PAVILION journal for politics and culture #16 TACTICS FOR THE HERE AND NOW

ISSN 1841-7337 PAVILION #16 TACTICS FOR THE HERE AND NOW READER OF BUCHAREST BIENNALE 5 | MAy 25 - JULy 22, 2012 www.pavilionjournal.org | www.bucharestbiennale.org | www.pavilioncenter.ro

Editors: Răzvan Ion & Eugen Rădescu Advisory Board: Felix Vogel, Peter Osborne, Sina Najafi, Suzana Milevska Contributors: Anne Barlow, Eugen Rădescu, Stephen Duncombe, Răzvan Ion, Suzana Milevska, Sotirios Bahtsetzis, Tom Holert, Olive McKeon, Simon Sheikh, Ștefan Voicu, Marius Stan Translations: Radu Pavel Gheo Web & Software Design: Alexandru Enăchioaie DTP & Prepress: Andrei Grigore

BUCHAREST BIENNALE 5

Curator: Anne Barlow Participants: Abbas Akhavan (IR/CA), Marina Albu (RO), Haris Epaminonda (CY/DE), Klas Eriksson (SE), Ruth Ewan (UK), Aurélien Froment (FR/IE), Ciprian Homorodean (RO/BE), Iman Issa (EG/USA), Janice Kerbel (CA/UK), Jill Magid (USA), David Maljković (HR), Marina Naprushkina (BY/DE), Ahmet Öğüt (TR/NL), Vesna Pavlović (RS), Anahita Razmi (DE), Wael Shawky (EG/FR), Alexandre Singh (FR/USA), Mounira Al Solh (LB/NL) & Bassam Ramlawi (LB), Rinus Van de Velde (BE) Directors: Răzvan Ion & Eugen Rădescu Executive Director: Andrei Crăciun Assistant Executive Director: Andrei Grigore Education & Communication Manager: Florentina Buburuzan Web & Software Design: Alexandru Enăchioaie Design of the BB logo: Håkan Gustafson DTP & Prepress: Andrei Grigore Interns: Daniela Pălimariu, Andreea Pătru Volunteers: Roxana Aron, Monica Beatrice Bercovici, Ioana Tincuța Bratu, Maria Buda, Mădălina Buhoș, Anca Andreea Chitoran, Daniel Comendant, Mihaela Conciu, Alexandra Dănciulescu, Fadi Drăghici, Alexandra Enache, Gabriela Ghircoiaș, Andreea Maier, Anamaria Mișcu, Ioana Rozalia Moldovan, Demir Nurla, Daniela Pălimariu, Oana Anca Porime, Laura Prodan, Oana Irina Rusu, Ioana Șomănescu, Ioana Trușcă, Liana Andreea Voinea

PAVILION is the producer of BUCHAREST BIENNALE www.bucharestbiennale.org Published by: Artphoto Asc. Chairman: Eugen Rădescu

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Cover: Rinus Van de Velde, "untitled (The Lost Bishop)", charcoal on wall, 240 cm x 360 cm, 2012. Courtesy of the artist.

[1] In memoriam Ioana Nemeș (1979 - 2011) exTenT PArTiCiPAnTs And Venues of BuChAresT BiennAle 5

Column 100 PAVILION - Center for Contemporary Art and Culture 102 Iman Issa (EG/USA) Anne Barlow 106 Ahmet Öğüt (TR/NL) 5 Tactics for the Here and Now 110 Alexandre Singh (FR/USA) 114 Rinus Van de Velde (BE) Around 118 Casa Presei Libere / The House of the Free Press Eugen Rădescu 120 Abbas Akhavan (IR/CA) 11 Fordism. Post-Fordism and attempts to reposition art in globalization 122 Jill Magid (USA) 126 David Maljković (HR) Stephen Duncombe 130 Marina Naprushkina (BY/DE) 18 Politics as Art of the Impossible: The Case for a Dreampolitik in the United States 134 Vesna Pavlović (RS) 138 The Institute for Political Research Răzvan Ion 140 Marina Albu (RO) 28 From Contemplating To Constructing Situations 144 Ciprian Homorodean (RO/BE) 148 Janice Kerbel (CA/UK) Suzana Milevska 152 Anahita Razmi (DE) 34 The Internalisation of the Discourse of Institutional Critique and the ‘Unhappy Consciousness’ 156 Alert Studio 158 Haris Epaminonda (CY/DE)

TACTiCs for The here And now 162 Make a Point 164 Klas Eriksson (SE) Sotirios Bahtsetzis 168 Wael Shawky (EG/FR) 43 Eikonomia: Notes on Economy and the Labor of Art 172 Mounira Al Solh (LB/NL) & Bassam Ramlawi (LB)

Tom Holert 176 Nana Restaurant 178 Ruth Ewan (UK) 54 Art in the Knowledge-based Polis 182 Cinema Union Olive McKeon 184 Aurélien Froment (FR/IE) 68 Oh What A Mess I've Made: On Aesthetics and Political Praxis 186 Tabu | Vice | Zeppelin Simon Sheikh 187 Jill Magid (USA) 76 Spaces for Thinking: Perspectives on the Art Academy 190 Biographies Ștefan Voicu 84 Practice Here and Now. The Shift in Contemporary Art and Theory 200 Parallel Events

Marius Stan 203 Education & Mediation 92 Avant-garde Arts under the Spell of Politics 204 Partners

[2] [3] Tactics for the Here and Now

by Anne Barlow

In the last few years, the ‘here and now’ has been increasingly referred to as ‘pre- carious,’ giving rise to a number of publi- cations, conferences and exhibitions[1] that examine the relationship between dif- ferent forms and interpretations of precar- iousness in relation to current artistic practice. As Hal Foster noted in his article ‘Precarious’, 'Over the past decade, this condition became all but pervasive, and it is this heightened insecurity that much art has attempted to manifest, even to exac- erbate. This social instability is redoubled by an artistic instability, as the work at issue here foregrounds its own schismat- ic condition, its own lack of shared mean- ings, methods or motivations. Paradox- ically, then, precariousness seems almost olumn constitutive of much art…'[2]. Foster fur- C ther notes that within such work, the '“con- fusion" of ruling elites and the "violence" of global capital… is often staged in per- formative installations,' and cites work by Thomas Hirschhorn and Isa Genzken that, in different ways, reflects this in both form and content.

Operating within the same context of the shifting nature of economics, politics and culture, are artistic practices whose agency lies in investigative or indirect approaches that possess their own kind of power. The fifth edition of the Bucharest [4] [5] Biennale focuses on such practices omy was regulated by short-term and provocatively embedded within sites of wise concealed data, as well as its poten- through a number of installations, environ- long-term plans. As laws were frequently daily activity. In relation to how one tial to generate associative meaning ments and performances, as well as idealistic – and consequently also often defines the public domain, it is important through multiple direct and tangential through the integration of projects within unrealistic – and plans (carrying the sta- to bear in mind William Pope.L’s comment searches. As John Conomos notes, we existing presentation and distribution sys- tus of law) usually too taut to be imple- that agency 'is relative to context. It is not are living 'in a world where the computer tems outside traditionally conceived art mented, informality became a useful tool natural and freely given … . Agency is a and its attendant techno-utopian myths of venues. While many of the artists engage to circumvent the former and secure fulfil- negotiation, always mediated.'[8] As artifice, control and rationality create in us with the subjects of territories and histo- ment of the latter. It was also used by the Maria Lind points out, there are differ- a sense of reality that is becoming more ries, risky and unstable positions or sys- general public as a strategy for coping ences between work that is 'context-sen- elaborate, more contingent, and more tems of authority, they do so in a way that with everyday life.'[4] During that time, sitive' as opposed to 'site-specific.' Lind dependent on digital languages of repre- is characterised by ambiguity, opacity, informal environments offered artists the considers that 'recipes must be reformu- sentation – where the discourse between non-linearity and the quasi-fictional, or by opportunity, albeit within limited circles, to lated for every occasion' since being con- cognition and epistemology, images and tactics of subterfuge and infiltration. While show and discuss their work.[5 ] text-sensitive is more about being sensi- knowledge is being radically alerted by some use processes that are investigative tive to situations and a 'challenge to the electronic technologies.'[12] or slow in the making – expressing a kind The informal can spring from popular cul- status quo – being context-sensitive with of resistance to the speed and instability ture, quotidian events and the actions of a twist … .”[9] Within this framework, the User-generated sources such as of everyday life – others turn to more various kinds of 'subcultures.' Informal Biennale contains several projects that Wikipedia, with its inherent potential ‘informal’ methodologies. As Simon structures have been recognized in differ- generate spaces of encounter outside art for multiple and possibly inaccurate Sheikh points out, 'The field of art has ent sectors of society, not only in culture venues themselves, altering the expected accounts, and the sheer act of research- become-in short-a field of possibilities, of but also in business and management, as realities of a given context – whether this ing links and connections from one thing exchange and comparative analysis. It having the capacity to act like a shadow, is a cinema schedule, social space, or to another online, provide rich material for has become a field for alternatives, pro- operating from the ground up. Such publications on subjects other than art – artists interested in more associative posals and models, and can, crucially, act approaches are well suited to artists allowing for moments of confusion or structures, narratives and meanings. as a cross field, an intermediary between whose interests lie in ways of negotiating questioning, and ideally a curiosity as to Often seductive and formal in their aes- different fields, modes of perception, and the realms of 'nonfiction, facts, directions, the origins and intentions of these inter- thetic presentation, their works are full of thinking, as well as between very different laws and … how systems work,' observ- ventions. Such projects are not about the word games, tangential logic, and what positions and subjectivities… '[3] ing their structure and behavior to investi- mere dispersal of knowledge, but, in their may even seem flights of fancy, that ren- gate 'where their loopholes lie.'[6] The intentions and chosen contexts, seek to der simplistic interpretation impossible – The application of more laissez-faire potential of the informal in relation to be closer to what Simon Sheikh refers to the consequences of a research and approaches is dynamic and responsive agency is also acknowledged in the as 'networks of indiscipline, lines of flight, thinking process that in its very nature and can be difficult to pin down. It is par- educational framework advanced by and utopian questionings' that create could be seen as a 'permission for knowl- ticularly resonant in Bucharest in terms of Pavilion’s Free Academy, where informal 'spaces of thinking.'[10] edge that is tangential and contingent and political history, infrastructure and support education is deemed more important and whose sociability as it were, its search for systems and conditions for artistic prac- vital than that of the formal system, and Information itself, in terms of how it is dis- companionship, is based not on linearity tice, which themselves are in the process where the type of citizen that participates tributed, researched, absorbed and re- and centrality but on dispersal and on of evolving. The informal has been identi- in social debate becomes more of an presented has of course been profoundly consistent efforts at re-singularisation.'[13] fied by several writers as connected to agent of change who has the capacity to affected by the internet. The circulation of societies that have experienced repres- get involved.[7] information and images has never been A strong component of the Biennale sion or that have undergone political tran- greater, leading not just an 'expanded involves a reworking of certain histories sition. 'A key feature of communism was With some artists in the Biennale, tactics sociality of the web but an accelerated, from the civic to the personal, in a way the organisation of society into formal and of subterfuge and infiltration are intrinsic highly visual, hybridized commons.' [11] that is not always about nostalgia or nar- informal spheres. Formally, communist to their practice, whether their work takes Patterns of learning about a subject have rative, but is rather a deliberately con- society was defined by a vast number of the form of documents of ‘tactical behav- been deeply affected by the Internet’s structed perspective on the contemporary. laws, rules and regulations and the econ- ior,’ or situations that are playfully or ability to reveal formerly obscure or other- Whether referring to the architecture and

[6] [7] symbols of past eras, or the genres of sci- [1] Precarity in relation to contemporary art has exhibition Free (New Museum, 2010–11). ence fiction or documentary, content is been explored in exhibitions including Human [12] John Conomos, 'Art, the Moving Image and altered through a process that is additive Condition: Empathy and Emancipation in the Academy,' in Rethinking the Art School: The Precarious Times, Kunsthaus Graz/Universal- Artist, the PhD, and the Academy, ed. Brad or reductive in intention and form, produc- museum Joanneum, 2010, and The Workers, Buckley and John Conomos (Nova Scotia, 2009), ing a configuration of components that MASS MoCA, 2011–12; articles including Nicolas p. 116. require a shift in perception. Several his- Bourriaud, 'Precarious Constructions: Answer to [13] Irit Rogoff, 'Practicing Research: Singularizing tories or time frames may be evoked in Jacques Ranciere on Art and Politics,' in A Knowledge,' in maHKUzine, Journal of Artistic one image, or a sense of place suggested Precarious Existence: Vulnerability in the Public Research 9 (2010), p. 42. Domain (Rotterdam: 2009); 'Thriving on [14] Claire Staebler, 'Typologies of Unlearning: yet concealed: in such cases, one has to Adversity: The Art of Precariousness,' Anna Resistance, Renewal and Fresh Attempts,' Le ‘reorient’ the position from which one Dezeuze, in Mute 2, 3 (September 2006); and Journal de la Triennale (Paris, 2012), p. 2. receives and processes information, set- conferences including Zones of Emergency: [15] Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, 'Haris Epaminonda,' ting aside assumptions and previ- Artistic Interventions – Creative Responses to Bidoun 20, p. 126. ously acquired knowledge. As Claire Conflict & Crisis, MIT Program in Art, Culture and [16] Jacques Rancière, The Emancipated Technology (ACT), fall 2011. Spectator (London and New York, 2009), p. 72. Staebler notes in the journal Typologies of [2] Hal Foster, 'Precarious,' Artforum (December Unlearning: Resistance, Renewal and 2009). Fresh Attempts, 'If unlearning becomes a [3] Simon Sheikh, 'SPACES FOR THINKING: means of connecting with the world – an Perspectives on the Art Academy,' Texte Zur individual or collective tendency, allowing Kunst 62. [4] Åse Berit Grødeland and Aadne Aasland, everyone to rethink, to renegotiate and to Informality and Informal Practices in East Central question what they believe or think they and South East Europe’ Complex Europe know – then art, inevitably, can help us (Melbourne, 2007). reformulate our perceptions of the [5] As noted in the essay for Agents & Provocateurs (Institute of Contemporary Art. world.'[14] With several of the Biennale Dunaúvaros, 2009): 'In his fictive dialogue with projects, relationships between visual art Ceausescu from 1978, artist Ion Grigorescu takes and literature also blur, not just in relation the “father of the people” epithet literally, and to how text is used as primary material, directly addresses the political leader to offer con- but in terms of how purely visual elements structive criticism. For several decades, this film create 'the imaginative space and poten- of Grigorescu was only available to a narrow cir- cle as the artist mostly worked as a restorer, tial that is usually associated with litera- secluded from the professional public.' ture … without recourse to the trappings [6] 'Mixing Business with Pleasure,' interview with of language or narrative.'[15] Operating artist Jill Magid, Base Now 15 (May, 2009). ‘in-between’ fact and fiction, history and [7] Eugen Radescu, Free Academy, Pavilion, the ‘now,’ the works draw on, as well as Bucharest. [8] William Pope.L, 'Agency and What Y ou Can project, either a multiplicity – almost over- Do With It,' in Creative Time: The Book: 33 Years abundance – of references, or conversely, of Public Art in New York City, eds. Anne possess strength by virtue of creating a Pasternak and Ruth Peltason (New York, 2007). space where something seems ‘missing’ [9] Maria Lind, 'Selected Nodes in a Network of or incomplete, giving rise to 'a multiplicity Thoughts on Curating,' in Selected Maria Lind Writing, ed. Brian Kuan Wood (Berlin, 2010), p. of folds and gaps in the fabric of common 30. experience that change the cartography [10] Simon Sheikh, 'Talk Value: Cultural Industry of the perceptible, the thinkable and the and the Knowledge Economy,' in On Knowledge feasible.'[16] Production, A Critical Reader in Contemporary Art, ed. Maria Hlavajova, Jill Winder and Binna Choi (Utrecht and Rotterdam, 2008), p. 196. [11] Lauren Cornell, 'Walking Free,' essay for the [8] [9] Fordism. Post-Fordism and attempts to reposition art in globalization

by Eugen Rădescu

Postmodern society has not relinquished the major themes of ethics, as a moral, economic and cultural perspective. On the contrary, the new, complex and hyper- technological context raised new aspects of these topics for debate. The ethical realm of contemporary society expanded to new subjects that are discussed exten- sively and from various angles, either for- mally or informally: charity, bioethics, political correctness – political language Around codes – abortion, sexual harassment, euthanasia, fight against drugs, etc. There is an increasing talk about the revival of values and of the spirit of responsibility. The emergence of environ- mentalist, feminist and ethnic move- ments, the new social movements, as well as the new movements in contempo- rary art – which are of particular interest for this paper – stir a debate over the fun- damental problems of man and society in the 20th century – a century that can undoubtedly be referred to as a century of extremes. Postmodern ethics itself, glob- al and omnipresent in all types of dis- course, share this feature of the epoch, [10] [11] too. The individualism of these times is them, 19,954,000 were in the United Fordism, with the following characteris- ture of media, audiovisual technologies displayed without inhibition, often ostenta- States and only 2,676,000 in Europe. In tics: and means of communications through tiously. At the same time, however, the other words, ratio was of 1 automobile to - global competition, which cultural representations are trans- existence of thousands of associations, 5.6 Americans, compared to 1 automobile - flexible production systems, mitted. Media culture means alienation alliances, foundations and organizations to 49 people in Britain or to 54 people in - flexible organizational structures, through consumerism, democratization clearly shows that people are aware of France, a fact that made A. Siegfried say - niche markets and niche production of and even mediocritization of consump- the need to establish new (even though that "the automobile is the most visible dedicated goods, tion. Culture can be global, too. Global minimal) forms of cohabitation, of sur- sign of the American wealth." The suc- - segmentation of consumers based in culture is artificial and formless, as it is, in vival, as defeatists would say, of efficient- cess of the automobile in the United lifestyle, as well as on their standardized fact, a fabricated culture, outside history. ly managing the heritage of past genera- States had several major causes, cultural model, tions. including: - declining trade unionism, However, cultural globalization is a highly - the huge geographical area of the coun- - selective individual consumption, dialectical process, in which globalization There are two opposite tendencies acting try; depending on personal needs and selec- and localization, homogenization and in the cultural and economic globalization. - the richness in natural resources tive choice, fragmentation, centralization and decen- One stimulates immediate pleasure, con- demanded by the automotive industry; - an extended managerial elite and flexi- tralization or conflict and creolization (mix- sumption, entertainment, and explodes - the development of certain mechanical ble specialization (George Toma, 2005) ing) do not exclude each other. They are into excess: drugs, pornography, bulimia industries; inseparable sides of the same coin. The for objects and media programs. Lacking - a relatively large population; Globalization (as a term extrinsic to cultural change is not only a story of loss any limits and transcendence, the obese - the skills of an American technical mid- Fordism and post-Fordism) refers to an and destruction, but of development and postmodern man embodies the individual- dle class, etc. extensive process of worldwide integra- creativity. Even though the interconnec- istic cult of the present and the escalation tion and dissemination of a set of ideas tions among the old forms of diversity are to extremes in the absence of rules. However, the most important element more or less related to economic activities lost, new forms of cultural diversity arise. was probably the fact that the automobile and to the production of goods, boosted The other tendency is the rationalization seemed to fit very well with the American by the liberalization of international trade Cultural democratization of time and of the body, the “professional” cultural values and with a certain type of and capital flows, the acceleration of tech- approach to everything, the obsession for social behavior. nological advancement and the informa- Democracy, in the modern acceptation, excellence and quality, for wholesome- tion society. A rather controversial con- involves the participation of all citizens. ness and hygiene. The hedonistic society The assembly line led to the advent of a cept, globalization is subject to two Briefly, it consists in granting a certain does not capture energies in the form of new industrialism, referred to as approaches: a positive one, focusing on level of decision-making power to people pleasures, but they are utilized and stan- “Fordism” by A. Gramsci. Basically, the benefits of uniformity and of interna- who are not ready to face the responsibil- dardized, diversified, presented in the Fordism was a capitalist system of mass tionalization of societies, and a negative ities involved and not even really interest- rational norms of physical built and health production and consumption implement- one, blaming globalization for the loss of ed in exercising power. Democratization (Gilles Lipovetsky, 1996). ed in developed countries, which facilitat- individuality of a nation or community. in politics occurred in the early 20th cen- ed a sustained economic growth rate from tury and was one of the main catalysts of Consumption is moderate, pleasures are 1945 to 1970. In 1973-1990, the econom- In the specialized literature, “globaliza- the world wars. The democratic decision- short, enhanced, worth seeking for, ic growth slowed down significantly in tion” is used with various meanings, eco- making has always been fundamentally attempts do not matter. these countries. nomic, political, social or cultural, reveal- inefficient and even became its own The postmodern hedonism is no longer ing a concept that captures the historical enemy in the mentioned political context. transgressive or dilettantish, but man- Characterized by close connections process of deepening and expansion of a Soon, cultural democratization arrived, aged, functionalized, reasonable. between governments, trade unions, system of interdependencies among too. Like in politics, a sphere that it employer unions and the international nations, civilizations and political commu- encompasses (in the wider, ethnological Ford. Fordism capital, the system was controlled by the nities. meaning of culture), the expansion of the state. phenomenon is largely determined by the In 1925, there were 24,565,000 automo- In the globalization period, the cultural new forms of access to information. biles registered in the entire world. Of In the ‘70s, Fordism turned into post- dimension is often mistaken for the cul- Obviously, there is also a reverse reac- [12] [13] tion, i.e. and elitization of culture (in the loss of identity, even if only cultural. I do who become aware of their cultural Ranciere’s approach is the attempt to narrower sense this time), but this only not mean to promote a deterministic pic- responsibility. introduce the equalitarian effects of art worsens the situation. It is no surprise that ture of the relationship between politics and politics in theory – a thing never done the democratization of culture originated and culture, in which one would strictly Art and politics. The beginning of a before. Ranciere introduces the politics in in the country of democracy. Of the three follow the evolutions of the other, but one reasoning the sphere of radicalism, just like Chantal political systems that fought for suprema- cannot fail to note that the military winners Mouffe (2000), criticizing the notion of cy in the 20th century, the only one that have imposed, in most cases, their cultur- In our current situation, when, on one consensus, which tends to shrink the pub- preached the returning to nation al model, too. The model was imposed hand, we are amidst of some accelerated lic sphere, instead of giving it space to (although in a devious way) was defeated either intentionally or not and for selfish or attempts to direct the globalization move- manifest itself. By resorting to consensus in WW2 and strictly banished. Interdiction altruistic purposes. Preestablished plans ments (e.g. the “war against terror”) and, in politics, two aspects suffer an extreme remains a taboo in contemporary politics, are inherently related to the historical on the other hand, we see how difficult it reduction: one refers to the citizens, who whose present relevance was demon- period opened by the French Revolution. is to combine the artistic experiment with become “population”, a subject with a strated by the recent events in Austria. Two questions arise: is it worth fighting to political comment, it could be relevant to sole identity, while politics is managed by The representatives of the WW2 winn- keep the identity? and, if yes, how? The take a look back to the previous attempts professionalized persons - politicians or ing systems chose an internationalist first question can only be answered from to use art as a tool for approaching the government experts. The disagreement approach to culture: the USA, for histori- an ideological standpoint. Therefore, all I topic of social inequality and for continu- concerning politics and art is based on the cal reasons, and the USSR, for ideologi- can do is state my belief: it should be ous controversy in the public debates. contradictory logic according to which the cal ones. It is sufficient to mention, as a tried. The alternative to homogenization is Focusing on what was traditionally distribution for political participation and proof, the names of these statal entities: the national culture. The situation is sen- described as one of the “golden ages” of artistic practices is made. The disagree- the United States and the Soviet Union. sitive, for several reasons, either wild art, particularly the ‘60s, we note that ment in Ranciere's view is not based on Moreover, the two states have never been European or specific to Romania. the difficulties related to the “crossbreed- the difference between “friend” and “foe”, major cultural groundbreakers. The situa- National culture is very hard to define (if ing” between artistic experiment and polit- used by Carl Smith, then by Chantal tion at the beginning of the new century anyone can see a point in attempting ical commentary or between the art object Mouffe (1985), among others, but he sees looks even gloomier. While on the social such a definition). The pursuit for purity and the political subjects, which we are political action as a breakaway from the plane the collapse of communism was cannot yield any result. The current state currently facing, were equally present in social, hierarchic order, inventing new long-awaited and auspicious, in culture, of amalgamation of various cultures can that early period, too. I will briefly over- manners of being, of seeing, of expres- the situation of the freed countries wors- almost justify the positions that complete- view in the following paragraphs the sion, new subjectivities, new forms of col- ened (excepting the cultural elites, for ly deny the existence of any reality to fill in Situationist International (SI), the Artist lective enunciation. which the freedom of expression is rele- the concept of national culture. I think, Placement Group and the Art Workers’ vant). In popular democracies, this field however, that a certain specificity has Coalition, which, back in the ‘60s, tried to In “Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthe- was not democratic either and, as a con- never ceased to exist. The theoretical get involved in the formulation of political tics”, Ranciere focuses on art's power to sequence, culture, although strictly con- attempt to detect and date influences is topics and to break away from the institu- promote creative and transformative trolled, did not have the time to become bound to fail by irrelevance, as it ignores tional structures of art, moving towards a action. His conceptualization of art and vulgar, compensating, to some extent, for the mythological dimension of this speci- wider cultural or political practice. politics emphasize the potential for the evils of the initial communist interna- ficity. The most effective way to destroy a Jacques Ranciere (2011) highlights the destruction of the forms of domination, tionalism through the national commu- myth is to try to grasp it using the instru- relationship between art and politics, pri- based on the tendency of seeing art as nism of the latest period. Thus, the begin- ments of reason. A myth should be lived. marily viewed as two separate entities, the promise of a new world for individuals ning of the century has only one cultural A myth should be taken as it is. From a without any clear connection between and community. What Ranciere wants to winner – the American democratic inter- cultural point of view, it is a sure source of them, excepting that both are forms of point out is that the freedom of art, seen nationalism, whose declared altruism is, inspiration, validated by the passing of disagreement. Politics is a process that as the freedom of the aesthetic, is based in my opinion, not very sincere. The time. I cannot see a way out of the crisis simultaneously denies each foundation on the same principles of equality as polit- weapons used in the battle have through interbellum-like cultural associa- on which it is built. It is the dilution of the ical demonstrations. He distinguishes improved and expanded their range of tions or through government policies boundaries between what is political and three regimes of art: the ethical one, in action. There is a tendency towards cul- (although they can play a certain role), but what can be assigned to the sphere of the which art does not have any autonomy tural homogenization, which means the through the creative action of individuals social and of private life. What is unique in and the artistic images are used [14] [15] depending on their usefulness for society, contemporary art practice, dematerialized the representational one, in which art and post-conceptual. means imitation, and the aesthetic one, the only one able to generate inno- Why do we speak of institutional criticism vative action. The aesthetic regime is in art today? The answer is very simple: autonomous and creative; it overthrows because we (still) believe that art has an restrictions, creating an artistic equalitari- intrinsic power to criticize. Of course, we anism – hence, the possible resemblance do not refer here only to art criticism, but to the overturning of political and social to something more, that is, to the ability of hierarchies. Each work of art must have a art to criticize life and the world beyond story with a moral, social and political sig- the boundaries of its own realm and, by nificance, based on a system of meanings doing this, even to change both of them. and focusing on action (Ranciere, 2010, However, this also includes a certain p. 15). degree of self-criticism or, more specifi- References cally, the practice of critical self-reflexive- On institutional criticism. Criticism by ness, which means that we expect (or, at • Jean Baudrillard, "Strategiile fatale", Po- art least, used to expect) the art to be aware lirom, Iasi, 1996, p. 31-40 of the conditions making it possible, which • Gilles Lipovetsky, "Amurgul datoriei. The very term of “institutional criticism” usually mean the conditions of its creation Etica nedureroasa a noilor timpuri demo- seems to point to a direct relationship (Buden, 2002). These two ideas – the cratice", Babel, Bucharest, 1996, p. 68 between a method and an object, where awareness of the conditions of possibility • Johnson E. A. J., Kroos H. E., "The the method is the criticism and the object and the awareness of the conditions of American Economy. Its Origins, Develop- is the situation. In the first wave of institu- creation – point to two major domains of ment and Transformation" Prentice-Hall, tional criticism, in the late ‘60s and early the modern criticism: the theoretical do- New Jersey, 1960 ’70 – much celebrated and categorized by main and the practical, political one. Kant • Antonio Gramsci, "Americanism and the history of art since then – these terms was the one who launched the interroga- Fordism", essay, Prison Notebooks. were apparently defined in an even more tion considering the conditions making • Joana Breidenbach, Ina Zukrigl, "The specific and narrower way; the critical our knowledge possible and who expli- Dynamics of Cultural Globalization. The method was an artistic practice and the citly understood this interrogation as an Myths of Cultural Globalization", institution concerned was the institution of act of criticism. Research Institute for Austrian and art, in particular, the art museum, but also the galleries and collections. The institu- From this point forward, one can say that International Literature and Cultural tional criticism took many forms, from art modern criticism either is critical (that is, Studies, 1999 works and interventions and critical writ- self-reflexive), or is not modern. • Benjamin Buchloh, „Conceptual Art ings to artistic political activism. 1962–1969: From the Aesthetics of Nevertheless, in the so-called second Administration to the Critique of wave of the ‘80s, the institutional fra- Institutions“, in October, No. 55, 1990, pp. mework expanded, to some extent, to 105–143 include the role of the artist (the subject • Julia Bryan-Wilson, „A Curriculum of performing the criticism) as being institu- Institutional Critique“, in Jonas Ekeberg tionalized, as well as the investigation of (ed.), New Institutionalism, Oslo, certain spaces (and practices) exterior to OCA/verksted, 2003 art. Today, both ways are themselves part • idea.ro/revista/?q=ro/node/40&articol=516 of the institution of art, seen as art history • Jean - Jacques Gleizal, "Arta și politic- and education, as well as general ul", Meridiane, Bucharest, 1999 [16] [17] politics must embrace the dreams of the Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson, outlined Politics as Art of the Impossible: people (a lesson not lost on a certain this practice back in 1922 in his master- leader of a later German Reich) [1]. work Public Opinion. He called it the The Case for a Dreampolitik in the Furthermore, real conditions have ‘manufacture of consent’. The procedure changed. Today’s world is linked by me- is simple: in order to organize the myriad United States dia systems and awash in advertising and often conflicting desires and interests images; political policies are packaged by of voters in a popular democracy, savvy public relations experts and celebrity gos- leaders learn to mobilize symbols with sip is considered news. More and more of which people can identify. The broader the economy is devoted to marketing and and emptier the symbol the better, as it entertainment and the performance of makes for a bigger tent within which to fit by Stephen Ducombe scripted roles in the service sector. The a greater number of people’s individual imaginary is an integral part of reality. dreams. The trick is, as Lippmann wrote, Realpolitik now necessitates dreampoli- to ‘siphon emotion out of distinct ideas’ tik. and then channel all that emotion into a unifying symbol [2]. That symbol – and all So what sort of dreampolitik is being its new followers – can then be re-linked A dominant movement in leftist politics practiced in the USA in the twenty-first to a party, platform or politician. By own- has always embraced a sense of reality century? Let’s begin with the presidential ing the symbol, you own the people’s fan- as opposed to dreams and imagination. campaign of Barack Obama. No presi- tasies, and if you own their fantasies then The American sociologist Stephen dent in recent history has so successfully you own their consent. Duncombe argues instead for a dream- channelled popular American political politik, which, unlike reactionary populist dreams. Ronald Reagan was the last to Given the exhaustion of neoconservative fantasies, can activate the imagination do so, but his dream of limited govern- ideals and the fiasco of George W. with impossible dreams. They make it ment at home and muscular intervention Bush’s presidency, very few Americans possible to think ‘out of the box’ and to abroad were, after three decades, shat- didn’t dream of change in 2008. And who wonder what an alternative world and a tered by the feeble state response to the isn’t for hope? What I hope for and want different attitude to life might be like. domestic disaster of Hurricane Katrina in the world to change to might be very dif- New Orleans and the foreign debacle of ferent from a middle-American suburban- In his day, Otto von Bismarck was known the war in Iraq. As Americans awoke from ite defecting from the Republican Party, for the practice of realpolitik: a hard- this conservative nightmare, Obama and but we can both embrace the dream of headed and hard-hearted style of politics his advisers conjured up a competing and hope and change. Mobilizing these that eschewed ideals in favour of the compelling fantasy: Change and Hope. abstractions, Barack Obama won in a advantageous assessment of real condi- Change from what was and hope for what landslide. But there’s a fatal flaw to the tions. Politics, in Bismarck’s words, was would be. manufacture of consent: an empty sym- ‘the art of the possible’. But Germany’s bol can remain empty for only so long. ‘Iron Chancellor’ ruled at the end of a long The brilliance of Obama’s dream of was What is widely interpreted as Obama’s era of open autocracy, where the desires its absolute emptiness. Nearly anyone, excessive political caution in enacting of the populace mattered little, if at all. no matter what their political beliefs, any real change might be better under- What was realistic then is not realistic could curl up inside it and fall asleep with stood as a savvy understanding of this now. Today ‘the crowd is in the saddle’, contentment. This technique of dream- mechanics of the manufacture of consent as the American public relations pioneer politik is not a new one. Walter Lippmann, once power is obtained. Obama delayed Ivy Lee warned business leaders in the political journalist and adviser to nearly giving substance to the dream for as long first decades of the twentieth century, and every American president from Teddy as possible but sooner or later political

