Agency of Unrealised Projects
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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.

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PROPOSAL FOR SEATTLE ARTS COMMISSION, IN PUBLIC - Chris Burden

Eislandschaft - P. Fischli und D. Weiss

WATERWORKS - Mona Hatoum

No title, as the project only reached proposal stage - Rikrit Tiravanija

Engel-Detektor - Jakob Gautel & Jason Karaïndros

Broadway Musicals - Christian Marclay

Why New Worlds Conceived by Artists Do Not Get Built - Peter Fend

"Free Space" - Michelangelo Pistoletto

Project pour le parc de sculpture de Vassiviére - Paul-Armand Gette

Relatum (Iron Plate and Stone) - Lee Ufan

Agency of Unrealised Projects
Logo by Liam Gillick
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Date
Title
Source
Description
Tags
W3851
19.05.2011
John Miserendino
WWW
a hot air balloon shaped like an inverted empire state building. ...
a hot air balloon shaped like an inverted empire state building. ...
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W4459
25.05.2011
adrien tirtiaux
WWW
My first proposed project for an integrated artwork to a water sports centre near Tournai, Belgium. The site faces the last remaining shipyard in an area with a dense industrial past. ...
My first proposed project for an integrated artwork to a water sports centre near Tournai, Belgium. The site faces the last remaining shipyard in an area with a dense industrial past. ...
W4222
24.05.2011
C’era una volta il West (Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod) - Costa Vece
WWW
C’era una volta il West (Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod) Projekt von Costa Vece, 2005 Künstlerischer Wettbewerb für den Speichervorplatz in Bremen-Vegesack "Man hängt immer zwischen Himmel und Erde und gehört weder hier noch dort hin." E ...
C’era una volta il West (Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod) Projekt von Costa Vece, 2005 Künstlerischer Wettbewerb für den Speichervorplatz in Bremen-Vegesack "Man hängt immer zwischen Himmel und Erde und gehört weder hier noch dort hin." E ...
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 ...
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W3737
18.05.2011
Pharos - Felippe Moraes
WWW
The installation “Pharos” consists in a 7m scaffold with a “moving head” lighting device that permits the yellow horizontal spinning light beam required for the work. This strong beam spins 365° horizontally, evoking the very symbolic ...
The installation “Pharos” consists in a 7m scaffold with a “moving head” lighting device that permits the yellow horizontal spinning light beam required for the work. This strong beam spins 365° horizontally, evoking the very symbolic ...
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W5382
19.10.2012
Marina Stavrou
WWW
By Marina Stavrou The ‘Unrealized project’ I am foreshadowing made its first ‘appearance’ first in 2011. The work tried to make visible the experience of keeping a secret. This secret took the form of bread for the shooting of a 16mm and ...
By Marina Stavrou The ‘Unrealized project’ I am foreshadowing made its first ‘appearance’ first in 2011. The work tried to make visible the experience of keeping a secret. This secret took the form of bread for the shooting of a 16mm and ...
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W4557
25.05.2011
Gravity - Kristin Jones / Andrew Ginzel
WWW
Gravity Proposal for the Pantheon Rome, Italy ...
Gravity Proposal for the Pantheon Rome, Italy ...
W4889
10.08.2012
Outpost - Ann Messner
WWW
Call me mad. During 2005-7 I built a place within a place in my studio, in effect I occupied the space with a work that came to be titled 'outpost'. I just assumed I would find a public site to temporarily install the work; more specifically an open civic ...
Call me mad. During 2005-7 I built a place within a place in my studio, in effect I occupied the space with a work that came to be titled 'outpost'. I just assumed I would find a public site to temporarily install the work; more specifically an open civic ...
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W5089
10.09.2012
Tal Ram On
WWW
Tal Ram On Resume Tal Ran On was born and raised in Kibutz Zikim, following graduation from one of Israeli finest army units, he went and studied film making. Between the years 1995 to 2005, Tal was filming and directing documentaries movies. At 2005, ...
Tal Ram On Resume Tal Ran On was born and raised in Kibutz Zikim, following graduation from one of Israeli finest army units, he went and studied film making. Between the years 1995 to 2005, Tal was filming and directing documentaries movies. At 2005, ...
