Contested Collectivities: Europe Reimagined by Contemporary Artists

CONTESTED COLLECTIVITIES: EUROPE REIMAGINED BY CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS by Brianne Cohen B.A., Pomona College, 2004 M.A., Courtauld Institute of Art, 2005 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2012 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Brianne Cohen It was defended on March 19, 2012 and approved by Barbara McCloskey, Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture Randall Halle, Professor, Department of German Josh Ellenbogen, Assistant Professor, History of Art and Architecture Dissertation Advisor: Terry Smith, Professor, History of Art and Architecture ii Copyright © by Brianne Cohen 2012 iii CONTESTED COLLECTIVITIES: EUROPE REIMAGINED BY CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS Brianne Cohen, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2012 This dissertation studies a particular current of contemporary art, which is devoted to exploring positive models for an intercultural imaginary in Europe. In recent times, there has been much contestation over a European identity following decolonization, mass immigration, globalization, and the breaking down of political boundaries on the continent. Numerous artists are scrutinizing a symbolic-visual realm increasingly shaped by stereotypes, misinformation, and distortions concerning “foreigners” and immigrants. This dissertation examines the work of three artists and art groups – the filmmaker and video installation artist Harun Farocki, the public installation artist Thomas Hirschhorn, and the transnational art collective, “Henry VIII’s Wives.” Each explores various forms, such as film, television, the Internet, radio, and so on, in order to probe how the media shapes public opinion and group identification. Through these three cases, the dissertation charts a changing narrative of “Europeanness” from hopes for a federation after the racial genocide of World War II through critiques of nationalism after decolonization, the “failure” of multiculturalism since the 1990s, and intensified Roma discrimination, Islamophobia, and right-wing extremism in the twenty-first century. At stake is a broader question of how strangers may relate to one another in an increasingly proximate world. Within the field of contemporary art history, scholars have focused recently on issues of collective spectatorship and participation, or how multiple viewers around an artwork may connect with one another and not just an object. Since the 1990’s, there iv has emerged a robust line of inquiry directed at socially-oriented art practices, variously studied as “community” art, “relational” art, “dialogical” art, and so on. While this scholarship has opened up a rich discourse about different aspects of socially-engaged practices, there has not been a study of artists who focus on the specific dilemmas of constructing a present-day “European community.” The European Union itself, for example, which touts a slogan of being “United in Diversity,” is an exemplary model to rethink questions of cross-cultural exchange and hopes for inter-relating a mass body of strangers. This dissertation investigates contemporary artists in Europe who are staking aesthetic questions of collective engagement in vivid socio– and geopolitical terms. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE .................................................................................................................................... IX 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 LIVING IN A COM MON WORLD: CONTEMPORARY ART H ISTORY AND THEORY ..................................................................................................................... 5 1.2 AT THE LIMITS OF AN IMAGINED “EUROPEAN” COLLECTIVISM 14 1.3 RESPONSE IN THE VISUAL DOMAIN: INSTITUTIONS, EXHIBITIONS, AND ARTISTS .................................................................................. 25 1.4 “UNITED IN DIVERSITY:” DEVELOPING A CRITICAL FRAMEWORK .................................................................................................................. 33 1.5 STRUCTURE OF THE DISSERTATION: FAROCKI, HIRSCHHON, AND HENRY VIII’S WIVES ..................................................................................................... 39 2.0 HARUN FAROCKI: CONFIGURING BODIES OF INFORMATION .............. 45 2.1 THE SILENCE OF INFORMATION ......................................................... 47 2.1.1 Images of the World and the Inscription of War: Can the Subaltern Speak? ....................................................................................................................... 51 2.1.2 Respite: What is Testifiable? .................................................................. 57 2.1.3 Making Bodies Superfluous .................................................................. 62 2.1.4 In-Formation: Stereotypes and ISOTYPE ............................................ 64 vi 2.1.5 Moving from a volkloser Raum to Embodied Collectives ................... 73 2.2 RAISING THE STAKES OF THE GAME .................................................. 75 2.2.1 The Artist as Producer ............................................................................. 80 2.2.2 The Artist as Ethnographer .................................................................... 86 2.2.3 The Stakes of Deep Play ..............................................................................91 2.2.4 The Spectator as Observer-Participant .................................................. 99 2.2.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................ 102 3.0 THOMAS HIRSCHHORN: NEGOTIATI NG THE PUBLIC IN EUROPEAN BANLIEUES .............................................................................................................................. 104 3.1 THE BATAILLE MONUMENT AND QUE STIONS OF “COMMUNIT Y” WORK ......................................................................................................................... 108 3.2 PRECARI OUS COLLECTIVITIES VERSUS IMAGINED COMMUNITIES ........................................................................................................... 117 3.3 STRANGERS IN A COMMON PUBLIC ..................................................... 134 3.4 CONCLUSION: A CREATIVE WORLD-MAKING .................................. 150 4.0 HENRY VIII’S WIVES: TRANSFO RMING POPULAR MEDIA AND POPULISM ............................................................................................................................... 153 4.1 UNTETHERING AUTHORITATIVE NARRATIVES: EARLY PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO INSTALLATION ................................................... 157 4.1.1 Moving Tow ards Architecture: Deconstructing an “Originary” Community .......................................................................................................... 162 4.1.2 Black Box Installation and Fear: The Returning Officer ................... 167 4.2 POPULISM AND THE MASS MEDIA ...................................................... 172 vii 4.2.1 Resignifying an Iconotype: Tatlin’s Tower and the World ................. 177 4.2.2 Conclusion .............................................................................................. 191 5.0 CONCLUSIONG: FROM FEAR TO AFFILIATION, FROM INSECURITY TO COLLECTIVITY ..................................................................................................................... 195 5.1 THE EURO ZONE AND GLOBALIZATION ............................................. 195 5.2 A FEAR OF SMALL NUMBERS .................................................................. 199 5.3 CORE CONNECTIONS AMONG THE THREE ARTISTIC CAS E STUDIES ........................................................................................................................... 202 5.4 MODELING COLLECTIVITY FOR A NEW EUROPE ........................... 206 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 212 viii PREFACE I am tremendously grateful to many who have helped and guided me in the process of writing this dissertation, including my committee of readers, Terry Smith, Barbara McCloskey, Randall Halle, and Josh Ellenbogen. Above all, my advisor Terry Smith has challenged me to adopt a multi-layered approach – to not only move back and forth from the detailed to the broad, from the local to the planetary, but also to attend to the many registrations and nuances within such shifts. His trust and belief in my work has been unwavering, which has been the greatest support any advisor can provide. I am grateful to Barbara McCloskey, additionally, for her consistent, intelligent feedback on my work. Perhaps more than any other, she has pushed me to never be complacent and to rethink seemingly settled interpretations. Randall Halle, in turn, has helped me to reflect critically on my role as a scholar, and how to contribute positively to a discourse and public composed of many diverse actors – artists, critics, theorists, historians, and so on. He has continually helped me keep things in perspective. And Josh Ellenbogen has a unique ability to filter immense amounts of text and context down to a number of fundamental intellectual questions. This striving to articulate those questions, along with his easy humor, is what I will remember most from our generative

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