[18] [19] decisions had to be made and real poli- health care and interference in the free mediascape and not see a sea of middle- no longer recognizes them. The Tea cies enacted. And this is when his popu- market; just as the flashpoint for the aged, middle-American whiteness like a Party folks have a nascent understanding larity plummeted. As his administration American Revolution was unfair taxation, Tea Party rally. Over the past 50 years, that they are out of sync with the cultural escalated the war in Afghanistan he so too, do the Tea Partiers rail against partly out of political concern, partly out of dreams of America. This is a subtext to betrayed my dream of peace, and when government levies, flashing their some desire to accurately represent the Sarah Palin’s appeals to the ‘Real he passed the health care bill he lost my favourite sign: Taxed Enough Already. changing face of America, but mostly in America’. But the problem for the Tea limited-government-loving middle-Ame- an attempt to reach as broad an audience Party is that a multicultural America is not rican doppelganger. But there’s a problem in equating the as possible, the culture industry has a mere media fantasy, it’s a demographic political grievances of eighteenth-century largely rejected such bland homogeneity. reality. And it has been for some time: The disjuncture between the dreams con- American revolutionaries with today’s Tea The starring roles in most hit dramas still Crispus Attucks, the first patriot killed in jured up by Obama and the disappointing Party activists, and it is a revealing prob- go to the straight white guy and girl, but the Boston Massacre, was black. In a political realities he’s delivered has had lem. The patriots of the past were not the show would seem incomplete without recent Captain America comic book a disparate effect across the political spec- protesting government or taxation per se, a couple of co-stars of a different colour. group of protesters is shown holding aloft trum. Liberals, for the most part, have they were riled up over rule by foreign And while whites still dominate positions signs that read ‘Tea Bag The Libs Before given up their dreams. They support the government and taxation without repre- of factual authority in the mass media, They Tea Bag YOU!’ Captain America president, not with the initial emotion that sentation. Today, however, there is a US every local newscast has their ‘other’ and his – African-American – sidekick Obama had once masterfully siphoned, government made up of elected repre- anchor. It’s been a long journey from the Falcon look down on the crowd in the but instead with a dispirited sense of sentatives. Given this, there are two ways novelty of Nat King Cole in the mid 1950s street and dismiss them as a just a bunch necessity. The popular right, on the other to understand the Tea Party’s faulty anal- to the routinized multihued casting of a of ‘angry white people’.[3] When you’ve hand, has found something to dream ogy: one, they really are the ignorant show like today’s Survivor, but what the been dissed by Captain America you about again. No place is this phantas- hicks that liberals believe them to be and American audience watches, and thus know you’re on the losing side of history. magoric renaissance on display more need to be educated in basic US history, how they see their world and imagine its than with the Tea Party. or two, Tea Partiers truly believe that the possibilities, has been irrevocably Bypassed by multicultural America, Tea Federal Government is a foreign body altered. ‘Difference’ is no longer different, Partiers are attempting to resurrect a Dreams of the Past and their elected officials don’t really rep- and diversity, albeit in its most banal mythic (white) past through tri-corner resent them. Given the Tea Party’s form, is what American’s have come to hats and colonial garb. They may look People in the Tea Party dream of being obsession with proving that President expect. Beneath this ethereal media rain- ridiculous, but that doesn’t mean they are American patriots of the past. And they Obama was not born in the USA, it’s safe bow there used to be places were one not dangerous. The alienation that Tea love to dress the part, sporting tri-corner to bet on interpretation number two. might reliably find jowly white guys play- Partiers feel from the dominant fantasies hats and wearing colonial garb, waving ing prominent roles, one of them being and demographic realities of the USA is American flags and holding aloft tea Part of the Tea Party’s refusal to acknowl- the nation’s capital. Then came the exactly what makes them so volatile. bags. As their name and dominant sym- edge the legitimacy of the current US Obama not-so-White House. They have no sense of identification with bol suggest, these people honestly and government is just sour grapes. After 30- the majority and little recognition from the earnestly think of themselves as the ide- odd years of conservative rule, the right ‘Take our country back!’ is a common cry majority, and these are the conditions ological heirs to the Sons of Liberty that lost the last election and lost it badly. It’s at a Tea Party protest. Back. Back to a that breed incivility, violence and perhaps dumped British tea into the Boston har- not unrepresentative rule, as they might time when white people were firmly in even terror. If the majority doesn’t exist in bour. (‘Socialists are Today’s Redcoats’, fantasize, it’s that the other side’s repre- power and those of other races knew the dream world of the Tea Party, then reads a sign attached to a tri-corner hat at sentatives won. That’s how a democracy their place. But also back to an imaginary violence against them is not quite real. a Tea Party protest.) The Tea Party’s pol- works. But there’s something more at America that was almost entirely white as And, paradoxically, when the dream itics, at their most coherent, adhere to stake. It isn’t just political representation well. Tea Party rallies – the costumes, the world of the Tea Party is not recognized this self stylization. Just as the American that Tea Partiers feel alienated from, it is outrage, the provocative rhetoric – are so by the majority, what better than violence colonists rallied to fight an intrusive gov- cultural representation. theatrical because they are theatre: a to make them notice? But their dream ernment, the Tea Party musters its troops way for disaffected white people to repre- has no future. No doubt there will be elec- to protest the expansion of government You can spend weeks wandering the vast sent themselves in a mediated world that toral shocks and violent outbursts from

[20] [21] the Tea Party over the next few years, but The Times’ slogan: ‘All the News That’s fantasy; it asks the person reading the ing away the ending of a play at the in the end it will disappear like Father Fit to Print’, was altered for one day to Times to realize that what they hold in beginning, disrupting dramatic scenes Coughlin’s National Union for Social read: ‘All the News We Hope to Print.’[4] their hands represents a dream. The with song and dance, having stage hands Justice, the John Birch Society, the Ku striking verisimilitude of the newspaper appear on stage, and collapsing the Klux Klan and the myriad other manifes- Over 80,000 copies of the faux Times was intended to convey a sense of felt fourth wall to have actors address the tations of the populist radical right in the (the organizers, in fabulist form, claimed possibility. ‘None of this is currently true,’ audience, Brecht worked to alienate his USA that promised a dream of the past. over a million) were handed out across co-organizer Steve Lambert explained, audience. Instead of drawing people into Dreaming the Future the city and forwarded to national and ‘but it’s all possible.’[5] But the sense of a seamless illusion, the playwright strove So what is the alternative? Is there a international newsrooms, where news of possibility that the paper hoped to evoke to push them way and remind them that practice of dreampolitik distinct from the the ‘news’ was then spread around the is complicated, for at the same time the they were only watching a play. If the reactionary, and ultimately doomed, pop- world. The project, the result of the clan- reader was meant to feel the possibility of audience wanted real action, if they want- ular fantasies of the far right and the man- destine labour of hundreds of contribu- peace and justice, she was expected to ed the world to change, they could not ufactured consent of the political elite? I tors facilitated by artist/activists Andy know that this was just a dream. rely upon art to do it for them – they think so. You will not find it among the lib- Bichlbaum of the Yes Men and Steve would have to do it themselves. eral-left, vacillating as they are between a Lambert, a political artist with a history of Bertolt Brecht, the great German commu- support for Obama rationalized by the utopian interventions, was meant as an nist playwright, experimented with this An end to wars and a just economy are ‘realities’ of the present and reflexive crit- imaginary act of politics, or rather, a polit- tension between illusion and awareness not impossible, no matter how far we icism of his policies with no counter-inspi- ical act of imagination. The prefigured in his quest for a radical theatre. Brecht seem from these goals today, but the rations offered. But on the creative future, however, was not meant as a was horrified about the ability of most the- Times reporting this as factual news in fringes of the left another type of dream- magical transformation: each event atre to suck the spectator into an illusion 2008 is an impossibility. I saw firsthand ing is taking place. reported in the paper was described as and have them vicariously dream some- the cognitive dissonance in people’s the result of everyday citizens pushing for one else’s dream. Traditional theatre faces when they were handed a copy of On 12 November 2008, New Yorkers a more progressive agenda. Yet the made spectators into passive recepta- the newspaper: first surprise, then inter- awoke to a ‘special edition’ of the New experience was meant to be magical. cles: a dumb, obedient mass, well suited est, then realization that what they held in York Times, handed out by a legion of The realism of the newspaper was singu- for fascist mythologies or the ‘democratic’ their hands was not genuine – all in the volunteers at subway, bus and train sta- larly impressive: the paper, the type, the manufacture of consent, but not the radi- matter of seconds. This rapid realization tions across the city. ‘IRAQ WAR ENDS’ layout, even the tone and style of the arti- cal transformation of society. Brecht on the part of the audience that what they screamed the headline, followed by an cles and ads themselves were crafted to wanted his theatre to create active sub- had been reading was a fake was not a article reporting that US troops would create a believable product of an imagi- jects who would think critically and act political failure on the part of the project; immediately withdraw from Iraq and that nary future. The organizers hoped to politically. His dramaturgical solution to it is the secret of its success. By holding the UN would take responsibility for make people stop and, for a moment, this problem was Verfremdungseffect, or out a dream and refusing entry simulta- rebuilding the social and political institu- enter a dream world. ‘The challenge isn’t alienation effect. Alienation, in Marxist as neously, the ‘special edition’ of the Times tions of both countries. This ‘news’ was to make people think that the war is a bad well as common parlance, has traditional- created the conditions for popular politi- surrounded by reports declaring passage idea, since most people already do,’ ly had a negative connotation: the prole- cal dreaming. of a Maximum Wage Law, the elimination Bichlbaum explained at the time. ‘The tariat was alienated from their labour just of tuition at all public universities, a ban challenge is to make people feel it can be as the Tea Partier is alienated from the Utopia is No-Place on lobbying, and a timeline detailing how over now.’ He continues: ‘We wanted contemporary culture of their country; the progressives gained power in people to read this and say to them- struggle for both is to overcome alien- This technique was pioneered nearly 500 Washington, DC. Even the advertise- selves, ‘What if?’ ation and regain power and control over years ago in Utopia, Thomas More’s story ments envisioned a utopic future: a pic- the foreign object. Brecht, however, theo- of a far-off land that was, well, utopic. On ture-perfect full page ad for Exxon, with Verfremdungseffect, or What If? rized that alienation might be used as a this fantasy island living and labour is the tagline: ‘Peace. An idea the world can positive force: a means to shake people rationally planned for the good of all. profit from’, pledged the multinational to a What if? – to state the obvious – is a out of their comfortable integration. There is a democratically elected govern- pacific and environmentally sound future. question. It is a question that disrupts the Through a battery of techniques like giv- ment and priesthood, and freedom of

[22] [23] speech and religion. There is no money description of the island of Utopia, mixes upon their possibility: positing an imag- come? What if? and no private property or privately held ‘possible’ political proposals like publicly ined future or alternative as the future or wealth, and perhaps most utopian of all, held property and the freedom of speech the alternative. This assurance guaran- Art of the Impossible there are no lawyers. More’s Utopia was and religion with such absurdities as gold tees at least one of several results: everything his sixteenth-century and jewel encrusted chamber pots. As • A brutalization of the present to bring I was drawn into working on the faux European home was not: peaceful, pros- such, one might argue that More effec- it into line with the imagined future. Times (I wrote the copy for some of the perous and just. For, as More writes in his tively dismisses as ridiculous all political (Stalinization, Year Zero of the Khmer advertisements) by one of the organizers, tale: ‘When no one owns anything, all are dreams. ‘Freedom of speech? Well that is Rouge) Steve Lambert. A few months earlier rich.’[6] about as absurd as taking a shit in a gold • A political disenchantment as the Lambert and his collaborator, Packard chamber pot!’ On the other hand, future never arrives and the alternative is Jennings, had asked me to write the cat- Utopia, however, is a curious book; two Raphael – our narrator – is named after never realized. (Post 1968 left, the cur- alogue essay for a set of street posters books really. Book I is essentially an the Archangel Raphael who gives site to rent implosion of the US Republican that were commissioned and displayed argument – made through Raphael, the the blind and guides the lost. Arguing for Party.) by the city of San Francisco. These large- traveller and describer of Utopia – of why More’s political sincerity, one might pro- • A vain search for a new dream when format posters, illustrated in the style of Book II – the actual description of the Isle pose that he uses the absurd to seriously the promised one isn’t realized. (Endless airplane emergency instructions and dis- of Utopia – is politically useless. Raphael suggest, yet at the same time politically consumption of products or lifestyles.) played on illuminated kiosks on one of explains that rulers don’t listen to imagin- distance himself from, political, economic • Living in a lie. (‘Actually existing San Francisco’s main thoroughfares, ings other than their own, and Europeans and religious dreams that he favours but Socialism’, ‘The American Dream’.) offered passers-by images of the city’s are resistant to new ideas. Indeed, that would, in his time, be considered What More proposes is something entire- future. But not just any future: an absurd Raphael insists that his own story will political and religious heresy. ‘Freedom of ly different: he imagines an alternative to future. Skyscrapers are movable so citi- soon be forgotten (which, of course, is a religion?’ More might plausibly plea: his sixteenth-century Europe that is zens can rearrange their city. A commuter clever rhetorical strategy to make sure it ‘Can’t you see I was kidding?’ openly proclaimed to be a work of imagi- train is turned into a green market, lend- is not). The book is full of such seeming nation. It can not be realized simply ing library and martial arts studio. A foot- contradictions, riddles and paradoxes. But I think this orthodox debate about because it is unrealistic. It is, after all, no ball stadium is made into an organic farm The grandest one being the title itself. whether More was satirical or sincere place. But the reader has been infected; (and linebackers into human ploughs). Utopia, composed of the Greek ou (no) obfuscates rather than clarifies, and actu- another option has been shown. As such, The entire city is transformed into a and topos (place), is a place that is, liter- ally misses the point entirely. The genius they can’t safely return to the surety of wildlife refuge. For inspiration Packard ally, no-place. In addition, the story teller of More’s Utopia is that is it both absurd their own present as the naturalness of and Lambert asked experts in the fields of this magic land is called Raphael and earnest, simultaneously. And it is their world has been disrupted. Once an of architecture, city planning and trans- Hythloday (or Hythlodaeus), from the through the combination of these seem- alternative has been imagined, to stay portation for ideas on how to make a bet- Greek Huthlos, meaning nonsense. So ingly opposite ways of presenting political where one is or to try something else ter city. These plans were then, in their the reader is told a story of a place which ideals that a more fruitful way of thinking becomes a question that demands atten- own words, ‘perhaps mildly exaggerated’. is named out of existence, by a narrator about dreampolitik can start to take tion and a choice. Yet More resists the It is exactly this exaggeration that makes who is named as unreliable. And so shape. For it is the presentation of Utopia short-circuiting of this imaginative these artists’ images so politically power- begins the debate: Is the entirety of as no-place, and its narrator as non- moment by refusing to provide a ‘realistic’ ful.[7] More’s Utopia a satire, an exercise sense, that opens up a space for the alternative. As such, this technique of demonstrating the absurdity of such polit- reader’s imagination to wonder what an dreampolitik resists the simple swapping Jennings and Lambert’s plans are unreal- ical fantasies? Or is it an earnest effort to alternative someplace and a radically dif- of one truth for another, a left dream for a izable. A city could become more ‘green’ suggest and promote these dreams? ferent sensibility might be like. right dream, communism for capitalism. with additional public parks and commu- As no-place Utopia denies the easy, and nity gardens, but transforming San There’s evidence for both sides. First the By positing his fantasy someplace as a politically problematic, option of such a Francisco into a nature preserve where case for the satirical interpretation: in no-place, More escapes the problems simple choice. Instead, the question of office workers take their lunch break next addition to the problematic names given that typically haunt political dream- alternatives is left open, and space is to a mountain gorilla family? This isn’t the place and the narrator, More, in his scapes. Most political imaginaries insist opened to imagine: Why not? How going to happen. And that’s the point.

[24] [25] Because it is a patent impossibility their real. It is also unfinished. Because it is prescription for political impotence. The fantasies fool no one. There is no duplic- presented as only an act of human imag- question is not whether dreams should, ity, no selling the people a false bill of ination, not a representation of concrete or should not, be a part of politics, but goods. Yet at the same time these impos- reality, ethical spectacle remains open to what sort of dreampolitik ought to be sible dreams open up spaces to imagine revision or rejection and, most important, practiced. What is not needed is a left new possibilities. The problem with ask- popular intervention. Jennings and equivalent of the center’s cynical manu- ing professionals to ‘think outside the Lambert’s posters are exemplars of ethi- facture of consent, or a replica of the box’ and imagine new solutions is that cal spectacle. reactionary phantasmagorias of the right. without intervention, they usually won’t. Nor is it desirable to wait for and follow Notes: Like most of us, their imaginations are Standing in front of one of their posters the next progressive saviour who pro- constrained by the tyranny of the po- on a street corner you smile at the absurd nounces: ‘I Have a Dream.’ What is need- [1] Ivy L. Lee, address before the ssible. By visualizing impossibilities, idea of practicing Tae Kwon Do on your ed, if we are serious about the potential of American Electric Railway Association, Jennings and Lambert create an opening train ride home. But you may also begin populist (un)reason, are tools and tech- 10 October 1916, cited in Stuart Ewen, to ask: ‘What if?’ without closing down to question why public transportation is niques to help people dream on their PR! (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 75. this free space by seriously answering: so uni-functional, and then ask yourself own. Bismarck might have insisted that [2] Walter Lippmann, “Public Opinion” ‘This is what.’ why shouldn’t a public transport system ‘politics is the art of the possible’, but a (New York: Free Press, 1997), 158, 151. cater to other public desires. This could much more powerful case can be made [3] Captain America, #602 (New York: Most political spectacles are constructed set your mind to wondering why the gov- today that politics is the art of the impos- Marvel Universe, 2010). Pressured by with the intent of passing off fantasy for ernment is so often in the business of sible.[9] conservatives, Marvel later apologized reality. The function of the Nazi rallies in controlling, instead of facilitating, our for their portrayal of the Tea Party. Nuremberg, so spectacularly captured in desires, and then you might start to envi- [4] For the complete ‘special edition’ of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, sion what a truly desirable state might the New York Times see www.nytimes- were to substitute an image of power, look like. And so on, ad infinitum. se.com. unity and order for the reality of the Jennings and Lambert’s impossible solu- [5] Andy Bichlbaum and Steve Lambert, depression, chaos and infighting that tions – like More’s Utopia and the ‘special personal interview, 20 November 2008; plagued interwar Germany; US president edition’ of the New York Times – are CNN interview, 14 November 2008. George W. Bush’s landing on an aircraft means to dream of new ones. [6] Thomas More, “Utopia”, edited and carrier in a flight suit to declare ‘mission translated by V.S. Ogden (New York: accomplished’ in Iraq was the attempt to There’s a dominant strain of the left that Appleton Century Crofts, 1949), 80. trade the actuality of a disastrous and has always argued for a politics without [7] All posters can be viewed and down- soon to be protracted war launched by a dreams. In this vision, the masses (led by loaded from visitsteve.com/work/wish- combat-shirking president for the fantasy the left) will wake up and see the truth... you-were-here-postcards-from-our-awe- of easy victory declared by a noble war- and it shall make them free. In the some-future-2/. rior-chief. These are fascist spectacles: famous words of Marx and Engels: ‘Man [8] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “The the future is imagined by elites and then is at last compelled to face with sober Marx-Engels Reader”, 2nd edition, edited presented as already in existence. senses, his real conditions of life, and his by Robert C. Tucker (New York: Norton, Ethical spectacle operates differently by relations with his kind.’ It’s a nice fantasy, 1978), 476, 473. presenting dreams that people are aware but that’s all it is and ever has been. Even [9] Fragments of this essay have are just dreams. These are acts of imag- Marx and Engels implicitly recognized appeared, in altered form, in Playboy ination that provide visions of what could this by beginning their Manifesto with the magazine, The Nation, the exhibition cat- be without ever pretending they are any- chimera of communist inevitability: ‘A alogue for ‘Wish You Were Here: thing other than what they are. spectre is haunting Europe . . .’[8] In the Postcards from Our Awesome Future’, Presenting itself as what it actually is, this fantasy-fuelled world we inhabit today the and ‘Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive This text was published for the first time in Open: form of fantasy is, ironically, truthful and dream of a politics without dreams is a Cahier on Art and the Public Domain #20. Politics in an Age of Fantasy’. [26] [27] us to watch the fights occurring at the the- its aesthetic and its message, however, oretical level between different disjoint, when art itself conflicts with some of disruptive concepts, of an irregular, non- these values, some of the most shatter- academic translation respecting vaguely ing questions emerge. From Contemplating To Constructing Situations etymological texts. What do we need today? A basic state? A The debate concerning the disruptive- state of equalities? A post-state? Where ness of concepts that art employs to legit- does the role and methodology of art imize its position, be it self-directed, or intercede? Can it be a tool for struggle, by Răzvan Ion submissive – in Jacques Rancière’s inter- progress, debate? pretation – that defines the political art, on one side, as a policy of “autonomy” Should modern art be the answer, then (the artists’ struggle to be recognized as the question is how can capitalism be practitioners of an autonomous discipline, made more beautiful? Yet, modern art is with the entitlement for a privileged posi- not just about beauty. It is also about tion, detached within the society) and on function. Which is the function of art in the the other side, a policy of “heteronomy”( disastrous capitalism? Contemporary art the battle of art itself, yet, to fusion with feeds with the crumbs of the massive The morality of the citizen resides in his the social reality, to consume the society wealth redistribution and “on a large considering that the collective security is as a compliant material that can be scale from the poor to the wealthy, made more important than any survival whatso- organized according to artistic conven- through an ongoing downward battle ever. If the moral now is the one of pleas- tions) is a protracted process. Or as he between the classes” (David Harvey). ure, of the happiness of individuals, then himself notes, “a critical art is (…) a pre- The production of traditional art can serve survival lies under a question mark. cise negotiation (…) this negotiation must as model for the nouveau riche, model Should nothing more be left of the citi- hold on to some of the tension pushing designed by the privatization, expropria- zen’s morality, should we be devoid of the the aesthetic experience towards the tion, and speculations. Certainly, within feeling that we ought to be able to fight in reconfiguration of collective life and to the art system there is exploitation, there order to keep your chances for pleasure some of the tension pulling out the force are also exploited workers (artists). and happiness, then we are both shiny of aesthetic sensitivity from different Political art through the institutions that it and effete (Raymon Aron). A society of realms of the experience, as well as the creates can make a new model of social spectators empty of feedback, invulnera- eternal undulation of the artist to be order because it has already generated ble to indiscretion and abuse, a pensive sometimes inside the social, sometimes an exploited and practised model (Boris society diminished its chances to build outside it, according to the benefits/con- Groys). As Hannah Arendt noted, we and progress. The riot, the screaming texts, it introduces the idea of a disconti- need not create a new class, but rather to voice, with or without the immediate nuity alongside the social which permits reject all classes. We should understand response from authority is necessary in the creation of ruptures.” the artistic space ca a political one the process of building up a democracy, a instead of representing political situations powerful community under the practice The plea for built-in social value of art is from other areas. Art is not detached from of solidarity. If the suitable soil for a pes- complicated, unless one presumes it politics, its politics resides in its produc- simistic philosophy within history belongs from the start as being true. The implica- tion, its distribution, its perception. to the thug, it follows that the glamorous tions of art are very unfathomable and, up Should we consider this for a fact, per- society can be the condemned one. What to a certain extent, art can be safeguard- haps we will surpass the flatness of the would the world we are living in without ed in terms of other values, such as, representation policy and launch a new an academic, literary perversion enabling among others, its utility, its sovereignty, kind of policy that is already there, right in

[28] [29] front of our eyes, ready to be embraced. between what political and non-political us to the real meanings of art and of the ence is the slay of the ego and its ability art represent, it is not useful.. The real artist’ endeavour. The ambitions of con- to say “no” to the sovereign state(without The co-dependency between art, politics issue is affecting the possible forms of temporary art see to be connected to its transforming into a lamentable anarchist and theory, with a special focus on the critical art, the various manners in which power to provide the world with a symbol, state). concept of “politic”, is emphasised and artistic practices can contribute for the of which it believe the worlds needs, or extended by Chantal Mouffe. During the questioning of the dominant hegemony” the world expects, but towards the state We are already in the stage where we two decades since the publishing of the (Chantal Mouffe). the artists show a rather anarchist atti- can admit that the revolutionary appara- paper “Hegemony and socialist strategy” tude as compared to a partnership tus is a constituent part of hegemony. (1985) of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Somewhere action must appear in direct approach, and the action – seen as The resistance is not real coming from Mouffe, Mouffe closely watched the con- relation to its antonym: non-action. activism – became a disruptive battle the social, as long as it is assimilated to cepts of politic, radical democracy, antag- Tracing Hegel back, it can be stated that against limitations of any sort. the hegemonic structure and next trans- onism and agonist, through a series of knowledge and action cannot be dissoci- formed into a production engine of the papers: “Return of the politic” (1993), ated and from this perspective reality has Why do we discuss today, in the field of holistic entity. Should we want to discuss “Democratic paradox” (2000) and “About completely the characteristic that Kant art, about the institutional critic, or about a manner, a type of resistance, this takes the politic” (2005). Rejecting the accept- had conferred to life and art only, that pur- the critic against social, political or artistic place backwards, hegemony through the ed models of democracy, perfected by poseless finality that merges action and institutions? The answer is very simple: rhizome structure and totalling assimila- men of wisdom such as Jurgen knowledge. The method to analyse reali- because (we still) believe that art is inher- tion potential resists micro-societies Habermas and John Rawls, Mouffe sup- ty is not pure logic, the classic one, but ently gifted with the power to criticize. Of socio-political attempts to deny its regen- port an “agonistic” model for the claim of the dialectic, aimed to reveal opposing course, we refer not only to the art critic, eration force and the characteristic quali- “radical democracy”, “we need a demo- sides, and history, which records the evo- but beyond that, to its capacity to criticize ty particular to its indestructible construc- cratic model capable to encompass the lution of things in the contradictions pres- the world and life past its own sphere and tion: the timeless relation between the political”. For him the “radical democracy” sured reality. The first manifestation step even, by doing so, to change them both. adaption possibility and the suspension is a space that recognises the existence towards its potentialities is made by the This includes a certain degree of self-crit- of the humanistic intent of social change. of irreducible conflicts and materialises Absolute Idea in the exact opposite direc- ic or, more precisely, the practice of critic the irrational passions that it inspires. tion, that of Nature, which only exist self-reflexivity, which means that we also Looking back to past revolutions, includ- However, Mouffe’s model for the radical recurrently, in space. Becoming History of expect – or at least we used to expect – ing from the limited perspective of the democracy does it by only maintaining humanity, the Absolute Idea regains the that art would acknowledge itself its own pseudo-winning subject that history the social antagonisms until their end- dimension of temporality and, going on capability conditions, meaning, generally, offers: the French revolution, the October resolution can be conceived in a future this path, reaches the concrete Absolute its production capacities. These two con- revolution, the fall of the Berlin Wall and violence. The basic requirement of the Knowledge: this way, what was in-self, cepts – to acknowledge its possibility the ’89 waves of revolt, they all failed in democratic politics is not to extinguish the virtually, in the Absolute Idea, becomes conditions and, respectively, its produc- the attempt to disperse “a” domination, or passions from within the public, in order for-self, passing through the existence tion capacities – indicate two major seg- to replace “a” hegemonic structure with to create a possible rational consensus, and reflected in knowledge. The direction ments of modern critics: the theoretical “another”. Through the replacement of but rather to focus those passions of this movement is an accumulation of and the practical-political one. Kant was the political system, the fight is not over, towards democratic models. determinations, a growth, as Hegel says, the one to initiate the questioning regard- but merely the holistic entity adapted of the concrete. ing our knowledge possibility conditions itself to a new type of social order through “I do not see the relation between art and and who understood explicitly this query the transfer of influence from “direct politics in terms of two domains constitut- In the philosophical meaning, everything as an act of critics. From then on it can be power” to “soft power” or vice versa. The ed separately, art on one side and politics is true. But art also requires an assumed stated that modern reflexion is either crit- battle with the “political” continued even on the other, between which a relation- “aesthetic regime”(Jaques Rancière), ics – in this self-reflexive sense -, either it after the heroes have been mourned and ship should be established. There is an meaning it must be kept in mind the per- is not modern. (Boris Buden). But, the after the anti-revolutionists sacrilege. In aesthetic dimension in politics and there spective of the utility of the artistic Freudian repression, Foucauldian, post- these conditions, we must admit the is a dimension of politics in art. For that endeavour for the society in which it is modern, Stalinist, Leninist etc is identical, naivety of the speech admitting to more reason, I consider that a distinction being created; this utilitarianism allowing and the only aspect able to set the differ- simultaneous hegemonic structures and

[30] [31] acknowledges through a revolution the speech and which, at the same time, can 2005 victory of a hegemony over another function as an alternative institution to the hegemony. classical forms of regulation. We have the resources to contemplate our future. When we will acknowledge that the revo- We are in the it moment when the artistic lution is not a form of resistance, but act can legitimize best this kind of posi- rather a catalyst in the social process, tioning in front of the holistic, hegemonic then innocent victims will no longer be entity. References: necessary, and neither will be collateral damage. As the hegemony assimilates all The theoretic speechs, publications and • Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, "Hege- our means of expression, we could iden- exhibitions – as a means of direct interac- mony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a tify in its structure the possibility to relo- tion, should gather positions of some Radical Democratic Politics", Verso, 1985 cate the multi-culturalism of governmen- thinkers and artists from different genera- • Jacques Ranciere, "Dissensus, on poli- tal politics into the civic speech, diverging tions that refuse to participate in worn- tics and aesthetics", Continuum, 2010 the false globalisation focused on market out, dusty prescriptions of the market and • Jacques Ranciere, "The Politics of economy and generation of the virtual authority, and they create, in response, Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sen- policentralised capital, in a globalisation new radical methods of commitment, of sible", Continuum, 2006 of the critic speech, beneficial to all action. We should attempt to expand an • Frederic Jameson, "The Cultural Turn: micro-societies. indispensable, contemporary concept of Selected Writings on the Postmodern, political change – a concept that rises 1983-1998", Verso, 1999 In this regard, the representation of situa- above the obsolete formulations about • Gerald Raunig, "Art and Revolution. tions surpasses the quality of document- insurrection and resistance. Transversal Activism in the Long Twen- ing the recoil as a means of disguise a tieth Century", Semiotext(e), MIT Press form of social truth, towards the analytical Contemplation is not an action. It is 2010. defragmentation of the situation, offering expectation as an action, societal • Hito Steyerl, "Politics of Art: the possibility not only to contemplate a regress, individual indifference. The tran- Contemporary Art and the Transition to status-quo, but also for an intervention sition from contemplation of a situation, Postdemocracy", e-flux journal, 12/2010 from the behalf of the civil society. And from its representation, to constructing • Borys Groys, "From medium to mes- yet, is it enough to limit ourselves to the situations must be undertaken immedi- sage. The art exhibition as model of a already classical aesthetics of represent- ately, without further delay. Conversely, new world order", Open - cahier on art ing through document? Is this manner of we will contemplate a condemned socie- and the public domain #16, NAi Publi- speech not already exhausted and ty. The right to resentment and protest is shing, 2009 redundant for the public space? not being assigned by anyone to you, you • Eugen Rădescu, "Private Liberties! just claim it. We should learn from the Public Order", “Exploring the Return of The transition of institutional critics from Spanish “Los Indignados”. We should Repression”, reader, PAVILION 2010. the academic environment to the learn the right to be indignant. • Raymond Aron, "Spectateur engagé. autonomous structures is more than wel- Entretiens avec Jean-Louis Missika et come for the conversion that already Too much blood and ink have been Dominique Wolton, Éditions Montparnasse, began in the critical artistic speech. We spilled for the revolutionary machinery 2005 find there the necessary resources to and for the artistic one to remain separat- • David Harvey, "The Enigma of Capital overcome the moment of contemplating ed. and the Crises of Capitalism, Profile the situation, the possibility to construct Books, 2010 situations and functional public structures • Boris Buden, “Der Schacht von Babel. bringing their own input on the critic Ist Kultur übersetzbar?”,Berlin: Kadmos [32] [33] one hand, this ‘unhappy consciousness’ critique in the context of the countries of The Internalisation of the Discourse of within institutional critique is the institu- South-East Europe. tional consciousness that is conscious of Institutional Critique and the ‘Unhappy itself, as being divided internally and as Let me give you the good news now: Consciousness’ not being able to reconcile itself with its what could demonstrate more clearly that ‘other’ – the institutional system. On the institutional critique is still possible and other, the undivided consciousness very much alive than the fact that individ- would be a dual self-consciousness uals and communities are still willing to which brings unity to the self and the step aside from society, pass judgment by Suzana Milevska ‘other’. In this text I want to argue that on it, and break free from the bonds of what stands behind the ‘unhappy con- ideology? By questioning and pursuing sciousness’ of the institutional critique is truth, these ‘rebels’ seek to achieve a the performative contradiction of contem- kind of institutional emancipation. porary society today that prevents such unity from taking place. Seen from this perspective, if we try, The vicious cycle of institutional critique despite all the contradictions, to re-estab- stems from its dichotomous nature. It However, the question to be asked here lish the need for institutional critique in a inevitably entails a certain position that is, what if such a completely independent post-socialist context, we see that the exists outside or beyond any institution, position of institutional critique (beyond question of the standpoint that any such in contrast to the institutional position that any institution) cannot exist? What if one institutional critique might adopt becomes is being criticised. It implies a severe cri- can utter relevant statements only when crucial and much more relevant, in fact, tique of powerful, supposedly autocratic, there is a certain institutional framework than the choice of any professional institutions and their systems of gover- (weak or strong), from which to speak? standpoint. Because of the crisis of legit- nance, in contrast to the preferred form of Does this indicate that the position of any imation and state authority in this transi- weak, supposedly democratic, institu- institutional critique is that of a double tional period, institutional critique has tions that, by all accounts, are expected dialectics, always already simultaneously become possible in more general and to deal with art and cultural production in self-legitimising and self-legitimated and, political terms, and not only in terms of art a more creative and liberal way. I want to therefore, strong but questionable, in or cultural institutions. Therefore, it has argue that, because of this dichotomy, implying the oppositional shortcomings, become increasingly significant to deter- any discourse reliant on institutional cri- exactly because of its reliance on self- mine whether institutional critique should tique, paradoxically, becomes danger- legitimated strength? be understood as: ously internalised, in a similar way to the biopower and biopolitics that are its initial The main paradox of institutional critique - a singular position of an artist, art critic targets. [1] is that at first sight it seems as though it or cultural producer is a logical impossibility, on account of - a position of a self-organised communi- I am interested in tackling the set of ques- this internal performative contradiction – ty of art and culture producers tions that derives from such an intrinsical- meaning that it is always already impos- - a neo-liberal governmental position ly dichotomous split within institutional sible, a posited contradiction within itself, - a conservative (nationalist) critique, or critique, which results in an ‘unhappy in which the interlocutors are entrapped, - a non-governmental – democratic civil consciousness’. Hegel called this kind of since they deny the possibility of commu- society organisation. divided mode of consciousness the nication and understanding. [3] However, It is important to emphasise that, even ‘unhappy consciousness’, because the even if this were so, it would be relevant though each of the above-mentioned self is in conflict with itself when there is to discuss the potentialities for other pos- positions entails a different starting point, no unity between self and other. [2] On the sible directions in transitional institutional some of the objectives of these different [34] [35] positions overlap and intertwine with resistive individuals, but also progressive dynamic exchange between movement is a two way street: each other. Institutional critique can only institutions and civil society NGOs oper- and institution can be maintained. have a relevant impact on society as a ate on the same plane of governmentali- On the one hand, institutions very quickly whole, if the agents of institutional cri- ty.’ [6] The main attribute of parrhesia In addition to Raunig’s proposal for apply- internalise the critique aimed at them, by tique are aware that their questions are (‘frankness’, ‘freedom of speech’) is not ing parrhesia as a double strategy (as an appropriating the same vocabulary as formulated from a certain institutional the possession of truth, which is made attempt to engage in a process of refuta- their critics and superficially incorporating platform. public in a certain situation, but the taking tion and self-questioning), I would sug- the new structures. Institutions criticised of a risk, the ‘fact that a speaker says gest that dialogical critique offers a more in this way are strengthened in the However, a more complex approach something dangerous - something other appropriate model of institutional critique, process, even if they continue to work would suggest that the different strands than what the majority believes.’[7] in terms of a positive agency of action. I under the same rules as before: an insti- of institutional critique can be brought Raunig actually refers to Foucault’s state- suggest that a kind of deconstruction of tution constructs itself only after being together under a common denominator. ment that distinguishes between the the one-way critique inherited from the interpellated by the right kind of critical Self-consciousness embodies a certain ‘classical Greek conception of parrhesia’ models of institutional critique from the opposition! intrinsic ‘otherness’ within itself, in that – constituted by those who dare ‘to tell 1970s and 1990s would engender a col- the self is conscious of what is other than the truth to other people’ - and a new truth laborative policy that could engage both On the other hand, critics themselves itself. Self-consciousness on the part of game, which entails being ‘courageous state and independent institutions in the internalise institutional power, by practis- institutional critique is contradictory, enough to disclose the truth about one- same critical projects, and favour the ing the same forms of self-criticism time because it is conscious of both sameness self.’ [8] development of institutional awareness, and time again, to the point where this and otherness. The contradictions of gov- though promoting a critical, yet construc- starts to govern their own activities. By ernmentality, self-governance and self- The activity of speaking the truth is much tive form of institutional activity. continuing to use the same methods, organisation, to name but a few exam- more important than setting up truth in under the pretext of receiving protection ples. The fundamental challenge of each opposition to a lie, or to something ‘false’. Instead of assuming that an institution from more powerful institutions, they thus form of government is how to govern, but Criticism, and especially institutional cri- has internalised power through the instru- become the gate-keepers and agents of not too much, or, as Michel Foucault tique, is not limited to denouncing abus- ments of governance only because it is a form of negation that itself amounts to famously put it: ‘The suspicion that one es, or to withdrawing into a more or less an institution with a higher position in the the exercise of power, of a different kind. always risks governing too much is radical from of self-questioning. In the hierarchy, perhaps it would be more con- inhabited by the question: Why, in fact field of the visual arts, this means that structive to remember that the institutions In particular, the shift in institutional cri- one must govern?...In other words, what neither the belligerent strategies of insti- of power are all around us, and that tique can best be discussed, by taking makes it necessary for there to be a gov- tutional critique of the 1970s nor the biopolitics reaches much further than into consideration the shift in the role of ernment, and what ends should it pursue notion of art as a service to the institution only within its own institution. contemporary art museums in South- with regard to society in order to justify its from the 1990s offer any guarantee of the Acknowledging this complex entangle- East Europe and the challenge to their existence?’[4] The ‘art of government’, for potential for intervening effectively in the ment of power, its institutions, and its cri- monopolistic position on the regional art Foucault, is actually something that does governmentality of the present. [9] tique, could bring us closer to a sober, scene, posed both by individuals and by not entail any universalised distinction more refined, critical position that would the emergence of independently run, between different governing systems. According to Raunig, a productive game be responsive to today’s forms of institu- non-governmental, art spaces. These ‘Instead of making the distinction emerges from the relationship between tional critique. Different institutions could changes have mainly occurred, because between state and civil society into a his- activists and the institution, so that social then contribute, both by embracing a self- of the new critical curatorial practices that torical universal that allows us to examine criticism and institutional critique perme- critical approach and by critiquing each started as far back as the early 1990s all the concrete systems, we can try to ate the interwoven strands of forms of others’ practices. and have been carefully nurtured by see it as a form of schematization charac- political and personal parrhesia. It is only small, but very active, art institutions. teristic of a particular technology of gov- by linking the two techniques of parrhesia Institutional Critique, as the ernment.’ [5] that one-sided instrumentalisation can be Internalisation of Power and Politics It is important to stress the fact that, in the avoided, the institutional machine is beginning, most of these new initiatives - According to Gerald Raunig, ‘not only saved from closing itself off, and the The internalisation of institutional critique especially, the appearance of the Soros

