SOLANGE MANCHE // FOSTERING STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE, 53-65
FOSTERING STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE: THE ART SPACE AS AN ESCAPE FROM ALIENATION
SOLANGE MANCHE UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT NETHERLANDS [email protected]
SUBMISSION DATE: 29/12/2016// ACCEPTANCE DATE: 09/05/2017 // PUBLICATION DATE: 12/01/2018 (pp. 53-65)
KEYWORDS: Art Spaces, Culture Industry, Frankfurt School, Alienation, the Museum as a Factory, Hegel, Karl Marx, Post-Fordism, Antonio Negri, Commodification of Art.
ABSTRACT: This article reflects upon the Marxist tradition of considering industrially produced cultural products as being inherently deceitful and politically misleading, trying to go beyond the avant-gardist prejudice of the Frankfurt School that denies the spectator any agency. By giving an extensive rethinking of initially Marx’s concepts, such as commodification, it is argued that it cannot be an object — an art object in a specific space— in and by itself that offers a way to escape from the working day, but that it is the tension between the object and the space in which it is presented that accords agency to the observer; whereby, the relation between object and subject are inherently different from, and eludes, alienation. In order to reach this conclusion, the article uses examples from both late 20th century and contemporary art1.
Throughout the 1930s and early and Max Horkheimer. Even if they 1940s a steady stream of German lived just outside Hollywood, Adorno exiles in flight from the Third and Horkheimer’s view of the culture Reich travelled from the East Coast that was being produced there was to settle in Los Angeles. As if by anything but positive. When writing magic, a substantial portion of the about the culture industry in their work Weimar intelligentsia found itself transplanted along a line running Dialectic of Enlightenment they state: from the Oceanside community of [T]he technical media are Pacific Palisades through relentlessly forced into uniformity. Brentwood, Bel Air, and Beverly Television aims at a synthesis of Hills to Hollywood (Schmidt 2004, radio and film. [I]ts consequences 148). will be quite enormous and The German exiled James Schmidt promise to intensify the impoverishment of aesthetic refers to counted Theodor W. Adorno matter (Adorno 1989, 124).
1 I would like to thank Volkan Çidam for his outstanding teaching on Marx. Without his diligence I could not have written this article.
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In the renowned chapter of their 1944 independently from each other” (165), work, “The Culture Industry”, from and the manner in which the products which the previous quotation is taken, get exchanged. Because the working Adorno and Horkheimer seem to process is more and more atomized, the despise popular culture quite severely. only significant social interaction that Indeed, in his Aesthetic Theory, Adorno people undertake takes place during the makes a clear distinction between the exchange process, whereby the normal high and the low arts, a categorization social relations of production that is also found, although not referred themselves become obscured. The latter to by using the same categorical terms process certainly also holds true for the in “The Culture Industry”. Even if this culture industry. However, the cultural paper will mostly look into the product has another dimension, because opposition between the culture industry it can express something and convey a and the arts that emerges from Adorno message. The cultural product does not and Horkheimer’s consideration of the only hide social relationships between culture industry in Dialectic of men because of the way it is produced Enlightenment, the terms of high and low and exchanged, but also intentionally art will be used as an additional way to hides “social reality” (124) in order to refer to the distinction. The divide maintain the hierarchy based upon the between “low art, [or] distinction between “the dispossessed” entertainment” (Adorno 2002, 240) and and “the people at the top” (121) who the high arts, in Dialectic of Enlightenment are the industrialists. Adorno and can be solely understood to be based Horkheimer, in order to show how upon the way entertainment is cultural products legitimize social produced: in industrial fashion. Indeed, hierarchy, analyze standard film plots the