Open 14 Art As a Public Issue.Pdf
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VcY]ZhZZhVcdcnb^in!dci]ZXdc" :Y^idg^Va * Chantal Mouffe artistic practices can play an Art and Democracy important role in subverting Art as an Agnostic the dominant Intervention in Public hegemony in this Space so-called ‘agonistic’ model of public The Belgian polit- space, visualizing ical philosopher that which is Chantal Mouffe repressed and defines the destroyed by the public space as a consensus of postt- battleground on political democracy. which different hegemonic projects are confronted, without any possi- bility of final recon- ciliation. According to Mouffe, critical 6 Open 2008/No. 14/Art as a Public Issue Can artistic practices still play a criti- relations that elude the grasp of value, cal role in a society where the differr- competitive individualism and market ence between art and advertising have exchange make the latter appear by become blurred and where artists and contrast in their political dimension, cultural workers have become a nec- as extensions of the power of capital. A essary part of capitalist production? front of total resistance to this power is Scrutinizing the ‘new spirit of capital- made possible. It necessarily overflows ism’, Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello the terrain of production of knowl- have shown how the demands for auton- edge towards new practices of living, omy of the new movements of the 1960s consuming and collective appropria- had been harnessed in the development tion of common spaces and everyday of the postt-Fordist networked economy culture.’2 Certainly, 2. Interview with André Gorz, Multitudes, No. 15 and transformed into new forms of the modernist idea (2004), 209. control.1 The aesthetic strategies of the of the avantt-garde counterculture: the 1. Luc Boltanski and Eve has to be abandoned, but that does Chiapello, The New Spirit of search for authen- Capitalismm (London: Verso, not mean that any form of critique has ticity, the ideal of 2005). become impossible. What is needed to selff-management, the anti-hierarchical widen the field of artistic intervention, exigency, are now used in order to by intervening directly in a multiplicity promote the conditions required by the of social spaces in order to oppose the current mode of capitalist regulation, programme of total social mobilization replacing the disciplinary framework of capitalism. The objective should be characteristic of the Fordist period. to undermine the imaginary environ- Nowadays, artistic and cultural produc- ment necessary for its reproduction. As tion play a central role in the process Brian Holmes puts it: ‘Art can offer a of capital valorisation and, through chance for society to collectively reflect ‘neo-management’, artistic critique has on the imaginary figures it depends become an important element of capi- upon for its very 3. Brian Holmes, ‘Artistic Autonomy’, www.u-tan- talist productivity. consistency, its selff- gente.org. This has led some people to claim understanding.’3 that art had lost its critical power I personally think that artistic prac- because any form of critique is automatt- tices can play a role in the struggle ically recuperated and neutralized by against capitalist domination, but to capitalism. Others, however, offer a diff- envisage how an effective intervention ferent view and see the new situation as can be made requires understanding opening the way for different strategies of the dynamics of democratic politics; of opposition. Such a view is supported an understanding which I contend can by insights from Andre Gorz: ‘When only be obtained by acknowledging the selff-exploitation acquires a central political in its antagonistic dimension role in the process of valorisation, the as well as the contingent nature of any production of subjectivity becomes a type of social order. It is only within such terrain of the central conflict . Social a perspective that one can grasp the Art and Democracy 7 hegemonic struggle which characterr- many perspectives and values and that, izes democratic politics, the hegemonic due to empirical limitations, we will struggle in which artistic practices can never be able to adopt them all, but play a crucial role. that, when put together, they constitute an harmonious ensemble. This is why The Political as Antagonism this type of liberalism must negate the political in its antagonistic dimension The point of departure of the theoreti- and is thereby unable to grasp the chal- cal reflections that I am going to present lenge facing democratic politics. Indeed, is the difficulty that we currently have in one of the main tenets of this liberalism our postt-political age for envisaging the is the rationalist belief in the availabil- problems facing our societies in a politi- ity of a universal consensus based on cal way. Contrary to what neoliberal ide- reason. No wonder that the political ologists would like us to believe, political constitutes its blind spot. Liberalism has questions are not mere technical issues to negate antagonism since, by bringing to be solved by experts.