[36] [37] Contemporary Art Centers and their off- tional artists had donated to the city recently, with the support from the Italian directly affected the wider art scene in shoots - were viewed as urgently needed immediately after the catastrophic earth- Government, but a question mark hangs Macedonia. Mainly because of the means of balancing, contesting, and quake of 1963. The new museum, which over the condition of the works that have monopoly of power in the display of con- even confronting, the monopoly of the opened in 1970, was one of very few been held in storage under appalling con- temporary art, hardly any criticism has powerful state-governed and -supported museums of contemporary art in the ditions for more than fifteen years [13] been directed at to the problematic artis- art institutions. Their important political region and could thus be regarded as a tic and cultural policies that are being pur- agenda was to stand up to communist cultural institution of exceptional impor- This policy of self-promotion on the part sued by the museum. It has even ideology, in favour of an ‘Open Society’ tance. The plans for the building were of the museum’s curatorial team, and of become impossible for artists who are not purportedly by promoting the new art themselves a gift to the city by the Polish support for only a handful of favoured interested in the issues that dominate the media.[10] However, there were instances architects J. Mokrzynski, E. Wierzbicki artists, has gradually resulted in the build- MOCA/SCCA’s agenda of large-scale where an ambiguous kind of unwritten and W. Klyzewski and envisaged a total ing, and the institution itself, becoming group exhibitions and electronic arts to agreement was reached between the area of 5000 square metres, with over completely marginalised within society exhibit in the framework of these institu- centre and margin, and between the 3500 square metres of exhibition space, and by the general public. Attempts by tions. mainstream and alternative.. Therefore, plus storage space, cinema, archives, independent artists and critics to protest, the internalisation of institutional critique library and all the other necessary con- in the name of democracy, against this Today many things have changed. The on the part of these new institutional comitants. [11] However, the museum’s centralised abuse of power have been weakening of the SCCA-Skopje, due to models for almost a decade threatened to administration always had a struggle to isolated and doomed from the outset. the loss of support from its main benefac- become an even more centralised manage its assets and the building was Indeed, any outsider attempting to criti- tor, and the right-wing nationalistic cultur- monopoly of power, at least in cultural completely run down by 1994, as a result cise the institution has risked a form of al policy of the governing coalition that environments where the state institutions of the poor decision the management had ostracisation that is virtually tantamount places greater emphasis on national her- collaborated closely with their critical taken, to redirect the funds assigned to it to committing professional suicide. On itage and archaeology, and less on con- counterparts. for acquisitions and structural mainte- the one hand, artists and critics who temporary art, have led to a general dete- nance into programme activities. (Recent voice any kind of criticism are ruled out rioration of the situation and a decline in The most interesting example of this kind examples of this tendency have included from participation in any creative initia- these institutions’ once untouchable of merging of state power with opposi- the decisions to use maintenance funds tives. On the other hand, ciriticality turns monopoly. Paradoxically, this worsening tional institutional critique was the collab- to cover the expenses of an exhibition in into a vicious cycle, so that those situation in the museum has opened up oration between the Soros Contemporary Japan, in 2000, and to use rental income expressing critical views have been pre- the possibility of new kinds of institution- Art Center Skopje and the Skopje from a wedding reception at the museum vented from taking any initiatives of their al, or non-institutional, practices. Museum of Contemporary Art that started in 1998 to pay for the cost of a museum own through the combined opposition of with the very beginning of the activities of café in 1998, instead of repairing the institutional critique and institutional Some recent public-private collaborations the SCCA-Skopje, in 1994. At that time roof). The decision not to spend funds on power.[14] are especially relevant here. Independent the Museum of Contemporary Art was at structural repairs to the roof, in particular, initiatives, such as the press to exit proj- its undisputed acme, as the lead institu- has led to the catastrophic situation in The best example of this perverse state ect space in Skopje and the Tocka tion for the presentation of international which the entire collection has had to be of affairs is provided by my earlier com- Cultural Centre, in Skopje, function in a contemporary art in Skopje, and the only removed from public display for the last ment, to the effect that the Soros Center similar way to better known and longer institution professionally capable of rep- fifteen years or so, and more and more of for Contemporary Art Skopje had initially established alternative spaces, such as resenting Macedonian contemporary art the museum’s important potential long- been promoted as a kind of alternative to Kuda, in Novi Sad, P74 in Ljubljana, abroad. term partners, such as international foun- the Museum of Contemporary Art. What WHW in Zagreb, and Remont in dations and other museums, have aban- actually happened was that, when the Belgrade. These all function in such a The Museum of Contemporary Art was doned any thought of collaboration, SCCA-Skopje joined forces with way as largely to overcome the performa- established in1964, as the outcome of a because of the risk of showing any valu- Contemporary Art in the early 90s, it tive contradiction in institutional critique political decision, embodied an Act of the able, or sizeable, exhibitions under such brought even more power to the muse- and its unhappy consciousness, and suc- Skopje City Assembly, to host the collec- conditions. [12] The first serious attempt to um. Of course, there would have been ceed in producing art projects that deal tion of art works that hundreds of interna- reconstruct the building was started only nothing wrong with this, if it had not with institutional critique in a more posi-

[38] [39] tive, and visionary, way.[15] Instead of cri- Notes: of the flow of capital: Mark Lombardi, conducted in Skopje between the author of tiquing, complaining or nagging, the new George W. Bush, Harken Energy, and this text and the museum’s curator, generation of artists and artivists, with the [1] Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri, Jackson Stephens, ca. 1979-90 (5th ver- Viktorija Vasev-Dimeska. The controversy support of many different funding sources Empire, London: Harvard University Press, sion). was triggered by a review written on the and foreign institutions, have become 23-27. [11] Today the stock of donated works con- occasion of the Second Youth Biennial, aware that their committed art activities [2] Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, sists of around 4600 art works by several curated by Vasev-Dimeska at the Museum are perhaps the most productive form of Phenomenology of Spirit, Oxford: Oxford hundred artists in various media, but of Contemporary Art in Skopje. See institutional critique, and that they may University Press, 1979, 119-139. acquisitions are rare and incidental. The Suzana Milevska, ‘The Perfectionism of ultimately lead towards a kind of self-par- [3] Habermas, Jürgen, ‘Discourse Ethics: works by internationally well-known artists the Obedient– or why the 2 Youth Biennial rhesia. Notes on a Program of Philosophical are of special importance, but most of the looks so classical’, in Republika, 10 Justification’, in Habermas, Moral works that are now in the museum depot September 1990. The text of this review Consciousness and Communicative either belong to early modernism (Jan Štur- was published in the first independent and Action, trans. C. Lenhardt and S.W. sa, Václav Spála, Emil Filla, Františ ek privately owned newspaper in Macedonia, Nicholsen (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, Muzika, Jindrich Stýrský, Vojtech Preissig) Republika. It was envisaged as an attempt 1990), 89. or date from 1950s -1970s: Fernand Léger, to problematise the ideology behind the [4] Foucault, Michael, Ethics, Essential André Masson, Pablo Picasso, Hans strictly modernist institutional and cultural Works of Foucault 1954-1984, Editor: Paul Hartung, Victor Vasarely, Alexander policy of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Rabinow, New York: The New Press, 1997, Calder, Pierre Soulages, Henryk Staževski, known for continuously neglecting and 74-75. Alberto Burri, Christo, Enrico Baj, Robert leaving aside many alternative postmodern [5] Foucault 75. Jacobsen, Etienne Hajdu, Zoltan Kemeny, artistic practices, such as the performanc- [6] Raunig, Gerald, ‘The Double Criticism Robert Adams, Emilio Vedova, Antoni es, public painting actions, installation, and of parrhesia: Answering the Question Clavé, Georg Baselitz ... concerts of the members of the ‘What is a Progressive (Art) Institution?"’, [12] There is a series from 2004 of ten dig- Macedonian art group, Zero. 18 September 2007 http://eipcp.net/trans- ital photographs, ‘Legend About the [15] The best example is the project ‘Oskar versal/0504/raunig/en/ “legen”’ (Mac. bucket) that the artist, Saš o Hansen’s Museum of Modern Art’, by [7] Raunig, ‘The Double Criticism’. Stanojkoviќ, made on the upper floor of the Hristina Ivanoska and Yane Calovski, [8] Michel Foucault, Diskurs und Wahrheit, Museum of Contemporary Art. The photo- which looks at the proposal that this Polish Berlin 1996, p.14 (cf. discussion of parrhe- graphs show the colourful plastic bucket architect submitted to the open competition sia in English: , 150, quoted from um for almost fifteen years, instead of the Skopje, instigated by the Polish Raunig, ‘The Double Criticism of parrhe- collection (reproduced in Contemporary, Government in 1966. This proposal did not sia’). London, No.70, 2005, 20.) win the competition, as it was conceived as [9] Raunig, ‘The Double Criticism’. Taking into account the fact that that floods a radical, visionary experiment, proposing [10] George Soros, the main founder of the of dirty ‘rivers’ are frequent sights in the the use of transformative design. With 12 Open Society Foundations that started to museum after each rainy day, some proj- posters of imagined exhibitions, Ivanoska emerge throughout Eastern Europe in the ects exhibited in the museum (such as and Calovski simulated an imaginary pro- early 90s and of their offshoots, such as Mozart’s Boat by Antoni Maznevski, con- gramme for the museum that was never the Soros Centers for Contemporary Art, is sisting of a 6.5 m wooden boat), sounded realised. See press to exit project space, a controversial figure, with an overtly prob- like a bad joke. 28 September 2007 lematic philanthropic image. Beside the [13] The fact that the director newly intellectual aura owing to Soros’ friendship appointed in 2008 comes from the field of www.presstoexit.org.mk/LectureAndPresen and obsession with the philosopher, Karl theatre management does not inspire tation/HTML_2007/OlafHansen.html Popper, there are many financial scandals much confidence in the quality of future that cast doubt on his philanthropic programming, however. motives. Interestingly enough, his name [14] From 10 September to 16 October Edited by Henry Meyric Hughes. appeared in one of Mark Lombardi’s charts 1990, a three-months’ local debate was [40] [41] Eikonomia: Notes on economy and the Labor of Art

by Sotirios Bahtsetzis

Much has been told about the dangerous impact of a superficial, lifestyle-based and money-oriented culture, which has been often identified as the major reason why people become passive, docile and easy to manipulate, no matter how disad- vantageous their economic conditions might be. Following the illustrative cri- tique of two eminent proponents of this criticism, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, the culture of our times is TACTiCs for The here And now endangered by the uncontrollable sprea- ding of cultural industry into higher artistic production, which manipulates the mass- es into passivity and cultivates false needs [1]. “Art” that produces standard- ized cultural goods reflects a peculiar type of aestheticization of the everyday- world: a dream-like immersion into mass- produced commodities of culture indus- try. This immersion is equivalent to the adoption of behavioral stereotypes and judgment of taste linked to a continuous- ly advertised petit-bourgeois phantas- magoria, but also reflects the advanced commodification of social life. [42] [43] keep on offering the ontological proof for assume that the fetishistic character of Furthermore, this conviction has had an Let us concentrate on this point, as it the contemporaneity, by necessity, of commodities should be seen as a form of enormous impact on the current under- allows for a further meditation on the con- both market and politics. By contrast, of aesthetization of pragmatic human activi- standing of art as a derivate of a monop- nection between the art system, post- course, they guarantee the contempo- ty and autonomization, a disjoining of olized market, which functions on the capitalist economic power and official, raneity and validity of such an art within a human action from any moral or social same terms as the general financial mar- mainstream politics. Considering how given system. This is a win-win situation. realm. In this regard, individuality and ket, a view that experts in ‘art business’ politics work, we witness first that the sys- Every art produced today that doesn’t morality are evaluated in terms of their share. What is at stake in the contempo- temic ‘functionalization of autonomy’ comply with this system of mutual recog- materialistic creditability. Modernity within rary art field, according to so many of its observed by Osborne, can be also seen nition is automatically ostracized by dis- the condition of alienation demands this critics, is that the “art market” as formed as the grounding force of the post-demo- appearing from global media and, in this level of sophisticated abstraction in the 19th century has been replaced by cratic forms of hyper-capitalism. In other respect, from the public consciousness. between labor and value. Isn’t this the ‘art business’ since the mid-1980s, words, it appears that contemporary art’s real reason why we keep buying our reflecting not only that contemporary art usefulness offers to contemporary politics But what exactly does this systemic ‘func- Nikes although we are fully cognizant of has become a serious factor of wealth, a model of moral justification, as this art, tionalization of autonomy’ being at work the unbearable exploitation of humans in but also making visible the devastating in itself, becomes synonymous with the in both art and politics in economical their production? Nike as a “golden calf” influence of neo-liberal financial doctrines absolute autonomization and aesthetiza- terms mean? What is the actual reason is the emblem of commodity fetishism formed by pirate capitalists, corporate tion of both commercial pragmatism and for such an interdependence of art labor, that sustains, in a sensuous way, our lobbyists, and uncontrollable fiscal poli- political functionality. Art does not expose fiscal games and artful politics that alienated understanding of our inter-sub- cies upon an art system that now runs on its own uselessness for its own sake, but, seems to monopolize the art discourse jective relation to others: a totally crude the basis of speculation and self-promo- most significantly, it reflects the useless- today? Isn’t the debate of autonomy ver- form of paganism, which also illustrates tion. [2] ness of neo-liberal administration and, by sus heteronomy a rather masked way to the theological nature of Marx’s early extension, a post-capitalist market. talk about the fetishism of commodity— socio-economical thinking. But is art’s relation to money so transpar- one of the major concepts of Marxian ent, so that it can be seen solely as a Post-capitalist economy and neo-liberal analysis—and by extension, to expose Does art possess a particular status quo heroic struggle against its subjection to politics mime art’s claim for autonomy as the onto-theological conditions of such a within this theoretical edifice? Drawing on commodification and an opposing one of the grounding ethical values of ‘functionalization of autonomy’ best Marx’s seminal concepts of labor, alien- attempt to assert its aesthetic autonomy? Western civilization. In other words, the described with the term ‘capital’? ation and objectified species-being The implied dialectic of autonomy of art, alibi of autonomy, which has been the (Gattungswesen) of being human as a central concept in Adorno’s critique, main assertion and declaration of mod- In Marx’s concept of commodity fetish- described in the Manuscripts of 1844, we refers to a complex condition that can ernism during its constitution in the histor- ism, capitalist-exchange value is consti- can argue that an artwork represents a only be understood through a more ical avant-garde, works today for the ben- tuted at the level of social labor as a specific type of product of human labor.[7] dialectical critique. As Peter Osborne efit of politics and market of commodities, measure of abstract labor. It is not mate- It is not outside the human condition observes, the integration of autonomous which acts in disguise as (modern) art. riality of any object, which assumes its and social-being (das gesellschaftliche art into the culture industry is “a new sys- For example, Andy Warhol’s conflation of fetishistic nature, but the commodification Wesen), which means that it partakes in temic functionalization of autonomy art and business attacks the culture of labor that results in the value of ‘objec- humankind’s universal sense of alien- itself—a new affirmative culture”—that industry by adopting its rules. On the tive’ commodities.[5] Although fetishism is ation, which is an inevitable intermediate promotes “art’s uselessness” for its own other hand, this same culture industry immanent to the commodity form, it con- stage within the so called socio-historical sake.[3] Ultimately, the self-legislated attacks Warhol’s subjective liberalism by ceals not simply the exchange value of process. However, the product of human “laws of form” in pure art—autonomous adopting his artfulness. From this stand- commodity, but, most significantly, the labor as a sovereign and self-contained meaning production by the work—is an point, art must reflectively incorporate exchange-value of abstract labor that force (unabhängige Macht), which is illusion. “Works of art are thus autono- neo-liberal politics and post-capitalist stands for the product of labor.[6] Based independent from its producer, potentially mous to the extent to which they produce market into its procedures, not in order to on that Marxian observation and linking it entails the means to overcome the alien- the illusion of their autonomy. Art is self- remain contemporary (neo-modern, post- to the concept of the ‘functionalization of ated stage of current social-being. conscious illusion.”[4] modern or ‘alter-modern’) but in order to autonomy’ described above, we can

[44] [45] Radicalizing this Marxian analysis, we the product, but, most significantly, the the everyday world of art business in nature, in fact, guarantees the commodi- can then offer a more refined description generic fetish character of commodity or order to provide evidence for such a par- ty’s disposability.[9] of autonomous artwork. Artworks are, in capital in general, and, therefore, the adoxical thesis. We can honestly say that any case, a product like any other and commodification of labor, which consti- the reason for the hostility with which gal- It can be argued that the artwork’s double thus a part of the capitalist exchange sys- tutes the value of ‘objective’ commodities. leries face the mercantile practices of nature has enormous consequences for tem. However, they are defined by a spe- auction houses can be traced back to this a capitalist market system. Actually, its cial type of resistance; not a resistance to The work of art comes to be an double nature of the artwork. By simply character, as an intensified fetish safe- being subjected to their capitalist com- acheiropoieton—not handmade—and offering an artwork to open sale, an auc- guards any commodity’s struggle to be modification, but by another type of thus theologized. The term has been tion house often degrades the artwork to presented as an acheiropoieton, which immunity. They tend to refuse commodi- used in Byzantine theology to describe a mere commodity of exchange-value. In thus can be disguised and sold as a ty’s own raw fetishization, which, when icons, which are alleged to have come this case, the artwork appears to be an ‘pure’ artwork. The “new systemic func- unconcealed—that can happen at any into existence miraculously, not crea- interchangeable equity, like real-estate tionalization of autonomy itself—a new time—simply exposes its uselessness, ted by a human painter. According to and stock-market bonds, stripped of any ‘affirmative culture’—is a coy description drawing attention directly to the masked Alain Besançon’s reading of Hegel’s mystifications and negating its character of this fact. Such a belief is gloriously per- social constitution of capitalist exchange. Aesthetics, the notion of modern art is as intensified fetish as an acheiropoieton. formed in the contemporary culture It might be easy to see behind any simple closed to such a concept of an icon.[8] Usually we experience only the negative industry, which produces commodities commodity as fetish and expose the One might assume that, even after the results of this double bind between the that must be sold, however frivolous, exchange-value structure that sustains it. Hegelian proclamation of “the end of art,” economy of commodity and the economy unnecessary or even impossible (like It becomes, however, very difficult to look the concept of art as an acheiropoieton of the intensified fetish. The practice of an Japanese gadgets) they might be. They behind an artwork as it constantly prevails, transcending art’s demise auction house can potentially pose a only manage to do so if they can be negates its capitalist exchange value despite its continuous secularization and threat to the controlled pricing and valida- masked with the aura of freedom that while preserving the concealment of humanization. If art’s function were to tion policy of a gallery or transform an stands in for the allegedly autonomous abstract labor assigned to it. make the divine visible (as in ancient artist’s career into a speculative bubble, artwork. The culture of logos, luxury Greece), its function in the modern era is with the subsequent sudden drop in price goods and cult objects benefits from this We can draw on the consequences here to make the visible divine. In other words, due to uncontrolled manipulations. almost theological dimension of the work and argue that art is somehow different over and above the common phantas- Suddenly, the artwork loses its value; it of art. This fact should be seen also as from any other type of commodity. Above magoria of commodity (Adorno’s posi- becomes a nothing, a useless play—or, the true reason why contemporary art is all, the debate between autonomy and tion), we have also the “asceticism” of the looking at it from another perspective—a so valuable to the financial market and heteronomy of art, or fiscalization of art work of art. In this regard, an acheiropoi- non-alienated product of human labor! political business today, and not neces- and aestheticization of the everyday- eton appears to be outside human nature On the other hand, galleries, through sarily the other way around. world, does not take place between the and its social order, possibly following their preferences for particular buyers value of ‘pure’ or autonomous art and its another disposition or system—in other (collectors and museums), often try to Can we go even further and argue that exchange-value as a commodity, but is a words, creating the illusion of autonomy protect the symbolic and “universal” contemporary art’s innate tendency to combat between two forms of fetishist from the (human) labor from which it aris- value of the artwork as something that replace the general fetishism of commod- character. In this regard, the artwork es and to which it belongs. An artwork can’t be sold. Having enough cash does- ity with the ‘particular economy of the art- (either as pure, or commercial, or even has the tendency to reside outside the n’t make someone automatically eligible work’ is the model for any and every sem- anti-artwork) is a fetish commodity of a normal mechanisms of the market, to to buy art. And this false exclusivity is not blance of societal pragmatism today? In second grade: an intensified fetish. The exist as something that cannot be sold, simply a matter of the ‘conspiracy of art,’ light of such a comment, and if we ignore ‘functionalization of autonomy’ might be as something that resists exchange, thus or the privilege of insider-trading attached the fact that the art system is actually seen as this additional fetish character of creating the illusion of a non-alienated to art by its practitioners, as Jean subjected to the dominant social relations art, which constitutes a reversed notion of social-being, although it is placed at the Baudrillard remarks, but an inherent qual- of capitalist exchange as argued above, fetish as described by Marx. This is a cat- very heart of neo-liberal speculation. ity of the artwork. In other words, the every wealthy collector appears to be a egory immanent only to the artwork. It “conspiracy of art” lies precisely within radical trickster, idealizing himself as a conceals not only the exchange-value of Let me give you a banal example from this paradox: the artwork’s unreachable romantic hero and spiritual Parsifal, as

[46] [47] some collectors indeed claim to be. always to translate a particular crisis of Lazzarato, Christian Marazzi) “social In addition to that, today’s extreme accel- Indeed, they might represent a kind of devalorization into a genuine global-mar- labor is the endless recombination of eration of production and distribution of hero if we consider the fact that one can ket crisis. Credit and speculation capital myriad fragments producing, elaborating, “semiocapital” has reached its capacity, easily earn more investing in the stock grow too fast because of electronic trans- distributing, and decoding signs and so that “deep, intense elaboration market and currencies, rather than buy- actions—automation offered by digital informational units of all kinds. Every becomes impossible, when the stimulus ing art. Investing in art is simply not lucra- technology—and, as a result, create vir- semiotic segment produced by the infor- is too fast.”[12] What if the present-day tive enough. If we take this statement tually instantaneous financial bubbles, mation worker must meet and match crisis of capitalism, which obviously has seriously, the choice between the two always ready to burst. innumerable other semiotic segments in reached the critical moment of “an over- forms of investment is actually a combat order to form the combinatory frame of whelming supply of attention-demanding between two forms of commodity Art as intensified fetish always masks its the info-commodity, semiocapital.”[11] If goods,” is a crisis of goods, which cannot fetishism: the labor versus the intensified own existence as fictitious capital, elimi- commodity fetishism conceals the be consumed? What if current crisis is fetish. Both types of investment are nating in this way any moral considera- exchange-value of abstract labor not a financial crisis, but a crisis of gover- potentially unstable and they demand the tion regarding its speculative nature. We (according to Marx), then labor stands nance and distribution of the produced readiness of the investor to take risks. can then assume that art’s fictitious capi- today for the attentive and affective time semio-time? What is the alternative to But only the second can safeguard capi- tal represents the best possibility for a we produce and consume. Labor today is this condition, which art can offer? tal’s ontological foundation. continuous deferral of the outbreak of an both a semiotic generator and a creator unavoidable capitalist crisis, and, for that of organic time (of attention, memory and Art represents a very particular type of We can expand the discussion and argue reason, view art on the macro-economic imagination) to be produced and con- semiocapital. In contrast to the accelerat- that a work of art in times of economic cri- level as the best option of safeguarding sumed. Let me give you a simple exam- ed and digitally self-multiplied capital of sis, such as the current one, actually rep- the system deflecting a crisis of over- ple: Television advertisers purchase the globalized finance system, the semio- resents the ideological means for capi- investment. Compared to credit and advertising time slots. The question is, time produced and consumed within the tal’s own survival. Economic crisis is speculation capital of a digitally multiplied however, from whom do they buy this system of art is slow; and it is personal. linked to fluctuation of what the ‘fictitious finance, art represents in this regard a time. Aren’t the millions of spectators who You need some ninety minutes to watch a capital’ to which, mainly, credit and spec- slow type of fictitious capital. It requires offer their attention, cognitive engage- film, but only seconds to consume a TV ulation capital belong.[10] According to its own investment time. This would ment and time while watching commer- commercial. With modifications, the Norbert Trenkle’s analysis of the current mean that art is the perfect defense cials the actual creditors of media and same applies to the reading of a painting, economic crisis, “the growth of fictitious mechanism, an optimal deferral of the creative industries? This is modernity’s or a book of poetry. Furthermore, art capital not only provides an alternative possible outbreak of systemic crisis credo. However, one must add that infor- deals primarily with the importance of dis- choice for investors, but also constitutes, inherent to a capitalist system. Art can mation theory does not consider the tributed messages, not with its informa- when viewed on the macroeconomic combat the stagnation of the valorization importance of the message, or its mean- tional quantity. In this regard, quality level, a deferral of the outbreak of crisis,” of capital in the real economy. If so, col- ing, as these are matters of the quality of equals the intellectual labor and cognitive which is inherent to capitalist system. lectors are indeed the heroes of macro- data, rather than its quantity and read- activity invested by the production of art (Such a crisis is a crisis of over-accumu- economic planning. ability. In this regard, the message quali- workers and the reception of connois- lation, or, to put it in the vocabulary of ty distributed through the television is of seurs of art. It is the deceleration of intel- contemporary macro-economics, a crisis This is true. However, in search of a bet- no importance. Semiocapital pays no lectual labor and cognitive activity offered of “over-investment.” In this case, a pro- ter understanding of the current status attention to the importance of distributed by art that makes the difference. portion of capital becomes excessive— quo, it is important to choose an alterna- messages. Such a disjuncture between Deceleration means to focus on the cre- measured according to its own abstract tive perspective: In the current state of informational quantity and quality of the ation of deeper, slower and intensified rationality as an end in itself—and is, hyper-capitalism, human labor guaran- communication finds its equivalence in time, to concentrate on the production therefore, threatened by devalorization.) tees both the over-productivity and the the economical system: Since the aban- and reception of meaning—ideally the As the outbreak of a series of capitalist accumulation, not of goods, but of com- donment of the gold parity rule, the value maximum quantity of infinite and, for that crises from the 1970s until today have modities in the form of information. As of monetary currency is determined reason, inconsumable meaning! (This shown credit and speculation capital to Franco Berardi Bifo notes: for the post- through its “informational” value, its might be another way to describe what be extremely unreliable, they threaten operaist thought (Paolo Virno, Maurizio exchangeability in stock markets.) Adorno has called art’s “muteness,” as

[48] [49] for Adorno art is critical insofar as it is conomic concepts such as the capitalist speculation, could art—understood as inconsumable and intensified semiocapi- mute, insofar as what it communicates is ethics of work (according to Max Weber) affective and sensuous time—offer an tal slowing down affective and cognitive its muteness.) or fetishism of commodities, alienation alternative? If economy alongside bio- time—or, in the words of Lazzarato, and human labor (as per Marx). Not only politics is the secularized pendant to it creates novel “time-crystallization- What if present-day crisis of semiocapi- various political concepts, but also the tri- oikonomia and technological spectacle machines.”[16] This is its hidden surplus talism is at the same time a crisis of cur- umph of financial thinking over every produced by modern industries of the value in view of a future society in which rent political order? In order to elucidate other aspect of life in our times, testify to imaginary is the equivalent to Glory, then labor is not a commodity, but the produc- this last thesis, I would like to link the this close connection of modernity to the the question that arises is: If the work of tion and consumption of content-time. notion of the work of art with the notion of secularized version of the theological art as a dispositif of acheiropoieton can oikonomia as analyzed by Giorgio concept of economy and governance. be turned back against the doctrines, It is indeed difficult to imagine a world in Agamben. The theological doctrine of The novelty of Agamben’s claim—echo- what caused human labor to appear as a which the ‘economy of the artwork’ will oikonomia—originally meaning ‘steward- ing both Walter Benjamin’s ideas of capi- commodity at the very beginning, and have a stronger influence on the global ship,’ or wise and responsible manage- talism as religion and Carl Schmitt’s current society to look like a network sim- distribution of images, stock-market ment or administration of domestic life— famous thesis about the modern theory of ply of fiscalized info-producers? courses and the bio-politics of labor and was first developed by early Christian state as a secularized theological con- will be able to establish a paradigmatic fathers in order to interpret the divine cept—is that modern power is inherent in It is pertinent to us that art permanently shift in society. But even if such a world intervention of a personal God into the not only to political and financial adminis- assumes its position as acheiropoieton— remains utopian for the moment, art’s world. This concept was introduced in tration, but also to ‘Glory,’ (doxa) meaning a slow and mute icon—offering the double nature, which intervenes both in order to reconcile monotheism as an the ceremonial, liturgical acclamatory impression that it is situated outside the cycles of financial speculation and in emerging state religion with the doctrine apparatus that has always accompanied world of labor (semio-time) as part of a actual productive economy of affective of the divine nature of the Son (within the it: “The society of the spectacle—if we particular economy. In this regard, the time, still offers options for working within Trinity) and thus explain and justify the can call contemporary democracies by ‘economy of the art work’ might be the the structures of managerial, economic intervention of God’s house, the Church, this name—is, from this point of view, a hidden equivalent of both the govern- and political control. Beyond any roman- into the earthly world. The extremely society in which power in its “glorious” mental machinery and the economic con- tic ideas of revolution, which might end sophisticated Byzantine discourse of aspect becomes indiscernible from trol power within our ‘alienated’ society. the ‘evils of capitalism,’ the marketability oikonomia is directly linked to an elabo- oikonomia and government. To have Because of this, art strives to infiltrate of art should not be seen as its handi- rate conceptualization of the icon (mainly completely integrated Glory with oikono- current society with the ascetic notion of cap, but as its safeguarding screen—a that of Jesus and, by extension, of all mia in the acclamative form of consensus the acheiropoieton and to hijack the trompe-l'œil until a universal economy of imagery) as being part both of the heav- is, more specifically, the specific task car- secret center of power: capitalism’s polit- the artwork can be established. This enly and the earthly realm.[13] ried out by contemporary democracies ical and financial mechanisms and the might not cancel out the condition of Understanding oikonomia (or dispositio and their government by consent, whose spectacular “glory” that sustain them. alienation that is inherent to the human in Latin) as a Foucauldian project, original paradigm is not written in Eikonomia[15], an economy of the work of condition and create a society free of Agamben interprets it as a general theo- Thucydides’ Greek, but in the dry Latin of art, can be the Trojan horse against the conflicts—the romantic dream of all logical genealogy of modern economy medieval and baroque treaties on the appealing and seductive deluge of accel- social revolutions—but it might be able to and governmentality. Modern political divine government of the world.”[14] erated information produced by ‘creative’ suspend its force to destroy our inherent and economic doctrines, such as the investment-managers, film-producers, social-being. The price to be paid is often invisible hand of liberalism over a self- It is exactly the issue of what is perceived software developers and corporate very high: present-day impoverishment regulated market and society, go back to as the visual manifestation of power sus- advertisers, which sustain commodity and precarization of intellectual labor, these early-Christian theological con- tained by the semio-time offered by con- fetishism and direct consensual political which makes artists (and, with them, cepts, which refer to God’s activity in the sumers-creditors of semiocapitalism, decision-making. Such an alternative inventors, philosophers, therapists and world. Such a genealogy of economy— which allows mediation regarding art’s economy does not exist outside the given educators) appear simply as ornamental meaning of a government of men and current state and future role. In view of system of hyper-capitalism. It simply accessories of economy. Indeed, pres- things—is pertinent to a critical re-orien- capitalism’s tendency to commercialize works outside the given informational ent-day “immaterial” and creative workers tation of thinking concerning key socioe- everything as part of global financial parameters of this system. It produces an belong to the most exploited part of the

[50] [51] labor society. Not so, though, if we evalu- Notes: Prices on the Market for Contemporary place, which always presupposes that ate this labor not with economic, but with Art (Princeton, Oxford: Princeton Univer- abstract labor is spent on the production eikonomic criteria. Nevertheless, in a [1] Horkheimer, M. and Adorno, T.W.: The sity Press, 2005), p. 145. of commodities and services and that a futuristic post-human scenario, in which Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass [3] Peter Osborne, “Imaginary Radica- proportion of it is siphoned off as semiocapital is not only produced but Deception (London: Continuum lisms: Notes on the Libertarianism of surplus value.” Norbert Trenkle, also consumed by those who are able to International Publishing Group, 1976), p. Contemporary Art,” in: Verksted No. 8 “Tremors on the Global Market,” in: deal with its endless acceleration— 121. (2006), p. 15. http://www.krisis.org/2009/tremors- meaning by ‘intelligent’ machines—and in [2] Interestingly, the moral justification of [4] Osborne, p. 18. on-the-global-market#more-3383 which humanity exists only as a beautiful, this neo-liberal cult in economy coincides [5] Stewart Martin, “Critique of Relational [11] Franco Berardi Bifo: “Cognitarian viral bubble within a gigantic technologi- with the phenomenon of the artist as a Aesthetics,” in: in: Verksted No. 8 (2006), Subjectivation”, in: Aranda, Julieta, Kuan cal, informational and fiscal Gestell (the superstar, which actually commences p. 113. Wood, Brian, Vidolke, Anton (eds.), Are beginning of which might be the so called with the so-called third phase of contem- [6] Martin, p. 106. You Working Too Much? Post-Fordism, “Internet of Things”), the intensified, non- porary art—art since the mid 1980s—and [7] Karl Marx, Ökonomisch-philosophis- Precarity, and the Labor of Art (e-flux fiscalized and creative time offered by art should be seen as symptomatic of an che Manuskripte, Kommentar von journal) (Berlin: Sternberg, 2011), p. 135. would be our only recourses. Focusing equivalent transformation in society. As Michael Quante (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, [12] Ibid., 138. more on labor as praxis, as a bringing Olav Velthuis remarks in his insightful 2009), p. 195. [13] see: Marie-José Mondzain: Image, forth and taking into account human sociological analysis of the art market, 8] “The sensible rises toward the divine icône, économie. Les sources Byzantines labor’s product as an acheiropoieton and the year 1980 marks the first time that the and enters art only at the state of ideality, de l’imaginaire contemporain (Paris: its specific oikonomia, might offer us highest price was ever paid for a work of of the abstract sensible. Art thus ‘lies Seuil, 1996) some solutions: worshiping less the gold- art by a living artist, $1 million for the nearer to the spirit and its thinking than [14] Giorgio Agamben: The Kingdom and en calf of semiocapital and creating invis- painting Three Flags by Jasper Johns. purely external spiritless nature does.’ the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy ible dispositivs of intensified time! This What is more significant, however, is not The matter it exerts itself on is ‘a spiritu- of Economy and Government (Stanford: project will require its own economists, just the “winner-take-all” economic model alized sensible appearance or a sensible Stanford University Press, 2011) p. xii; theorists and workers. Even if, for now, that began to inform the art market, but appearance of the spiritual.’” Alain Doxa in Greek means both Glory and the leading a life that is as creatively intense also the so-called “superstar circuit” that Besançon: The Forbidden Image. An common belief or popular opinion. as it is economically effective shouldn’t emerged in the New York art world of the Intellectual History of Iconoclasm [15] I freely use the term eikonomia in ref- be seen as taboo—one should also urge: 1980s. According to Velthuis, Julian (Chicago and London: The University of erence to theoretical debates during Watch to whom you offer credit! Schnabel is the representative case of an Chicago Press, 2000), p. 205. Byzantine iconoclasm. See Emanuel Sotirios Bahtsetzis is an adjunct profes- artist whose rapid rise of the price level of [9] Obviously, the conflict between gal- Alloa, “Bildökonomie. Von den theologis- sor in art history and an independent his work (and equally fast decline), have leries and action houses as presented chen Wurzeln eines streitbaren Begriffs” curator based in Athens and Berlin. His characterized the market’s mentality and here is a theoretical example. The reality Image, Ausgabe 2, 6 (2005) p. 13-24 research interests include image theory, its “aggressive superstar pricing strate- is often simpler: Because auction houses [16] Maurizio Lazzarato: Video-philoso- political theory and contemporary cultural gy.” (In a period of less than seven years, not only often present the appearance of phie. Zeitwahrnehmung im Postford- analysis. Recent publications: The Time Schnabel prices soared from $3,000 to a free market, but also a powerful system ismus (Berlin: B-Books, 2002). That Remains (e-flux Journal v. 28 & v. $300,000, improving with this increase of of interdependencies between a gallery, 30), Image Wars (Afterimage v. 38); prices the “symbolic” and financial posi- an auction house and a private or corpo- Recent exhibitions: Roaming Images (3. tion of the artist, his dealers and his col- rate collection, they control—and monop- Thessaloniki Biennale). lectors.) Warranted or not, this mixture of olize—prices and values. show business and stock-market mental- [10] As Norbert Trenkle explains, “credit ity linked to prospective financial success and speculation capital is fictitious has, since then, infiltrated the art world because it only apparently serves as cap- and resulted in a Darwinian network of ital. For it yields high interest rates and success or burn-out. Olav Velthuis: speculative gains it for its owner in the Talking Prices. Symbolic Meaning of relative absence of real valorisation takes

