lost. You h ...
W3834
19.05.2011
Maki Na Kamura
WWW
W4684
26.05.2011
forever pets  - Gregory Alan Thornbury
WWW
forever pets The other day I found myself delighted with how well behaved my friends dog was. Their dog, Molly, was not up on the couch sniffing my crotch or licking me in the face, but laid neatly curled asleep beside the hearth. After an hour of uni ...
forever pets The other day I found myself delighted with how well behaved my friends dog was. Their dog, Molly, was not up on the couch sniffing my crotch or licking me in the face, but laid neatly curled asleep beside the hearth. After an hour of uni ...
W4227
24.05.2011
"5.9-by-8.5-inch Exhibition" - Toru Hayashi
WWW
"5.9-by-8.5-inch Exhibition" Selecting one of sketchbooks from my drawing project Equivocal Landscape* Publishing the same format (5.9 x 8.5 in. and 72 images of 144 pages) book as the sketchbook of Equivocal Landscape (at least 72 copies) ...
"5.9-by-8.5-inch Exhibition" Selecting one of sketchbooks from my drawing project Equivocal Landscape* Publishing the same format (5.9 x 8.5 in. and 72 images of 144 pages) book as the sketchbook of Equivocal Landscape (at least 72 copies) ...
W4973
24.08.2012
neither hidden nor visible - Jean-Charles Agboton-Jumeau
WWW
neither hidden nor visible project description: My project for the Berlin edition of AUP in collaboration with the Berliner Künstlerprogramm/ DAAD is to "document, display and/or archive" the catalogue titled January 5-31, 2009 with its label.... S ...
neither hidden nor visible project description: My project for the Berlin edition of AUP in collaboration with the Berliner Künstlerprogramm/ DAAD is to "document, display and/or archive" the catalogue titled January 5-31, 2009 with its label.... S ...
U9945
01.01.1994
MAK - Wien  - Rosemarie Trockel
Unbuilt Roads
Idee: linke Autospur de [unleserlich] durch dis [?]halle (Saal) verlege[?]. ...
Idee: linke Autospur de [unleserlich] durch dis [?]halle (Saal) verlege[?]. ...
W4059
23.05.2011
The king of the changing face - Transvestites in China - Andreas Guibert
WWW
This photo installation is concern with the materialization of Chinese trans-sexuality during the early twenty first century; a trans-sexuality that acts upon a semiotic deconstruction of the body as a signifier, thus becoming the agent of processes of ge ...
This photo installation is concern with the materialization of Chinese trans-sexuality during the early twenty first century; a trans-sexuality that acts upon a semiotic deconstruction of the body as a signifier, thus becoming the agent of processes of ge ...
W4852
08.08.2012
Ada Muntean
WWW
These are 2 photos of 2 experimental works which consist in the process of the reconstruction of possible realities from former realities. Basicaly they are stripes (cut from photos and drawings) reordered and sticked in a different way from the initial.. ...
These are 2 photos of 2 experimental works which consist in the process of the reconstruction of possible realities from former realities. Basicaly they are stripes (cut from photos and drawings) reordered and sticked in a different way from the initial.. ...
W4296
24.05.2011
THIS DOES NOT ADVERTISE ANYTHING AT ALL - Reynard Loki
WWW
THIS DOES NOT ADVERTISE ANYTHING AT ALL An Unrealized Project by Reynard Loki This project exists entirely as the articulation of the text of the work’s title -- “THIS DOES NOT ADVERTISE ANYTHING AT ALL” -- onto billboards and other public adv ...
THIS DOES NOT ADVERTISE ANYTHING AT ALL An Unrealized Project by Reynard Loki This project exists entirely as the articulation of the text of the work’s title -- “THIS DOES NOT ADVERTISE ANYTHING AT ALL” -- onto billboards and other public adv ...
W3939
20.05.2011
R. Marcos Mota
WWW
DESCRIPTION The project consists of built inside the Civic Centre Sant Andreu a toilet for the disabled who do not meet standards of accessibility measures.

 It will build a separate room of existing toilets within the Civic Center that the dynamics ...
DESCRIPTION The project consists of built inside the Civic Centre Sant Andreu a toilet for the disabled who do not meet standards of accessibility measures.

 It will build a separate room of existing toilets within the Civic Center that the dynamics ...
D10795
01.01.2000
Life Exchange - Carolina Caycedo
DAAD
This project consists in bartering your life for mine. Este proyecto consiste en intercambiar tu vida por la mía. Dieses Projekt besteht darin, Ihr Leben gegen meines zu tauschen. If interested please contact: Interesados contactar: Be ...
This project consists in bartering your life for mine. Este proyecto consiste en intercambiar tu vida por la mía. Dieses Projekt besteht darin, Ihr Leben gegen meines zu tauschen. If interested please contact: Interesados contactar: Be ...