technology of the culture industry and come to the conclusion that they [led to] no more than the achievement propagate the illusion that being in a of standardization and mass production position of power, and the possession (121), whereby culture became an of riches is largely a matter of chance industry like any other industry under obtained by “winning a prize” (146) or capitalism. However, the culture marriage, whereby, the person in this industry, by producing commodities advantageous position cannot be held that can be the vehicle of messages, like responsible neither be contested. Thus films, makes products that can be, and in a similar manner to the commodity are intentionally, endowed with Marx speaks of in Capital, the cultural powerful qualities of deception. The commodity also does not portray social term of commodity as used by Adorno relations justly. and Horkheimer should be understood like Karl Marx describes it in his Capital. Adorno, in his Aesthetic Theory, accords great importance to what he calls the In the first chapter of his magnum opus, truth content of art. “The truth content Marx explains that the commodity of artworks is fused with their critical “appears as [an] autonomous [figure] content” (Adorno 2002, 35). As Michael endowed with a life of [its] own” (1982, Kelly confirms it, the question of art 165), whereby the “relation between for Adorno is above all a question of people” that the object encompasses “how art can best realize its truth “takes on the character of a content and thus its capacity for thing” (Lukács 1971, 83). The critique” (Kelly 2007, 100). In contrast appearance of products as being to the high arts, entertainment, detached from any social interaction is according to Adorno, does not dispose, due to both the way an object is being as he demonstrates in “Culture produced, by “individuals who work Industry”, of any truth content. On the
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contrary, he repeatedly refers to it as the rumpled sheets, and detritus untruth. Seeing a distinction between including cigarette ends, condoms, the high and the low arts based upon desiccated apple cores, the way they are produced or their contraceptives, a used tampon, a ability of offering social critique, child’s toy, vodka bottles and dirty however, seems quite an irrelevant knickers (Fanthome 2008), position to be taking in the 21st century. by exhibiting, as the title indicates, her Contemporary art, broadly dated from own bed. Emin’s work is self-reflective the 1950s onwards, presents many cases upon very intimate and private matters. of artworks that are produced in It does not concern itself, overtly, with industrial fashion and do not engage in larger societal questions. The work in direct social critique. Andy Warhol is a itself is a ready-made: a mass-produced perfect example of an artist who item exhibited in an art space. Thus, adapted intensive modes of production both Warhol’s and Emin’s work contain that he retrieved from the media elements which are found in Adorno’s business, and even called his studio the view of the culture industry and low art. factory. The efficiency of taking Warhol’s Judging upon the previously discussed practice as a way to prove that Adorno’s features of the art works, it could be categorization of high and low art do concluded that both do not deserve the hold anymore is indeed doubtful, for it name of art. Simply trying to determine has to be acknowledged that Adorno whether we should call something art or also views the new to be a quality of the not is likely to reveal more about the high arts. preferences of the categorizer than High art, according to Adorno, about the artwork or object itself. distinguishes itself from the culture Therefore, it might be more fruitful to industry by continuously challenging depart from another consideration that itself in finding new forms of aesthetic can be distilled from Adorno and expression. Indeed, Warhol’s manner of Horkheimer’s text, which looks at the production was quite revolutionary in relation between a cultural product and the art world at the time. However, its audience or spectator and its trying to determine which one has more subsequent effects. It is in this view that weight on the other, the mode of Emin’s and Warhol’s work will be production or challenging to find new reconsidered later on. forms of expression, in order to classify Warhol, does not bring its appreciation any further. In addition to which, it is debatable whether his work was intended as a controversial critique of the popular media. The imitation of its style and fascination for celebrities, however, makes it impossible to deduce from his art itself whether it was or not intended ironically. Tracey Emin’s work My Bed, firstly exhibited in 1999,
