Not Here, Right Now/Right Here, Not Now: Unfolding the context in Alana Jelinek’s ‘This is Not Art’

In this article I aim to unfold the main argument in Alana Jelinek's This Is Not Art into contiguous territories, located within the contemporary reality of urban development and the post-Olympic cultural landscape in London. Faced with the emergence and increasing production of artistic activities known as ‘creative placemaking’, and the enmeshed relationships between the continuing evacuation of social housing estates and the presence of artists as temporary occupants/practitioners in these interim spaces, a stark but necessary question is suggested: what is art doing in London at this moment in time? In asking this question, I am mindful of the precious distinction recently drawn by Angela Dimitrakaki, who suggests that we should differentiate between ‘the artwork’ as the output of artistic production, and the outcome of ‘art’ as a way of production. The production relations as ‘outcomes’ that we examine in this article are those of the forces engaged in the production of physical and social urban space in London today in which ‘art as outcome’ is a central component. I identify this as the ‘aesthetic dividend’, understood as the added value to privileged narratives of urban development inscribed both into planning authorities' scenarios and private developers' marketing strategies, and served by an array of specific artistic activities and their perception as ‘creative placemaking’. Dimitrakaki's propositions will also be important in the central section of the article, when they will be drawn as important resources into the analysis of Mike Nelson's/Artangel's unrealized artwork for the decanted Heygate Estate in Elephant & Castle, South London.