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Who is faking it: artists or activists, or both? | 11 comments
[new] Three Aces and a Joker (Avg. Score: none / Raters: 0) (#9)
by gregory sholette on Thu May 15th, 2003 at 08:24:30 PM EURODISCORDIA TIME
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Brian Holmes essay Liars Poker raises the betting stakes for every politically committed artist today. Recently published in the Austrian based publication Springerin, his call to aggressively re-frame the very notion of creative work is the first "high card" one must draw if progressive art activists hope to keep their hand in the current ideological gamble known as cultural politics. This re-mapping of art world discourse (or better yet, art world real estate assets) is ace number one. Holmes has nailed that first card down solid. However, there are three other cards that must be added to this hand before calling for a show of hands. One of these must be learning how to leverage the truly substantial wealth that is already circulating within the global art industry for other, more progressive purposes.

Finding ways inside the institutions of art in order to redirect these resources outwards, away from the narcissism of the art world is one game plan. The artists' collective Las Agencias for example (http://www.sindominio.net/fiambrera/web-agencias/) has managed such leveraging on several occasions by taking money, visibility and the artistic legitimacy offered to them by several contemporary art museums in Spain and Italy and then using this "cultural capital" for seriously subversive ends. On one occasion Las Agencias even redirected art world assets to teach people how to successfully shop lift items from corporate-owned mega-stores. This was civil disobedience framed as art but also structured as a dance form related to Flemenco. What of the third ace?

Ace three calls for infecting and transforming the bankrupt artistic discourse of academia, avant-gardism and the art world in such a way that younger artists learn to value collective work, ephemeral actions and the "Dark Matter" not typically counted as art. Actively re-writing the "story" of art history/visual culture is an indispensable strategy in this game. In other words how to move away from strictly a game of studio solitaire to some degree of social engagement. This requires recognizing all the street based, hand made, amateur work of the February 15th protests as well as more focused and sustained public projects by art collectives such as Temporary Services (http://www.temporaryservices.org/) or Las Agencias. Now, along with disseminating creativity, the leveraging of art world capital and the re-mapping of a dreary artistic landscape is a fourth, wild card draw. The joker in the deck recognizes the necessity for those of us who do not have a family trust account or lottery winnings to establish some degree of legitimacy in academic and art world circles in order to simply make a living. What one actually does with that card is of course impossible to predict. Hopefully the lure of the game will never overtake the significance of the real world play that lies beyond the narrow and self-indulgent parameters of the art world. OK: your draw...



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