expressed the aftermath of a Fig. 1. Tracey Emin, 1998. My Bed2. relationship break-up, with dirty,
2 Emin, Tracey. 1998. My Bed. Tate Modern, London. Source: Wikipedia, posted 24 July 2011, accessed, 08 January 2015,
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Apart from giving a definition of the In order to determine the importance culture industry based upon the manner of space, here understood as the in which it organises the production contemporary art space3 whether it is a process, or upon the inherent untruth museum, a gallery, a temporary content of low art, Adorno also briefly exhibition or a public space, Adorno’s insinuates a consideration of cultural view of the artwork’s capacity to accord products based upon an interaction agency to the spectator will be put into between object and spectator. Adorno the light of Marx’s conception of sees a paradoxical claim in amusement. estranged labour. Subsequently, it will “[U]nder late capitalism”, cultural be shown, by using the distinction Hito products are told to offer “an escape Steyerl makes between the factory and from the mechanized work process”, the museum, that it is not necessarily and yet Adorno observes, they are but the object in itself that accords agency “the prolongation of work” (Adorno to its observer, but the space in relation 1989, 137). It is very important to note to the object. Throughout the essay, that the kind of work meant by Adorno emphasis will be put upon illustrating in this case is “the mechanized” form every argument by examples from he mentions, i.e. factory work, and not contemporary art, as a way to peruse any other type. The entertainment how the art world in the 21st century industry, in order to produce the can offer resistance to alienation as oblivious bliss that the worker desires defined by Marx. after his hard day of work, avoids “[a]ny logical connection calling for mental Although it is not specifically effort” (139), whereby it does not mentioned in “The Culture Industry”, distinguish itself from the work he is the reason why art can offer an escape accustomed to carry out. By the latter from work can be explained when put intentional lack of complexity, or into the light of Marx’s conception of demand for participation, the cultural estranged labour. The more apparent commodity does not accord any agency reason given why entertainment cannot to the observer; in opposition to high offer a way out of the worker’s routine art which does incite the audience to is that “mechanization has such power reflect. By according agency to someone over a man’s leisure and happiness, and you affirm his or her existence as so profoundly determines the person who is able to reason. Whereas manufacture of amusement goods, that Adorno views the latter quality of art to his experiences are inevitably be inherent to the work itself, it will be afterimages of the work process argued, in this paper, by mainly looking itself ” (Adorno 1989, 137). Labour is, at contemporary art, that it is not the thus, overwhelming to an extent that the object in and by itself that offers a way worker cannot easily put it out of his to escape from the working day, but that mind when spending time at the it is the tension between the object and cinema, in addition to which the the space in which it is presented that manner films are being produced are accords agency to the observer; reminiscent of factory work. However, whereby, the relation between object as mentioned earlier on, the cultural and subject are inherently different product; does not demand any effort on from, and eludes, alienation. behalf of the consumer. “No
3 Spaces, as referred to throughout the essay, will here denote art spaces as they are most commonly experienced today. Not only the white cube, but any space curated as to exhibit artworks. This paper will not hold any historical claim by contrasting current curating practices with older ones. The conclusion, certainly, is not that our contemporary practices are preferable in any way to, for example, the Victorian gallery customs.
