After the Law: Towards Judicial-Visual Activism
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
After the Law: Towards Judicial-Visual Activism by Avi Feldman A dissertation submitted to The University of Reading For PhD in Fine Art Reading School of Art September, 2017 1 Declaration of original authorship 'I confirm that this is my own work and the use of all material from other sources has been properly and fully acknowledged.’ Avi Feldman 2 Abstract Law and art are oftentimes perceived as standing in opposition, and even seen in conflicting terms. The first is dismissed as provincial, rigid, and bureaucratic, while the latter is repeatedly characterized as global, flexible, and dynamic. Yet, closer observation and analysis reveal hidden links and layers, and substantial preoccupation by both legal and art practitioners in the visual and in the judicial. It is through the unraveling of spaces, gaps, and lacunae in which both fields of practice and knowledge intersect that this publication sets in motion an exploration of influences and interactions between law and art. Offering a new critical approach and methodology to deal with existing and imagined relations between law and art, this publication analyzes curatorial and artistic projects by revealing overlooked legal dimensions embedded within them. It introduces legal theory and scholarship in relation to visual artworks in order to expand and foster new paths for both judicial and visual activism. Based on the reassessment of artistic and curatorial capabilities and encounters in a time of globalization, it is concerned with broadening our perception of the role of art and legal practitioners with regard to justice. Following an introduction of Nancy Fraser's three-dimensional concept of justice, and Saskia Sassen's notion of capabilities in a world shaped by the dual existence of the nation-state and globalization, Chapter One focuses on the 7th Berlin Biennale as a curatorial case study for political and artistic activism, and on “Artist Organisations International” (AOI) as an example of artist-created institutions concerned with political activism. Two artistic projects that premiered during the 7th Berlin Biennale are then critically examined in Chapters Two and Three. An in-depth exploration of Yael Bartana's First Congress of The Jewish 3 Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP) as a space prompting global justice is the focus of Chapter Two. The building of a Parliament in Rojava by Jonas Staal's New World Summit (NWS) as an artistic reinvention of the Right of Intervention is the concern of Chapter Three. Judicial-visual activism is further developed in Chapter Four through an inquiry into the theory of the emergence of disputes, and the Right of the Encounter in relation to artistic actions taking place in state institutions. Chapter Five contains a reflection on my own recent curatorial projects dedicated to encounters that I facilitated between legal and art practitioners. The result of these encounters led to the exhibition Motions for the Agenda structured around five motions/projects developed in a collaboration between the participants dealing with legal texts and documents, just as with the place of law, its language, and its archive. 4 Acknowledgment I would like to begin by sincerely thanking my supervisors and adviser, Prof. Dr. Dorothee Richter, Zurich University of the Arts, Prof. Alun Rowlands, and Prof. Susanne Clausen, University of Reading, Department of Art, for their consistent support, guidance, and kindness. I also wish to thank Dr. Rachel Susan Garfield, University of Reading, Department of Art, and Ronald Kolb, Zurich University of the Arts, for their help and assistance from day one. My thanks to Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk (ELES) for generously funding and supporting my PhD, and to PD Dr. Eva Lezzi from ELES, who showed a keen interest in my ideas from the very beginning of our encounter. Vardit Gross, Director of Artport Tel-Aviv, has followed the development of my curatorial practice closely, and her ideas, our conversations, and collaboration have been invaluable to me. I also wish to thank Artport’s dedicated staff – Renana Neuman and Yael Moshe. This publication would not even be possible to imagine without Christoph Willmitzer. I dedicate it to our daughter Anna Sophia Shalom, who joined us in the final segment of my writing efforts and bestowed upon me a sense of energy and hope I never imagined existed. 