[52] [53] (European League of Institutes of the scope and depth. Foucault understood Arts), which, in a strategy paper pub- power and knowledge to be interdepen- Art in the Knowledge-based Polis lished in May 2008, linked “artistic dent, naming this mutual inherence research” to the EU policy of the genera- “power-knowledge.” Power not only sup- tion of “‘New Knowledge’ in a Creative ports, but also applies or exploits know- Europe.”[3] ledge. There is no power relation without the constitution of a field of knowledge, by Tom Holert I am particularly interested in how issues and no knowledge that does not presup- concerning the actual situations and pose power relations. These relations meanings of art, artistic practice, and art therefore cannot be analyzed from the production relate to questions touching standpoint of a knowing subject. Subjects on the particular kind of knowledge that and objects of knowledge, as well as the can be produced within the artistic realm modes of acquiring and distributing Lately, the concept of “knowledge pro- (or the artistic field, as Pierre Bourdieu knowledges, are effects of the fundamen- duction” has drawn new attention and prefers it) by the practitioners or actors tal, deeply imbricated power/knowledge prompted strong criticism within art dis- who operate in its various places and complex and its historical transforma- course. One reason for the current con- spaces. The multifarious combinations of tions. flictual status of this concept is the way it artists, teachers, students, critics, cura- can be linked to the ideologies and prac- tors, editors, educators, funders, policy- 1. The Hornsey Revolution tices of neoliberal educational policies. In makers, technicians, historians, dealers, an open letter entitled “To the Knowledge auctioneers, caterers, gallery assistants, On May 28, 1968, students occupied Producers,” a student from the Academy and so on, embody specific skills and Hornsey College of Art in the inner-subur- of Fine Arts Vienna has eloquently critici- competences, highly unique ways and ban area of North London. The occupa- zed the way education and knowledge styles of knowing and operating in the fle- tion originated in a dispute over control of are being “commodified, industrialized, xibilized, networked sphere of production the Student Union funds. However, “a economized and being made subject to and consumption. This variety and diver- planned programme of films and spea- free trade.”[1] sity has to be taken into account in order kers expanded into a critique of all for these epistemes to be recognized as aspects of art education, the social role of In a similar fashion, critic Simon Sheikh such and to obtain at least a slim notion art and the politics of design. It led to six has addressed the issue by stating that of what is at stake when one speaks of weeks of intense debate, the production “the notion of knowledge production knowledge in relation to art—an idea that of more than seventy documents, a short- implies a certain placement of thinking, of is, in the best of cases, more nuanced lived Movement for Rethinking Art and ideas, within the present knowledge eco- and differentiated than the usual Design Education (MORADE), a three- nomy, i.e. the dematerialized production accounts of this relation. day conference at the Roundhouse in of current post-Fordist capitalism”; the Camden Town, an exhibition at the repercussions of such a placement within “Far from preventing knowledge, power Institute of Contemporary Arts, prolonged art and art education can be described as produces it,” as Foucault famously confrontation with the local authority, and an increase in “standardization,” “measu- wrote.[4] Being based on knowledge, truth extensive representations to the rability,” and “the molding of artistic work claims, and belief systems, power likewi- Parliamentary Select Committee on into the formats of learning and rese- se deploys knowledge—it exerts power Student Relations.”[5] arch.”[2] Objections of this kind become through knowledge, reproducing it and even more pertinent when one considers shaping it in accordance with its anony- Art historian Lisa Tickner, who studied at the suggestive rhetoric of the major mous and distributed intentions. This is Hornsey College of Art until 1967, has European art educational network ELIA what articulates the conditions of its published a detailed account of these

[54] [55] events and discussions forty years after the smaller meetings and self-organized ge being generated and disseminated important trends of the mid-1960s was the fact. As early as 1969, however (only seminars: within the arts and beyond. the increasing interaction and interpene- a few months after the occupation of tration of creative disciplines. “Art and Hornsey College of Art had been brought It was in the small seminars of not more The participants in the Hornsey revolu- Design,” the Hornsey documents argued, to an end by pressure from the above- than twenty people that ideas could be tion of forty years ago had very strong “have become more unified, and moved mentioned local authority in July 1968), thrashed out. Each person felt personally ideas about what it meant to be an artist towards the idea of total architecture of Penguin released a book on what had involved in the dialogue and felt the res- or an art student, about what was actual- sensory experience”; England underwent already gained fame as “The Hornsey ponsibility to respond vociferously to ly at stake in being called a designer or a “a total revolution of sensibility.”[12] Affair,” edited by students and staff of the anything that was said. These discus- painter. They were convinced that know- college. This paperback is a most interes- sions often went on to the small hours of ledge and knowledge communication wit- The consequences of the intersecting ting collection of writings and visuals pro- the morning. If only such a situation were hin art education contained enormous developments within the rebelling body of duced during the weeks of occupation possible under ‘normal’ conditions. Never flaws that had to be swept away: students and staff at Hornsey (and elsew- and sit-ins, discussions, lectures, and had people en masse participated so fully here), as well as the general changes wit- screenings. The book documents the tra- before. Never before had such energy Only such sweeping reforms can solve hin society and culture, had to become ces and signs of a rare kind of enthu- been created within the college. People’s the problems . . . In Hornsey language, manifest in the very conceptual frame- siasm within an art-educational environ- faces were alight with excitement, as they this was described as the replacement of work not only of art education, but of art ment that was not considered at the time talked more than they had ever talked the old “linear” (specialized) structure by discourse as such. Hence, there was a to be the most prestigious in England. before. At least we had found something a new “network” (open, non-specialized) widespread recognition that in future all Located just below Highgate, it was des- which was real to all of us. We were not, structure . . . It would give the kind of fle- higher education in art and design should cribed by one of the participants as being after all, the complacent receivers of an xible training in generalized, basic creati- incorporate a permanent debate within “squeezed into crumbling old schools and inadequate educational system. We were ve design that is needed to adapt to itself. “Research,” in this sense, came to tottering sheds miles apart, making due actively concerned about our education rapidly changing circumstances—be a appear an indispensable element in edu- with a society’s cast-offs like a colony of and we wanted to participate.[8] real training for work, in fact . . . the qua- cation: refugees.”[6] One lecturer even called it “a lities needed for such a real training are collection of public lavatories spread over From today’s standpoint, the discovery of no different from the ideal ones required We regard it as absolutely basic that North London.”[7] talking as a medium of agency, exchan- to produce maximal individual develop- research should be an organic part of art ge, and self-empowerment within an art ment. In art and design, the choice bet- and design education. No system devo- But this modernist nightmare of a school school or the art world no longer seems ween good workmen and geniuses is ted to the fostering of creativity can func- became the physical context of one of the to be a big deal, though it is still far from spurious. Any system worthy of being cal- tion properly unless original work and most radical confrontations and revolu- being conventional practice. I believe that led “education,” any system worthy of the thought are constantly going on within it, tions of the existing system of art educa- the simple-sounding discovery of talking emerging new world, must be both at unless it remains on an opening frontier tion to take place in the wake of the as a medium within the context of a lar- once. It must produce people whose work of development. As well as being on events of May ’68. Not only did dissenting ger, historical event such as the “Hornsey or ‘vocation’ is the creative, general trans- general problems of art and design students and staff gather to discuss new Affair” constitutes one of those underra- formation of the environment.[9] (techniques, aesthetics, history, etc.) terms and models of a networked, self- ted moments of knowledge production in To achieve this “worthy” system, it was such research activity must also deal with empowering, and politically relevant edu- the arts—one that I would like to shift considered necessary to do away with the educational process itself . . . It must cation within the arts, the events and their towards the center of a manner of atten- the “disastrous consequence” of the “split be the critical self-consciousness of the media coverage also drew to Hornsey tion that may be (but should not necessa- between practice and theory, between system, continuing permanently the work prominent members of the increasingly rily be) labeled as “research.” With a twist intellect and the non-intellectual sources started here in the last weeks [June, July global alternative-utopian scene, such as of this otherwise over-determined term, I of creativity.”[10] Process held sway over 1968]. Nothing condemns the old regime Buckminster Fuller. am seeking to tentatively address a mode output, and open-endedness and free more radically than the minor, precarious of understanding and rendering the insti- organization of education permeated part research played in it. It is intolerable However, not only large-scale events tutional, social, epistemological, and poli- every aspect of the Hornsey debates.[11] that research should be seen as a luxury, were remembered. One student wrote of tical contexts and conditions of knowled- It was also clear that one of the most or a rare privilege.[13]

[56] [57] Though this emphatic plea for “research” hin, between, and beyond art universi- system of assessment close to those it; and 2) it has to be such an abstract, was written in a historical situation appa- ties. Thus far, however, the conceptual already established for design, media, which is supplied with the piece of practi- rently much different than our own, it parameters of the FWF appear to be the and performance arts. “New or substan- ce, which would set out the originality of nonetheless helps us to apprehend our subject of debate and potential revision tially improved insights” as well as “sub- the piece, set it in an appropriate context, present situation. Many of the terms and and extension. One should be particular- stantially improved materials, devices, and make it useful to the wider research categories have become increasingly ly careful of any hasty grafting of a con- products and processes” are the desired community.[15] prominent in the current debates on artis- ventional image of a “scientific” model or outcomes of research, and the Research tic research, albeit with widely differing mode of research (whatever it may be) Assessment Exercise could not be more It was further argued that “such protocols intentions and agendas. It seems to be of onto the institutional context of an art explicit about the compulsory “direct rele- are not fixed,” that “they are institutionali- the utmost importance to understand the academy. This is not only a matter of vance to the needs of commerce and zed (therefore subject to critique and revi- genealogy of conflicts and commitments epistemological concern, but of education industry.” sion) and the practitioner-researcher that have led to contemporary debates on policies and of political debate as well. communities must recognize that.” The art, knowledge, and science. PARIP (Practice as Research in report also expressed concern about One only has to look at the history of the Performance) is a research group that “excluded practices, those that are not 2. An Art Department as a Site of implementation of practice-led research supervises, assesses, and discusses the framed as research and are not addres- Research in a University System in Art and Design in Great Britain. In 1992 ongoing research in the new art and des- sing current academic trends and fas- the Research Assessment Exercise ign environment initiated by the RAE and hion,” and it asked, “what about practices Becoming institutionalized as an acade- (RAE) of the Higher Education Founding other organizations concerned with that are dealing with cultures not repre- mic discipline at the interface of artistic Council for England (HEFCE) began to higher arts education in the UK. A 2002 sented within the academy?”[16] and scientific practices at an increasing formulate criteria for so-called practice- report by Angela Piccini repeatedly focu- number of art universities throughout based/practice-led research, particularly ses on the relation between research and When articulated in terms of such a regi- Europe, artistic research (some- in the field of performance, design, and (artistic) practice, and on the subjects me of academic supervision, evaluation, times synonymous with notions such as media. By 1996 the RAE had reached a and subjectivities, competencies, and and control (as it increasingly operates in “practice-led research,” “practice-based point where it defined research as knowledges produced and required by the Euroscapes of art education), the research,” or “practice-as-research”) has this development. After having intervie- reciprocal inflection of the terms “practi- various histories, some being rather original investigation undertaken in order wed various groups of researchers and ce” and “research” appears rather short, others spanning centuries. The to gain knowledge and understanding. It students from the field of performance obvious, though they are seldom explica- reasons for establishing programs and includes work of direct relevance to the arts and studies, it became clear that ted. The urge among institutions of art departments fostering the practice- needs of commerce and industry, as well both concepts assume specific meanings and design education to rush the process research nexus are certainly manifold, as to the public and voluntary sectors; and functions demanded by the configu- of laying down validating and legitimating and differ from one institutional setting to scholarship; the invention and generation ration of their new settings. One of the criteria to purportedly render intelligible the next. When art schools are explicitly of ideas, images, performances and arti- groups Piccini interviewed pondered the the quality of art and design’s “new know- displaced into the university system to facts including design, where these lead consequences of the institutional speech ledge” results in sometimes bizarre and become sites of research, the demands to new or substantially improved insights; act that transforms an artistic practice ahistorical variations on the semantics of and expectations of the scientific commu- and the use of existing knowledge in into an artistic practice-as-research: practice and research, knowledge and nity and institutional sponsorship vis-à-vis experimental development to produce knowledge production. the research outcomes of art schools new or substantially improved materials, Making the decision that something is change accordingly. devices, products and processes, inclu- practice as research imposes on the For applications and project proposals to ding design and construction.[14] practitioner-researcher a set of protocols be steered through university research Entitled “Development and Research of The visual or fine arts of that time had yet that fall into: 1) the point that the practitio- committees, they have to be upgraded the Arts,” a new program of the Austrian to be included in this structure of valida- ner-researcher must necessarily have a and shaped in such a way that their funding body FWF aims at generating the tion, though in the following years various set of separable, demonstrable, research claims to the originality of knowledge conceptual and material environment for PhD programs in the UK and elsewhere findings that are abstractable, not simply (and thus their academic legitimacy) interdisciplinary art-related research wit- did try to shift them to an output-oriented locked into the experience of performing become transparent, accountable, and

[58] [59] justified. However, to “establish a worka- project is a far-reaching question about manifold, and they are certainly open to cacies of Photoshop . . . the chaos of the ble consensus about the value and limits how art might be comprehended and contestation. What, for instance, is the foundry, the heat of under-ventilated of practice as research both within and described as a specific mode of genera- qualifier enabling it to neatly distinguish computer labs.”[23] I think this point is well beyond the community of those directly ting and disseminating knowledge. How between artistic and non-artistic modes taken. involved” seems to be an almost irresol- might it be possible to understand the of knowledge production? Most likely, vable task.[17] At the least, it ought to be very genealogy of significant changes there isn’t one. From (neo-)avant-garde However useless the deployment of a task that continues to be open-ended that have taken place in the status, func- claims of bridging the gap between art terms such as “research” and “knowled- and inevitably unresolved. tion, and articulation of the visual arts wit- and life (or those modernist claims which ge” may seem, such uselessness is hin contemporary globalizing societies? insist on the very maintenance of this bound to a reading and deployment of the The problem is, once you enter the aca- gap) to issues of academic discipline in terms in a way that remains detached demic power-knowledge system of With reference to the work of French the age of the Bologna process and out- from the particular modes of discourse accountability checks and evaluative sociologist Luc Boltanski, the term polis come-based education, it seems that the formation in art discourse itself. The supervision, you have either explicitly or has been chosen deliberately to render problem of the art/non-art dichotomy has moment one enters the archives of wri- implicitly accepted the parameters of this the deep imbrications of both the material been displaced. Today, this dichotomy ting, criticism, interviews, syllabi, and system. Though acceptance does not (urbanist-spatial, architectural, infrastruc- seems largely to have devolved into a other discursive articulations produced necessarily imply submission or surren- tural, etc.) and immaterial (cognitive, psy- question of how to establish a discursive and distributed within the artistic field, the der to these parameters, a fundamental chic, social, aesthetic, cultural, legal, ethi- field capable of rendering an epistemolo- use of terms such as “research” and dis- acknowledgment of the ideological princi- cal, etc.) dimensions of urbanity.[18] gical and ontological realm of artistic/stu- cussion about the politics and production ples inscribed in them remains a prere- Moreover, the knowledge-based polis is a dio practice as a scientifically valid of “knowledge” are revealed as funda- quisite for any form of access, even if one conflictual space of political contestation research endeavor. mental to twentieth-century art—particu- copes with them, contests them, negotia- concerning the allocation, availability and larly since the inception of Conceptual Art tes them, and revises them. Admittedly, it exploitation of “knowledge” and “human As art historian James Elkins puts it, con- in the late 1960s. After all, the moder- is somewhat contradictory to claim a criti- capital.” cepts concerning the programmatic nists, neo- and post-avant-gardists aimed cal stance with regard to the transforma- generation of “new knowledge” or repeatedly at forms and protocols relating tion of art education through an artistic As a consequence, it is also a matter of “research” may indeed be “too diffuse to academic and intellectual work—of research paradigm while simultaneously investigating how the “knowledge spa- and too distant from art practice to be research and publication, the iconograp- operating at the heart of that same sys- ces” within the visual arts and between much use.”[21] Elkins may have a point hy of the laboratory, scientific research, tem. I do not have a solution for this. the protagonists of the artistic field are here. His skepticism regarding the practi- or think tanks. Nonetheless, I venture that addressing organized and designed.[19] What are the ce-based research paradigm in the fine the power relations that inform and pro- modes of exchange and encounter and arts derives from how institutions (i.e., Administrative, information, or service duce the kind of institutional what kind of communicative and thinking university and funding bodies) measure aesthetics, introduced at various mome- legitimacy/consecration sought by such “styles” guide the flow of what kind of research and PhD programs’ discursive nts of modernist and post-modernist art, research endeavors could go beyond knowledge? How are artistic archives of value according to standards of scientific, emulated, mimicked, caricaturized and mere lip service and be effective in chan- the present and the recent past configu- disciplinary research. For Elkins, “words endorsed the aesthetics and rhetoric of ging the situation. red (technologically, cognition-wise, like research and knowledge should be scientific communities. They created socially)? In what ways has artistic pro- confined to administrative documents, representations and methodologies for 3. Art in the Knowledge-Based Polis duction (in terms of the deployment and and kept out of serious literature.”[22] In a intellectual labor on and off-display, and feeding of distributed knowledge net- manner most likely informed by science founded migrating and flexible archives I would like to propose, with the support works in the age of “relational aesthe- and technology studies and Bruno that aimed to transform the knowledge and drive of a group of colleagues wor- tics”) changed, and what are the critical Latour, he argues instead that the focus spaces of galleries and museums accor- king inside and outside the Academy of effects of such changes on the principle should turn toward the “specificity of ding to what were often feminist agendas. Fine Arts Vienna, a research project bea- of individualized authorship?[20] charcoal, digital video, the cluttered look ring the title “Art in the Knowledge-based of studio classrooms (so different from Within the art world today, the discursive Polis.” The conceptual launch pad for this The implications of this proposal are science labs, and yet so similar), the intri- formats of the extended library-cum-

[60] [61] seminar-cum-workshop-cum-sympo- 4. Artistic Knowledge and Knowledge- ductive here is the traditional claim that positivity appears. Just as the forms and sium-cum-exhibition have become pree- based Economies artists almost constitutively work on the discourses through which artists inform, minent modes of address and forms of hind side of rationalist, explicated know- equip, frame, and communicate their pro- knowledge production. In a recent article Since the neo-avant-gardes of the 1960s ledge—in the realms of non-knowledge duction have become manifold and dis- in this journal on “the educational turn in (at the latest), knowledge generation wit- (or emergent knowledge). As a response persed, so has a new and continuously curating,” theorist Irit Rogoff addresses hin the visual arts has expanded through to the prohibition and marginalization of expanding field of research opened up as the various “slippages that currently exist the constitutive dissolution (or suspen- certain other knowledges by the powers a result. between notions of ‘knowledge produc- sion) of its subjects and media. Mean- that be, the apparent incompatibility of tion,’ ‘research,’ ‘education,’ ‘open-ended while, however, its specific aesthetic non-knowledge with values and maxims In many ways, the recent history of met- production,’ and ‘self-organized pedago- dimension has continued to be marked of knowledge-based economies (efficien- hodologies and modes of articulation in gies,’” particularly as “each of these by elusiveness and unavailability—by cy, innovation, and transferability) may the visual arts is seen to be co-evolutio- approaches seem to have converged into doing things, “of which we don’t know provide strategies for escaping such nary with such developments as partici- a set of parameters for some renewed what they are” (Adorno).[26] A guiding dominant regimes. pate in the complex transition from an facet of production.” Rogoff continues, hypothesis of the “Art in the Knowledge- industrial to a postindustrial (or in terms “Although quite different in their genesis, based Polis” conceit is that this peculiar Michel Foucault’s epistemology offers a of regulation theory: from a Fordist to a methodology, and protocols, it appears relationship between the availability and hardly noticed reasoning on artistic know- post-Fordist) regime. However, the rela- that some perceived proximity to ‘know- unavailability of artistic knowledge pro- ledge that appears to contradict this tionship between art and society cannot ledge economies’ has rendered all of duction assigns a central task to contem- emphasis on non-knowledge, while be grasped in terms of a one-sided, these terms part and parcel of a certain porary cultural theory, as such. This not simultaneously providing a methodologi- sociological-type causality. Rather, the liberalizing shift within the world of only concerns issues of aesthetics and cal answer to the conundrum. In his 1969 relationship must be seen as highly reci- contemporary art practices.” However, epistemology, but also its relation to other L’Archéologie du savoir (The Archae- procal and interdependent. Hence it is Rogoff is afraid that “these initiatives are (allegedly non-artistic) spaces of know- ology of Knowledge), Foucault argues possible to claim that in those societies in danger of being cut off from their origi- ledge production. that the technical, material, formal, and for which “knowledge” has been aligned nal impetus and threaten to harden into a conceptual decisions in painting are tra- with “property” and “labor” as a “steering recognizable ‘style.’” As the art world To advance this line of reasoning, the versed by a “positivity of knowledge” mechanism,” the visual arts dwell in an “became the site of extensive talking,” various reconfigurations of knowledge, its which could be “named, uttered, and con- isolated position.[32] The pertinent notion which entailed certain new modes of gat- social function, and its distribution (reflec- ceptualized” in a “discursive practice.”[31] of “immaterial labor” that originated in the hering and increased access to knowled- ted within late modernist and post-moder- This very “positivity of knowledge” (of the vocabulary of post-operaismo (where it is ge, Rogoff rightly wonders whether “we nist epistemological discourse) have to individual artwork, a specific artistic prac- supposed to embrace the entire field of put any value on what was actually being be considered. From the invocation of the tice, or a mode of publication, communi- “knowledge, information, communica- said.”[24] post-industrial information society [27] to cation, and display) should not be confu- tions, relations or even affects”) has the critique of modernist “metanarrati- sed with a rationalist transparency of become one of the most important sour- Thus, if James Elkins is questioning the ves”[28] and the theorization of new epis- knowledge. This “discursive practice” ces of social and economic value produc- possibility of shaping studio-based temological paradigms such as reflexivity, might even refuse any such discursivity. tion.[33] Hence, it is crucial for the visual research and knowledge production into transdisciplinarity, and heterogeneity,[29] Nonetheless, the works and practices do arts and their various (producing, com- something that might receive “interest on the structure, status and shape of know- show a “positivity of knowledge”—the sig- municating, educating, etc.) actors to fit the part of the wider university” and be ledge has changed significantly. Amongst nature of a specific (and probably secret) themselves into this reality, or oppose the acknowledged as a “position—and, final- other consequences, this has given rise knowledge. very logic and constraints of its “cognitive ly, a discipline—that speaks to existing to a number of specific innovative policies capitalism.”[34] concerns,” [25] Rogoff seems to be far concerning knowledge (and its produc- At the heart of “Art in the Knowledge- more interested in how alternative practi- tion) on national and transnational based Polis” would be a recognition, des- Amongst such approaches is an informal, ces of communality and knowledge gene- levels.[30] cription, and analysis of such “positivi- ephemeral, and implicit “practical wis- ration/distribution might provide an empo- ty”—as much as an exploration of the dom” that informs individual and collecti- wering capacity. A point of tension that can become pro- epistemological conditions in which such ve habits, attitudes, and dialects. More-

[62] [63] over, the influence of feminist, queer, creative industries, universities, muse- privilege should be contested as well as subaltern, or post-colonial epistemolo- ums, etc.[36] By this token, it also beco- (re)claimed. Otherwise, I am afraid that gies and “situated knowledges” is of great mes important to investigate and explore the implementation of practice-based importance in relation to the visual the social, political, and economic shares research programs and PhDs in art uni- arts.[35] Thus, for the purposes of inqui- held by the visual arts in the knowledge- versities will turn out to be just another ring into “Art in the Knowledge-based based polis. bureaucratic maneuver to stabilize hege- Polis,” the array of artistic articulations monic power/knowledge constellations, (both discursive and those deemed non- What is needed is a multifocal, multidisci- disavowing the very potentialities and discursive) will be conceived as reaching plinary perspective with a fresh look at histories at the heart of notions of “practi- far beyond common art/science and the interactions and constitutive relations ce” and “research.” theory/practice dichotomies, while a care- between knowledge and the visual arts. ful analysis of the marks left on artistic The specific, historically informed rela- epistemologies will be pursued throu- tions between artistic and scientific met- ghout. hodologies (their epistemologies, know- ledge claims, and legitimating discour- The relocation and re-contextualization of ses) should play a major role. However, the knowledge issue create room-for-play as deliberately distinguished from com- absent in traditional research designs. parable research programs, research will The socio-spatial dimension of knowled- be guided onto an expanded epistemic ge production within the visual arts terrain on which “scientific” knowledge is should constitute another essential inte- no longer a privileged reference. Internal rest. Urban spaces are understood today exchanges and communications between as infrastructures of networked, digital the social/cultural worlds of the visual arts architectures of knowledge as much as and their transdisciplinary relationalities material, built environments. The contem- will be structured and shaped by those porary knowledge-based city is structu- very forms of knowledge whose legitima- red and managed by information techno- cy and visibility are the subject of highly logy and databases, and the new techno- contested epistemological struggles. logies of power and modes of governan- ce they engender (from surveillance stra- An adequate research methodology has tegies to intellectual property regulations to be developed in order to allow the to the legal control of network access) researchers positions on multiple social- demand an adapted set of methodologies material time-spaces of actual making and critical approaches. Much of the work and doing—positions that permit and to be done might deploy updated ver- actually encourage active involvement in sions of regime analysis and Foucauldian the artistic processes in the stages of pro- governmentality studies (which would by duction before publication, exhibition, and no means exclude other approaches). critical reception. I would suggest that This urban “network society” displays notions of “research” motivated by a features of a complex “politics of know- sense of political urgency and upheaval ledge” that cannot be limited to stately are of great importance here. As can be This essay is a revised and abridged version of and corporate management of biotechno- seen in what took place at Hornsey in a talk given at the conference “Art/Knowledge. logical knowledge, because it is also acti- 1968, positions that are criticized (and zAesthetics” at the Academy of Fine Arts vely involved in sponsoring the so-called desired) as an economic and systemic Vienna, November 11, 2008.

[64] [65] Notes [17] See Anna Pakes, “Original Embodied Knowledge-based Economy (Paris: Knowledge: The Epistemology of the New Organisation for Economic Co-Operation [1] [email protected], “To the in Dance Practice as Research,” Research and Development, 1996); “Putting Knowledge Producers,” in Intersections. At in Dance Education 4, no. 2 (December Knowledge Into Practice: a Broad-Based the Crossroads of the Production of 2003): 144. Innovation Strategy for the EU,” communi- Knowledge, Precarity, Subjugation and the [18] See Luc Boltanski and Laurent cation from the Commission to the Council, Reconstruction of History, Display and De- Thévenot, De la justification. Les the European Parliament, the European Linking, ed. Lina Dokuzović, Eduard économies de la grandeur (Paris: Economic and Social Committee, and the Freudmann, Peter Haselmayer, and Lisbeth Gallimard, 1991); Luc Boltanski and Ève Committee of the Regions (September 9, Kovačič (Vienna: Löcker, 2008), 27. Chiapello, Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme 2006), →. [2] Simon Sheikh, “Talk Value: Cultural (Paris: Gallimard, 1999). [31] Michel Foucault, L’Archéologie du Industry and Knowledge Economy,” in On [19] See Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Michael savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1969). Knowledge Production: A Critical Reader in Hagner, and Bettina Wahrig-Schmidt, eds., [32] Nico Stehr, Wissenspolitik: Die Contemporary Art, ed. Maria Hlavajova, Jill Räume des Wissens: Repräsentation, Überwachung des Wissens Winder, and Binna Choi (Utrecht: BAK, Codierung, Spur (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2003), 30. basis voor actuele kunst; Frankfurt am 1997). [33] Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, Main: Revolver, Archiv für aktuelle Kunst, [20] See Caroline A. Jones, “The Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of 2008), 196-7. Server/User Mode: the Art of Olafur Empire (New York: Penguin, 2004), 126. [3] Chris Wainwright, “The Importance of Eliasson,” Artforum International 46, no. 2 [34] Yann Moulier-Boutang, Le capitalisme Artistic Research and its Contribution to (October 2007): 316-324, 396, 402. cognitif: La Nouvelle Grande ‘New Knowledge’ in a Creative Europe,” [21] James Elkins, “Afterword: On Beyond Transformation (Paris: Éditions Amsterdam, European League of Institutes of the Arts Research and New Knowledge,” in Thinking 2007). Strategy Paper (May 2008), →. Through Art: Reflections on Art as [35] See Donna Haraway, “Situated [4] Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: Research, ed. Katy Macleod and Lin Knowledges: The Science Question in The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan Holdridge (London/New York: Routledge, Feminism and the Privilege of Partial (New York: Vintage, [1975] 1995). 2006), 243. Perspective,” Feminist Studies 14, no. 3 [5] Lisa Tickner, Hornsey 1968: The Art Sch- [22] Ibid., 247. (Autumn 1988): 575-599. ool Revolution (London: Frances Lincoln, [23] Ibid., 246. [36] See Stehr, Wissenspolitik. 2008), 13-14. [24] Irit Rogoff, “Turning,” e-flux journal, no. [6] T.N., “Notes Towards the Definition of 0 (November 2008), →. Anti-Culture,” in The Hornsey Affair, ed. [25] Elkins, “Afterword,” 244. Students and staff of Hornsey College of Art [26] Theodor W. Adorno, “Vers une musique (Harmondsworth, London: Penguin, 1969), informelle,” in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 15. 16, (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1978), 493- [7] Ibid., 29. 540. [8] Ibid., 38-7. [27] See Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post- [9] Ibid., 116-7. Industrial Society (New York: Harper & Row, [10] Ibid. [Document 46], 118. 1973). [11] See ibid. [Document 46], 122. [28] See Jean-François Lyotard, La condi- [12] Ibid., [Document 46], 124. tion postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir [13] Ibid. [Document 46], 128-129. (Paris: Minuit, 1979). [14] Angela Piccini, “An Historiogra- [29] See Michael Gibbons et al., The New phic Perspective on Practice as Research,” Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of PARIP (Practice as Research in Perfor- Science and Research in Contemporary mance), →. Societies (London: Sage, 1994). [15] Ibid. [30] See Organisation for Economic Co- First published in e-flux journal issue #03, [16] Ibid. Operation and Development, The February, 2009 [66] [67] our tail. We are out wolfing. French journal Tiqqun. While often sen- Oh what a mess I’ve made: suous, fulfilling, and rapturous, crowds On Aesthetics and Political Praxis A bloodied youth participating in the and collective assemblages also poten- protest/occupation of the Tory Millbank tially bear the dangers of alienation. Yet Tower, London 2010. El Pias photo Poli- this aesthetic orientation toward political tical struggles coordinate the movements practices uniquely suggests a move by Olive McKeon of bodies in spaces as in marches, away from the professionalization of arts protests, strikes, sit-ins, occupations, activism that tames what otherwise might blockades, and lock downs. These forms unfold as free play, communism, and the of struggle often share compositional beautiful. devices: bodies filling up or emptying out a space, bodies surrounding a terrain or Thinking about the aesthetics of political clogging a channel, bodies displacing struggles - specially in the moments objects, breaking brittle surfaces, burning when they become enacted with bodies combustible elements. These sensuous in space - reframes an orientation moments of unrest traverse a broad towards art and politics. A few common cross section of political struggle. While frameworks for arts activism often situate one can describe these moments as a art as a supplement to political move- calculus of social and material forces, I ments. Community-based projects bring wonder what one can learn from an art in order to empower oppressed A few people may have been standing inquiry into the aesthetic character of groups or build solidarity between peo- together - five, ten or twelve, not more; political struggles. An examination of ple. Or artists aim to contribute and sup- nothing has been announced, nothing is struggles in their aesthetic dimension - port social movements through projects expected. Suddenly everywhere is black their shards and ashes, their clamor and such as silk-screening protest posters or with people and more come streaming mess, their inescapable sensuality - can preparing street theater for demonstra- from all sides as though streets had only illuminate the gravity and exhilaration of tions. These practices, often immensely one direction. Most of them do not know political praxis. useful to community groups and social what has happened and, if questioned, movements, fit into a framework of sup- have no answer; but they hurry to be This essay proposes a shift in formulating plementing politics with art. there where most other people are. (Elias arts activism from a question of bringing Canetti, 16) art to social movements and towards Moving in different direction, I propose an thinking aesthetically about the barest of alternative question to ask: How can we Thousands of us out here. In the middle political practices. From this vantage think aesthetically about our political of the street, in the middle of the city. point, political struggles already involve a practices. This entails a shift from supple- Yelling, tumbling, running. Breaking off, rich set of aesthetic operations that pre- menting social movements to engaging galloping down the alley like a pack of cede the contribution made by artists. I with the preexisting complexity and rich- wild ponies. Pausing, licking our fingers use the concept of aesthetics to denote ness of forms of struggle such as march- and testing the air. Then out onto the sensuousness and play, invoking specifi- es, blockades, occupations, sabotage, street again. The pack becomes a mass cally Kant's formulation of the beautiful as and so on. Approaching a political becomes a throng becomes a maelstrom. involving free play and a purposiveness demonstration from this point of view Grabbing a wrist and thrusting forward. without purpose. I propose an approach would conceive of the street as always The cops! the cops! Plans B and C. to political practices that may arouse an already a performance. This shift involves Spinning on heels, back tracking. Turning experience of the beautiful, as suggested thinking formally and sensuously about and then turning again and they are off through my reading of a text by the spatial-temporal political practices and [68] [69] about politics as a rich aesthetic field in gle, what does this term 'aesthetics' do engaged in a riot relates to the landscape swing the unfolding circumstances in an itself. One can focus on the artisanal for us? From its long history, I use the in a manner paralleling a patron experi- emancipatory direction. The beautiful's crafting of political struggle, the 'social term to point to sensuousness and play. encing the beautiful before a work of art. purposiveness without purpose res- movements' happening in the street in Sensuousness refers to the perceptible The rioter does not interact with the onates both with the non-instrumentality distinction to making dances alone in the properties of something, its sensual char- newspaper box, trash can, or shop win- of aesthetic form and political practice. studio. acteristics. Recalling Frederic Jameson's dow for their functional properties nor for imperative to always historicize, I might their pleasing qualities. She does not Play traverses not only aesthetic theory This suggests a further aesthetic turn for rework this as always aestheticize, intend to put something in the trash can, but also the left communist thought of the politics and activism, a transference of meaning to consider how one comes to obtain a newspaper from its box, or French journal Tiqqun, which embraces the functions played by art to political perceive or experience whatever situa- admire the objects displayed in the win- this continuous free play of political practice. One could apply the notion of tion is at hand. How do you know a strug- dow. Rather, she interacts with the ele- forces. In its Introduction to Civil War, prefigurative politics to the aesthetic so gle is happening, how do you know to ments of the street scene with a purpo- Thesis 10 states, "Civil war is the free that social movements might aesthetical- understand it as a political struggle, and siveness without purpose. She acts as play of forms-of-life" (Tiqqun, 32, my ly prefigure the world to come. Everything what account do you privilege as a though she has a purpose, taking a brick emphasis) and Thesis 30 defines com- one asks for from an aesthetic experi- means of explain how it occurs? These to the glass or tilting the newspaper box munism as "the real movement that elab- ence could be asked of how groups enact questions pertain to the sensible and the on its side, yet ultimately these actions orates, everywhere and at every political struggles in space and time. The forces that organize and categorize the serve no particular function. The riot moment, civil war" (Tiqqun, 63, my intensities of the aesthetic can be height- sensorium. becomes a scene of the free play of the emphasis). This use of 'free play' ges- ened, even made psychedelic, through cognitive faculties, an experience of the tures towards a reading of communism in forms of struggle. Situations of mass As a second idea indicated by the term urban environment disinterested from its light of Kant's aesthetics. Tiqqun presents political insurrection involve a sensuous 'aesthetics,' play traverses many aesthet- relation to either desire or goodness. The a runaway communism that dispenses density, the exhilarating overturning of ic theorists, particularly Kant who charac- street becomes not a conduit of com- with any need for concepts of value pro- once undisturbed spaces and the devas- terizes the aesthetic experience as one of merce but a play of forms. Certainly, duction or exploitation in favor of a notion tating materiality of violence and repres- play (Kant). Play broadly refers to non- Kant’s notion of the beautiful shares of communism as a ceaseless civil war sion. Other political practices, such as an instrumental activity, tasks without an some features with the riot but not others without aim or end, a war fought with pur- under-attended, boring rally of trite and end, and I am specifically focused in such as his sensus communis, the uni- posiveness without purpose. The choice banal speeches, pall in comparison as Kant's notion of 'free play.' Play appears versalization of taste. This appropriation of the word movement frames commu- aesthetic experiences. These practices in Kant's aesthetics as the free play of of the beautiful stems not from fidelity but nism as a form of dance, an ongoing might benefit from an increase in intensi- cognitive faculties. One feels an align- an attempt to read with Kant against process of bodies leaning towards and ty and unpredictability. This call to seek ment of the faculties and a harmony Kant. away from each other. Tiqqun finds beau- aesthetic experiences amongst billy clubs between intuition and understanding. The ty precisely in this elaboration of civil war and rubber bullets might appear dystopi- aesthetic judgement senses that the While the connection between urban and communism, as it states, "the only an or even an apology for police violence object in view displays a purposiveness unrest and a Kantian free play appears beautiful moments of the last century because of its potentiality for excitement. without purpose, an experience of under- out of joint as the beautiful involves a were disparagingly called 'civil wars'" While certainly a danger, one must not standing in general without a particular restfulness of the mind and an experi- (Tiqqun, 191). Arising out of struggle, overlook the importance of the aesthetic content. One remains disinterested, ence of harmony, play and non-instru- political struggle enacts a purposive dis- aspects of how struggles feel as we unmotivated, and unclouded by desire for mental actions can help make sense ordering of the natural universe, a disor- engage in them. Instead, this is a call to the object. what happens in political struggle. If der experienced as the harmony and experience the conflict and antagonism utopia or communism can be thought not beauty of communism’s unfolding. Tiqqun that is a part of any historic political strug- To steal these concepts from Kant then, I as a concrete set of socio-institutional provides one approach to communism as gle from the civil rights era to Tahrir propose political struggle as a form of relations but as a process, political strug- an experience of the beautiful. Square and beyond. free play, a moment in which one can gles do not pursue a specific end or aim. experience the beautiful. Consider a One must not ask if a particular struggle Let us turn towards social movements In thinking about the aesthetics of strug- moment of urban unrest. A person finishes in victory or defeat but how to and their formal ways of collecting and

