We have hardly yet begun
We have hardly yet begun, 2015, Joseph Popper
Originally produced for The Victoria & Albert Museum, London
© The V&A
Can you begin to remember the futures? Every single moment of the present creates potential and desirable scenarios. The history of progress is a continuous endless race from the point of ultimate uncertainty towards a fictional finish line of total predictability. Today, we enjoy the possibility of keeping in touch with people across the planet, crossing vast terrains and oceans, while simultaneously gluing a sticker on the web camera of laptops, afraid of being spied upon by Big Brother. The idea of the technological panopticon* as an instrument of an omnipresent observation system is therefore sublime: both fascinating and terrifying at the same time.
There are many ways of dreaming about the future. For some, it can be an escape into individual reality as a consequence of an unwillingness to face the currents. The realm of aesthetic freedom seduces science when non-hierarchical thinking is evolving faster than the institutions of knowledge verification within the field of science will allow. Scientific thinking enters the mode that it appears to despise in our present-day: fiction, which can be considered the result of an extrapolative doodle about the potential application of something the scientists haven’t even closely approached.
Today, knowledge creation and its verification mechanisms are still predominantly separated by disciplines: economics, literature, physics, history and so on. This separation of knowledge limits the speed of human pace towards possible progress. The mental gap between the image of a possible future and the institutional restrictions of its arrival becomes unbearable. The frontier between the ‘fictional’ and the ‘real’, so evidently uncrossable before, is violently penetrated in the moments when formerly fictional ideas become suddenly materialized: air flight, voyage into space, etc. These moments liberate the mind into free float. We have been finally heading into the future of infinite possibilities and abandoned restrictions. When will we arrive there and if it happens – how is it to live there?
There is a Soviet anecdote: “the future is certain, it is only the past that is unpredictable”. The ultimate certainty of the future is plain: it is going to come regardless of whether we have a place in it. The future is a flimsy construction subjected to anthropological gravity at a certain point of intersection between time and space. The strength of the pull towards the usual ground is defined by human-centrism in acting, thinking and dreaming. And we have hardly yet begun to depart from fundamental egoism behind the conviction that the Universe is turning around us. The future is fascinating, merciless and situated within the perfect chaos of storms.
*A panopticon is a proposed architectural model for the most effective prison. Developed by philosopher Jeremy Bentham, the structure requires one single guard in a central observation tower who is able to watch any prisoner at any moment of time. This creates the feeling for the prisoners that they are indeed being watched at all times, effectively constantly controlling their own behaviour.
– text by Denis Maksimov
original publication via Node Centre for Curatorial Studies, Prophecies
Berlin Biennale 9: shiny, but not deep
Sculptural element ‘L'Avalee des avales (The Swallower Swallowed) Iguana/Sloth’ of Jon Rafman’s 'View of Parizer Platz’ (2016)
I was going to Berlin with some degree of anticipation to see the strong statement: philosophies in total visuality are irrelevant. But DIS, curatorial collective/fashion online magazine team went half-way there: being not radical enough to emphasise the nakedness of the king and at the same time providing seemingly unnecessary layer of pseudo-intellectualism. It appears to breath the same cold air as 'connecting with your inner self’ iPhone covers, produced in South Asian sweatshops in 'limited edition’ royal navy blue colour to be sold in Colette at Parisian Rue St Honore.
While society of spectacle is in urgent need of strong slap on the face amidst growing apathy and absenteeism, the Biennial doesn’t go further than demonstrate or, at its strongest moments, proclaim what we have been seeing for more than decade: continuous mass delusion and enchantment with carpet bombardment of shiny, glossy and hyperreal imagery. I had hard time to distinguish difference between 'visual things’ shown at the Biennale from my Instagram feed.
Another unrealised expectation: the issue of digital identification and the gap between 'digital me’ and 'empirical me’ haven’t been addressed critically. Rather, like in Jon Rafman installation on the terrace of Akademie der Kunste, it was spectacularly demonstrated. Attention wasn’t paid as well to reflecting on the possible consequences of further evolvement of identity politics, actualisation of possible space for thinking and placing you in position of environmental discomfort, where the expected magic of immersing into the world of contemporary art could actually happen. Criticism of reality in this context is not criticism per se: it falls in the trap of being part of ideologised environment while trying to appear outside of it.
Camille Henrot, installation view of 'Office of Unreplied Animals’, 2016
Biennale, which I expected to be a slap on the face of the hierarchies of contemporary (f)art world, in fact tried to sit on several chairs at the same time. 'Fuck you we are not even curators’ attitude doesn’t go far enough when those pronouncing rock-and-roll spirited mantras words are entering the very same mode of talking with the audience. Philosophic inquiry seems like it was based on purchased in the Urban Outfitters tome of 'All Philosophy in Cat Pictures’.
Absence of the theme or any point is felt in the KW Institute for Contemporary Art and Akademie der Kunst the most. Adrian Piper familiar critical reflections on 'everything being taken away’ are shown next to poorly produced AirBnB-lifestyle devoted installation. Rather neutral in their appeal (and therefore not very much provoking in any sense) but very Instagram-friendly Anna Uddenberg hommages to self-obsession and packable light travel lifestyle talk to less than 1% of bubble-inhabiting jet-set golden youth. Hito Steyerl video installation which is shedding the light and dissecting Saddam Hussein project of building modern tower of Babel in Akademie der Kunste fall somehow out of the general LOLism and emojis, but because of it’s outstanding quality and depth seems to be out of place.