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independent thinking must be expected self-conscious being, and therefore from the audience: the product needs to supersede subject B in a prescribes every reaction” (137). conflict whereby he will realize that Adorno’s previous observation means subject B is an independent subject. that the audience does not undergo any Hegel’s understanding of self- interaction with the cultural product: he consciousness recognition can, thus, be or she is a passive consumer. The state said to be about becoming aware of of being passive, thus, although your own humanity via an externality. seemingly contradictory is indirectly equated with the labourer’s routine. The Marx’s ideas regarding the products of latter equation can be understood when labour and labour itself function in a considering Marx’s Paris Manuscripts, in similar manner. By means of my labour which he describes the process of I realize myself in the external world, becoming alienated: an inevitable whereby I can recognize myself in the consequence of capitalist labour and world surrounding me. Within a similar production. process that Hegel describes, but in this case without subjects but objects, by According to Marx, the “essential being looking at the products of my own of man”, or “man’s essence”, is defined labour I would be able to become by his “free conscious activity” and certain of the truth of my own self- “conscious life activity” (Marx 1964, consciousness. However, due to the 328), which he can realize through the relations of production under “appropria[tion of] nature” (334) by capitalism the worker labours for means of which he sustains himself, i.e. somebody else, producing great work. However, under capitalism, or in quantities, and not in the image of what another system in which a superior he is. Therefore, he is unable to owns another man’s activity, labour is recognize himself in the external world, estranging, since it “does not belong to which leaves him alienated, estranged [the worker’s] essential being”, whereby from his own humanity. He is unable to consequently he cannot “confirm recognize his own distinctly human himself in his work” (327). essence as a free conscious being. As a consequence, man becomes quite close In order to understand how alienation to an animal state, “acting freely only in works in connection to “man’s his animal functions – eating, drinking essence” (328), apart from another man and procreating”(Marx 1964, 327). owning the activity and the products of Whereas animals only produce to labour of another man, it is helpful to maintain themselves, man can do so look into Georg Wilhelm Friedrich disinterestedly. By suggesting the Hegel’s conception of self- existence of an alienated state of man, consciousness as appears in The Marx at the same time pre-supposes the Phenomenology of Spirit. According to existence of a non-alienated state. Hegel, self-consciousness is inherently Therefore, the non-alienated state of part of man. At the same time, man is subjects would be when they are able to not aware of the truth of his own self- realize themselves as human beings, consciousness, or being-for-self, which according to its humanist definition. needs to be triggered by an external Indeed, Marx’s view of estranged labour object. The previous process is should be seen as fully inscribed in the explained to take place between humanist tradition that views man’s subjects. Firstly, subject A recognizes essence to lie within his capacity to subject B to be self-conscious, like him. shape the world around him due to his However, subject A does not yet intellect. Of course, the validity of recognize subject B as an independent Marx’s humanistic stance is debatable