[70] [71] moving bodies in crowds, packs, swarms, nitions: the danger of alienation and the us about social relations in other contexts er? From one vantage point, street gangs, huddles, clusters, herds, and collapsing distance between play and - the first day of school, the bar, the sub- actions reflect a revolt against work and a bursting socialites. Various writers give work. While the packs that form on the way - will haunt us within social move- momentary refusal to be a quiet, docile us a sense of the viscosity and texture of streets and collectively discover what ments. body in transit, to heed the demands of crowds and their movements. One can they can do together conjures the excite- capital. From the opposite angle, one think of Elias Canetti's poetic description ment of social movements, their beauty One must attend to the specificity of the could cast the street action as a form of of crowds and the complex typology he can produce alienation as much as emer- bodies involved and how the stratification unpaid creative labor that helps to gener- invents to understand them: Invisible gent solidarity. A friend and comrade of bodies by race, gender, and class will ate a buzz about a city that brands and Crowds, Baiting Crowds, Flight Crowds, wrote to me describing her experience continue to operate in the midst of action. advertisers will source to promote their Prohibition Crowds, Reversal Crowds, during the Millbank riot of November 10, Decision making and the norms about commodities. While many examples Feast Crowds, Double Crowds, Crowd 2010 when fifty thousand British students what to do in the context of political action attest to the channeling of revolutionary Crystals, and so on. Or one can recall the descended upon the head quarters of the will not escape the power dynamics at movements by advertisers, one commod- way that Deleuze and Guattari picked up Conservative Party that had voted to play within racialized and gendered ity appears particularly relevant, a video and ran with Canetti's work with their fig- triple the cost of university tuition. In the social relations. White bodies acting game titled Brink released in North ure of the wolf pack: "The wolf, wolves, midst of students breaking the floor to together in a protest in a commercial cen- America on May 10, 2011. In the game, are intensities, speeds, temperatures, ceiling windows of the lobby, tossing ter may understand each other as two factions, resistance and security, bat- non-decomposable variable distances. A whatever computer equipment they found equipped with an anti-capitalist analysis tle in a fictional insurrectionary civil war. swarming, a wolfing" (Deleuze and into the street, and setting fires in the while they may assume brown bodies in The characters utilize parkour-style Guattari, 35). These examples indicate courtyard of the building, she describes a poorer area doing the same actions as movement, and the billboard advertise- the poetics of bodies and their collective her uneasiness: stripped of a sophisticated political cri- ments for the game do not fail to circle movements. An aesthetic approach to tique. A group of men may fail to support the R in 'Revolution.' Framing political struggle examines political practice at Then the assault on Millbank in the stu- actions done by women, indicative to practice as a form of play stands in an level of the crowd assemblages generat- dent protests last november, I was there them of female hysteria and frenzy rather uncertain relation to the status of work, ed and the ensuing corporeality of action, with A and we got into the building after it than strategic political practice. Certain often characterized as expanding into or, in other words, how movements had been taken. We ran from the cops, subject positions may understand their domains of leisure within a post-Fordist inspire themselves to actually, physically went up on the roof, dropped a banner, struggles as properly political and those context. Political practice can play an move. etc. So this kind of scenario of being able done by others as non-political, mob hys- antagonistic force to capital and value to act with people I know and trust at teria, pointing towards a differentiation production, or it can contribute to the cul- Inside the form of a political struggle rests demos or riots but feeling totally alienated between who and what can occupy the tural reservoirs available for appropria- a dance party, an embodied play of social and vulnerable if on my own or in an space of the political. The dynamics of tion. antagonisms. One can note the parallel unknown group, not recognizing a group white supremacy and patriarchy will between a struggle and a party, in its energy or not being able or desiring to tap emerge in the midst of political move- Another aspect of the relations between sense as revelry and festivity. At a dance into it. So my anxiety is not being able to ments as in other domains of social life. play, work, and political practice pertains party, everyone swarms towards the cen- connect my political desires for collectivi- to arts activists who make a profession ter of the dance floor, wanting to be sur- ty or rupture to the uneasiness with In addition to the uneasiness of and out of their activist work. By collecting rounded and immersed in the amoebic groups, crowds, and their behaviors. power dynamics within group formations, their projects into a portfolio or CV that form of the party. Both parties and strug- Being an only child, I guess I never got approaching social movements as aes- may get them a teaching gig or other form gles bring bodies together for a concen- over the trauma of the first day at school. thetic phenomena raises a complex set of of employment, they turn what would be trated collective experience, leaving it I was a sovereign individual thrown into a issues regarding cultural production, the play of political antagonism into the their wake messes, a disorganized array bunch of stupid kids. work, and revolt. If the bodies in the street imperatives of work. Perhaps this is the of bygone objects. resemble dancers, does taking part in moment when social movements can no The crowd or pack as a social form can political organizing consist of a form of longer have their purposiveness without While noting the poetics and play of swing in many directions, sometimes as cultural labor? Is the dancer/body-run- purpose, their beauty. To uphold their sta- crowds, I must raise two important admo- frightening as exhilarating. What haunts ning-though-the-streets a cultural work- tus as play may entail a move away from

[72] [73] professionalization, from an impressive identified people to resist patriarchy. ly. If participating in social movements portfolio of brilliant art work that knits Parsing out and understanding the dis- feels boring or unfulfilling, add complexity communities together, critiques institu- tinction and contradiction between the and play to the dances that unfold on the tions, and opposes imperialism. The row- work we do to reproduce our political streets. Use your legs for jumping, kick- diest in the street and during the darkest practices and the play of struggle itself ing, getting low. Use your arms for throw- hours of the night will never receive com- may help clarify the relation between play ing, climbing, lifting. Your feet for running pensation for their work, which I prefer to and work. and stomping. Your hands for secret call communist play. Their activity will be baseball catcher signs. anonymous and will not accrue symbolic In this consideration of the aesthetics of capital. Few are ever paid to participate in struggle, political practices emerge as Pack lots of bodies into small spaces. Get political uprisings. Usually only mercenar- corporeal movements that one cannot tighter. Also, be more expansive, decen- ies, those hired by a regime to suppress abstract from the concrete moments of tralize the activity, infinite splinter groups. an uprising, receive wages. A distinction their elaboration, their performance in Use levels - send some people up and may need to separate the free play of space and time. An aesthetic operation others below. Dress the part, which is to political struggles from the logic and reg- occurs during a moment of struggle prior say, dress as someone you have never ulation of cultural labor. to the arrival of any activist marching met. Appropriate tactics from the animal bands, the street theater troupes, or art kingdom - a wedge of swans, a pack of If one identifies political practice not as as such. The doing of politics rests upon wolves, a wake of buzzards, a siege of work but as play, one faces the inevitable the participation and play of bodies in the cranes. Whether it is two or ten thousand question of how exactly to fund and elaboration of a struggle. Addressing pol- of you, make it your finest and ceaseless reproduce one's political efforts. While we itics on the level of its aesthetic opera- dance. Works Cited still live in a capitalist mode of production, tions forges a connection between play, one is forced to sell labor-power to repro- means without ends, and the beauty Canetti, Elias. Crowds and Power, New duce oneself or consent to a voluntarist sought after in both politics and aesthet- York: Farrar, Straus and Girous, 1984. marginalization. The problem of how to ics. We will not be paid for our most beau- fund political practices on the left paral- tiful dances which will be on the ashes of Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari, A Tho- lels the discussions around arts funding. capitalist social relations. We will not add usand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schiz- As domains of play and non-instrumental a bullet point on our CV for abolishing ophrenia, trans. by Brian Massumi, Lon- activity, both political and artistic prac- capitalism and ourselves as workers, don: Continuum International Publishing tices strive to articulate themselves as which will be perhaps the most aestheti- Group, 2004. detached from or antagonistic to value cally satisfying moment of our lives. production. Yet they require material Kant, Immanuel, The Critique of resources to continue to exist. This con- At stake here is not so much a creative Judgment, trans. by J. H. Bernard, New stitutive contradiction of being exterior or proposition for a new sort of project, but a York: Prometheus Books, 2000. in opposition to capital circulation yet way of thinking differently about the prac- dependent on it haunts those engaged in tices that traverse social movements. Tiqqun, Introduction to Civil War, trans. both political struggles and artistic prac- This implies a call for artists, in addition to by Alexander R. Galloway & Jason E. tices. While furthering and elaborating making art for social movements, to Smith, Los Angles: Semiotext(e), 2010. political struggles involves a set of strate- make the movement their aesthetic proj- gic decisions about how to sustain vari- ect. In the context of political movements ous efforts, I suggest not identifying too that do not yet have the sublimity of a Many thanks to Dara Greenwald, Lindsay closely with professionalization. Capital mass uprising, those involved can thump Caplan, Marina Vishmidt, and Oxana will not pay labor for waging class war, up the volume, strangeness, choreogra- First published in Journal of Aesthetics & Timofeeva who have been in dialogue and men will not pay women and trans- phy, and poetics of what they do political- Protest, issue 8. with me about this essay. [74] [75] that we are in a crisis of legitimation and twenty or thirty years ago. In this specific Spaces for Thinking. methodology, perhaps parallel to a gener- sense, art schools and academies have Perspectives on the Art Academy al institutional crisis of society, or even of never been more effective or even suc- global capitalism. A crisis not unlike the cessful in the influence on the art world one that haunted my original field of and art production in general. Whereas study, or background, art history, in the most modernist art movements clearly 1980s. Here, there was a huge method- happened outside or even in opposition ological crisis or even battle between tra- to academies and academia, we have by Simon Sheikh ditional empirical and descriptive witnessed a merger between the acade- approaches towards influences from my, critical theories and discourses, sociology, epistemology, post-structur- museal representations and the market, alism and feminism. It was a question of although often in contradictory and even whether the discipline was self-con- antagonistic terms. We therefore have to tained, its object of study and methods ask ourselves not only what system we hereof a (pre)given or whether it was a are educating people within, but also, discipline that had a theory of its object of crucially, which system are we educating Artists with a Ph.D.! - this should only tin- study - as is the Althus-sserian definition people for? gle the spines of conservatives, right? of science. Indeed, the discipline itself Wrong: The shifts resulting from the so- became the object of art-historical In the current debates on the develop- called ”Bologna process" with its creation research: the history of art history (in an ment of artistic education, and more of a European standardization of aca- epistemological sense), now a subgenre specifically the implementation of the demic studies in the fields of institutional filling numerous volumes. And it is now Bologna process [2] - meaning a art history as well as art education in no longer possible to study the art object, European standardization of the Anglo- academies hit hardest where the general the history and sociology of art without a American academic structure of ba, ma significance of methodologies is at stake. reflection of the mode of study itself, with- and PhD degrees - we are witnessing a Under the buzzword of an ”artistic out an auto-critique and certain notions of similar dichotomy to the one that plagued research", currently many things resur- interdisciplinarity. Such reflections and art history in the 1980s, between tradi- face in a canonized format that former history lessons are of value to us today, in tional, given modes and newer, interdisci- generations of artists had fought for as an evaluation of the education of artists, plinary methods and approaches. As in principles of self-empowerment: to do or what we, in broader and perhaps more the struggle between, or shift from, old to research on your own account, without accurate terms, could call cultural pro- new art history, we see a conflict between having to justify your doings in the face of ducers.[1] Especially since art academies the old master-student relation and a Academia and its limitations. Is it only may or may not be in a particular kind of course-based system on the one hand, rhetorical to ask what artists not operat- crisis, but are at the same time hugely and between a (in)formal studio practice ing within the ideal of ”research" will be successful. Not only are artists, as I will discourse and theoretical influxes and cri- doing in the near future? What - apart return to shortly, branching out, as it tiques on the other. In these forms of from short-term displacements of funding were, into many other fields and disci- learning specific notions of art production - can result from the ”scientific challenge" plines, but also within the artworld itself - as well as the production of the artist- to the field of art? are academies prevalent, if not hege- subject, are implicit:- as creation or con- monic. If one looks at contemporary gal- struction, respectively. This dichotomy, or The challenges for artistic education leries, museums and international bienni- struggle, if you will, is happening on two today are indeed many. Some would als, the artists represented here are fronts; in the educational system itself claim that art education is at a crossroad almost exclusively all academy-trained, a and in contemporary art production, with between tradition and innovation, others huge difference to the ratio of just, say, the former somewhat following or reflect-

[76] [77] ing the latter. In contemporary art prac- shift in the conception of art as objects cal studio practice. For example, the ducers, face, we cannot rest on the pillars tices we can see a certain "permissive- and contexts, as well as of the artists as introduction of documentary strategies of tradition, neither within institutions, art ness”, an interdisciplinary approach subject and producer. We therefore need into artistic practice over the last decade production or methods of teaching. On where almost anything can be consid- new tools, not only in an art historical or so, naturally requires very different the contrary, tradition seems quite count- ered an art object in the appropriate con- sense, but also in terms of the education skills and methodologies than a tradition- er-productive to our current endeavor: text, and where more than ever before of artists as a discipline and institutional al studio practice, but also - alongside the the assessment of new skills and tools for there is work being produced with an space. Perhaps it is also in this context so called project exhibition - implying a re-contextualized art practice. So, if we expanded praxis, intervening in several that we should view the emergence of a potentially very different goals and view art production as knowledge pro- fields other than the traditional art sphere, term such as "artistic research”, one of scopes. To a certain extent, it is the issue duction rather than formal production, we touching upon such areas as architecture the buzzwords in the current discussions at hand rather than the end product of an will have to develop and define a different and design, but also philosophy, sociolo- around art education and the modular art object that is primary. Studio practice set of properties and parameters for dis- gy, politics, biology, science and so on. model: on the one hand research seems has by no means disappeared, though, cussion, production and evaluation. And The field of art has become a field of pos- implied by certain artistic practices, and especially not from the art market, when we focus on art as a place "where sibilities, of exchange and comparative on the other it seems to academically val- instead several conceptions of art prac- things can happen” rather than a thing analysis. It has become a field for alterna- idate artistic work processes as such. We tice seem to co-exist, and the battle lines "that is in the world” we will see how an tives, proposals and models, and can, are dealing with a transferal of terms, between different artistic and political engagement between art production and crucially, act as a cross field, an interme- since we are not just talking about positions can not be mapped out only in critical theory becomes necessary and diary between different fields, modes of "research” as such, as in other fields, but formal ways, as was the case in early the education itself a multi-facetted inter- perception and thinking, as well as with the prefix "artistic” added. That is, modernism. However, it is obvious that disciplinary field that moves in many between very different positions and sub- something additional and specific to the re-contextualized art practices are not spaces as opposed to staying within one jectivities. field of art. One must thus inevitably ask resting upon the same pillars of tradition mode of production, or form. This is not to what kind of practices does not involve as the historical art academy, if on any, say that thinking doesn’t take on a formal Art thus has a very privileged, if tenable artistic research? What practices are and it is clear that such practices are articulation or that research is always and slippery, but crucial position and privileged, and which are marginalized or increasingly present within the art acade- equal to art production, quite the contrary, potential in contemporary society. Such even excluded? Does research function mies, both in terms of teachers and stu- since it is our particular property to under- expanded practices emerged, as we as a different notion of artistic practice(s) dents, but not necessarily visible in the stand content as form and vice versa. But know, in the 1960s and 1970s, but have or merely a different wording, validation structural framework of the art academies the important shift that I want to empha- become much more prevalent in the process and contextualization that can themselves. Why is this so? And will they size is perhaps best described by Jean- 1990s, and where they were originally in mold and place artistic work within tradi- find their place more easily in the modu- François Chevrier, who has written of an a dialogical/oppositional relationship with tional university structures of knowledge lar system? "art conquering space”, as it were, since the tradition of art and its institutions, it is and learning? the 1960s, that has facilitated a shift in today more fully institutionalized, and Perhaps, as we are continuously dis- emphasis from art objects to what he only secondarily in opposition via its for- Often, but not always, in such dematerial- cussing new models of art production and calls "public things”.[4] This indicates how mats, which is why it was termed respec- ized, post-conceptual and, perhaps more institutions, we should also discuss new notions of audience, the dialogical, tively "contextual” and "relational” by ter- accurately termed, re-contextualized art models of art educational facilities, both modes of address and conception(s) of ritorializing theorists Peter Weibel and practices, there is of course a notion of in terms of architecture, structure and the public sphere(s) have become the Nicolas Bourriaud in the 1990s.[3] Art is research invoked. Research has even, to curricula. It is clear that the interdiscipli- important points in our orientation, and as often purely a place or even pretext for some extent, superceded studio practice. nary must necessarily stand in opposition what this entails in form of ethics and pol- communication and action, as it is an end Artists are increasingly researching proj- to a traditio-nal division of art practices itics. in itself, hence recent buzzwords such as ects, not only to make site-specific works, into particular genres or indeed disci- platform, plateau and project. This is nei- but also time and content specific works. plines, such as "painting” or the no longer This shift also entails, naturally, different ther the time nor place to discuss the Here, form follows function, and the so new "new medias”, to name but a few. notions of communicative possibilities merits of such projects and language materialization of the work is decided In order to address the situation that con- and methods for the artwork, where nei- games, but rather to point to a profound upon different parameters than in histori- temporary young artists, or cultural pro- ther its form, context nor spectator is

[78] [79] fixed or stabile: such relations must be A contemporary investigation of how art If we look at the academy itself we have ments and sovereign professors, but constantly (re)negotiated, and conceived and artists are produced must thus been handed down certain historical rather through a simultaneous diffusion of in notions of publics or public spheres. reconfigure the terms of theory and prac- models, the idea of "free art” and the this power, making it less visible and per- This means, on the one hand, that the tice in a different way, and explore both master class, namely one professor talk- sonally identifiable, but double enforce- artwork itself (in an expanded sense), is what can be termed the practice of theo- ing to multiple students and deciding able through various mechanisms of con- unhinged from its traditional forms (as ry and the theories of practice (historical what art education is. In terms of mode of trol and (self)surveillance, where you material) and contexts (galleries, muse- and current): What exactly is involved in address this is, of course, a pre-demo- individually have to choose your course ums etc.), and on the other hand, is made an act of representation? What is, for cratic model, a non-dialogical mode of work, but according to a modular system contingent on a(nother) set of parameters instance, the relationship between artistic address, based on the sovereign reigning installed in advance, and with various that can be described as spaces of expe- practice and political representation, that his subjects, listening attentively to his instances of evaluation and examination. rience, that is, notions of spectatorship is, two different notions of representa- master’s voice (an inherently hierarchical This "educational system” of control is and the establishment of communicative tion? What are the possible positions and masculinist subject positioning). continued after graduation, of course, platforms and/or networks in or around within the artistic field for political repre- However, if artists are now to be engaged through how your work processes and the artwork that are contingent on, and sentations and perhaps even actions, with the world and not just themselves advance in the artworld, or generalized changing according to different points of and which modes are productive and and their desirous relationship to a tradi- field of cultural production, is struc- departure in terms of spectatorship. The which counter-productive? And, further- tion - which was, famously, Norman tured.[6] gaze of the spectator is, of course, not more, what is the relationship between Bryson’s definition of academism in clas- only dependent on the work and its place- the claimed autonomy of the artwork, and sical art - we must question the relevance In this sense, the notion of the cultural ment, but also on the placement of the claims for political autonomy? But also: of this model and perhaps look more producer, a contemporary artist figure, spectator socially (in terms of age, class, what is the relationship between repre- closely at the university model of several can be seen as complicit with these later ethnic background, gender, politics etc.). sentation and depresentation?.[5] What lecturers and certain curricula as instigat- developments within administration, poli- Or, more broadly speaking, experiences are the correlations between strategies ed by the Bologna process. If we view the tics and capital. The artists are a sort of and intentionalities. In turn, work, context and formal expressions? What are, for academy as a "teaching machine”, to par- social avant-garde, on the forefront of the and spectator influence the definition of example, the trappings and potentials of aphrase Gayatri Spivak, we must ask, risk society and the notion of immaterial each other. None of which are given, and collective works and groupings compared then, what kind of subjects (i. e. the stu- laborers. As producers of knowledge uni- each of which are potentially conflictual, to the role of the singular artist? How do dents) and what kind of knowledge (i. e. versities are often mere teaching indeed agonistic: One may or may not you define your work vis-à-vis the appa- the teaching) is produced. Presently, this machines, reproducers rather than pro- feel addressed, may or may not accept ratus surrounding art production and has a heightened urgency, since we are ducers of knowledge and thinking, which the mode of address, even, by a given presentation? What is the public role of importing the Anglo-American university is why we should not uncritically adopt work or a given situation (both artwise the artist, historically, presently and system onto the traditional European their structures. Rather, one should learn and socio-politically). When thinking potentially? These discussions must academy model. It would be illusory to from those structures as spaces of expe- about art production and representation, revolve around the various tools and think that the implementation of a modu- rience, as discursive spaces, and simul- it is therefore crucial to negotiate these methods of representation available to lar system will in itself solve the problems taneously to the implementation of its terms both individually and in relation to us: how we can conceive of var-ious and grievances we have with the histori- productive features, maintain the notion each other. We must, then, think of art in modes of address, and how new narra- cal master class. One will merely substi- of unproductive time and space, which terms of a triadic model, rather than in tives, and in turn subjectivities, can be tute a system of discipline with a system was potentially hidden in the academy terms of dialectics (such as form and con- constructed? This is also an adequate of control: whereas the traditional educa- model: where the traditional professorial tent, tradition and desire, meaning and moment to repeat the classical question: tional system is part of the disciplinary reign meant that the professor in charge non-meaning, and so on). To the extent To and for whom do we speak? And what society, the new methods of examination, decided on methods and curricula (if that such a model was presaged by parts are the differences in our conceptions modules and internalization, can be seen any), he or she could naturally also allow of historical conceptualism, we are as and invocations of various notions of as part of a society of control. Power is no for the students to do whatever they much within an post-conceptual as post- institutions, audiences, constituencies longer exercised through discipline, as it wanted, even doing nothing. Such is the modern era. and communities? is very concretely in the traditional acad- total power of the sovereign: to be a good emy with its disciplinarily themed depart- king or a bad king … Reversely, the stu-