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W5339
18.10.2012
Form Follows Life - Heidi Schatzl
WWW
Form follows life intervention in public : STANDBILD – STILLSTAND? Reiterstandbilder sind eine weltweite Darstellungsform im öffentlichen Raum. Das meist Heerführern und Herrschern vorbehaltene Reiterstandbild - ein Rückgriff auf die Antik ...
Form follows life intervention in public : STANDBILD – STILLSTAND? Reiterstandbilder sind eine weltweite Darstellungsform im öffentlichen Raum. Das meist Heerführern und Herrschern vorbehaltene Reiterstandbild - ein Rückgriff auf die Antik ...
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W10528
16.05.2014
Somewhere Between 540,412,598 and 579,858,773 Breaths - Alex McKenzie
WWW
Somewhere Between 540,412,598 and 579,858,773 Breaths is an attempt to link the action of breathing to the passage of time and by extension to our own mortality. The project takes the form of a large-scale video installation with 400 separate projectors. ...
Somewhere Between 540,412,598 and 579,858,773 Breaths is an attempt to link the action of breathing to the passage of time and by extension to our own mortality. The project takes the form of a large-scale video installation with 400 separate projectors. ...
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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 ...
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W5376
19.10.2012
FIRE! - Mary Behm-Steinberg
WWW
Statement for the bronze plaque (or documentation in the museum)*** Everywhere we look, the common person and the environment are under attack. Global warming; crop failures; poverty and starvation; the disappearance of the middle class and as America ...
Statement for the bronze plaque (or documentation in the museum)*** Everywhere we look, the common person and the environment are under attack. Global warming; crop failures; poverty and starvation; the disappearance of the middle class and as America ...
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W3989
21.05.2011
Ordinary Fight Nights - Industry of the Ordinary
WWW
Industry of the Ordinary propose to stage Industry of the Ordinary Fight Nights. The art world is rife with petty enmities and personal disagreements. What better way to sort these out once and for all than to offer protagonists (antagonists) the opportun ...
Industry of the Ordinary propose to stage Industry of the Ordinary Fight Nights. The art world is rife with petty enmities and personal disagreements. What better way to sort these out once and for all than to offer protagonists (antagonists) the opportun ...
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W4702
26.05.2011
The Cube - Lisa Hein
WWW
Proposal Rockaway 9/11 memorial Lisa Hein 2002 THE CUBE A bleacher faces the water on Jamaica Bay. It watches the Manhattan skyline to the northwest. The center of the bleacher is cut out in a square. A black cube rises through. ...
Proposal Rockaway 9/11 memorial Lisa Hein 2002 THE CUBE A bleacher faces the water on Jamaica Bay. It watches the Manhattan skyline to the northwest. The center of the bleacher is cut out in a square. A black cube rises through. ...
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W4278
24.05.2011
Hector Prats
WWW
This unrealized project was based on the idea of filling a private space (an standard 70 square meters apartment) with a scale model representing an alpine mountain landscape. Some people have on their homes rooms wich have been adapted to house scale mod ...
This unrealized project was based on the idea of filling a private space (an standard 70 square meters apartment) with a scale model representing an alpine mountain landscape. Some people have on their homes rooms wich have been adapted to house scale mod ...
W3617
14.05.2011
WHAT A BEAUTY: A WORKING POEM - jillian mayer
WWW
Aprox run time: 8 min. Synopsis: Performance based around a volcano constructed from paper mache. Set to a pre-recorded audio poem with interactive components. Materials: Paper Mache Volcano, speakers,pre-precorded poem, amplifying device, pre-pr ...
Aprox run time: 8 min. Synopsis: Performance based around a volcano constructed from paper mache. Set to a pre-recorded audio poem with interactive components. Materials: Paper Mache Volcano, speakers,pre-precorded poem, amplifying device, pre-pr ...
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W4824
07.08.2012
1nflow - hamilton monteiro
WWW
improvisations on an idea... it is called 1nflow... ...
improvisations on an idea... it is called 1nflow... ...
W4598