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and can be easily criticized from a post- contrary, they admit it. The cultural humanist perspective. His view, products depict stories in which, however, is valuable when put into the because of the kindness of others “[n]o context of Adorno’s analysis of the one is forgotten; everywhere there are culture industry, which will offer a way neighbors and welfare to understand why entertainment is an workers” (Adorno 1989, 150). As an extension of the factory. illustration he uses the 1942 drama film Calling Dr. Gillespie. The eponymous Apart from cultural commodities not character represents those of whom the having the quality of offering subjects “hearts are in the right place and who, the possibility to realize themselves, by their kind intervention as of man to they also do not function as objects of man, cure individual cases of socially- recognition. When the worker watches a perpetuated distress” (151). By painting film he cannot realize himself; he a society as being bearable due to the cannot express his own humanity in charity of others its suffering has been relation to the cultural product because admitted to, embraced, and accepted in it asks him, above all, not to think. the view of the aid and warmth of Therefore, the cultural products as others. The previous image is very described by Adorno, sustain the unlikely to stir up a revolt in the cinema worker’s alienation, instead of offering seats; the very end the culture industry temporary relief. In addition, the aims at, according to Adorno. The commodities Adorno describes do not images that “mass culture” provides reflect truth content, or social reality, deliberately do not offer a true since the culture industry only seeks to possibility of recognition for the maintain the hierarchy it needs to working class. The laborers when sustain itself, which ultimately is the consuming the products of the culture social domination that capitalism holds industry, as a consequence, are unable up and requires: to find some relief for their daily toil in the factory, as the mechanism of The dependence of the most powerful broadcasting company on recognition of one’s own self- the electrical industry, or of the consciousness cannot take place. motion picture industry on the Entertainment leaves the worker as banks, is characteristic of the estranged as he or she was when leaving whole sphere, whose individual the conveyor belt. branches are themselves economically interwoven. All are in Since Adorno sees the non-interaction such close contact that the extreme between object and subject as concentration of mental forces undesirable, it equally means that the allows demarcation lines between opposite, the existence of interaction, is different firms and technical the more desirable way of humans to branches to be ignored (Adorno relate to objects. This consideration of and Horkheimer 1989, 123). Adorno’s view regarding cultural Adorno shows how the culture industry, commodities is not specifically therefore, does not represent the world mentioned in Dialectic of Elightenment. of the labourer, but only the one that However, the distinction between the the capitalists want its workforce to erotic and the pornographic he makes believe in. Taking into account the could be seen as a differentiation previously mentioned intentions on between objects that accord agency to behalf of the industrialists, cultural the viewer and those that deny agency. commodities do not deny that life is “The culture industry is [characterized hard and that some suffer. On the as] pornographic”, giving the audience the fulfillment of longing that can never
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be realized. Mass culture shows “the to the visitor of Millennium Park. The objects of desire, breasts in a clinging sculpture is mute to the extent that it sweater or the naked torso of the asks all interpretation on behalf of its athletic hero” (Adorno and viewers and forces them to be engaged Horkheimer, 1989, 140) in incessant with it by means of showing them their repetition. The “erotic situation” on the own reflection. Although the structure other hand, “does not fail to indicate presents an abstract shape, the mirror unmistakably that things can never go surface quite literally serves the purpose that far”. In Adorno’s view the of recognition in the object. At such, it dissimilarity between the erotic and the becomes a place for reflection to be pornographic lies above all in that it used by each in his or her own manner. “cheats its consumers of what it When reviewing the works earlier perpetually promises” (140). However, mentioned, Emin’s work My Bed, and, acclaiming that works of art “by for example, Warhol’s Orange Car Crash representing deprivation as negative, Fourteen Times they, like Kapoor’s work, they retracted, as