[80] [81] dents could also take charge themselves ization of the art object, and thus its within: one and the same. However, as [3] See Peter Weibel (ed.), Kontext Kunst, Köln and directly overthrow their professors in potential (if only partial) exodus from the indicated, it is also possible to think of 1994, and Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational place revolutions (as inspired by the stu- commodity form and thus disappearance education as a process of thinking, of Aesthetics / Esthétique relationelle, Dijon 1998. dent riots of 1968), as actually witnessed from the market system, and the institu- unlearning certain modes of knowledge [4] The movement from object to public things, in art schools throughout the 1990s, tional re-inscription and validation of such and production and subjectivity, of ques- events, installations, utterings, situations etc. has where students created so called "free practices as artistic research and thus tioning these very structures rather than been eloquently described by Jean-François classes”, professor-less departments run knowledge economical commodity. embracing them. It should be possible to Chevrier in his book The Year 1967. From Art by the students themselves. One should Obviously, even dematerialized artistic think of educational spaces that are pro- Objects to Public Things, Or Variations on the Conquest of Space, Barcelona 1997. maintain such notions of a free space, of practices can be bought and sold as com- duced through subjectivities rather than the laboratory, something that is not modities on the art market, if the market- merely producers of them. Or put in other [5] By representation we mean a double move- implied in strict course work and evalua- ing of the artist figure - as hipster, as cre- words, not just producing artworld artists, ment of absence and presence, politically that tion schemes. In this sense one has to ator, as innovator - is done forcefully and but rather positions within as well as with- someone is present somewhere, representing move beyond knowledge production into strongly by the right agents, i. e. specific out the art world and its repetitious others that are absent, and artistically transferal and transformation in the sense of the emergence what we can term spaces for thinking. high end galleries. (The artists as pure economies of galleries, collectors, mar- of an idea or sensation within an object, placed Thinking is, after all, not equivalent to sign value, we could even say, rejoicing kets, careerings, reifications, trends and somewhere (else). By depresentation, we are knowledge. Whereas knowledge is circu- with almost forgotten postmodern guru circuits. referring to the opposite movement, a presence lated and maintained through a number Jean Baudrillard …) or emergence that is removed or even erased. of normative practices - disciplines as it Notes: Something that can no longer be represented. It is thus not a matter of a discourse or subject posi- were - thinking is here meant to imply net- In institutional terms, we have seen this tion that cannot emerge in a given hegemony (as works of indiscipline, lines of flight and witnessed in the merge between art, [1] I am using the term cultural producers for two reasons, first to escape the limitation of art as the ways in which the subaltern cannot speak), utopian questionings. Naturally, knowl- economy, fashion and academies in the object-based and market-driven, and secondly in but rather of an active and effective removal of edge has great emancipatory potentials, uk, exemplified by the Thatcherite trans- order to refer to the larger framework of an enter- certain ideas and speech acts from the visible, as we know from Marxism through psy- formation of the art educational system tainment or cultural industry, in which art produc- from the possible, from the system of representa- tion and signification as such. cho-analysis, but knowledge, in the into a cultural industrial complex, reach- tion is now thoroughly based. So, on the one hand sense being what you know, what you ing its apex with the hegemonic position an unhinging from historical categories and limita- tions, and on the other a newer circumscription [6] Moving beyond the artworld and even the larg- have learned, is also a limitation: some- of Gold-smiths College and the Young and delimitation. er cultural industrial sphere, we will find that one thing that holds you back, that inscribes British Artists generation of artists in of the political catchwords of post-Fordist, and even post welfare societies of core Europe is you within tradition, within certain param- England in the 1990s.[7] A similar tenden- [2] The Bologna process refers to a eu declaration on education from 1999, which has been signed indeed "education for life”, meaning education as eters of the possible. And thus with cer- cy can be seen in other places and insti- an ongoing process, constant deskilling and tain eliminations of what it is possible to tutions (such as Yale and now Columbia by 29 European countries so far. The goal is to create a European University standard of educa- reskilling of labor, as well as a mode of production think, possible to imagine - artistically, University in the United States), and tion, allowing for movement between countries and productivity itself. politically, sexually and socially. shows how the Anglo-American system and faculties, using the same ects point system Secondly, the notion of knowledge pro- of education, capital and culture, along and the standardization of the Anglo-American [7] Interestingly, a generation of artists that were system of Bachelor and Masters degrees, follow- all academy trained and socialized, indeed con- duction implies a certain placement of with general political implementations of nected to the market, media and gallery system thinking, of ideas, within the present deregulation and state control, are ing by a possible PhD in a so called three plus two plus three modular system. Within art education, through the academy, emerged publicly as anti- knowledge economy, i. e. the dematerial- exported from the us through the uk and there is currently a pan-European discussion on academic in the sense of being anti-theoretical. ized production of current post-Fordist into Europe. Internation-alization and har- whether to follow this model, already in place in The effects of the ba and ma system does not, capitalism. And here we can see the monization of education also mean a nor- Great Britain, or whether to keep the traditional then, indicate an increase in theoretical academic Franco-Germanic model of the art academy, with- discourse, but is equally capable of maintaining interest of capital become visible in the malization, and a possibility of transform- and even cultivating the reactionary anti-theoreti- current push for standardization of (art) ing the educational sector into a compet- out modules, but with each student attending the class of one professor, whose department is cal artist subject of the traditional art academy. education and its measurability, and for itive market. It is, in these cases - and defined according to a specific artistic discipline The main common feature, obviously, is connec- the molding of artistic work into the for- one could easily mention European (traditionally painting and sculpture department, tions: how artists enter the marketplace, i. e. the mats of learning and research. There is a schools as well - quite obvious which sys- and today most often with new media, video, pub- dealers-collectors network and economy of desire. direct corollary between the dematerial- tem artists are educated for as well as lic space etc. departments added for good meas- ure). [82] [83] Practice Here and Now. Foucault and Lyotard, bring the concept Lacan, Saussure, etc. were frequently into discussion in order to describe the invoked. Recently, in a similar manner, The Shift in Contemporary Art and Theory language as being perfomative instead some (Schneider,Wright, et. al. 2006; of structured. The same is applied in 2010) have tried to make the same con- relation to a scientific language/discour- nection between contemporary art and se by the science and technology stu- anthropology, especially its practical by Ștefan Voicu dies scholars. aspect, the ethnographic method (cf La Triennale 2012: www.latriennale.org). What I am concerned with in this essay Probably Thierry de Duve's (1996) his- is how this shift of focus has had an torical account of “The Richard Mutt impact on artistic practices. Peter Case”, that turned Marcel Duchamp's Osborne (1999), using Bourdieu's urinal into a famous work of art, is illus- notion of field of production, has seen in trative when one tries to point out the the Conceptual art of the 1960's-1970's practice character of the how philosophy and art are intimately conceptual/contemporary artwork. But related, on various levels and degrees because Duchamp's practices might be of intensity. In his opinion, this relation consider as a “bridge” towards this emerges out of an art criticism crises change, rather than a fulfilled “revolu- which is managed legitimizing art within tion”, I would like to look at the curatorial I. the field of artistic production, by means statement for the forthcoming Bucharest of acquired dispositions from the philo- Biennial for Contemporary Art (Anne Within the humanities and social scien- sophical field of production. He says Barlow's Tactics for Here and Now: ces, recent discussions have focused that: www.bucharestbiennale.org/concept.ht on practice as a way to overcome the ml). How does this contemporary practi- traditional attention granted, on one Only a certain kind of philosophy could ce differs, if it does, from the 1960's- hand, to structures and systems and, on have played this role: namely, an analy- 1970's conceptualism and what are the the other hand, to actions. Theodor tical philosophy which combined the philosophical ideas from which the cura- Schatzki (2001) tries to account for this classical cultural authority of philosophy, tor draws her statement? Moreover, I turn, even though there is no unified in the updated guise of a philosophical would prefer to substitute Bourdieu's meaning attributed to the term of practi- scientism (logico-linguistic analysis) problematic notion of field of production ce across disciplines. From a philosop- with a purely second-order or meta-criti- (cf Schatzki 2002; Turner 1994; 2002) hical point of view Wittgenstein, Dreyfus cal conception of its epistemological with Latour's (2005) network, what he and Taylor speak of practices as modes status. [Osborne 1999: 50] calls a concatenation of mediators, i.e., of making and doing that disclose sub- a practical association of human and jects and objects, nonpropositional In the British context, Osborne men- non-human, material and non-material, knowledge, and conditions of intelligibi- tions, Marxism played a role for defining entities that translate, derive, distort, lity. Sociologically, Bourdieu, Giddens, the activist conceptual art. Peter Goldie delegate and are delegated in a pro- and the ethnomethodologists use the and Elisabeth Schellekens (2007) have gram of action. notion of practice to question the struc- argued that conceptual art made use of tural determinations, the agency's ability both Anglo-saxon analytical and conti- II. to define social phenomena, and as an nental philosophy among which authors attempt to go beyond the action-structu- like Wittgenstein, Carnap, Austin, Kuhn, Schatzki (2001) argues that the practice re opposition. Cultural theorists, like Barthes, Althusser, Benjamin, Foucault, approach can be defined in terms of [84] [85] analyses that account for practices as When one looks at the relation between He rejects or rather avoids talking about fields, i.e., domains of subject- the field of art and the field of philosop- As Stephen Turner has noticed (1994), the hybridization of these entities, emer- object/human-non-human activity, or hy, the link seems to be established Bourdieu avoids an explicit account of ged out of translation, delegation, black- descriptions of these fields, in order to according to positions and dispositions the means by which dispositions are boxing, and composition processes. For understand the changes of their subject- of individual or class habituses. acquired and embodied in habitus, and Latour there is no site or field, but a net- object's practices. He notes that: Henceforth, conceptual art is a position how they subsequently influence the work that is sewed through the above within the field of art, embodied in a position in the field, by arguing that this mentioned practices which are perfor- Most practice theorist would agree that habitus, the catalyst for practices of is a psychological object of investigation med in an action program that compo- activity is embodied and that nexuses of change or conservation, that has acqui- that sociologists don't have to deal with, ses a hybrid entity. practices are mediated by artifacts, red certain dispositions from within the and that, nevertheless, this will not sig- hybrids, and natural objects, disagree- field of philosophy. nificantly change the outcomes of the III. ments reign about the nature of embodi- actions performed. Thus, one can see in ment, the pertinence of thematizing it Although the historical determinants of Osborne's text that the notion of field To make sense out of the concepts when analyzing practices, the sorts of this field alignment play an important doesn't help him to provide a convincing deployed by Latour, I will make appeal entities that mediate activity, and whet- role in its explanation, Osborne seems argument for what he names to the curatorial statement provided by her these entities are relevant to practi- to give a very narrow account of them, inclusive/weak and exclusive/strong Anne Barlow for the 2012 Bucharest ces as more than mere intermediaries neglecting what happened in a broader conceptual art. Schatzki (2002: 153) Biennial for Contemporary Art. Taking in among humans. [Schatzki 2001: 2] context. One might link it though with agrees with Turner about this, saying consideration his definition of a program what some have called post-modernism that “Bourdieu collapses the organiza- of action, by which he means, the series For them order is a characteristic(s) of (Harvey 1990; Jameson 1991; Lyotard tion of practices into the structure of of goals, steps and intentions described the field of practices and these practices 1984), that is, the failure of knowledge's habitus”. Furthermore, Schatzki aban- by one agent, I argue that, in this case, are responsible for the production of grand narratives to legitimately repre- dons the notion of field, that according as strange as it may sound, the agent is these characteristics, while the psycho- sent what counts as “real” by means of to him doesn't allow practices to occur in not just Anne Barlow, but also the state- logical basis for action is constituted by epistemological fallacies or political eco- intertwined bounded realms, for the ment that pertains to the reader, and the abilities “such as know-how, skills, tacit nomic contingencies. Schneider, Wright concept of social site. This may be the web page where he can find it. The rea- understanding, and dispositions” et. al. are more detailed in this regards. reason why Osborne speaks about the der is not interacting with the curator, (Schatzki 2001: 7). They follow the historical origins of the alignment and not the overlapping or but with something she wrote on her vir- link between art and anthropology from entanglement of the fields. But in the tual sheet, next agent, at her personal He, most probably, takes the notion of post-modernism onwards. It is not the case of Schneider, Wright et. al., they or office computer, another agent. Anne field from Bourdieu's social theory. The case here to trace this history. Because theorize and analyze the relations bet- Barlow needed the computer, a home or latter uses the idea of field in order to this would mean to take for granted the ween art and anthropology more in their an office, the fourth agent, the text edi- describe a social space that is based on descriptions of the relation established dynamic of entanglement than in its ting software, the fifth agent, and the a dynamic structure of difference. The between philosophy or anthropology purified realms. language skills, another agent, which field nominates both a domain of force, and art as fields, either in Bourdieu's she got from the attended schools, “whose necessity is imposed on agents rigorous manner or sometimes in a fas- Latour (1993) also calls into question agents again, etc. to compose the state- who engage in it”, and a domain of hion more nuanced by post-modernist Bourdieu's “Enlighment” background ment. She also might have needed struggle “within which agents confront theories. What interests me is the possi- that shoves the “Great Divide” into his agents like art theory books, artists, each other, with differentiated means bility of replacing the idea of a field with theoretical framework. Therefore, for artworks, exhibitions etc. and ends according to their position in what, for me, seems to be a more ade- him, Bourdieu is engaged in a project of the structure of the field of forces, thus quate term. But first, I will outline some dividing and categorizing entities by The text translates all the actions that contributing to conserving or transfor- problems that make the operationaliza- “purifying” them and stabilizing, to a cer- Anne Barlow performed in association ming its structure” (Bourdieu 1998). tion of the field difficult. tain extent, their uncontrollable agency. with some of the entities mentioned, [86] [87] even with the act of writing, and it is a calls a composition, i.e., an association to designate this space and time, the towards a Bourdieuian-like perspective, new form of expression delegated, by of human and non-human agents that here and now. Furthermore, it notes that rather than a Latourian one. For this those associations of actions and enti- symmetrically exchange intentions and in here “artists often have to negotiate reason its conceptualization is opened ties, to continue pursuing the initial goals and that is shaped like an intrica- risky positions, contested territories or for the same criticisms brought to goals and intentions. Sometimes, very te network. The hybrid agent is the situation in which cultural activities inte- Bourdieu earlier. Nevertheless, this often, the translating entities distort the result of a composition action that requi- ract or provide a counter point”. black-box is not closed yet until the meaning of those intentions and goals. res translation, delegation and black- grand opening. It is now and then, here It is nevertheless impossible for the rea- boxing. He acts by associating itself with The power of the artist, as mentioned in and there, that various agents will direct der to know if that happened with the entities that can be positioned in fields the text, derives from “investigative, their actions in associations with this text, because he/she wasn't present like technology, art, philosophy, admi- indirect, or informal strategies”. His text in order to translate, distort, derive during the unfolding of those practices. nistration etc. but putting them in such ways reflect “a practice that is evolving, and relegate it. The associations between the various categories would mean to perceive dynamic and responsive, something entities are black-boxed - “a process them as black-boxed intermediaries, or that is essential for situations that chan- V. that makes the joint production of actors purified hybrids, instead of mediators ge quickly or are not yet fully under- and artifacts entirely opaque” (Latour endowed with agency. This sends us stood”. Henceforth, in the statement one I have tried to make a short account of 1999: 183)- as soon as practices cease, back to Schatzki's definition of practice can see that the order characteristics of the possible link between the practice therefore the reader cannot make any theory that stated: “activity is embodied the artistic site are a product of strate- theory turn and contemporary artistic posits in regard to that. With these and that nexuses of practices are gies, negotiations, and tactics (domains practices by means of Latour's ideas notions, Latour somehow overcomes mediated by artifacts, hybrids, and natu- of force) performed in an indirect, infor- that for me stand as an alternative for the criticism Turner brought to ral objects”. Here Latour goes beyond mal manner (domain of struggle), with Bourdieu's central notions. This article Bourdieu's social theory because, to a Bourdieu's “Enlightenment” and his the mediated aid of the Internet among made use of Schatzki's loose descrip- certain extent, he manages to give an field's inability to interweave. others. The artist avoids “overt state- tion of the practice turn in order to see account of how the “embodiment” of ments” that could recall the modernist how this black-box is an entity associa- information takes place. IV. grand narratives. Instead, he is enga- ted with the curatorial text developed by ged in the construction of a different Anne Barlow for BB5. According to my Then, the statement was sent to the Now that the problems raised by type of instrument for knowing the con- interpretation, the text easily fits into the directors of the Biennial which read it, Bourdieu's habitus and field have been temporary, “the art of living in the city as practice framework but is encrusted with accepted it, perhaps translated it into sorted out by replacing it with Latour's the work of art” (Lefebvre 1996: 173). In the same difficulties encountered in the the official language of the country in actor-network-theory, one can have a the 1960's the social theorist Henri ideas of habitus and field. This could be which the event will be held (it is here fresh new look at the relation between Lefebvre (1996), argued more ore less redressed with the help of work done by were distortions and detours of meaning the black-boxed practice theory and the the same. He stated that “leaving aside actor-network-theorists (Hennion 1993; may be highly present, because it is in composition of BB5's curatorial state- representation, ornamentation and Latour 2011; Yaneva 2003) or with a the translation were the text suffers a ment. The title “Tactics for Here and decoration, art can become praxis and more fashioned perspective provided by considerable change of expression and Now” immediately shows that the text is poiesis on a social scale” (Lefebvre Nicolas Bourriaud (1998). For example, meaning), with the help of a translator or trying to position artistic know-how wit- 1996: 173, emphasis added). His theo- “Art and the City”, the latest work of a volunteer, and sent forward to the hin the categories of time and space. retical position is developed in a more Whybrow, tries to bring both Lefebvre's administrator of the website who uploa- Thus, it is placing practices related with recent book authored by Nicolas production of space and Bourriad's ded both of the versions on the official art in a, what Schatzki calls, site ontolo- Whybrow (2011). (1998) relational aesthetic into an analy- web page. A series of agents that are gy that in its material form takes the sis of the links between body, art, and black-boxed, again, work in order for shape and content of Bucharest. The There is no doubt that the curatorial sta- city. someone to read this statement. The statement speaks about “the context of tement finds its way in the loose defini- text will also be bracketed when one the shifting nature of politics, economics tion of the practice theory turn provided One may argue that the case is closed. visits the exhibition. This is what Latour and culture” and “the conditions of flux” by Schatzki. But it is more inclined The text is how it is, its meaning fixed, [88] [89] and there is no possibility of avoiding References: Lyotard, J. F. the “catastrophe”. But I consider that the 1984 The Postmodern Condition. A Report Biennale is still in its process of compo- Bourriaud, N. on Knowledge. Manchester: Manchester 1998 Relational Aesthetics. La Presse du University Press; sition; practices and entities of all sorts Reel. are yet to be associated with the text Bourdieu, P. Osborne, P. and the other agents present in the pro- 1998 Practical Reason. On the Theory of gram of action. In the end, I must stress Action. Cambridge: Polity Press. 1999 Conceptual Art and/as Philosophy in that my aim was not to reject or con- Rewriting Conceptual Art, Newman M. & demn but rather to explore one of the de Duve, T. Bird J. (eds.), pp. 47-65. London: Reaktion alternatives within practice theory and 1996 Kant after Duchamp. London: The Books. artistic practices, at large, that could stir MIT Press. one's curiosity regarding the topic of this Schatzki, T. R., Knorr-Cetina K., von paper. Goldie, P., Schellekens, E. (eds.) Savigny E. (eds.) 2007 Philosophy and Conceptual Art. 2001 The Practice Turn in Contemporary Oxford: Oxford University Press. Theory. London: Routledge.

Harvey, D. Schatzki, T. 1990 The Condition of Postmodernity. An 2002 The Site of the Social. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Account of the Constitution of Social Life Oxford: Blackwell; and Change. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press; Hennion,A. 1993 La passion musicale: Une sociologie Schneider, A., Wright, C. (eds.) de la médiation. Paris: A.-M. Métailié 2006 Contemporary Art and Anthropology. Oxford: Berg. Jameson, F. 1991 Postmodernism, or, The Cultural 2010 Between Art and Anthropology. Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke Contemporary Ethnographic Practice. University Press. Oxford: Berg.

Latour, B. Turner, S. 1993 We Have Never Been Modern. 1994 The Social Theory of Practices. Hertfordshire: Harverster Wheatsheaf. Tradition, Tacit Knowledge and Presuppositions. Cambridge: Polity Press 2005 Reassembling the Social. An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. 2002 Brains/Practice/Relativism. Social Oxford: Oxford University Press. Theory after Cognitive Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2011 Some Experiments in Arts and Politics. E-flux Journal 23 Whybrow, N. 2011 Art and the City. London: I.B. Tauris. Lefebvre, H. 1993 The Production of Space. Oxford: Yaneva, A. Blackwell. 2003 Chalk Steps on the Museum Floor. The Pulses of 'Objects' in an Art Lefebvre, H. Installation. Journal of Material Culture 8 1996 Writings on Cities. Oxford: Blackwell. 169. [90] [91] tual ebullience of the Bucharest of that towards politics (although initially it was a Avant-garde Arts under the Spell of Politics period and, moreover, to the almost matter of fending off politics) could only established tradition of the petite bour- generate an infinite series of tensions, geoisie of that time to study in the major surrenders and returns. And that was academic centers of Europe (particularly because, in order to stay at the center of in Paris, Vienna or Berlin) and to return attention and at the core of the ideologi- and attempt to implement this whole cal convulsions of that time, a transition imported conglomeration of visions and needed to be made from the subjectivity by Marius Stan ideas. However, in spite of this cosmo- of individual freedom (expressed artisti- politan pattern [3], many commentators cally) to the more radical subjectivity of believe that the Romanian avant-garde denying social reality (expressed politi- stood out in the great internationalist fam- cally) [6]. Euphemistically speaking, put- ily due to a sound Eastern European ting the equal sign between the arts rev- derivative component. In fact, for Hugo olution and the social one today is a mere Ball himself, the Romanians at Cabaret rhetorical act. And probably the only polit- Switzerland has become, with the pass- Voltaire largely remained Orientals. Last, ical and ideological recurrence of the ing of time, a cliché of neutrality, although but not least, the Romanians in Zurich avant-garde art is actually very little polit- the destinies of many socially and politi- had a Semitic family background and, in ical (or even not political at all): its anar- cally engaged spirits started, unfolded or the political context of that period, their chism! After all, the avant-gardism is recovered there. It is the case of the exodus to the West had a deeply prag- plagued by an exacerbated individualism, artists gathered around the Cabaret matic meaning. In its connection with most frequently biographical and psycho- Voltaire in Zürich, a quasi-cultural space politics, the avant-garde was many times logical – see the poem of Vladimir founded in 1916 by Dadaist Hugo Ball [1] a response to politics, a kind of effect of a Mayakovsky, “To a Cut-Throat”, in which and, among others, by the Romanians marked causality. With regard to the peri- he combines the belief that he will survive Tristan Tzara and Marcel Iancu. During od discussed here, we can say easier his own death with a cult for the anony- WW1, Switzerland maintained its neutral- now (although remaining in the realm of mous multitude (the masses of the ity, as I have already mentioned, which speculation) that that the avant-garde in future)[7]. allowed many refugees to set up ideolog- arts can be ideally reproduced only in a * ical, cultural, artistic and sometimes even political climate that permits the freedom However, when the avant-gardists leave political projects here. And as any place of choice and, consequently, of contro- the cocoon of art to become politically has (besides other perfectly measurable versy. Nevertheless, a totalitarian (or engaged, they do not do it to promote the coordinates) a certain spirit, Cabaret totalitarian-like) society cannot allow suf- artistic movement that used to give them Voltaire had, from its very beginning, a ficient space for manifestation to the an identity until not long before. They fine internationalist touch. In this space of avant-garde arts. Moreover, the avant- simply adhere to a political ideology com- European cultural effervescence, you garde often seems to accept a fashion pletely disrupted from the original artistic could hear, in all languages, the expres- instead of creating or promoting a new manifesto. And as in most cases the ide- sions of the cultural trend of the day one. Starting from this fact, the hypothe- ology happens to be the communist one, (Tristan Tzara, for instance, used to recite sis according to which the aesthetic radi- the relations between the government his poems in Romanian). Another thing to calism (in arts) and the social radicalism and these persons turned into political be noted from the very beginning is that (in politics) are related is completely false actors suffer a fundamental mutation, too: about half of the Dadaists at the Cabaret from a historical perspective [4]. For in the 1930s, many Romanian avant- Voltaire were Romanian [2]. How did that instance, the political phase of surrealism gardists come to the attention of the happen? was, actually, very short. Louis Aragon Siguranta (the Romanian secret police)! abandons surrealism for communism, We should mention that the flattering while others solve this option dilemma by Thus, the Romanian secret police (acting nickname of “Little Paris” that the surrendering communism and remaining through Eugen Cristescu, the chief of Romanian capital had at that time was faithful to the surrealist art [5]. Obviously, police at that time) sent a telegram in closely related to the cultural and intellec- the positioning of avant-garde artists 1934 to all regional police inspectors [92] [93] requesting them to take action to ban and tionship that Louis Aragon had with Victor But it was that very “state of agitation” was a major component of the national prevent the distribution in the country of Brauner (Romanian surrealist painter of that actually worried the authorities of the security. the “Commune” magazine edited by the Jewish origin) and, through him, with time, including the Romanian ones, not Association des Écrivains et Artistes many other Romanian communist writers the number or organization potential of The ideas of these avant-gardists and Révolutionnaires (AEAR [8] – Paris), and considered by the authorities in those who conveyed such messages: their artistic credo were gradually direct- of the pamphlets entitled “Des Amendes” Bucharest as a branch of the French although officially established as a politi- ed towards the communist political ideol- (Paris), “La lutte de l’URSS pour la paix AEAR [10]. Now, we realize that the politi- cal group in 1921, the Romanian commu- ogy. As they were (of course) willing to mondiale” (Paris 1934, authors: I. Stalin, cal oppression against the cultural pro- nists were banned on July 28th, 1924. change the world by conceptually trans- V. Molotov, M. Litvinov) and “Le travail moters has nothing to do with the sub- This immediately triggered an unprece- forming the reality, they did not always des cellules d’Usines” (Les publications stance of their artistic manifesto, but dented radicalization in the position of the realize that the ideas had detectable con- révolutionnaires, Paris)[9]. In fact, the rather with their specific social option. pro-Soviet communists, culminating with sequences. And when they realized it, international congresses of “antifascist- The government does not see their the peasants’ armed rebellion at they either returned to the non-political communist" writers were no longer works, paintings and artistic creations as Tatarbunar (in Southern Bessarabia, a version of their beliefs or completely attended by “avant-gardists” or other rep- a threat, but their actual anti-establish- province of the Romanian Kingdom at abandoned the initial artistic manifesto to resentatives of various cultural and artis- ment actions. Nevertheless, the interest that time), whose fundamental and become true political militants. tic movements, but simply by "commu- in the tumultuous relationship between declared purpose was to put an end to nists" or communist sympathizers (the the avant-garde artists and the politics is the Romanian occupation in Bessarabia. The case of one of the most important label difference is relevant for this trans- not generated by some significant result To stifle the Bolshevik-like uprising, the representatives of the Romanian and fer of identity that we referred to above as that their actions would ever had. As a Bratianu government deployed artillery Western Surrealism – Gellu Naum – is being paradigmatic of the transition – matter of fact, the avant-gardists never troops from the 3rd Romanian Army also paradigmatic. In 1934, Naum (who understood as a breakaway – from the changed the course of any major political Corps in the area, as well as a navy unit. studied philosophy from 1933 to 1937) sphere of arts to that of politics). Such events. What is interesting, indeed, is Therefore, it had become almost impossi- was member in “Amicii U.R.S.S.” (“The a congress took place in 1935, in Paris, their polemical writing (the manifesto ble for the Romanian authorities of the Friends of U.S.S.R.”), a so-called cultural and the Romanian secret police knew all itself) and the attempt to associate their time to see the subtle differences association populated by left-wing details (some major personalities of the moral and intellectual pursuits with the between the communists of various ori- (antifascist) intellectuals who wanted to international culture were among the par- purposes and methods of the internation- entations, the artists sympathizing with strengthen the relations with the Soviet ticipants: Aldous Huxley, George Bernard alist communism. There were also sev- the communist internationalism and other Union (although, as we mentioned earli- Shaw, Leo Tolstoi, John Dos Passos, eral serious reasons that prevented the categories of agitators. In this troubled er, the Romanian Kingdom was not on Sinclair Lewis, Kostas Varnalis, etc.). avant-gardists (and especially the surre- political context, the oppression started the best diplomatic terms with its eastern “Public events” of this kind often occa- alists) from projecting their metaphysical by the Siguranta against any persons that neighbor). Financed by the Comintern, sioned settlements of accounts even ambitions into social terms. Firstly, they allegedly had or may have had any con- this association was also banned on within the same artistic family – although believed that poetry (in particular) was no nections with the communist movement November 25th, 1934, by the Tatarescu it was clear that what had previously unit- longer a skill of the few, a means of actually became a matter of national government. However, the group that fre- ed them under the umbrella of the artistic expression, but an activity of the mind security. The poetic dream of territorial quented the “Amicii” included remarkable manifesto was now dividing them, under accessible to everyone: a poetic commu- mutations was actually the purely political intellectuals of the Romanian interbellum the influence of a powerful argument: nism! Thus, the poetry was taken down background against which these avant- period: Iorgu Iordan, N. D. Cocea, the political ideology! At that congress, from the Empyrean of abstraction to the gardists fallen under the ideological fasci- Alexandru Sahia, Petre Pandrea, Tudor Louis Aragon (the leader of the AEAR, vernacular area of pure desire. However, nation of communism were moving. Bugnariu, Marcel Iancu, Zaharia Stancu, but also a promoter of Surrealism) is con- in the early ‘20s, although it had already Maybe Breton, Aragon, Iancu, Tzara, Demostene Botez and many others. Also fronted by his former comrade, André become a red thread in the avant-garde Gellu Naum (and others) were not inter- in 1934, Gellu Naum planned to distribute Breton, as the latter chose to publicly writings, the word “revolution” did not ested in these matters of immediate actu- to students and workers, as editor, support Victor Serge (Victor Lvovich have those political connotations yet: ality, but their even remote association to "Tanara Generatie" [12] (a newspaper Kibalchich), a Russian writer and former "The immediate meaning and purpose of the cabalistic maneuvers and schemes of considered subversive by the Siguranta). Comintern journalist associated to the the Surrealist revolution is not as much to the Bolsheviks could not go unnoticed by On December 29th, 1934, he did it right Trotskyist left-wing opposition. change the manifest and physical order the authorities of the time. In fact, the at the Grivita Railways Wrkshop, handing of things, but to create a state of agitation Siguranta was operating like any present- a copy of the paper to each worker who The Romanian Siguranța also had in people’s minds” [11]. day secret service and the control of was coming or leaving from work [13]. To detailed information concerning the rela- information and of transnational networks understand the anxiety of the authorities, [94] [95] we should remember that one year to complete his philosophy studies at the Notes: ers’ organizations in France and the colonies, by systematically working with the worker and farmer before, on February 16th, 1933, Romania Sorbonne (encouraged by Victor [1] In his diary, “Flight out of Time”, Hugo Ball had experienced the largest workers’ Brauner) and meets the group of André contributors to the revolutionary press and with the describes the opening night: “The place was full to Marxist circles, with the workers’ groups in the fields protests in its history to that date: due to Breton and other veteran surrealists... bursting; many could not get in. About six in the of theater, cinematography, photography and radio, the poor working conditions and low evening, when we were still busy hammering and etc. b). Fighting against all nuances of the bour- wages (also as a consequence of the It is important to mention, however, that putting up Futurist posters, there appeared an orien- geois ideology, fascism, down to social fascism; world economic crisis), the railway work- this pro-Stalinist fascination of the surre- tal-looking deputation of four little men with portfolios inducing the nonconformist writers and artists to take ers at Grivita had violently clashed with alists never was a univocal act. They had and pictures under their arms, bowing politely many a stand and to become partners to the proletariat by times. They introduced themselves: Marcel Janco the riot police. The incident resulted in their share of mistakes and doubts, they adopting the political form of the UIER; c). Creating the painter, Tristan Tzara, George Janco and a and developing a proletarian art and literature by [18] many injuries and several deaths. We went separate ways and became fourth, whose name I did not catch. Arp was also adopting the dialectical materialism as a basis; d). should also mention that the trade union allies equally easy, depending on the there, and we came to an understanding without Organizing rallies, contests, conferences, exhibi- at the Grivita Workshops had been pene- sequence of events of the time (remem- many words. Soon, Janco's opulent Archangels tions, publications, etc., as well as any other forms of trated and was manipulated by the com- ber that it is the period that witnessed the hung alongside the other objects of beauty and, that activity consistent with these purpose based on the munists who, immediately after 1945, did fall of the German democracy, the same evening, Tzara gave a reading of poems, con- national and international proportion; e). Promoting servative in style, which he rather endearingly fished the formation of a national federation of the revolu- not hesitate to turn the incidents at Grivita Spanish civil war and the Moscow show out of the various pockets of his coat”. Source: into one of the central points of their prop- trials by which Stalin eliminated his politi- tionary proletarian culture and, until such formation, Adrian NOTZ, in “Introduction” to the Catalogue of accepting and coordinating the efforts of the already aganda messages. In January 1935, the cal opponents and which will be masterly the exhibition Dada East? The Romanians of existing cultural groups". (Central National History Siguranta analyzed the content of depicted later by Arthur Koestler in Cabaret Voltaire/ Fargfabriken/ Stockholm/ Sweden, Archives (hereinafter referred to as ANIC), Fund 50, “Tanara Generatie” newspaper and the Darkness at Noon...). In fact, the conclu- Bucharest: RH Printing House, 2007, p. 5. File No. 1216 – Intelighenția Occidentală, „Statutul conclusions of the authorities are record- sion is rather simple: “Seized by the polit- [2] Tom SANDQVIST, Dada East. The Romanians Asociației Scriitorilor și Artiștilor Revoluționari de la ed in the same archived documents: "it of the Cabaret Voltaire, Cambridge, Mass and Paris”, November 11th, 1934). ical turmoil, the surrealism of the ‘30s London: The MIT Press, 2006. contains the usual communist theories lives less on aesthetic experiences and [9] ANIC, Fund 50, File No. 1216 – Intelighenția [3] “Poets, artists, doctors, lawyers, politicians, Occidentală, Telegrama cifrată Nr. about the class war, but the language is on challenges and defiance compared to they all studied in Paris, Vienna, Berlin or Munich. In 25516/27.03.1934. moderate, a fact explained by the com- the ‘20s. It looks dated, consumed, Romania, Cubism is more Cubistic and Futurism is [10] ANIC, Fund 95, Personal File of Louis Aragon, munists' change of tactical approach, as exhausted, and harassed by its own more Futuristic than anywhere else. Small French- No. 27653, f. 3. well as by their intention to maintain the visions and schisms. In fact, the war puts like policemen harass the peasants on their way to [11] Maurice NADEAU, Documents Surréalistes, possibility of publishing a legal newspa- an end to this experience and turns it into the farmers’ market, the cabarets and variety the- Paris, 1947, p. 44. aters are only cheap copies of those in Montmartre; [12] ANIC, Fund 95, Personal File of Gellu Naum, per to be distributed to the working mass- a chapter in the art history handbook.” [19] one can see revues based on French originals, sad No. 13507, f. 7. [14] es" (the language was so moderate Apparently, the surrealists had to dream and boring, copies of some equivocal comedies [13] Ibidem, f. 8. that not even the word "socialist" was politically – otherwise, they wouldn’t have imported directly from Théâtre Antoine or the [14] Ibidem, f. 14. used [15]). After only two issues, the existed. Unfortunately for their cause, Comèdie Française. In brief: a fantastic city in an [15] Ibidem, f. 17. newspaper it banned by order of the they failed to take political action. incredible country. Thirty years later, everything will [16] Ibidem, f. 19. Ministry of the Interior, in February 1935, Moreover, they seemed to persist in culti- be different…”. Source: Tom SANDQVIST, “Cuvînt [17] ANIC, Fond 95, Dosar personal Gellu Naum, înainte”, in Arhiva Durerii, Stockholm: and consequently becomes clandestine vating a pessimism deriving from their Nr. 13507/6470, f. 7. Sweden/Bucharest: Fundația Academia Civică, [18] For instance, André Breton launched in 1930 [16] . awareness of the irreconcilable cleavage 2000, p. 5. the second essential proclamation of the movement between human aspirations and their [4] Renato POGGIOLI, “The Avant-Garde and (“Second manifeste du surréalisme”), a document Gellu Naum is arrested on December actualization. This did not prevent them, Politics”, in Yale French Studies, No. 39, Literature that actually eliminates from the great family the sur- 27th, 1935, under the accusation of hav- however, from franticly experimenting and Revolution, 1967, p. 181. realists who hesitated to embrace “collective action” ing been caught writing “communist with pushing the buttons of social trans- [5] Ibidem, p. 182. with all its good and bad things: Raymond Queneau, passwords” on the walls of buildings in formation, but that pessimism estranged [6]Stelian TANASE, Avangarda romaneasca in André Masson, Robert Desnos and others. Later, arhivele Sigurantei, Iasi: Polirom, 2008, pp. 13-14. Dr. Sergiu street, Dr. Felix street and Al. I. them from the optimistic and much nar- these “dissidents” from the initial movement joined [7] Renato POGGIOLI, op. cit., p. 184. “lock, stock and barrel” the editor of the surrealist art Cuza boulevard. A note to the Royal rower minds of the simple communist mil- [8]The purposes of the association, as stated in a magazine “Documents”, Georges Bataille. Chief Superintendent specified that itants [20]. copy of the Rules of AEAR sent to Professor Petre [19] Stelian TANASE, op. cit., p. 42. Naum was not at his first arrest and that Constantinescu in Romania and intercepted by the [20] Robert S. SHORT, “The Politics of Surrealism: the police was aware that he was a mem- Siguranta, included: „a). Organizing writers (of fic- 1920-36”, in Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 1, ber of the clandestine organization of the tion and science criticism) and artists, workers and No. 2, Left-Wing Intellectuals between the Wars professionals, for actual participation in the class (1966), pp. 3-25. communist students in Romania [17]. war in close cooperation with the revolutionary work- Later, in 1938, Gellu Naum goes to Paris, [96] [97] exTenT PArTiCiPAnTs And Venues of BuChAresT BiennAle 5

[98] [99] PAVILION Center for Contemporary Art and Culture

Sos., Nicolae Titulescu nr. 1 (Piata, Victoriei)

Located in Victoria Square, PAVILION - center for contemporary art and culture is sit- uated on the ground floor of a communist building. The aforementioned space became a banking center in 1993 and it has stayed like this for the last 15 years. The actual building of the block started in the years of the communist regime and it was conclud- ed five years after the fall of communism. The hruschiovi (apartments named after the former communist leader from the ’60s) from the center of Bucharest have witnessed the changes of a Stalinist society into a capitalist society, with strong social and polit- ical marks.

is a work-in-progress independent space, a space for production and research in the fields of the audiovisual, discursive and performative. It is a space of critical thinking, and promotes an artistic perspective implying the social and political involvement of art and of cultural institutions.

PAVILION - center for contemporary art and culture will function as an exhibition venue, as well as the info point of BB5. [100] [101] Iman Issa

Triptychs

This project began with snapshots of In trying to be as precise as possible, I spaces that I have found myself visiting realized that the certainty with which I and revisiting over the last few years. At was able to construct and produce these one point, I realized that what might have images did not translate to my final pho- attracted me to these spaces was that tographs, that I no longer recognized my they reminded me of others; that they trig- constructions, nor was I certain of their gered a series of memories and associa- sources. This brought about the idea to tions. In an attempt to articulate the con- approach these photographs in a tent of these memories and associations, removed manner—as if they were found I decided to start constructing settings or produced by someone else—and use that corresponded to them, settings which them as a point of departure for another I would then photograph. The resulting artwork, one which eventually became images ended up constituting the second what is presented here as the third and Iman Issa, Triptych#6, photographs, framed text, installation view, 2009. element in each of these triptychs. final element in each of these triptychs. Courtesy of the artist and Rodeo. [102] [103] Iman Issa, Triptych#4, photographs, text, notebooks, c-print (installation detail), 2009. Iman Issa, Triptych#5, photographs, light, circuit, metronome, c-print (installation detail), 2009. Courtesy of the artist and Rodeo. Courtesy of the artist and Rodeo. [104] [105] Ahmet Öğüt

Stones to Throw

Stones to throw is an installation which has been extended to public space. I depart from nose art, the decorative paintings on the fuselage of military air- crafts, which can be seen as a form of air- craft graffiti. I painted on 10 stones that feature the same paintings seen in air- planes and the stoneswere on 10 plinths. During the show at Kunsthalle Lissabon 9 of the stones was sent to Diyarbakir, my hometown, one by one and left in the street. What remained at the end of the show was; 10 plinths, only one stone and photos of the other stones located in the streets of Diyarbakir and the FedEx bills. At Kunsthalle Lissabon, it was a process; visitors witnessed stones disappearing from the exhibition one by one. I decided not to send the last stone, so it actually becomes the physical documentation of the other stones that disappeared in the Ahmet Öğüt, Stones to throw, iInstallation view from the streets of Diyarbakir. 2010. Painted stones, plinths, streets of Diyarbakir. photographs, FedEx bills. Courtesy of the artist. Photographs by Askin Ercan, Bruno Lopes, Ahmet Ögüt [106] [107] Ahmet Öğüt, Stones to throw, installation, mail and public art project. 2010. Painted stones, plinths, photographs, FedEx bills. Courtesy of the artist. Photographs by Askin Ercan, Bruno Lopes, Ahmet Ögüt. Receipt for 1 EUR artist fee paid to Ahmet Öğüt for participating in the 5th Bucharest Biennial. [108] [109] Alexandre Singh

The Pledge

The Pledge are seven Assembly Instruc- ence, Simon Fujiwara’s autobiography, erot- tions that use as a starting point interviews ic fantasy, Assyrian statuary, lettuce, rab- conducted by the artist with Marc-Olivier bits, clouds and the Sistine Chapel. As in Wahler (curator and director of the Palais de Simon Fujiwara’s performances, the art- Tokyo, Paris), Leah Kelly (neurobiologist work plays with the gap between reality and and researcher at The Rockefeller Center, imagination, emphasizing the conflict bet- New York), Michel Gondry (film maker and ween material and form and exploring the director of music- videos and commercials), complicity between actor and spectator. Danny Rubin (screenwriter and author of Groundhog Day), Donatien Grau (teacher at The seven works operate as proxy-portraits Paris-Sorbonne University and member of for the interviewees, visual essays exploring the “Proust” Team at the ITEM_CNRS insti- the subjects’ ideas and as a window into the tute, Simon Fujiwara (artist and performer) phantasmagoric universe Singh has creat- and Alfredo Arias (theatre director, play- ed to amplify their thoughts. A common wright and actor). These interviews were theme throughout the works is the notion of published in a special issue of the Palais de how the mind assembles a coherent view of Tokyo’s magazine Palais together with a the world from fragments: from parts of sen- series of collages created by Singh to illus- sory perception, from childhood memories, trate the ideas within. Each interview is the from personal and historical facts. The very departure point for a rumination on the collages used to engage with these con- notion of a beginning, a promise, how the cepts are themselves reminiscent of the brain understands the world, how we under- same ideas. Individually each framed work stand a story, our dreams, external reality. uses the simplest mechanisms of cutting and pasting, changing scale and orientation The Pledge (Simon Fujiwara) plays Simon to make a coherent whole from two com- and Alexandre’s conversation throughout pletely different images. As a group, a forty framed images. Each one developing coherent thread is constructed through the upon ideas related to architecture, child- repetition and elaboration on multiple ideas, hood, sky-scrapers, phalluses, The Tower visual icons and motifs. Alexandre Singh, Assembly Instructions (The Pledge - Simon Fujiwara), of Babel, paleolithic tools, listener and sto- framed inkjet ultrachrome archival prints and dotted pencil lines, 2011. Courtesy of the artist and Monitor Rome. ryteller, performance, creative writing, audi- [110] [111] Alexandre Singh, Assembly Instructions (The Pledge - Simon Fujiwara), fourty Alexandre Singh, Assembly Instructions (The Pledge - Simon Fujiwara), fourty framed inkjet ultrachrome archival prints and dotted pencil lines, 2011. Installation framed inkjet ultrachrome archival prints and dotted pencil lines, 2011. Installation view from Monitor Rome. Courtesy of the artist and Monitor Rome. view from Monitor Rome. Courtesy of the artist and Monitor Rome.