25.05.2011
Fitting Through A Hole - Michael Arata
WWW
Fitting Through A Hole The work allows the viewer to interpret the larger form as penetrating the hole in the lid of a five gallon paint bucket or alternately being secreted into the bucket. Michael Arata, 2004 ...
Fitting Through A Hole The work allows the viewer to interpret the larger form as penetrating the hole in the lid of a five gallon paint bucket or alternately being secreted into the bucket. Michael Arata, 2004 ...
W3631
14.05.2011
Joseph Wheelwright
WWW
When New Hampshire's "Old Man in the Mountain" collapsed in 2003, I carved this stone model for a new old man from an entire mountain. Unfortunately funding has not yet materialized. ...
When New Hampshire's "Old Man in the Mountain" collapsed in 2003, I carved this stone model for a new old man from an entire mountain. Unfortunately funding has not yet materialized. ...
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U9811
01.01.1960
Monument with Rust - Gustav Metzger
Unbuilt Roads
three projects about which I have been thinking for some time. The first construction is to be about 18 feet high with a base about 24 ft. by 18 ft. The principle of this technique was suggested by Mr. E. LI. Evans, who worked in the corrosion of meta ...
three projects about which I have been thinking for some time. The first construction is to be about 18 feet high with a base about 24 ft. by 18 ft. The principle of this technique was suggested by Mr. E. LI. Evans, who worked in the corrosion of meta ...
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W4899
11.08.2012
Brasília, Cars, Pools & Other Modernities - Clarissa Tossin
WWW
“Brasília, Cars, Pools & Other Modernities” is the culmination of a body of work that departs from my experience of growing up in Brasília, Brazil’s planned capital. The project consists of a site-specific action in which a 1970s Volkswagen Brasil ...
“Brasília, Cars, Pools & Other Modernities” is the culmination of a body of work that departs from my experience of growing up in Brasília, Brazil’s planned capital. The project consists of a site-specific action in which a 1970s Volkswagen Brasil ...
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W3679
16.05.2011
William Livingstone house Detroit Project 2010 submitted to United States Artists Projects - Vincent Johnson
WWW
The project I am engaged in is the production of a three-foot tall sculpture on a table-top of the collapsed William Livingstone house in Detroit. This is important to me as it represents a metaphorical revisiting of my past, as this Detroit home represen ...
The project I am engaged in is the production of a three-foot tall sculpture on a table-top of the collapsed William Livingstone house in Detroit. This is important to me as it represents a metaphorical revisiting of my past, as this Detroit home represen ...
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W3695
16.05.2011
Vladimar and Rosa (2011) - Anne Colvin
WWW
Vladimar and Rosa (2011) is a fictional dance company created and produced by artist Anne Colvin. Their first production "The Kids Play Russian" will never be realized. A hybrid dance installation influenced by experimental film strategies plays out as f ...
Vladimar and Rosa (2011) is a fictional dance company created and produced by artist Anne Colvin. Their first production "The Kids Play Russian" will never be realized. A hybrid dance installation influenced by experimental film strategies plays out as f ...
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W4515
25.05.2011
Viktor Timofeev
WWW
In this painting I have "created" a triumphal arch constructed out of 13 worker-housing units, stacked precariously and defying the laws of physics. While this village/monument is rendered to appear structurally sound, its context is most certainly utopia ...
In this painting I have "created" a triumphal arch constructed out of 13 worker-housing units, stacked precariously and defying the laws of physics. While this village/monument is rendered to appear structurally sound, its context is most certainly utopia ...
W4633
25.05.2011
ELENA BAJO
WWW
WHEN YOU CUT INTO THE PRESENT THE FUTURE LEAKS OUT (PRODUCTION OF SPACE) “The form of social space is encounter, assembly, simultaneity; social space implies actual or potential assembly at a single point or around that point.” - Henri Lefebvre, from ...
WHEN YOU CUT INTO THE PRESENT THE FUTURE LEAKS OUT (PRODUCTION OF SPACE) “The form of social space is encounter, assembly, simultaneity; social space implies actual or potential assembly at a single point or around that point.” - Henri Lefebvre, from ...