it were, the draw the audience into active prostitution of the impulse and rescued participation. Even if My Bed presents by mediation what was denied” implies the particular state that Emin found that the work of art undergoes a herself in, during a period of relation by taking the reality of the depression, the unmade room and the subject into account. The erotic, by sheer mess are two points of imaging a world from the perspective of recognition for all, and offer a point of a possible real subject, allows for departure to think about general recognition on behalf of the one who psychological problems or more interacts with it; whereby, it grants the personal concerns, let alone about one’s subject agency. own definition of art. Although it can probably not be Warhol’s 1963 Orange Car Crash, which claimed, judging from Adorno’s as the title suggests, depicts an identical description, that the erotic asks the picture from an automobile accident observer to think or to engage with the found in a newspaper fourteen times, object consciously; works of art, equally, shows scenes that everyone however, can be analyzed as recognizes, perhaps, from personal engendering such effects on behalf of experience, but most likely from the its viewers. Coming back upon the news. The repetition of the prints asks firstly mentioned criteria of distinction, the viewer to question not only the Anish Kapoor’s 2004 giant sculpture work in itself, but the obsession with Cloud Gate is a good example of a piece which death and blood are being that does not offer any social critique mediatized. and was produced, just like most of Kapoor’s work, in an industrial manner. When considering the secondly treated criteria of categorization, Kapoor’s piece has qualities that are very reminiscent of Adorno’s consideration of art in opposition to entertainment. Kapoor’s Cloud Gate, a ten-meter high mirror-surfaced object, accords agency
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Fig. 2. Anish Kapoor, 2004. Cloud Gate4. Fig. 3. Andy Warhol, 1963. Orange Car Crash Fourteen Times6. The only problem that, however, remains with Emin’s and Warhol’s work Steyerl’s essay “Is a Museum a Factory?” is that it is highly unlikely a person offers a view in order to understand engages in conscious reflection caused how space can function as an entity that by the sight of his own bed every enables its visitors to act as conscious morning, or incessantly questions the agents. Steyerl’s first observation is that validity of the content of his the museum and the factory can be newspaper. Adorno’s observations compared to each other because they regarding the effects of cultural both produce: commodities upon its consumers In the museum-as-factory, originate from the objects in something continues to be themselves. Mass-produced produced. Installation, planning, entertainment always forces upon its carpentry, viewing, discussing, users a created need5: it greatly insults maintenance, betting on rising his or her agency. The work of art, values, and networking alternate in however, does not fill in the blanks, nor cycles. An art space is a factory, tells its audience necessarily what to which is simultaneously a think, but gives some space for supermarket –a casino and a place interpretation. My Bed and Orange Car of worship whose reproductive Crash, however, suggest that the work is performed by cleaning ladies and cellphone– video previous quality of art does not stem bloggers alike (Steyerl 2012, 63). from the objects themselves, in which case there would be no difference When considering how each space between manufactured goods and art. controls bodies, however, she continues to argue that the museum is essentially distinct from the industrial factory but similar to the social factory. The factory receives and releases bodies at a set time
4 Kapoor, Anish. 2004. Cloud Gate. Stainless steel sculpture. 33 ft × 42 ft × 66 ft. Millennium Park, Chicago. Source: Wikipedia, posted 06 Oct. 2007, accessed 08 January 2015,
5 As we have already seen through the distinction between the eroticism and the pornography —or the erotic object and the pornographic one—. The pornographic does not correspond to a real need but presents an unrealizable one, whereby it, at the same time, creates the need it depicts.
