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Who is faking it: artists or activists, or both? | 11 comments
[new] Art and Autonomy (Avg. Score: none / Raters: 0) (#8)
by MartinLucas on Wed May 14th, 2003 at 03:16:44 PM EURODISCORDIA TIME
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Much of Brian's essay has to do with the two Documentas and the relationship between artists and art institutions. [There's an earlier version of his thinking on a nettime posting, I think.]

It's clear that what is attractive to "the people who run what used to be the ideological set-piece of so-called 'Western art,'" is exactly the notion that in an era of globalization dealing with the concerns of the powerless looks to be a true example of Bourdieu's 'disinterestedness'. This seems central to Brian's "Liar's Poker".

A big problem then becomes co-optation. Bourdieu talks about giving weapons to the competition:

"The most heteronymous cultural producers [i.e. those with the least symbolic capital] can offer the least resistance to external demands, of whatever sort. To defend their own position, they have to produce weapons, which the dominant agents (within the field of power) can immediately turn against the cultural producers most attached to their autonomy." The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed Columbia U. 1993. This is an ongoing problem. I remember when MTV adapted some of the techniques of the alternative video world [Paper Tiger TV in my case] as a gesture toward authenticity with its youth market.

One can argue about potential responses. One reflection is that working collectively means making institutions, even if these can be rather marginal, they have some real staying power. One hopes that they are genuinely different from the mainstream art institutions in their relation to power. They seem to act differently.

Although Trebor was perhaps right about the lack of significant role for fine art in the context of the February 15 anti-war march in New York, there was an interesting alternative media side to the event which was covered live by Pacifica Radio and Free Speech TV working with a variety of other groups including Indymedia, Downtown Community TV, the Youth Channel, the public access system. This effort gave the event real cohesion, important at an event where the police made big efforts to prevent people from gathering together physically.

In fact, reflecting on this kind of simple level, it's hard to know exactly what a fine art role should be. In the sixties, in my experience it was musicians and poets who provided main cultural inspiration, and film to some extent. Fine arts were there; I remember turning the art dept at Berkeley into a silkscreen factory when the US started bombing Cambodia. But the effort seemed modest.

AUTONOMY

Bourdieu would suggest that anyone who exposes the "game" is in for a hard time. My limited experience with discussing these issues with artists in Europe, for instance at a conference on Ethics and Aesthetics at De Unie in R'dam a couple of years ago, suggest that people could handle art critiquing the political economy of the art world in a now classic way, e.g. Haacke, Broodthaers, but had a hard time hearing politicians telling them how little autonomy they really have, and how much more constrained its going to be in the future.

TOWARD AN AUDIENCE

One fruitful direction is toward an audience. Here I'm thinking of an art which imagines an audience of equals, rather than of connoisseurs a la high art or one of manipulees as in mass culture. I think the positionality of being 'outside with the delinquents is a problematic one seen from Bourdieu's eyes, as it is usually just a way those on the outside to get in and reproduce the game in some way. But it's not the wrong place to be. I believe there is an art which speaks to real possibilities of human freedom, even if it's hard to prove.

Of course, sometimes one proves it exactly by getting a reaction from an institution. I think of a recent work by Rotterdam's Jeanne v. Heeswijk. Working at the Wexner Center in Ohio with help from V-2, van Leishout Atelier, and the Columbus Transit Authority in a piece called `Face Your World', she had a bus going around town picking up kids who would get involved in redesigning the city in a virtual space. The museum was unsupportive, and even tried to pull the plug on the project, which was part of a series of conceptual works. The city government, ironically, supported the work. Both the Planning Dept and the bus service were more aware of the benefits of an art pointing to democracy than the art institution.


Perhaps this is just another example of what Brian is talking about. One certainly can find tension between artist and institution in any era. Hopefully, discussions like this one will help us find the possibilities unique to our moment.


n.y.c. may 14, `03




Who is faking it: artists or activists, or both? | 11 comments
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