5 Table of Contents Abstract Acknowledgment Introduction 1. The Fictive-Witness: An Early Curatorial Proposal 2. Truth and Falsehood in the Era of the Witness 3. From the Era of the Witness to the Era of the Forensic 4. The Unraveling of the Legal in Art 5. The Unraveling of Art Through the Legal 6. Legal Imagination and Artistic Imagination – On the Side of the Countryman Chapter One: From Visual and Judicial Activism to Artist Organizations: Justice in Times of Globalization 1.1. Between Visual Activism and Judicial Activism 1.2. The 7th Berlin Biennale: Between Debate and Action 1.3. The Three Dimensions of Justice 1.4. Artist Organisations International: Two Case Studies 1.5. Capabilities in a Globalized World 6 Chapter Two: Performing Justice – Between the Dreyfus Affair, Barrès Trial, and Yael Bartana’s JRMiP Congress 2.1. Introduction 2.2. The Barrès Trial – Background and Motivations 2.3. Dada and the Dreyfus Affair 2.4. The Barrès Trial – A Participatory Political Space 2.5. The Barrès Trial – Legal Form and Content 2.6. The First Congress of The Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP) – Between Congress and a Trial 2.7. The Dreyfus Affair and Bartana’s JRMiP Congress 2.8. On Being Jewish and On Justice Chapter Three: New World Summit – Terror, Gender, and an (Old) New Right of Intervention 3.1. Introduction 3.2. Inside the New World Summit – Aesthetics and the Law 3.3. From Berlin to Kochi – The Legality of the NWS Questioned, Again 3.4. From Kochi to Rojava – Action, Debate, and Justice 3.4.1. Impressions of the New World Summit – A Critical Reading 7 3.4.2. On The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Terror 3.5. Stateless Democracy, Terrorism, and Gender Equality 3.5.1. Artists and the Revolution: The Case of the Film Letter to Jane 3.5.2. Artists and the Revolution: The Case of the Film Here and Elsewhere 3.6. Back to Rojava 3.7. The (Old) New Right of Intervention Chapter four: Art and Law: Disputes, Encounters, and Justice 4.1. Introduction 4.2. Mierle Laderman Ukeles – Naming Maintenance as Art 4.3. Justice and The Evolution of Disputes 4.4. Sanitation Department: First Encounters 4.5. The Right of the Encounter in Law and Art 4.6. From the Sanitation Department to the Legal Department 4.7. The City Artist and The Artists Placement Group (APG) 4.8. The Case of Forensic Listening 8 Chapter Five: Between Legal Imagination and Motions for the Agenda 5.1. Towards Legal Imagination: An Introduction 5.2. Towards Legal Imagination: On Legal and Artistic Imagination 5.3. Towards an Exhibition: An Introduction 5.4. Towards the Space of Law and Art: On Violence 5.5. Towards a Counter-Archive: Between the Space of Law and the Space of Art 5.6. Five Motions for the Agenda: Interventions in Law's Archive 5.6.1. Motion Number One: “Pragmatic Failure” 5.6.2. Motion Number Two: “5846, 5851, and 5852 v. the Population and Migration Authority” 5.6.3. Motion Number Three: “Kafka for Kids” (work in progress) 5.6.4. Motion Number Four: “The Interview” 5.6.5. Motion Number Five: “To Serve You” (work in progress) 5.6.6. Motions for the Agenda: From the Curator's Desk 9 Epilogue Bibliography Appendix 10 Introduction 1. The Fictive-Witness: An Early Curatorial Proposal At the center of this research lies an interest in exposing and exploring the complex relations that arise when law and art are brought into close proximity. In order to facilitate the intersection of knowledge and practice of two different fields, and examine its outcomes, I have chosen to follow a threefold methodology. The first phase, manifested in Chapters Two and Three, begins with a quest to unravel already existing, but mostly hidden or seldom acknowledged, legal components in artistic and curatorial projects with which I have been professionally involved. The second phase in the executed methodology focuses on linking law and art through legal interpretative methods. This suggests that legal theory and scholarship can be used in discursive and interpretative manners when we critically analyze contemporary works of art. Based on the developments in the first two stages, the third phase leads us into curatorial practice as it sheds light on measures I refer to as judicial-visual activism. With this stage, I shall seek to demonstrate how one might be able to cultivate a position in which art activates a position alongside, after, and possibly beyond existing legal concepts and institutions. My preliminary assumption when embarking on this research was that a growing number of contemporary artists, long recognized for their activism and politically engaged art, might hold a certain affinity with the legal field. This understanding has been based on almost a decade of working as a curator with artists such as Yael Bartana and Jonas Staal. Researching their work alongside the work of other artists with whom I have collaborated, such as Aernout Mik, Public Movement, and Lawrence Abu Hamdan, I came to realize that this inclination, this interest in law and the legal sphere on the part of artists, has rarely been critically explored, or thoroughly 11 observed and reflected upon. This led me to acknowledge the long journey I myself had had to make, from studying and practicing law before changing my trajectory into the art world. It was only during the process of working and writing the curatorial text for my first large-scale museum exhibition titled A Generation1 that I began to comprehend the lingering influence of my legal studies and several years of practicing law on my curatorial work.