[112] [113] Rinus van de Velde

untitled (The Lost Bishop)

For his contribution to the Biennale of Russian rival Boris Spasski in what has Bucharest, Van de Velde will make a new, come to be known as “the game of the cen- site-specific installation that consists of a tury”. In Van de Velde’s retelling of the hero- series of black-and-white wall drawings in ic story, Fischer becomes a chess-playing charcoal and a narrative text. Together, they artist, a heroic but obsessive and world- tell a story based on the biography of Bobby strange hero that controls a game he is Fischer (1943-2008), who is considered to completely absorbed by. The game of chess be one of the greatest, but also most contro- thus becomes a metaphor for a studio- versial chess players of all time. based art practice that revolves around the ego of the artist and gives structure to the The drawings Van de Velde presents are unsurpassable chaos of the ‘outside’ world, based on existing photographs drawn from which consists of an abundance of images. Fischer’s biography and other sources, which the artist then re-enacted within the The large-scale drawings ask the viewer to confines of his studio, working with props, ‘suspend their disbelief’ and literally step extras and himself as the protagonist. In into the fictive story. At the same time, they doing so, Van de Velde imagines himself to reflect on the illusionistic function of draw- be the main character of some one else’s ing, storytelling, fantasy and romantic ideas story, which he appropriates and trans- of geniality and heroism. Although these are forms. myths, Van de Velde suggests, they could still be considered to have a productive, The narrative is based upon Fischer’s leg- self-realising value in the real of the outside endary victory in the 1972 World Champ- world. (Koen Sels) Rinus van de Velde, untitled (The Lost Bishop), charcoal on wall 200 x 140 cm, 2012. ionship in Reykjavik, where he defeated his Photo: Ben Van den Berghe. Courtesy of the artist and Ben Van den Berghe. [114] [115] Rinus van de Velde, untitled (The Lost Bishop), charcoal on wall 200 x 247 cm, 2012. Rinus van de Velde, untitled (The Lost Bishop), charcoal on wall 240 x 340 cm, 2012. Photo: Ben Van den Berghe. Courtesy of the artist and Ben Van den Berghe. Photo: Ben Van den Berghe. Courtesy of the artist and Ben Van den Berghe. [116] [117] CASA PRESEI LIBERE HOUSE OF THE FREE PRESS CNI Coresi

Piata, Presei Libere nr. 1

Casa Presei Libere (original name, before 1989, it was Casa Scânteii),a building in northern Bucharest, is a copy of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. Casa Presei Libere held the record for the tallest structure in the city between 1956 and 2007. The building was originally conceived as Scânteia House Complex. The con- struction of the building took 5 years (1952 - 1957), (between 1949 and 1954, the proj- ect leader was prof. Panaite Mazilu) and was intended to be the headquarters of the official media and especially of the "Scânteia" newspaper that reemerged as the offi- cial voice of the Communist Party of Romania. The antenna on this building sustained for a while, since 1956, the Romanian Television transmitter. After 1989, "Casa Scânteii" became known as "Casa Presei Libere" The House of the Free Press. The former Printing House "Casa Scanteii" was also transformed after 1989 into the Autonomous Administration of Printing "Coresi". In February 1999, the Autonomous Administration of Printing "Coresi" became The National Company of Printing Coresi.

[118] [119] Abbas Akhavan

Untitled Garden

As viewers enter the exhibition, they are confronted by Akhavan’s installation ‘Untitled Garden’ – a long row of 9 feet tall emerald green cedar trees that align the entrance of the gallery. The hedges, a form of fence that resembles a row of sol- ders, barricade the view into the gallery, and render the audience as potential trespassers. The cedar hedge commonly used as a natural form of fencing has a long history in the contentious battle in the privatization of common lands. Hedges have been used as a way of con- trolling animal and human movement, rendering grazing and gleaning as tres- passing and theft, and demarcating the Abbas Akhavan, Untitled Garden, cedar hedges, planters, soil, size variable, 2009. property of middle to upper class homes. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Jesse Birch. [120] [121] Jill Magid

Failed States

Jill Magid is a New York-based artist and published by Publication Studio, which is writer known for work that infiltrates struc- “a laboratory for publication in its fullest tures of authority and power by means of sense — not just the production of books, engaging their human side. Rather than but the production of a public. This public, treating these structures as subjects to which is more than a market, is created challenge, Magid creates opportunities to through any and all means — physical manipulate them, by drawing them clos- production, digital circulation, and social er, exploiting their loopholes, engaging gathering. Together these construct a them in dialogue, infiltrating their sys- space of conversation, a public space, tems, repeating their logic. which beckons a public into being.” For the Bucharest Biennial, Magid will Failed States approaches the war on ter- present Failed States, a work of literary ror through the theme of embeddedness, non-fiction, as a text and within an instal- and explores media representations of lation of related works. She will form col- terrorism. The work examines how far the laborations with local magazines in definition of terrorism or war can be Bucharest to print excerpts of the book stretched. Jill Magid, Failed States, offsite instalation, 1993 Mercedes station wagon, armored to B4 Level, within their publications. The book will be parked at the Texas State Capitol, 2012. Photo by CT. Courtesy of the artist. [122] [123] Jill Magid, Failed States, installation photo at AMOA-Arthouse. Jill Magid, Failed States, installation detail photo at AMOA-Arthouse, spanish edition of Goethe's Wall text, The Capitol Shooter : Breaking News, digital video, 9’16’’, 2011. Faust and letter to Fausto. 2011. Photo by Erica Nix. Courtesy of the artist and AMOA-Arthouse. Photo by Erica Nix. Courtesy of the artist and AMOA-Arthouse. [124] [125] David Maljković

Out of Projection

David Maljković’s new installation expands on his continuing exploration of memories as futurist propositions, while making reference to disparate film genres such as science fiction and documentary.

Out of Projection was filmed at the care- fully guarded test track of the Peugeot headuarters in Sochaux, France. The pri- mary screen shows the protagonists, eld- erly couples who build ideas for future projects. They are actual retired company workers who act as a medium between past and future, moving slowly around the test track alongside the car proto- types. The second, smaller projection is of close-up interviews with individual workers in silent recollection, eerily blur- ring the past and the future. The use of Peugeot prototypes as props follows the artist’s use of futuristic automobile proto- types in Croatian Modernist architectural settings, such as in his past video works These Days and Lost Memories from David Maljković, Out of Projection, 2 channel HD video installation, 18’ 41’’. These Days. Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London [126] [127] David Maljković, Out of Projection, 2 channel HD video installation, 18’ 41’’. David Maljković, Out of Projection, 2 channel HD video installation, 18’ 41’’. Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London [128] [129] Marina Naprushkina

The Office for Anti-Propaganda

The Office for Anti-Propaganda was founded in 2007. The Office produces an archive of videos, texts and picture mate- rial on the subject of political propaganda with the focus on Belarus.

The Office participates and organizes political actions, publishes newspapers which are distributed in Belarus and the world. The Office for Anti-Propaganda is the result of long-standing work in gather- ing and archiving the original propaganda material and the works of artists. It is shown in the form of an installation with Marina Naprushkina, Office for Anti-Propaganda installation view. an archive, which every viewer can use. Courtesy of the the artist and CAC,Vilnius, Lithuania, 2010.

[130] [131] Marina Naprushkina, Oleg Alkaew, video, 22‘, 2012. Marina Naprushkina, draft of the poster for the campaign Removal on Ice Hockey Championship 2014, Courtesy of the artist. print, size variable. Courtesy of the artist. [132] [133] Vesna Pavlović

Search for Landscapes

The Search for Landscapes project develops around a group of found vintage slides, which depict one family's travel around the world in the 1960s. Slides were a popular mode of recording travel from the 1960s-1980s. This coincided with a period of American freedom of mobility and travel to the world’s exotic locations and well-known pilgrimage sites. The slide technology itself was a product of the American consumer econ- omy, and it came at a time of projection of American power. The American tourist with camera is itself an iconic image, one whose era may have passed. She is both a consumer of places and a producer of images. Her archive represents a media- tion of cultural experiences. As a tourist, she has both framed a multitude of places, as well as been framed by them. What were left in the end are images, which are fading, along with those framed experiences. The reenactment of a slide show in the installation is suggestive of this loss. Inherently sentimental, for its vintage look, and color quality, when viewed today, those images remind us of the inevitable technological shift. The ‘unpacking’ of this archive has been recast through the apparatus of the pho- tographic representation and display. Vesna Pavlović, Search for Landscapes, photographic installation, artist’s studio, size variable, 2011. Photo by Vesna Pavlovic. Courtesy of the artist and G Fine Art Gallery, Washington DC. [134] [135] Vesna Pavlović, Search for Landscapes, photographic installation, size variable, 2011. Vesna Pavlović, Search for Landscapes, photographic installation, artist’s studio, size variable, 2011. Photo by Dieter Kik. Courtesy of the artist and the Contemporary Art Center of Quimper, France Courtesy of the artist and G Fine Art Gallery, Washington DC. [136] [137] THE INSTITUTE FOR POLITICAL RESEARCH University of Bucharest Str. Spiru Haret nr. 8

The Institute of Political Research was created in 1999, 10 years after the revolution, through the transformation of the Centre for Political Research, founded in 1995 as the research core of the Faculty of Political Science of The University of Bucharest. After 10 years from the institutionalization of research activity, the Institute remains one of few platforms of debate and analysis of the Romanian political environment from an academic perspective, through social and economic mediation.

By intervening within the Institute of Political Research, BUCHAREST BIENNALE 5 suggests and inserts new means of investigation, discussion and criticism of the socio- political context. [138] [139] Marina Albu

The Real People’s House

During Ceausescu’s “reign” in Romania, Paradoxically, closer to darkness we see we had power supply back-outs that last- more clear. I am creating a room that con- ed between a few hours during daytime tains lit oil-lamps as we used to use, and usually the whole night when started church-usage candles in a glass, refilled in the evening. This event happened very to supply for the whole biennale period, often, sometimes daily. In this time, peo- accompanied by an audio describing the ple used oil-lamps and candles for being situation and the state of being. The room able to complete activities around the invites for this pause in the flow of things house, read or just see each other. But and actions for each of the visitors and almost every time these things would not suggests a break of the like in the flow of happen, the reality would shift, a change things and actions on the larger scale, in of ambiance implied a change in living, the way things happen in the world, in our being, in the pre-thought program. This societies. Stop, question, realize. Also, if would be a break, a pause in which one then this lack of electric light was a trou- could think things over, but also a time of bling situation seen as directed against closeness - we are all in this situation and the people, nowadays we are aware of we feel it in the same way. We are abet- the finiteness of resources and propose a ters to one another. We are open, we put self-constructed system of black-outs. In our arms, guards and shields down. We this black-out we allow ourselves to feel realize that not everything we urged to do without object, to be without reason, to let is that urgent or even needed. go. Marina Albu, The Evercoming Potentiality of Infinity, textile band and wool thread, 2012. [140] Courtesy of the artist. [141] Marina Albu, Believe, textile band, flower sponges, wooden box, 2012. Marina Albu, Creativity and authorship, felt tip pen on paper, 2012. Courtesy of the artist. Courtesy of the artist.

[142] [143] Ciprian Homorodean

Take the Book, Take the Money, Run!

This is a book about stealing your way from small takes of basic products (chap- out of the financial crisis. ter 3) to large quantities of more sophisti- Get your basic necessities, keep your cated commodities (chapter 4). Getting a social standing, round up your annual free meal and free drinks, as if they fell income… Keep your head up in the mate- from the sky will interest those wishing to rial world even if you can’t pay for it. satisfy the need for luxurious leisure Learn how to spot the ideal occasions for (chapter 5), as will obtaining free clothes getting things without money, and prac- and furniture from charity an other such tice how to do it without getting caught. organizations (chapter 6). The theft of Steal without stress! motor vehicles (chapter 7) and of home The art of stealing is a long term appren- furnishing (chapter 8) represent more ticeship. As needs and desires are ful- delicate and riskier takes, while immateri- filled, new ones will manifest and call for al theft, although almost untraceable, new techniques and more elaborate requires technological intervention (chap- actions. Here you will find a step by step ter 9). Learn also how to spot the most account of the progression to higher, profitable opportunities for engaging in more expensive, and more noble needs stealing activity. and desires. This book should be particularly useful for This Crisis Special will get you acquaint- the chronically unemployed, the hungry ed with the essential vocabulary of for cash, and the demanding consumer. unlawful appropriation techniques, such Bonus: discover some inspirational expe- as pick pocketing wallets and jewelry riences through case studies of those (chapter 1), and snatching street bicycles who have succeeded in the business of Ciprian Homorodean, Take the Book, Take the Money, Run! , 100 pages, hand made book, (chapter 2). Shoplifting is also introduced, disengaging from the market. (C.H.) ink on paper, 32,4 x 24,4 cm, 2010. Courtesy of the artist.

[144] [145] Ciprian Homorodean, Take the Book, Take the Money, Run! , 100 pages, hand made book, Ciprian Homorodean, Take the Book, Take the Money, Run!, 100 pages, hand made book, ink on paper, 32,4 x 24,4 cm, 2010. Courtesy of the artist. ink on paper, 32,4 x 24,4 cm,, 2010. Courtesy of the artist.

[146] [147] Janice Kerbel

Remarkable

‘Remarkable is a print-based work that announces the achievements of a range of extraordinary beings imagined in response to the context of the fair. In the tradition of printed broadsides and fair- ground ephemera Remarkable employs hyperbolic language and un-illustrated texts to conjure these unique individuals.’ Janice Kerbel, July 2007

Remarkable is a continuation of Janice Kerbel’s fascination with deception in all its forms, the outcomes of which range from plausible but impractical plans for a bank heist to a cheat’s pack of playing cards and a town designed specifically for ghosts.

The artist’s understanding of the visual codes that surround these activities allow her work to exist in its own reality, between thought and action, where sug- gestion and expectation flourish. Kerbel’s print project took 19th-century fairground posters as its inspiration, heralding the arrival of a series of remarkable charac- ters. Behind Kerbel’s diverse works lies a facination with the possibility of realising Janice Kerbel, Remark able: Dou ble Attrac tion, Crys tal and Blindspot, silkscreen print on an impossible event or encounter. cam paign poster paper, 107 x 158 cm, 2007. Courtesy of the artist. [148] [149] Janice Kerbel, Remark able: Faint girl, silkscreen print on cam paign poster paper, 107 x 158 cm, 2007. Courtesy of the artist . Janice Kerbel, Remark able: Iggy Fatuse, The Human Fire fly, silkscreen print on cam paign poster paper, 107x158 cm, 2007. Courtesy of the artist .

[150] [151] Anahita Razmi

Roof Piece Tehran

The project "Roof Piece Tehran" is taking country, where dance itself and artistic Trisha Brown's 1971 setup for the work performance non-conforming to the regu- "Roof Piece" out of its original New York lations of the islamic regime, is forbidden. context to the city of Tehran / Iran. For The choreography in Tehran was carried Brown's piece, 12 Dancers telegraphed out by local performers creating a new sequences of large gestural moves from 'Roof Piece version' within the restrictive one to another on NYCs rooftops. circumstances of the city. No audience Tehran's rooftops recently got known as a could attend the performance, instead 'performance space' in a different con- there was video documenting. The video text: they gathered attention in relation to material was then transformed into a the protests after the Iranian presidential video installation on twelve screens, election 2009, where protesters were which was first shown within the frame- standing on their rooftops at night shout- work of the Emdash Award at Frieze Art ing paroles like "Death to the Dictator" Fair 2011. The step from Tehran to and "Allahu Akhbar" throughout the city, London automatically produced another which were echoing from one roof to cultural transfer within the work, - from a another. The reenactment of Browns per- hidden guerilla act to the reception of a formance in Tehran is making use of that mass audience at the art fair. Anahita Razmi, Roof Piece Tehran, video installation, 12 video loops, 18' 11", 2011. The Emdash Award 2011. Commissioned and produced by Frieze Foundation for Frieze Projects 2011. autonomous performance space in a In cooperation with Hasti Goudarzi. Courtesy of the artist. [152] [153] Anahita Razmi, Roof Piece Tehran, video installation, 12 video loops, 18' 11", 2011. The Emdash Award Anahita Razmi, Roof Piece Tehran, video installation, 12 videoloops, 18' 11", 2011. The Emdash Award 2011. 2011. Commissioned and produced by Frieze Foundation for Frieze Projects 2011. Commissioned and produced by Frieze Foundation for Frieze Projects 2011. In cooperation with Hasti Goudarzi. Courtesy of the artist. In cooperation with Hasti Goudarzi. Courtesy of the artist. [154] [155] ALERT STUDIO Str. Mircea Vulcanescu˘ nr. 2-4

Alert studio is an independent artist-run space that acts as a platform for the research and promotion of contemporary artistic production. Taking on the function of a labora- tory space, Alert Studio proposes a meeting point between artists, ideas, directions and dialogues from different areas of conceptual and cultural spaces.

BUCHAREST BIENNALE chose this artist-run space as a venue for its strategic posi- tion vis-a-vis the Bucharest University of Art, also being a microcosm of a contempo- rary art scene. [156] [157] Haris Epaminonda

Polaroid

Haris Epaminonda's work for BB5 con- sists of a new set of Polaroids of printed matter from her 'Polaroid' series created between 2008 and 2009 together with a short video as part of 'Chronicles' (2010- ongoing), a series of short Super 8 films (transferred to video) that the artist begun to film over the past few years, mainly during her travels. Haris Epaminonda, Polaroid series, polaroids on printed matter, 2008-2009. Courtesy of the artist. [158] [159] Haris Epaminonda, Polaroid series, polaroids on printed matter, 2008-2009. Courtesy of the artist. Haris Epaminonda, Polaroid series, polaroids on printed matter, 2008-2009. Courtesy of the artist. [160] [161] MAKE A POINT Str. Morarilor nr. 1

The headquarters of the cultural center Make a Point is inside of old textile factory, “Postăvăria Română” (1925-2008), where, under low light, the weavers would correct any problems found in the finished material. Make a Point is a permanent exhibition space, ideal for a wide variety of cultural events, having a screening room with two screens and a library open to the public. [162] [163] Klas Eriksson

Com´on You Reds Curva Viola

I take an interest in control, power and lim- University Square which stands as a sym- itation, through the expressions of per- bol of freedom and a place of protest. The formance, video and sculpture. My point of title comes from a chant that originates departure is mass-culture, where, employ- from the British football culture. The hotel, ing various strategies, I explore notions of which for a very long time dominated the authenticity, power and artistic expression. center of Bucharest with it's height, was In all my works I have an attempt to estab- perceived as a standard of luxury and cos- lish communicative immediacy that is both mopolitan western life style before '89, visually and conceptually innovative. The when it functioned as a hotel for foreigners works often borrow their expressions from only. It still preserves it's symbolic status in popular culture, subculture and various the collective memory. The performance power structures. will challenge the way people perceive the connection between the social and archi- For BB5 I am doing two collective perform- tecture, by transforming the building in a ances with emphasis on the given archi- temporary sculpture that relates to the tecture, subculture and the public realm of complex history of the University Square Bucharest. The two performances can be and the participatory role that subcultures seen as a mash-up between the terrace may appropriate within the frame of social culture surrounding football, the public movement. realm and the history of Bucharest. The other performance, titled Curva Viola, I see it as a way of questioning what the consists of a large amount of pink and vio- public space has to offer in terms of read- let smoke that will temporary mark Make a ings and reactions. A staged collective Point, a cultural community center situated action with a key signature in a subcultur- in Pantelimon, one of Bucharest's so al movement is put in a different context. called disadvantaged area, in a commu- The performance visually triggers ques- nist textile factory. In this performance a tions on political issues, hostility, power memory of the early fanzine movement and esthetics. The many different read- surrounding the Swedish terrace culture is ings that appear can be seen as address- reenacted through the attempt of recreat- ing a slumbering public subconscious. ing a b&w xeroxed image of Curva Viola, the ultras of Fiorentina football club, into The first performance, titled Com´on You the colors my mind reads. Again, by trans- Reds, consists in around 100 volunteers forming architecture in temporary sculptur- burning red flares on the terraces of al monuments, I wish to raise awareness Intercontinental Hotel, an important land- over this areas and their social relevance Klas Ericsson, Who are ya?!, collective performance, 2011. Courtesy of Göteborg Biennale mark of Bucharest situated in the for the urban landscape. (K.E.) 2011. Photo: Dorota Dolores Marzena Lukianska. [164] [165] Klas Ericsson, Volvo – Döner Kebab (im rolling - rotating kebab), sculpture, 2011. Courtesy of Kalmar Klas Ericsson, The public gets what the public wants, performative sculpture, 2011. Konstmuseum. Photo: Per Larsson Courtesy of the artist and IASPIS Open house. Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger [166] [167] Wael Shawky

Cabaret Crusades

Shawky's characteristic drawings, installa- The installation of 9 flags and 13 drawings tion and sculptural works, using asphalt and from the Cabaret Crusades project, tells the galvanized wire since 1998, coincide with story of the First Crusade of 1096–1099 his early experiments with performance and from the perspectives of Arab historians. video. His work often deals with the These look like abstract paintings and refer dichotomies and contradictions of social to Crusader heraldry, and are made of geo- norms, primarily relating to culture and reli- metric pieces of dark, sparkling tarmac, gion. Possessing an acute sense of the sandpaper and galvanized wire that hover absurd, he raises questions about what is between painting and sculpture. Also on generally perceived as "normal" and view are a suite of fantastical drawings in "acceptable". Within this context, Wael has ink, pencil and metallic pigments that illus- explored a variety of specific themes that trate fairytale-like interactions between are often rooted in regional issues yet have imaginary beasts, landscapes, architecture, profound international relevance - themes and the natural elements. Shawky opens up the texture of history and confronts this far- such as modernisation, cultural hybridisa- Wael Shawky, Cabaret Crusades flags, asphalt, tarmac, liquid tar, enamel, galvanized wire, 40 x 50 cm, 2010. tion, and marginalisation. away time in vivid focus and tactile intensity. Courtesy the artist. [168] [169] Wael Shawky, Cabaret Crusades flags, asphalt, tarmac, liquid tar, enamel, galvanized wire, 40 x 50 cm, 2010. Wael Shawky, Cabaret Crusades drawing, ink, graphite, pigments, oil on paper, 21 x 32 cm, 2010. Courtesy the artist. Courtesy the artist. [170] [171] Mounira al Solh and Bassam Ramlawi

Colaborators on Gas

Two Artists’ Statement: I am more interested to collaborate with her, We wonder at the same time why do artists rather then just being passively driven and collaborate? Who owns the work in that case, passively manipulated in her productions, and would both parties be equally satisfied? although I have to admit that it is flattering to Not to be stuck with these questions before we have someone wanting to document your life even start working together, we’d like to inform and understand your work. you just for practical reasons that our work will be performative, and simply related to daily life But this was so far not a real collaboration, and practicalities instead of being philosophical or I don’t really know why she got so enthusiastic ethical or historical or whatsoever. The result about such productions. I recently asked her if however will not be a documentation of these I could in return make a booklet about her daily performances, rather a parallel feeling to work, and a documentary. Hoping she might them. How can a feeling be parallel? Perhaps, agree one day! what we need is a hug, and that’s it… Bassam Ramlawi and Mounira Al Solh Mounira Al Solh to Bassam Ramlawi: Just because I have some fascination for you, Bassam Ramlawi: you can use me… so please do! It was in the Netherlands that Al Solh and I met for the first time, inside Westerpark in Amsterdam, I was sketching a bunch of funny homeless people, and she was reading a book. Two Artists’ Work description: We had seen each other somewhere in Beirut For the Bucharest Biennial, Ramlawi proposed and recognized each other automatically. to deliver for Mounira to her studio and for free a bottle of apple or carrot juice that he had Since then we became close friends, and Al squeezed at his father’s shop. In return, she Solh made a booklet about me, co-written by drunk the content, and filmed with her handy- Jacques Aswad and titled “In a Time Fleece”. camera these bottles and kept them at her stu- She also made a documentary titled “Seven dio. Ramlawi has made drawings of things that Reversed Scenes about Bassam Ramlawi”. I struck him on his way each time he delivered am of course grateful to her efforts, but I think the juice to her studio riding his scooter. Mounira al Solh and Bassam Ramlawi, Collaborators on Gas, research photo, various dimensions, 2012 Courtesy of the artist [172] [173] Mounira al Solh and Bassam Ramlawi, Bassam’s Moustache, Collaborators on Gas, research photo, 2012 Mounira al Solh and Bassam Ramlawi, Bassam’s Delivery Mobillette, Collaborators on Gas, research photo, 2012 Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist [174] [175] NANA RESTAURANT Str. Ion Câmpineanu nr. 22

Nana Natural Food is a colorful place among the restaurants of Bucharest. Located downtown, close to “Kilometer Zero”, the restaurant is minimalistically decorated and serves natural food. A family place, where food is prepared and served by the owner herself, Nana, who is a very special person, always present and willing to talk to each customer to make sure that everything is perfect. This quiet location has been chosen for the subversive intervention of Ruth Ewan, which shatters the peace of the place, turning it into a stage for political, vaguely utopian or historical debates. [176] [177] Ruth Ewan

A Jukebox of People Trying to Change the World

A Jukebox of People Trying to Change the World is a CD jukebox, sitting between digital and analogue technolo- gies which contains a growing collection of songs addressing a spectrum of social issues, some directly political in motive, some vaguely utopian and some chroni- cling specific historic events. The songs could all be described as progressive in subject matter. The archive currently con- tains over 2,000 tracks, with no more than two by the same artist, which are ordered into over seventy categories such as feminism, land ownership, pover- Ruth Ewan, A Jukebox of People Trying to Change the World, Rowe CD jukebox containing 100 CDs / 1500 ty, civil rights and ecology. tracks, ongoing project started in 2003. Installation shot from Younger Than Jesus, New Museum, New York, 2009. Photograph by Ruth Ewan. Courtesy of the artist. [178] [179] Ruth Ewan, A Jukebox of People Trying to Change the World, Rowe CD jukebox, 100 CDs / 1500 tracks, ongo- Ruth Ewan, A Jukebox of People Trying to Change the World, Rowe CD jukebox containing 100 CDs / 1500 ing project started in 2003. Installation shot from Brank & Heckle, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, 2011. tracks, ongoing project started in 2003. Installation shot from Brank & Heckle, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Photograph by Ruth Clark. Courtesy of the artists. Dundee, 2011. Photograph by Ruth Clark. [180] [181] CINEMA UNION Str. Ion Câmpineanu nr. 21

Union Cinema is unique among the movie theaters in Bucharest. It shows old or art movies every day. A small, very cozy cinema, reminding of an old French movie theater. Union Cinema is owned by the National Film Archive, established in 1957 as a body subordinated to the Ministry of Education and Culture. According to the Order of the Minister at that time, the Archive had the mission to collect, classify and preserve movies and any other filmed materials. It also provided the obligation for one copy of every film to be sub- mitted to the archive. Battery 13-14 at Fort Jilava, a building erected in the early 20th century for military purposes, was assigned for storing the films. In this cinema with a long history, Aurélien Froment intervenes at the beginning of usual movie shows, maybe as a memento of the days when the artist worked as a projectionist in a Paris movie theater.

[182] [183] Aurélien Froment

Pulmo Marina

The film features a Phacellophora the aquarium, the film looks at how the Camtschatica (egg-yolk jelly), as it drifts image pre-exist its own recording, in its tank home at the Monterey Bay approaching the window of the aquarium Aquarium. A voice-over informs the view- as a display device that participates in the er of its baroque but literally brainless construction of the notion of the viewer. anatomy, its voracious cannibalism and The work was commissioned by LUX, a its classical forebears. It compiles an British film organisation, to be inserted extended description of the creature between ads and feature films within a according to various modes of knowl- network of commercial cinemas in the UK edge, perception and understanding, and Ireland. from ancient mythologies to natural sci- It would take around 6 days and 11 hours ences and exhibition design. to watch a two hour film if each shot of Shifting from a seemingly banal wildlife the programme where the work is insert- TV programme about a sea creature ed was narrated in the same format as towards a description of the physical and Pulmo Marina. architectural conditions of its display in Aurélien Froment, Pulmo Marina video stil, HD Cam and sound transferred to 35 mm, dolby SR, 5’ 10 ‘’. Courtesy of the artist, Motive Gallery, Amsterdam and Marcelle Alix, Paris. [184] [185] Jill Magid

During a trip to Austin, Texas I witnessed To explore this question, I collaborated an event on the steps of the State Capitol with three Romanian magazines: Tabu, Building. Twenty-four year old Fausto Vice, and Zeppelin, to publish excerpts of Cardenas fired several rounds into the air Failed States. Each magazine gave me a before being arrested. The event became brief, based on the themes of their indi- the background against which I, under vidual publications, a word count, and the guidance of CT – editor at the Texas image request. For Tabu, a women’s Observer and former embedded war cor- fashion magazine, the editors chose an respondent for AP – started my training to excerpt in which I am questioning being VICE become an embedded journalist with the an artist (and potentially an embedded radical lifestyle magazine U.S. military in Afghanistan. journalist with the US Military) while hav- ing a child. Vice asked for “an excerpt TABU My non-fiction novel Failed States with the most violent/aggressive women magazine approaches the themes of transparency, scene/part of the book” or one that had a secrecy and publicity through my person- “fashion angle” to run alongside articles al desire to engage the war on terror and on YSL’s Stefano Pilati and Pierre Cardin. ZEPPELIN its media representation through becom- Zeppelin, an architecture magazine, architecture magazine ing an eyewitness. asked for an entry on public space. I gave them one featuring the Capitol Building. For my contribution to BB5, I wanted to The word publish means ‘to bring to the launch Failed States, and to do so within public’s attention’. The Biennial now lists The House of The Free Press. The build- Tabu, Vice, and Zeppelin as extended ing provides the perfect context: its histo- venues of BB5. Failed States, the book, ry as initially intended (but never realized) is being published by Publication Studios to be the headquarters of Romania’s offi- whose mission is to be “a laboratory for cial media; its current, decrepit state; and publication in its fullest sense — not just its enormous scale—reminiscent of the the production of books, but the produc- Texas Capitol Building. I also wanted the tion of a public. This public, which is more narrative of Failed States to extend than a market, is created through any and beyond the book, the building and the all means — physical production, digital biennial, into the wider public of circulation, and social gathering. Bucharest. But I wondered how my story Together these construct a space of con- (American in its themes of gun control, versation, a public space, which beckons the US military, press, and court systems) a public into being.” would translate, literally and conceptually. [186] [187] Jill Magid, Failed States, excerpt from the book, insert in the Romanian architecture magazine Zeppelin, 2012. Courtesy of the artist.