6 Warhol, Andy. 1963. Orange Car Crash Fourteen Times. Silkscreen ink on synthetic polymer paint on two canvases. 8' 9 7/8" x 13' 8 1/8" in. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Source: Flickr Creative Commmons, posted 2012, accessed, o8 Dec 2016,
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of the day; and confines them. This crisis, no longer merely as objects of observation leads Steyerl to compare exploitation, but the subject of power?” the industrial factory to the classical (29). As Rosalind Gill and Andy Pratt cinema, which both function in the explain: “more recent writing of […] same confining manner in regulating Negri (2004) focus[es] on the bodies. When going to the cinema potentialities and capacities of the new people are together in a room from one post-Fordist proletariat, revisioned to fit set point in time until another, just like their conceptualization of the dispersed in the factory; social factory, as multitude, operators and agents” (Gill and Pratt 2013, 29). workers leaving the factory. This paper does not necessitate to go as Spectators leaving the cinema –a far as mentioning the value of the similar mass, disciplined and multitude that is seen by Hardt as a new controlled in time, assembled and released at regular intervals (Steyerl social formation that offers new 2012, 67). “possibilities of acting politically”. However, seeing a potentiality of The museum, on the other hand, political engagement in a societal “doesn’t organize a coherent crowd of structure functioning according to the people. People are dispersed in time and social factory model does imply that the space– a silent crowd, immersed and latter form of production allows for a atomized” (67). Steyerl, therefore, space of expression and self-initiated stresses that there exists a “difference action. Consequently, the fact that between mass and multitude”, which Steyerl refers to the concept of the “arises on the line between confinement social factory, clearly, indicates that she [that characterized the cinema and the recognizes the museum visitor as an factory] and dispersion”. The museum agent actively engaged within an is characterized by the dispersion of the unrestrained space, in opposition to the multitude, the cinema by the mass. cinemagoer who is enclosed temporarily Bodies organized by the museum take and spatially. on the shape of the social factory, rather than that of the industrial factory. It is valuable to put Steyerl’s view of the By using the term of the social factory, museum as social factory in the light of Steyerl refers to Antonio Negri and Jonathan Beller’s vision on cinema that Michael Hardt’s theorization of the she supports, in order to consider it phenomenon. The social factory, as within Adorno’s theory of the cultural Negri describes it, is the “factory commodity and alienation. Beller holds without walls”, and represents the that “cinema and its derivatives — productive norm of the “new epoch” television, internet, and so on— are that succeeded Fordism (Gill and Pratt factories, in which spectators 2013). The era that Negri describes, it is work” (Steyerl 2012, 65). He claims: “to marked by the factory getting look is to labor”. Steyerl, therefore, “increasingly disseminated out into clearly sees a distinction between the society as a whole”. The social factory cinemagoer and the visitor of a places “the whole society at the disposal museum, when engaged with the object of profit” (28). Although the all- of interest. In Beller’s view, the term encompassing effects of post-Fordist labour should be understood as the type production, as depicted by Negri, seem of work found in industrial factories. to have rather devastating effects of Mass production does not allow the domination on the whole of society, he worker to have any say in the equally asks himself: “what is the production process, and often is working class today, in this specific engaged in the manufacture of such a small part of the whole commodity that
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he or she is not even aware what the with an object. In a museum, a visitor end result looks like. The type of work can choose to spend more time Steyerl and Beller associate with the contemplating one piece rather than cinema, thus, is the type of work that another, or decide to leave in the middle Marx calls estranging. The interaction of a video projection. This free between the cultural product, the film, movement in space allows people to the confining space, and the watcher, all choose what they want to see rather contribute to the subject being reduced than it being imposed on them. The to a similar state of passivity as found in way space is organized thus allows the industrial labour. Although Adorno visitor to make use of his or her does not emphasize the importance of individuality, Adorno sees cinema to space, he notices that the cultural deprive the subject of. industry by asking the The art of Emin, Warhol and Kapoor, rhetorical question, “What do equally, should be considered in terms people want?” addresses —as if to of the space they are being exhibited in, reflective individuals— [its not only regarding the concrete material question] to those very people who aspect of the geographical, but also in are deliberately to be deprived of view of its symbolic significance. this individuality (Adorno and Emin’s My Bed and Warhol’s Orange Car Horkheimer 1989, 144). Crash are both placed in the context of The deprivation of individuality that the the museum and therefore lend culture industry undergoes via the themselves more easily to be subjected denial or any agency on behalf of its to Steyerl’s consideration of the consumers is carried out by means of museum as a social factory. Because My determining what the desire of the Bed7 and Orange Car Crash find public might be; an endeavor that starts themselves in a space that gives people a by asking the question: What do people degree of liberty and that recognizes want? As Adorno ironically, states: their individuality, both works can be contemplated in a sufficiently free if a movement from a Beethoven manner as to solicit conscious symphony is crudely “adapted” for interaction between the one who a film sound-track in the same way observes and the artwork. In the case as a Tolstoy novel is garbled in a of Cloud Gate, although not being film script: then the claim that this placed in the traditional environment of is done to satisfy the spontaneous an art institution, the interaction wishes of the public is no more than hot air (122). between passer-by and object functions in the same manner. Millennium Park is Space, however, as seen in Steyerl’s public space and thereby does not essay, contributes to this status of confine in anyway. The public is passivity of the audience by controlling emancipated in terms of seeing art in the way people are allowed to interact public space8. When coming across a
7 Since March 2015 Emin’s work is exhibited again in the space it was firstly shown to the public: Tate Modern.
8 Here of course Arthur C. Danto’s influential essay “The Artworld” needs to be mentioned. When the spectator is seen as “emancipated,” it is because he or she already possesses knowledge about what is considered to be art or not. “To see something as art requires something the eye cannot decry —an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld” (2017, 580). This does not undermine the main claim of the essay, as it argues that interaction between space, object and subject to be one of the main factors in triggering interpretation.
