Festivals of Art, Carnivals of Representation: on Contemporary Art and Neoliberalism Tijen Tunali
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University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Art & Art History ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 12-1-2015 Festivals of Art, Carnivals of Representation: On Contemporary Art and Neoliberalism Tijen Tunali Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/arth_etds Recommended Citation Tunali, Tijen. "Festivals of Art, Carnivals of Representation: On Contemporary Art and Neoliberalism." (2015). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/arth_etds/4 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Art & Art History ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. , Tijen Tunalı Candidate Art and Art History Department Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: David L. Craven, Ph.D.,Chairperson Olivia L. Lumpkin, Ph.D., Chairperson Eleni Bastea, Ph.D. Kency Cornejo, Ph.D. Linda B. Hall, Ph.D. Catherine Zuromskis, Ph.D. i FESTIVALS OF ART, CARNIVALS OF REPRESENTATION: ON CONTEMPORARY ART AND NEOLIBERALISM BY TIJEN TUNALI B.S., Economics, University of Istanbul, 1996 B.A., Fine Arts, SUNY at Binghamton, 2004 M.A. Visual Studies and the New Media, SUNY at Buffalo, 2006 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Art History The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico December 2015 ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of my advisor Dr. David Craven (1952- 2012), who left behind many inspired students that will continue his legacy. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would not have been possible without the support of many people. Needless to say I dedicate this dissertation to the late Professor David Craven. I started this journey with Dr. Craven, who played an immense role in my intellectual development during my doctoral studies. Every time I felt down, he lifted me up with his great encouragements and he supported me endlessly. We lost Dr. Craven when I finished the earlier draft of this dissertation. I feel orphaned in many aspects. It is hard to describe this kind of loss. All the words seem to be clichés and Dr. Craven, David, was a man beyond all clichés. He was unique in his insatiable passion for art history, in his teaching style, in his relationship with his students and in his dedication to social causes, among many other things. Indeed, my thanks to Dr. Craven will always be capitalized with an exclamation mark in my heart all my life. I would like to express a deepest gratitude to Dr. Libby Lumpkin, who took over as chairperson of my dissertation committee after Dr. Craven passed away. Dr. Lumpkin’s patience, understanding and help allowed me to prepare my dissertation not only for defense but for publishing at the same time. Her high expectations pushed me to where I needed to go to complete this dissertation in a way that would make Dr. Craven proud. I owe many thanks to my dissertation committee, to Dr. Linda Hall for sharing with me her endless intellectual and historical knowledge and for always being there to support me; many more thanks to Dr. Eleni Bastea for her advice and support of all kinds, inside and outside academia; and to Dr. Catherine Zuromskis for her insightful suggestions as well as for being a role-model for me in my academic career. I also owe iv thanks to Kency Cornejo for her enthusiasm to work with me and for her encouragements of all kinds. Thanks to the UNM Latin American and Iberian Institute for awarding me a dissertation fellowship for my research in Mexico and Cuba and to the Graduate Office Committee at UNM for funding my research in Istanbul. I would also like to thank to International Peace Scholarship Fund for additional financial support. I owe the greatest thanks to my Mother Sıdıka Tunalı, for her constant struggle to support everything I want to do or be, against every obstacle in my society. I owe my achievements to my mother’s courage and compromises and I am very proud of her. I could not give enough thanks to my best friend, my sister, my comrade Deniz Karakas who always believed in me during the times that I did not. She plays the greatest inspiration in my path to be a good human being and an intellectual. I would not be where I am today if she were not in my life. I also would like to thank my special friend, the late Damian Rodgers (R.I.P), for planting the seeds in me to be an art historian. Last but not least, I would like to express my greatest gratitude to Cheryl and David Denslow and Frances and David Hall for opening their homes to me and supporting me by all means during the times that I most needed. I will never forget the warmth of their hearts. v FESTIVALS OF ART, CARNIVALS OF REPRESENTATION: ON CONTEMPORARY ART AND NEOLIBERALISM by Tijen Tunalı B.S., Economics, University of Istanbul, 1996 B.A., Fine Arts, SUNY at Binghamton, 2004 M.A., Art History, SUNY at Buffalo, 2006 Ph.D., Art and Art History, University of New Mexico, 2015 ABSTRACT In this dissertation, I look at the changing praxes of contemporary art and culture vis-à-vis neoliberalism. With examples from the Americas, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, I acknowledge, but trespass the visible effects and outcomes of globalization with regard to art and culture. In current literature they often are interpreted as straightforward and homogeneous developments, but in this dissertation, I show the complexity, heterogeneity and inequality of new social, political, and cultural relationships wrought by and against the neoliberal ideology and processes that affect all corners of the world. My main focus is on the dialectics of contemporary art and neoliberalism: Are pluralization and dissemination of contemporary art an indication of a new democratic consciousness or the outcome of a rapidly expanding neoliberal market? vi In postmodernist theory, the political dimension of the aesthetic experience has been the key to understanding contemporary forms of art. I argue that, at present, in this era of global revolt, the aesthetic dimension of the political experience is the key to understanding contemporary society, as well as radical politics. I offer a novel approach to understanding the relationship between aesthetics and politics that challenges greatly what is accepted as political in society and what is accepted as aesthetics in art. My aim is to bring the art history discipline closer to radical politics by showing how contemporary cultural, artistic, and activist activities are entangled in forming a new politics of resistance that envisions renewed forms of democratic life. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................... IV ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... VI TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................ VIII INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1: Neoliberal Globalization and the New Cultural Condition .................19 Historical and Ideological Roots of Neoliberalism ................................................20 Globalization of Art or “Glocalization” of Art? ...................................................37 Neoliberalism and the Post-1989 Art World ........................................................52 The Venice Bienale and the Havana Biennial: The Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces in the Institutional Art .............................................................70 CHAPTER 2: The Istanbul Biennial: An Instrument of Neoliberal Reconstruction or An Opportunity for Alternative Formations? ..........................................................88 Privatization of Culture and the Istanbul Biennial as a Trademark .......................89 Corporate Sponsorship and Opposition Vis-à-Vis the Istanbul Biennial ............100 Off-Space Artist Collectives and the Emerging Alternative Art Scene in Turkey ..................................................................................................................129 CHAPTER 3: The Art of New Politics and the Politics of New Art..........................146 The New Society of Neoliberalism and the New Political Subjectivity ..............147 Rethinking Politics and Art: Aesthetics, Carnival, and Revolution ....................170 The Art of Resistance: Aestheticising the Revolt ................................................193 CHAPTER 4: The Politics and Poetics of Self-Representation: The Art of the Zapatista Movement ..........................................................................................222 viii Zapatista Movement in Chiapas and Zapatismo ..................................................223 Interplay of the Visible and the Invisible: Creating Radical Subjectivity ...........230 Visual and Political Representation of An-Other Democracy .............................242 CONCLUSION ..............................................................................................................263 FIGURES ........................................................................................................................271 APPENDICES ................................................................................................................295