Jill Magid, Failed States, excerpt from the book, insert in the Romanian radical lifestyle magazine Vice, 2012. Courtesy of the artist Jill Magid, Failed States, excerpt from the book, insert in the Romanian women magazine Tabu, 2012. Courtesy of the artist. [188] [189] Contemporary Art, Warsaw; MUMOK, Side of Manhattan and working as an organi- Academy, Timisoara; La Casa Encedida, Curator Vienna; The Cooper Union for the zer for the NYC chapter of the international Madrid; and the Calouste Gulbenkian Advancement of Science and Art, New York; direct action group, Reclaim the Streets. In Foundation, Lisbon. Ion writes for different Anne Barlow New York University; ARCOmadrid, for 2009 he was a Research Associate at the magazines and newspapers, and recently Anne Barlow (born in Glasgow, Scotland) is Latitudes’ Professional Encounters; Tate Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology in curated "Exploring the Return of Repression" Executive Director of Art in General, New Modern, London; and the Sharjah Art New York City where he helped organize The at rum46, Aarhus, Denmark and "From York, a non-profit organization that supports Foundation. College of Tactical Culture. With funding from Contemplating to Contructing Situations" at artists through the commissioning of new the Open Societies Foundations he co-crea- PAVILION, Bucharest, Romania. He is now work and an international residency exchan- ted the School for Creative Activism in 2011, working on the two book projects "Exploring and is presently co-director of the Center for the Return of Repression" and "Rhizomic ge program. From 1999-2006, Barlow was Writers / Scriitori Curator of Education and Media Programs Artistic Activism. Duncombe is currently wor- Structures Of Art Institutions. Neo-Politics Of at the New Museum, New York, where she king on a book on the art of propaganda Culture", to be published in 2012/2013. His during the New Deal. new curatorial and research project is oversaw its educational and public pro- Sotirios Bahtsetzis grams, conceived of and developed “Smash the Church! Smash the State!” Sotirios Bahtsetzis is an adjunct professor in dealing with anarchist and collective activism Museum as Hub (a global network initiative art history and an independent curator based that connected the museum with art partners Tom Holert and social-political movements in art and will in Athens and Berlin. His research interests Tom Holert is an art historian and cultural cri- be exhibited late 2013. He is professor at in Cairo, Eindhoven, Mexico City and include image theory, political theory and tic. A former editor of Texte zur Kunst and co- University of Bucharest, Romania. Ion lives Seoul), organized inter-disciplinary roundta- contemporary cultural analysis. Recent publisher of Spex magazine, Holert currently and works in Bucharest. bles with leaders in the fields of the visual publications: The Time That Remains (e-flux lives in Berlin and teaches and conducts arts, architecture, and design, developed the Journal v. 28 & v. 30), Image Wars research in the Institute of Art Theory and museum’s Digital Culture Programs, and (Afterimage v. 38); Recent exhibitions: Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Olive McKeon curated numerous exhibitions and perfor- Roaming Images (3. Thessaloniki Biennale). Vienna. He contributes to journals and new- Olive McKeon is a doctoral candidate at mances. spapers such as Artforum, Texte zur Kunst, UCLA in Culture and Performance. Her Barlow received her M.A. in the History of Camera Austria, Jungle World, and Der research focuses on the relation between Art from the University of Glasgow, Stephen Duncombe Standard. Among his recent publications are dance and Marxism, moving between the Scotland. Prior to moving to New York, Stephen Duncombe is an Associate a book on migration and tourism (Fliehkraft: political economy of dance and the choreo- Barlow was Curator of Contemporary Art Professor at the Gallatin School and the Gesellschaft in Bewegung—von Migranten graphy of labor struggles. She makes dan- and Design at Glasgow Museums, where Department of Media, Culture and Commu- und Touristen, with Mark Terkessidis), a ces as a part of the Welcoming Committee. she managed its contemporary art collec- nications of New York University where he monograph on Marc Camille Chaimowicz' She is involved in university organizing and tion, exhibitions, residencies and commis- teaches the history and politics of media. He 1972 installation "Celebration? Realife" feminist groups. She lives in Los Angeles, sions programs. Independently, she collabo- is the author of Dream: Re-Imagining (2007) and a collection of chapters on visual California. rated on the exhibition Copy It, Steal It, Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy culture and politics (Regieren im Bildraum, Share It at Borusan Art Gallery, Istanbul, and and Notes From Underground: Zines and the 2008). guest-curated film and media projects for the Politics of Underground Culture, and co-aut- Suzana Milevska International Film Festival Rotterdam, the hor of The Bobbed Haired Bandit: Crime and Dr. Suzana Milevska is a theorist of visual art Netherlands, and Threshold Artspace, Celebrity in 1920s New York; the editor of the Răzvan Ion and culture based in Skopje, Macedonia. Scotland. Barlow has published for organi- Cultural Resistance Reader and co-editor of Răzvan Ion is a theoretician, curator, cultural Currently she teaches art history and theory zations including: Liverpool University White Riot: Punk Rock and the Politics of manager and political activist. He is the co- of visual art at the Faculty of Fine Arts – Press/Tate Gallery Liverpool; the Henry Race. He is the creator of the Open Utopia, founder and co-director (with Eugen University Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje. Moore Institute, Leeds, United Kingdom; the an open-access, open-source, web-based Rădescu) of Pavilion - journal for politics and From 2008 – 2010 she taught fine arts and Edith Russ House for Media Art, Oldenburg; edition of Thomas More’sUtopia, and writes culture, Bucharest Biennale and Pavilion - digital arts at the New-York University in the New Museum; and Art in General. She on the intersection of culture and politics for center for contemporary art & culture. He Skopje and she taught art history and analy- recently co-organized Art in General’s inter- a range of scholarly and popular publica- teached and lectured at venues including sis of styles at the Accademia Italiana Skopje national residency/exchange symposium tions, from the cerebral, The Nation, to the University of California, Berkeley; University and she was its Dean. From 2006 to 2008, What Now?, and has participated in lectures prurient, Playboy. Duncombe is a life-long of Oxford; University of London; Headlands she was the Director of the Center for Visual and discussions at organizations including: political activist, co-founding a community Center for the Arts, San Francisco, and Cultural Research at the Social the Royal College of Art, London; Centre for based advocacy group in the Lower East California; Political Science Faculty, Cluj; Art Sciences and Humanities Research Institute [190] [191] “Euro-Balkan” in Skopje and she taught Simon Sheikh writings on the history of communism in Visual Culture at its research degree M.A. in Simon Sheikh is a curator and critic. He is an Romania. He has published many studies Gender Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in Visual Assistant Professor of Art Theory and a about the penitentiary system, re-education Cultures from Goldsmiths College in London Coordinator of the Critical Studies Program, by means of torture, and the communist (2006) where she thought from 2003 to Malmö Art Academy in Sweden. He was repression in Romania; he also coordinates 2005. In 2004, she was a Fulbright Senior director of Overgaden – Institute for the international journal History of Research Scholar in Library of Congress. Contemporary Art in Copenhagen, 1999- Communism in Europe. He co-authored two Her research and curatorial interests include 2002 and Curator at NIFCA, Helsinki, 2003- volumes of the The Dictionary of the Officers post colonial critique in arts, visual culture, 2004. Editor of the magazine Øjeblikket and Civil Employees belonging to the feminism and gender theory. Since 1992 she 1996-2000, and a member of the project General Directorate of the Penitentiaries. curates exhibitions, conferences, long-life group GLOBE 1993-2000. Curatorial work Central Apparatus: 1948-1989, Iași: Polirom, learning and other participatory projects. She includes exhibitions such as Exclusion, 2009/ 2011. was a member of the Advisory Board at the Consul, Århus, 1993, I Confess, Nikolaj – Starting with 2006 he is a member and spo- Contemporary Art Museum in Kumamoto, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, kesman of the civic movement “Militia Japan (2004/2005). Her most recent 1995, Escape Attempts in Christiania, Spirituala” (“Spiritual Militia”). research and curatorial project The Copenhagen, 1996 (with GLOBE), Do-It- Among his fields of interest should be men- Renaming Machine consists of series exhibi- Yourself – Mappings and Instructions, tioned few educational and memorial pro- tions and conferences discussing the politics Bricks+Kicks, Vienna, 1997, Models of jects (istoriacomunismului.ro; memoryofna- of renaming and overwriting memory in art Resistance, Overgaden, Copenhagen 2000 tion.eu/), the socio-political transformations and visual culture (2008-2010). Recently she (with GLOBE), Naust Øygarden, Bergen, in post-communist Europe and transitional published her book Gender Difference in the Norway 2000, In My Room, Nordic Video, studies – general (Romania/Serbia – in parti- Balkans (Saarbrucken, Germany: VDM Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. cular). Verlag, 2010) and edited The Re- Circa Berlin, Nikolaj – Copenhagen search Machine (Ljubljana: P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Contemporary Art Center, 2005 and Capital Institute, 2010). (It Fails Us Now) at UKS, Oslo, 2005 and Ștefan Voicu Kunstihoone, Tallinn, 2006. Recent publica- Ștefan Voicu studies Social and Cultural tions include the anthologies We are all Anthropology at KULeuven in Belgium. He is Eugen Rădescu Normal (with Katya Sander), Black Dog interested in the production of contemporary Eugen Rădescu is politologist (specialized in Publishing, London 2001, Knut Åsdam visual African art, visual representation of moral relativism and political ethics), cultural (monograph), Fine Arts Unternehmen, Zug, postcolonialism and post-socialism, and the manager, curator and theoretician. He writes 2004, In the Place of the Public Sphere?, analysis of epistemic objects. He curated for various magazines and newspapers. He b_books, Berlin, 2005 and Capital (It Fails Us "The Discreet Charm of Political Activism" in curated, among others, Bucharest Biennale Now), b_books, Berlin, 2006. His writings 2011, the first edition of Pavilion Screenings. 1 with the theme "Identity Factories", "How can also be found in such periodicals as Lives and works in Leuven, Belgium. Innocent Is That?" and "presently i have not- Afterall, AnArchitectur, Springerin and Texte hig to show and i'm showing it!" at Pavilion zur Kunst. Lives in Berlin and Copenhagen. Bucharest. He published a book "How Innocent Is That?" at Revolver Books - Berlin, Germany. He is co-editor of Pavilion Marius Stan - journal for politics and culture and co-direc- Marius Stan holds a PhD in political sciences tor of Bucharest Biennale (with Răzvan Ion) from the Faculty of Political Sciences – and the chairman of the organizational board Bucharest University (with a thesis on the of Pavilion and Bucharest Biennale. He is administration of the past in Serbia and the associate professor at University of functioning of the ICTY), and currently works Bucharest and Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj. as a researcher within the Institute for the Curently is a PhD candidate at Babes-Bolyiai Investigation of Communist Crimes and the University with a thesis on political science. Memory of the Romanian Exile wherefrom Lives and works in Bucharest. he has published several articles and other [192] [193] starters, guesses on influences or familiarity International Biennale for contemporary art, Beaux-Arts in Nantes. He trained simultane- Participants highlights. I do activate for several years in the Shirayevo Biennale, Kalmar Konstmuseum ously as a film projectionist, also qualifying in art zone and I try to touch nerves and transmit and NCCA Moscow. 2000. His work has since developed through all I can trough this, mostly thoughts, sensa- Upcoming shows includes the BB5, PALS – exhibitions, films, publications and perform- tions, emotions, the private, the public, the hid- Performance art links, Nordin Gallery, Kalmar ances. Since 2001, he has been removing den and the shown, observations or desires. I Konstmuseum. In November he will be a resi- Friedrich Froebels objects from their original Abbas Akhavan am all around us, the human kind, our behav- dent at Platform in Finland. educational context to present them in exhibi- Abbas Akhavan was born in Tehran, and cur- ior, habits and that what we perceive. This is Klas Eriksson lives and works in Sweden and tion spaces. In 2005, he completed a video rently lives and works in Toronto. His practice what I have for input. And this makes me just Berlin. portraying Paolo Soleri’s architectural project ranges from site-specific ephemeral installa- as much as you. The selection is what makes of Arcosanti in Arizona, and in 2007, filmed tions to drawing, video and performance. For us different, and the reasons why we do this. Théâtre de Poche with magician Stéphane the past five years, the domestic sphere has And my reason is our growing out of our fears, Ruth Ewan Corréas. Since 2010, the jellyfish from his been an ongoing area of research in sufferings and certainties. Her work mixes cultural anthropology and short film Pulmo Marina has popped up on the Akhavan’s work. Earlier works explore the 15.02.2012, Bucharest musicology with a historically-minded engage- screens of more than 30 cinemas across the relationship between the house and the nation ment with public protest and leftist politics. She UK. In 2011, Froment released 9 Intervals, a state and how the trauma of systemic violence had recent solo exhibitions and projects witch short film series intended to be presented enacted upon civilians can be inherited and re- include: Billboard for Edinburgh, Ingleby before films by others. enacted within the family lineage – the home Haris Epaminonda Gallery, Edinburgh, 2012; Brank & Heckle, Froment has had solo exhibitions at: Les as a forked space between hospitality and Haris Epaminonda, born in 1980 in Nicosia, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, 2011; Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers, Aubervilliers; hostility. More recent work has shifted focus Cyprus, lives and works in Berlin. She studied These Airwaves Neutralise the Tools of Project Arts Centre, Dublin; FRAC onto spaces just outside the home – the gar- in London and graduated from the Royal Oppression, Frieze Projects, London 2009, Champagne-Ardenne, Reims; Module du den, the backyard, and other domesticated College of Art in 2003. Epaminonda has had Nuestro es el Mundo a Pesar de Todo, Kiosko Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Gasworks, London; landscapes. solo exhibitions at MoMA, New York (2011), Galeria, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia; A and the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Akhavan’s work has been exhibited in spaces the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2011), Tate Jukebox of People Trying to Change the Arts, San Francisco. His work has also been including Vancouver Art Gallery, Darling Modern, London (2010), Museo di Palazzo World, Ancient and Modern, London. Also, included in group exhibitions at: Tate Britain, Foundry (Canada), KW Institute for Poggi & Biblioteca Universitaria, Bologna recently, the artist had been selected for group London; Nam June Paik Centre, Gyeonggi-do; Contemporary Art (Germany), Kunsten (2010), Site Gallery, Sheffield (2010), Malmö exhibitions and projects: Weighted Words, Basel Kunsthalle; Mudam, Luxembourg; Museum of Modern Art (Denmark), Belvedere Konsthall, Malmö (2009) and Künstlerhaus Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2012; Centre Pompidou, Paris; the 8th Gwangju Museum (Austria), Performa 11 (USA), and Bethanien, Berlin (2008). Recent group shows Transcendental Empiricism, Rob Tufnell at Biennale; Sculpture Center, New York; the the Delfina Foundation (UAE, UK). include Transmediale Berlin (2012), Contem- porary Art Museum St Louis (2010), New Page Street, London, 2011; A Million Miles 11th Biennale de Lyon; and the San Francisco Museum Triennial, New York (2009), Sharjah from Home, Folkestone Triennial, Folkestone; Museum of Modern Art. Aurélien Froment Living, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, (born in 1976 in Angers, France) currently lives Marina Albu Biennale (2009), Athens Biennale (2009), Humlebæk; The Big Society, Galerie Vallois, in Dublin, Ireland. I realized just now why I always delay send- Berlin Biennale (2008) as well as representing Paris; Savage Messiah, Rob Tufnell at Sutton ing/writing my bio. I know it for sure at this Cyprus at the Biennale di Venezia (2007). Lane, London; The Bell Show, Lüttgenmeijer, moment. I DO NOT BELIEVE IN BIOS. Bios Since 2008 Epaminonda is developing togeth- Berlin. Ruth Ewan is the recipient of EAST do not matter to me. At all. Which city one er with german artist Daniel Gustav Cramer International Award in 2006 and artist residen- Ciprian Homorodean comes from, where one works, if one has well- ‘The Infinite Library’, an ongoing book project. cy in Cove Park, Creative Development Although I have formal training as a sculptor, I known artist-or-something-else-ancestors, Residency, Cove, 2010, Yorkshire Artspace use different medias to give form to observa- how old or young one is or if the university Residency, Sheffield, 2010,Triangle Arts Trust tions that concern me as an artist. I consider where one studied has renowned teachers or Klas Eriksson Arts Council Residency, Santa Cruz, Bolivia, art to be just another language, whose vocab- ex-students (there is one grand figure of art Eriksson is interested in control, power and 2009, Cocheme Fellowship, Byam Shaw ulary is based on personal history and expres- history who's student work was rescued by the limitations. School of Art, 2008. Ruth Ewan (b. 1980, sive needs. I approach a variety of subjects, university i was in and placed in the middle of He expresses himself through performance, Aberdeen) is an artist based in London. with one theme linking all the facets of my the spiraling teachers stairs, but i did not study video and sculpture. work: the human experience. Our quest for neither with him nor with his teachers - all long Klas Eriksson’s point of departure is mass-cul- identity, the stereotypes that often define how gone). It does not matter how many exhibitions ture, where, employing various strategies, he Aurélien Froment we are perceived or that we voluntarily incar- one had and where they had it, it does not mat- explores our notions of authenticity, power and Between 1995 and 2000 he studied at the nate, our role as individuals who are also a ter what prizes they won or at what prices they artistic expression. Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, Manchester part of the collective social tissue, these are sell. At most, all these are future conversation Recent appearnces include the Gotheburg Metropolitan University, and the Ecole des some of the issues at the centre of my reflec- [194] [195] tion. Through my projects, I wish to look at the including, print, sound and light, to explore the David Maljković A rich source is the propagandistic material models and anti-models of our society, to indefinite space between reality and fiction, Born 1973 in Rijeka, Croatia, David Maljković delivered by governmental institutions. The examine the two sides of every story in order abstraction and representation. Drawing on studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb obtained images and symbols become either to arrive at an impartial conclusion. Using sub- language, Janice’s work often takes the form and the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris. slightly changed or inserted in a different con- version, humour, and a dose of self-critique, I of plans, proposals, scripts or announcements Maljković has participated in numerous resi- text in order to reverse the original message. try to breach the rules of the art world to deliv- for imagined scenarios that cannot or will not dencies including the Rijksakademie van The artist’s painstaking dissection of the visual er ironic comments on socially controversial occur. Janice has exhibited at Tate Britain, beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam, KW Institute and linguistic structure and research-based subjects. Chisenhale Gallery, London, greegrassi, and for Contemporary Art, studio program, Berlin, works demonstrate how state authority affects Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Kunstzeitraum, artist residency, Munich, society, and transforms democracy into an illu- International Residence at Recollets, Paris and sion for those living under the persistent hege- Iman Issa IASPIS, Stockholm. mony of the ruling network. Iman Issa (born 1979, Cairo) is an artist living Jill Magid Recent solo exhibitions include Secession, Naprushkina works consistently with issues and working in Cairo and New York. Her most Jill Magid, a New York based artist and writer, Vienna, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina surrounding art and politics—and the relation- recent solo and group exhibitions include The seeks platforms for acting inside and outside Sofía, Madrid, Kunstverein Hamburg and P.S.1 ship between the two. Since 2007 Naprushkina Ungovernables, New Museum, New York, of institutions, responding to their imposition, Contemporary Art Center, New York. runs the Office for Anti-propaganda. Abstract Possible, Tensta Konsthall, negotiation, and, at times, capitulation of Significant recent group exhibitions include Stockholm, Material, Rodeo, Istanbul; Seeing power. For Magid, this power isn’t a remote ‘Latifa, Echakhch & David Maljković – is believing, KW Institute of Contemporary Art, condition to contest, but rather something to Morgenlied’ at Kunsthalle Basel, ‘One Sixth of Ahmet Öğüt Berlin; Short Stories, SculptureCenter, New manipulate, by drawing it closer, exploiting its the Earth: Ecologies of the Image’ at Museo de Born in Diyarbakir, Turkey in 1981, Öğüt cur- York; and Propaganda by Monuments, loopholes, engaging it in dialogue, seducing its Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, rently resides in Amsterdam. Öğüt has been a Contemporary Image Collective, Cairo. Her agents, revealing its sources, infiltrating its ‘Scene, Hold, Ballast: David Maljković and guest artist at the Rijksakademie van video work has been screened at several ven- structure, repeating its logic. As an artist and Lucy Skaer’ at the Sculpture Center, New York Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam in 2007- ues including Tate Modern, London; Spacex, writer, Magid is fascinated by hidden informa- and the 29th Bienal de São Paulo in 2010. In 2008. Winner of the Volkskrant Art Prize 2011, Exeter; Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool; and tion, being public as a condition for existence, 2009 David Maljković was awarded the ARCO Öğüt's recent solo exhibitions include Modern Bidoun Artists Cinema. Her book Thirty-three and intimacy in relation to power. With solo Prize for Young Artists in Madrid, followed by Essays 1: Across the Slope, SALT, Istanbul; Stories about Reasonable Characters in exhibitions at institutions around the world the International Contemporary Art Prize Once upon a time a clock-watcher during over- Familiar Places was published in September including Tate Modern, London; Whitney Diputació de Castelló in 2010. time hours, Fondazione Giuliani, Rome; 2011 by the SculptureCenter in New York. Museum of American Art, New York; Berkeley Stones to Throw, Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon; Museum of Art, California; Tate Liverpool; the Exploded City / MATRIX 231, The MATRIX Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam; Yvon Marina Naprushkina Program at the UC Berkeley Art Museum, Janice Kerbel Lambert, Paris and New York; Gagosian Marina Naprushkina, born 1981 in Minsk, Ricochet # 4, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich; Janice Kerbel (b.1969, Canada) lives and Gallery, New York; The Centre D’Arte Santa Belarus, studiet at School of Art Glebow, Minsk Speculative Social Fantasies, Artspace Visual works in London. Recent solo exhibitions Monica, Barcelona, and at the Security and and Staedelschule, Frankfurt. Recent exhibi- Arts Centre in Sydney; Europas Zukunft 2010, include Kill The Workers!, Walter Philips Intelligence Agency of the Netherlands, Magid tions include 2011 General Plan, The Centro Museum of Contemporary Art (GfZK) Leipzig; Gallery, Banff (2012); Badischer Kunstverein, has been recognized with awards such as the Cultural Montehermoso (SP), 2011 Scenario Mutual Issues, Inventive Acts, Kunsthalle Karlsruhe (2011); Chisenhale, London (2011); Basis Stipendium from Fonds Voor Beeldende on Europe?, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Basel. Selected group exhibitions include 12th Art Now, Tate Britain (2010); greengrassi, Kunsten in the Netherlands and the Kunst, Leipzig (D), 2011 A Complicated Istanbul Biennial; 4th Moscow Biennial; 2011 London (2009); Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery, Netherland-American Foundation Fellowship Relation, Kalmar Konstmuseum (SE), 2010 Asian Art Biennial, Taichung; Trickster Makes Canada (2009); Remarkable, Frieze Art Fair Fulbright Grant. She is also the author of four New Frankfurt Internationals, MMK Frankfurt / This World, Nam June Paik Art Center; Projects (2007). Selected group exhibitions books including Becoming Tarden, a novel Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt a.M. (D), Performa 09, New York; 5th Berlin Biennial for include Bucharest Biennale (2012); Dexter which opens with the phrase “the secret itself 2010 Is there any Hope for an Optimistic Art?, Contemporary Art; Stalking with Stories, Sinister, Walter Philips Gallery, Banff (2011); is much more beautiful than its revelation.” In MMOMA, Moscow (RU), contributions to the Apexart, New York and 9th International Best Laid Plans, the Drawing Room, London accordance with Magid’s proclivity for intrigue, 7th Berlin Biennale, 11th Istanbul Biennial Istanbul Biennial. In 2009 he co-represented (2010); Poor. Old. Tired. Horse., ICA, London this book is as mysterious as the project it is (TR), Fokus Lodz Biennale (PL), 2nd Moscow Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennale together (2009); Gartenstadt, Kunstverein Hildesheim associated with which included the book being International Biennale for Young Art (RU). with Banu Cennetoğlu. Some of his upcoming (2009); Magic, Hayward Gallery Touring edited, censored, contents confiscated and a Naprushkina works in different media (paint- group exhibitions are Moving for Wards (2009); 1st at Moderna, Moderna Museet, one-time-only exhibition of the novel at Tate ing, video and installation) to develop critical Counting Back Wards, Museo Universitario Stockholm (2006). Her book, 15 Lombard St Modern from September 10th to January 3rd examinations of power and the structure of the Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC); TRACK, Ghent (2000), is published by Book Works, London. 2010. State, often using material acquired from con- and Skyscraper, Museum of Contemporary Art Janice Kerbel works with a range of material temporary Belarus. Chicago (MCA) [196] [197] Vesna Pavlović (2011), "Make - Believe - Remake", is re-imagined as Faust; Piero Manzoni cre- Rinus Van de Velde Vesna Pavlović (Serbia/US) obtained her MFA Kunstverein Friedrichshafen, Germany (2011), ates a camera that eats the Universe; and Rinus Van de Velde (°1983) lives and works in degree in visual arts from Columbia University "The State: Social? Antisocial?", Traffic, Dubai Molière’s send-ups of 17th century snobbery Antwerp. His practice mainly consists of draw- in 2007. She is an Assistant Professor of Art at (2011), "Leinen Los!", Kunstverein Hannover are translated to modern-day New York. If fig- ings that hearken back to a personal archive of Vanderbilt University where she teaches pho- (2010), „Ikeallahu Akbar“, Interventionsraum, ures such as Molière, Lucian of Samosata, photographs derived from vulgarizing scientific tography and digital media. She has exhibited Stuttgart (2010), "Robberies", Kunstverein Das and even Woody Allen, appear as characters magazines such as National Geographic, from widely, including solo shows at the Frist Center Weisse Haus, Wien (2010). In 2010 Razmi in Singh’s world, it only seems natural, his biographies of artists and scientists... Lately, for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Museum of received a work stipend from the Edith Russ works perpetuating a like spirit of wit, imagina- he often re-enacts found footage or even History of Yugoslavia in Belgrade, and the Site for Media Art, Germany for her work "The tion and fantasy. stages non-existent scenes in photographs, Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. She has Paykan Project", in 2011 she was awarded Alexandre Singh's work has been exhibited in which he then uses as source material. been featured with a solo presentation at the "The Emdash Award" (Frieze Foundation, venues throughout Europe and the United Van de Veldes overtly narrative drawings are Untitled, 12th Istanbul Biennial, 2011, and in London) for her project "Roof Piece Tehran". States including The Serpentine Gallery, confronted with texts in installations that tell a group exhibitions at the Le Quartier Center for London; New Museum, New York; PS-1 new and personal story. This fiction takes Contemporary Art in Quimper, France (From MoMA, New York ; Stedelijk Museum, place in a mirror universe that is peopled by Closed World to the Infinite Universe), Wael Shawky Amsterdam; Palais de Tokyo, Paris and Sprüth courageous alter egos and who serve as ideal Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade Wael Shawky is born in 1971 in Alexandria, Magers, Berlin. Singh’s work is held by a num- representatives of the actual artist. At the (Conversations), Serbia, Tennis Palace Art Egypt, studied visual arts in Egypt and the US. ber of private and public collections including same time, this drawn world is delineated by Museum in Helsinki, Finland (Situated Self, Recent solos have taken place at Nottingham MoMA, New York and the Solomon R. its own subjectivity: it can be nothing but a fan- Consfused, Compassionate, Conflictual), Contemporary (2011) and Cittadellarte- Guggenheim Museum, New York. tasy, a fiction, and so beyond its borders lies Photographers' Gallery in London Fondazione Pistoletto (2010). Shawky has the great nothingness of the “real” world. (Mediterranean, Between Reality and Utopia), participated in Istanbul Biennale (2011) and As such, Van de Velde moves through the bor- Kettle's Yard in Cambridge, UK (Rear View (2005), The Santa Fe Biennial (2008) and the Mounira Al Solh derland between system and unsystematic Mirror), and FRAC Center for Contemporary Biennial di Venizia (2003). Recent awards Born in Beirut in 1978 Al Solh studied painting reality, between self and ideal, between the Art in Dunkuerqe, France (De-Collecting). include the Schering Foundation Art Award at the Lebanese University in Beirut (LB), and ordinal subdivisions of the I and the Other. His Vesna Pavlović is the recipient of the Robert (2011) and Abraaj Capital prize (2011). Fine Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in artistic practice is characterized not only by a Penn Warren Fellowship at Vanderbilt Shawky founded MASS Alexandria, education- Amsterdam (NL). In 2007/08, she was a resi- personal desire for self-actualization, control University, and Copenhagen Artist-in- al space (2010) dent artist at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. and structure, but also “shows” us something; Residence grant in 2011. Selected publica- Her work is playfully conceptual, and includes namely, that fiction and reality need and even tions include: Office Taste, co-authored with videos, installations, magazines, drawings and imply each other. Casey Smith, Belgrade, Skart, 2005 and An Alexandre Singh performances, while it “queries the possibilities Idyll on the Beach, Belgrade, Samizdat, 2001. Alexandre Singh is a visual artist and writer and impossibilities of roles accessible to con- based in New York. Singh who was born in temporary artists, and their impact in a global- Bordeaux, France to Indian and French par- ized consumer culture. The experience is – to Anahita Razami ents was brought up in Manchester, UK before say the least – schizophrenic. And thus comes Anahita Razmi (* 1981, Hamburg / Germany) studying Fine Art at the University of Oxford, in the voice-overs, role-play, invented per- is a video and performance artist. UK. Singh’s work derives at once from tradi- sonas (such as Bassam Ramlawi) and dress- Her works often are dealing with issues con- tions in literature, performance, photo-concep- ing-up, as characteristic of her practice. More cerning identity and gender, employing objects tualism and object-based installation art. Often often than not, Al-Solh does not provide an with a national and cultural significance or cit- starting with elaborate, publicly presented lec- answer but keeps pushing questions.” (By Nat ing the work of high-profile artists. Working tures that blend historical fact with narrative Muller) within the tradition of appropriation and re- fiction, Singh’s practice resists categorization. Thus, “gray humor” is recurrent in her work enactment, Razmi detaches cultural symbols Taking in such diverse genres as writing, col- and while starting from the autobiographical from their established meanings by employing lage, installation and performance, Alexandre she proposes specific socio-political and aes- them in unexpected situations and contexts. Singh’s works are characterized by obsessive thetic questions, where the futile becomes the Within this, her work often builds up a relation details and linkages. Drawing upon a dizzying essence. She often reflects on specific art- to contemporary Iran. Recent solo and group constellation of themes and characters; culled works including them into her fictions and shows include "Videonale 13", Kunstmuseum, as much from classical history and philosophy, invented stories that are finally neither so fic- Bonn, Germany (2011), "Division by Zero", as popular and consumer culture; Singh’s uni- tional nor really invented. Carbon12, Dubai (2011), "Iran Via Video verse is one of absurdist junctures and juxta- Current", Thomas Erben Gallery, New York positions in which Adidas founder Adi Dassler [198] [199] PArAllel eVenTs of BuChAresT BiennAle 5 PRISPA A highly ethical art does not belong to one To Observe And To Be Observed brain only, but to the whole world. If art is July 1 - July 31, 2012 done only for one's own pleasure, one nei- Simultaneous Parallel Events ther does justice to other people, nor to Șoseaua Chitilei 284-286 (Colosseum oneself.” (Marcel Janco, preface to the Retail Park, in front of Leroy Merlin), catalogue of "Das Neue Leben" POLIMATECA Have we mentioned that, during and after Bucharest, Exhibition (The New Life) Zurich, 1919). May 9 - 31, 2012 POLIMATECA, we also host a part of the Opening day: July 1, 2012, 10:00 Marcel Janco's genius lies not only in his Bucharest International Biennial of PRISPA is a student project that offers anoth- highly innovative work: reliefs, paintings, Festival of Political Arts and Sciences, Contemporary Art? Interested? All events woodcuts, sculptures, and architecture, er perspective on sustainable living, while 1st edition will take place on our premises (8, Spiru but in the courage reflected in his cre- also aiming at the revival of the traditional 8, Spiru Haret st. & 24, Sf.Stefan st., Haret st. and 24, Sf.Stefan st.) but more ations. The artist's work establishes him as Romanian village. The goal is to build a solar Bucharest locations may be added. a pioneer of modernism and his artistic POLIMATECA is a non partisan series of house that produces all the energy it needs experiments seem daring even today. 117 For the detailed program: events that aims to raise awareness on for normal functioning and to use it not only years have passed since Marcel Janco www.fspub.unibuc.ro/polimateca the fact that political sciences do not nec- as an architecture object, but also as a social (Iancu) was born on May 24th, 1895 and essarily produce politicians but train the instrument. Hence, the house has to meet 73 years since his last exhibition in Politics ain’t easy. It may not be rocket sci- mind in the spirit of freedom, argument the needs of an average couple (price, ease Romania, in 1939, at the Ghica Hall ence but, in the right hands, it can achieve discipline, curiosity, empathy and creativi- of living, adaptability, contemporary comfort), together with Milița Pătraşcu. (The Ghica the status of art. Would you let it just to ty, essential for crafting independent per- but it also has to keep a touch of the national Building was the last Romanian construc- politicians? Our current politicians? sonalities capable to generate and lead identity, while creating the kind of space tion by Marcel and Iuliu Iancu). Neither do we. And that’s why we invented For more details: www.colors-art.ro successful personal and community proj- Romanians can psychologically understand POLIMATECA. A chic party of food for ects. Currently at its first edition, POLI- and relate to. It is all about building an envi- thought on indecently hot topics, served MELTING by Judit Balko MATECA replaces a pilot project known as ronmentally friendly home that uses technol- with hors d’oeuvre and finely crafted col- the Political Science Week that we initiat- ogy without being threatening and also helps May 25, 2012, 18.00 lections for connoisseurs and debutants: ed in 2011 to mark 20 years since our bring down some walls people are hiding Haute Culture (high class conferences establishment as the first Romanian high- behind when it comes to being part of a com- Free Press Square, Bucharest (Piata with top thinkers from fields as diverse as er education institution created in opposi- munity. Overpopulated cities are overrated Presei Libere), Bucharest architecture, history, medicine, economics tion to the communist political education. and the rural countryside does not provide Judit Balko is opening the second phase of or engineering), Prêt-à-penser (informal Coordinator: lect. dr. Luciana Alexandra what the modern society understands as Project 1990 with Melting. and slightly unconventional debates and Ghica, +40 723 630 040). comfort. PRISPA is an alternative, if not a first "Project 1990" was initiated in January 2010 roundtables), Handmade (events with and attempt at a solution. This new approach on by Ioana Ciocan and highlights her desire to about civil society) and In the making living must be at least experienced so, in July, revitalize an area of Bucharest with a tumul- (career workshops). For the young ones CONTROL DAY OUT the team has a fully functional 1:1 scale pro- tuous history that has largely been ignored we have a School of political media and totype on display and open for visiting. We since the advent of democracy. Artists invited communication but if you are an artist, we June 1, 2012 invite you to observe and to be observed! by Ciocan to exhibit through this initiative invite you to exhibit in the ‘Salon’ of social For more details: www.prispa.org have succeeded over two years to create a and political cartoons, illustration and pho- Live concert, open air. new identity for the former location of tography. Irrespective of age, as this is the Arenele Romane, Cutitul de Argint 26 MARCEL IANCU (JANCO), Caragea's Lenin. All of the artworks exhibited Year of Solidarity across Generations. To st., Bucharest UN VISIONNAIRE DE L'ART MODERNE have made critical artistic statements about mark it, we will open the festival with a Powered by Control Club May 25 - June 22, 2012 Romanian sociopolitical life. basketball mini-championship between The relationship between totalitarianism and journalists, politicians from across the With: Wild Beasts, Woodkid, The Shoes, SWAN Office & Technology Park, sos. political pressure fostered works which tend- entire political spectrum and, of course, O.Children Bucuresti Nord 15 - 23 (Pipera), ed to produce art that served and expressly the hosts - the Faculty of Political Science For details: www.control-club.ro Bucharest supported the greater glory of the at the University of Bucharest (FSPUB). Opening day: May 25, 2012, 18:00 Communist/Ceausescu régime.

[200] [201] "Melting" brings up the recent past and how it and information. In order to live one has to is perceived by contemporaries. Too often, for satisfy different needs that entail consuming Education and Mediation those who lived in the communist era the related goods. Nature provides some neces- communist brutality and the ugliness of the sary elements but human beings need to collective past is blurred by fond memories of seize, alter and adapt them for consumption. a personal past. For those who were born Such changes lay the basis for what we call after the collapse of the communist regime, “production” and ensue from the human the past is nothing else but a sad, closed necessity to satisfy one’s needs. chapter without connection to the country’s On the official website of the Ministry of past or future." (Judit Balko) Labor, Family and Social Protection a draft Government decision has been published to aMAZEinSOUND stipulate the guaranteed minimum gross June 3, 2012, 19.00 - 20.30 wage. We have decided to make an experi- ment based on establishing the consumption Opera Studio of the National University range ensured by such an amount of com- of Music pensation. Our project will comprise photog- Stirbei Voda 33 st., Bucharest raphy and video documentation of the life aMAZEinSound is a one hour and a half experience which is reapeated over and over concert/multimedia performance that again for an unpriviledged category of includes some of the biggest names from Romanian citizens. the art music of the last century (Mauricio For more details: www.artvictoria.ro Whatever your background or experience Kagel, Toru Takemitsu, Witold Lutoslawski, level with regard to contemporary art, her- Luciano Berio and George Crumb), as well START POINT PRIZE itage or art history, BB5 educational pro- as some of the most prestigious Romanian June 15 - July 15, 2012 grams allow you to engage, participate in contemporary composers (Dan Dediu, the dialogue and broaden your outlook. Join Liviu Dănceanu) and two of the most Victoria Art Center us, together with your friends, family or stu- promising young voices in Romanian new Calea Victoriei 12 C st., Bucharest dents, for one of our conversational tours music (Diana Rotaru, Mihai Murariu). Opening day: June 15, 2012, 19:00 and more. SonoMania will guide you through the labyrinth of art music creating storied for The StartPoint Prize exhibition hosted by If you are planning a visit to BB5 with your each of these sound worlds with the help Victoria Art Center presents a selection of the school, university, community organization, of Mihai Cucu (video projections) and best projects executed by the BFA and MFA company, museum association or any other Tiberiu Dinescu (photo collage). graduates of three art education institutions in group over 10 persons, then this is the For more details and program: Romania in 2012. During the exhibition peri- place to be. Be sure to let us know in www.fb.com/SonoManiaEnsemble od, the SP curatorial board will designate a advance to organize for you a free guided winner for each school involved in this nation- tour. Based on your interests, age and ABOUT LIFE, HOUSES, PEOPLE AND al round. The StartPoint Prize is in the tenth background, we will create a personalized OTHERS… year of its existence and organizes a compe- program to fit your group. May 10 – June 10, 2012 tition between the best art academies and universities in Europe. Thus the whole If you are visiting BB5 by yourself, or with a Victoria Art Center StartPoint project creates a unique and con- small group, please note that we have vol- Calea Victoriei 12 C st., Bucharest tinuous documentation of the emerging art unteers prepared to guide you in every venue. Just ask them for details. Opening day: May 10, 2012, 19:00 generation but also a wide network of new contacts and a platform for further opportuni- From a biological and social standpoint, man ties to meet and cooperate. Feel free to contact us for more information is a permanent consumer of goods, services For more details: www.artvictoria.ro or with any requests. [202] [203] Institutional Partners:

Strategic Partner:

[204] [205] Media Partners:

Production Partner: Official Hotel:

Printing Partner: Official Club:

Official Coffee: Official Restaurant:

[206] [207] Special thanks (in alphabetical order):

Charline Adriaens Maria Lind Bogdan Afrăsinei Ramona Macarie Andrei Alexandrescu Raimundas Malašauskas Isabella Alexandrescu Alexandru Manole Ana Androne Anthony Marcellini Nathalie Angles Robert Marin Alma and John Barlow Ștefana Mărmureanu Eugenia Bell Cătălina Miciu Fritzie Brown Mihai Mironenco Lăcrămioara Brecea Anca Mitran Cătălin Burcea Igor Mocanu Simona Buzatu Ioana Moldoveanu Paola Capata Laura Mott Alma Cazacu Nana Adriana Căpraru Bogdan Theodor Olteanu Karin Cervenka Florin Oslobanu Cătalina Coșoiu João Ribas Ioana Cristina Lisa Rosendahl Suzana Dan Daniel Todoran-Rareș Elena David Bianca Sărățeanu Oana Dima Caroline Seebregts Adrian Dobrescu Sylvia Segura Eliza Dumitrașcu Dan Shafran Christopher Eamon Simon Sheikh Stina Edblom Dana Stănică Sila Ekin Tijana Stepanović Jonatan Habib Engqvist Anamaria Spătaru Suzi Ersahin Corina-Maria Scheianu Robert Ferguson Alexandra Sopon Mihai Fulger Anamaria Spătaru Mihai Fuiorea Maureen Sullivan Andreas Gegner Adrian Șaguna Tessa Giblin Simona Șercan Luciana Ghica Niels van Tomme Ioana Gogoncea Laura Turcan Ada Maria Ichim Felix Vogel Mirela Ionescu Bianca Ioniță Oana Ioniță Rita Kálmán For all the help and special dedication to the project Lissa Kinnear all our gratitude to Anca Nuță and Răsvan Radu. Moukhtar Kocache Sylvia Kouvali For all the support our gratitude The Staff and The Gheorghe Laurențiu Board of Art in General. Claudia Rose Lewis Hilde Lievens Our deep gratitude to all artists and writers.

[208] THIS IS A SPECIAL ISSUE DEDICATED TO BUCHAREST BIENNALE - BUCHAREST INTERNATIONAL BIENNIAL FOR CONTEMPORARY ART WWW.BUCHARESTBIENNALE.ORG