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sculpture someone is aware that it is a sculpture, Cloud Gate, the place and, as work or art, just like Cloud Gate is. earlier mentioned, acquired knowledge However, My Bed, would not function about art in public spaces. An object, within the same context as Cloud Gate, any object, can, by being in a space that since it does not bear the marks of the allows for people to move freely and type of art that is normally seen in which carries a connotation that calls public space. The artwork of Emin for it to be viewed as art, demand on would probably be considered as illegal behalf of the viewer its active waste dumping. An aspect that Steyerl participation. does not take into consideration, the symbolic significance of spaces, Adorno defines cultural products therefore, is very important for the conceived in industrial fashion as manner in which a work of art interacts objects that rob the consumer of its with subjects. In 1917, Marcel individuality. Popular culture allows no Duchamp already showed how thinking, or no creativity, on behalf of important the meaning of context is, by the spectator. High art, however, placing his ready-made, or mass- undergoes a wholly different produced urinal signed “R. Mutt” on a relationship with the viewer: it respects plinth in a gallery whereby it began to his or her agency. The lack of humanity be considered as artwork. The museum, that is granted to the audience by as the ultimate space dedicated to art, entertainment makes it reminiscent of immediately asks the visitor to consider the estrangement caused by industrial objects at display as art and to engage labour. Just like factory workers cannot with them: to think. My Bed, in the same recognize themselves in the products of manner as Duchamp’s Fontaine, stirred their labour, cinemagoers cannot vivid debate regarding the question of recognize themselves in the stories of the meaning of art and whether these Hollywood. The culture industry offers mass-produced products should be no escape from daily hardships. worthy of the name. The debate in Adorno’s writings indicate that art, on itself already shows, hereby, that the the contrary to amusement, permit to objects accord a great amount of elude the estrangement of the work agency and individuality to the observer environment. However, whereas the who can, by reflecting upon the work philosopher suggests that the latter of art think about his or her own quality is inherent to the object, considerations of what ought or ought examples from contemporary art, such not be honored a place in the museum. as My Bed, show it not to be the case. Certainly, the space in which an object is The ability of objects to call for its presented needs to be adequate for a observer to interact, and to reflect, subject to engage with it freely: he or resides in the relation that the work of she being able to decide whether to art undergoes with the space it finds grant it any attention. However, if the itself in, and subsequently, with the object of inquiry does not incite viewer. The context an object is in, thus, interaction in anyway, i.e., Emin’s bed is determinate in engendering its being placed on a public square, capability to offer a way to elude interpretation on behalf of the viewer estrangement. Contemporary art, as cannot occur, and neither does escape shown by the examples used, appears to from alienation. It could be said that the be in a quite advantageous position to symbolic significance of a given space offer a vehicle by the means of which of contemplation, such as Millennium subjects can recognize themselves, and Park, is communicated to its passers-by thereby, realize themselves as free through the relation between the conscious beings. Adorno states that “[s]erious art has been withheld from
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those for whom the hardship and (1954), pp. 571-84, accessed February oppression of life make a mockery of 01 2017, doi: 10.2307/2022937. seriousness, and who must be glad if they can use time not spent at the Duchamp, Marcel. 1975. Fountain, Milon. production line just to keep 1964. Coll. Galleria Schwarz. Schwarz, going” (Adorno and Horkheimer 1989, Arturo. Marcel Duchamp by Arturo 135). However, when staying within the Schwarz. New York: Harry N.Abrams, same geographical area Marx was Inc, 1975. concerned with, Adorno’s statement has become eroded. Cloud Gate, already is an Emin, Tracey. 1998. My Bed. Tate example of how art can reach out to Modern, London. Source: Wikipedia, society in a less exclusive manner. As posted 24 July 2011, accessed, 08 Negri and Hardt claim, society in the January 2015,
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in History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics, trans. Rodney Livingstone. Cambridge: The Mit Press. Marx, Karl. 1964. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, trans. Martin Milligan. New York: International Publishers. ————. 1982. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin. Schmidt, James. 2004. “Mephistopheles in Hollywood: Adorno, Mann, and Schoenberg”, The Cambridge Companion to Theodor W. Adorno. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cambridge Companions Online. Accessed January 07 January, 2016, doi: https://doi.org/ 10.1017/CCOL0521772893. Steyerl, Hito. 2012. “Is a Museum a Factory?”, The Wretched of the Screen. Berlin: Sternberg Press. Warhol, Andy. 1963. Orange Car Crash Fourteen Times. Silkscreen ink on synthetic polymer paint on two canvases. 8' 9 7/8" x 13' 8 1/8" in. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Source: Moma, posted 2008, accessed, 08 Dec 2015,
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