The white cube was never big enough for art. Communicative formats are no longer stationary: they stretch beyond singular encounters between viewer and artwork at a gallery or a museum. The discourse progressively takes place elsewhere, steadily blossoming in parallel to the daily hamster wheel played out in squares and passageways.

The Focus Year pivots traditional conventions into tangible displays, matching the animated chaos of life. As part of Public Art München, the city transforms a number of public spaces into artistic interventions. The cultural programme encourages interactions in the melting pot of Munich, spearheaded by sculptures and projects detached from their hyper-curated locations. We are reminded of the vastness of our surroundings and its possibilities, both for individual contemplation and togetherness, while making the actual consumption of art much less planned and more incidental.

First opened on May 15, The Focus Year assembles six projects based on themes set by the participating artists themselves. Among the ongoing and forthcoming showcases is ABC – Always Be Communicating by Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader. Eleven monitors are mounted onto pillars at Marienplatz, each presenting an abstract animation that illustrates the cultural development of American Sign Language. Implanted in the constant motion of the square, the work questions who has a voice in the public space, zooming in on societal visibility and the importance of communication.

At Münchner Stadtraum, artist and architect Feda Wardak develops an oversized crane sculpture. Where Does the Water Come From? ranges from water as a plain resource to the complex system it is entangled in, constructed on policies and distribution processes. Water machines make otherwise invisible mechanisms concrete, as they grant the public a better insight into the infrastructures on which the city depends. Christiane Huber’s Pool People, presented earlier in August, saw an outdoor swimming pool as a site of negotiation and social diversity – what started as a performance later culminated in a pool party.

The Focus Year has this cohesive modesty to it. It’s clear that public art can function autonomously within the city, just as the city has no need to resemble or behave like a museum. Works bring out the sincere curiosity of art consumption, they accentuate that unexpectedness of encountering art in the daily rhythm without having to actively search for it. A square interrogates communication methods, a swimming pool becomes the epicenter of social negotiation. In that sense, The Focus Year reminds us of the radical simplicity of art. We don’t need to indulge in art on other people’s terms. It’s all around us and not simply caged in.