What appears to be strategic, however, is the choice of the locations for the exhibition. The KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Akademie der Kunste, Berlin European School of Management, The Feuerle Collection and touristic Blue Boat ensemble suggest a proper dialogue about overarching penetration by the fashionable 'contemporary art’ into anything and everything - in many cases to hide emptiness, ridicule and unjustified hierarchies. The Fuerle Collection appears to be the most coherent in terms of addressing the subject of advancing 'pastichisation’ in contemporaneity. The former military bunker as the space of escapism and complete abandonment is the only platform that is available for critical reflection and thinking in today’s environment of over-arching totality.
All in all, Berlin Biennale succeeds to demonstrate how 'Present’ appears like, just like the spread of fashion magazine. However, for instance, 'Martha Rosler reads Vogue’ (1982) is standalone the work and not only encompasses what the Biennale should have, but suggests much more. Visiting sites feels like browsing through Instagram or Facebook feed - rather an activity to 'kill the time’ in the public transport commute or queue in supermarket to the cashier, than a space to formulate actual inquiries about the problematics within modern way of living.
The Nationless Pavilion: for the future of community after nation state
published in DoppioZero International in June 2016
The Nationless Pavilion Laboratory heald by Denis Maksimov, image of the Leviathan, Sale Docks Venice 2015. Photo © Mohamed Keita
Political crisis of today is dictated by outdated nation state model of mapping the world. While all the other systems already spilled over with economy, art, science going global, nation state still draws the lines on the geographical map.
Political power and it’s redistribution is the heart of the issue. Advancement of human civilization, apart of providing technological leaps, also demanded more transparency and visibility from power. It has always been ‘catch and run’ game - with new strategies of mystification of political power into institutional forms of different kinds. Authority redistribution mechanisms always tend to appear impersonal as their function is to communicate idea of being ‘detached’ from the matter of defining good and bad, right and wrong. Ethical, moral and aesthetic judgment seem to appear to naked eye as something defined and proved by centuries of common societal work, where standards of normal are the result of careful, almost Darwinist selection of what is better for all. The mythology of this process was first supported by the narratives of religious dogma and power, while today it’s mostly relies on fear and ignorance. Ulrich
Beck [1] rightly highlighted one of the core characteristics of a modern life as the detachment from understanding of the basics of how this ultra-complicated world of ours works. Experts are supposed to decide what is good and bad, while comprehension of the verification mechanisms of their expertise is not an easy task for commoner. Expert networks include government, academia, economic and cultural elite, which are all intertwined through multiplicity of intersections within the hierarchies of confirmation of their expertise validity.
Epistemological processes of knowledge production and legitimization is strategically anything but transparent. The fundamental principle of the whole mega-structure is collective responsibility as silent conspiracy, bordering with plain nepotism. If I am demystified and going down, you are going down with me too, because the whole structure of validity behind our claims is constructed on mutual presumptions. The web of artificiality of social and political order demands almost religious belief in it’s realness. And if the certain structure is central to the multiplicity of these hierarchies, it’s guarded as a sacred cow by more than silence. It is supposed to actively reinforced by the actors in production of new ways to confirm the validity of ideological structure. It’s notoriously easier to imagine the end of the world, than end of capitalism not because of capitalism’s irreplaceability, but due to dependency on it’s rules and mapping of the roles and functions in socio-political matter overall majorities of the elites, contracted in unwritten and unsigned, but mutually understood by majority of them. When John Locke was speaking about social contract between state and citizens, he should have envisioned probably that not all the citizens sign the very same contract. All animals are equal, but realness, designed by the collective responsibility as silent conspiracy for value production and legitimization, proves that indeed some animals are more equal than the others.
The process of development of the Nationless Pavilion in the context of the 56th Venice Biennale ‘All the World’s Futures’ was launched in order to critically reflect on this complex subject. The chosen point of departure, the grounds of contemporary art, is strategic: because having the conversation about this at any other ground is by default ideologised and exists in opposition to dominating meta-narrative. The task of the curators seemed at the best impossible and at the worst plainly naive - can we envision possibility of alternative narrative of social construction beyond the known format the nation state?
The process of construction of the Pavilion was following the idea of artistic collaboration, beyond definitions and necessity to identify particular roles and functions. The hierarchies were flattened. Artists-moderators-workshop leaders-curators were engaged with participants, both political refugees and not, in the joint flow of critical reflection about the possible alternatives to the current order. However our task was not to oppose the contemporary forms. First of all, the task was to identify your own place in the modern totality. Different strategies were applied by the artists invited in the collaborative workshop processes.
The Nationless Pavilion Laboratory, Nation 25 Under Construction, Sale Docks Venice 2015. Photo © Mohamed Keita
Emilio Fantin focused on the invisible process of construction of one’s identity. He attempted to trigger materialization of metaphysical experience on pre-cultural level: how can we arrive to possibility to imagine that the phrasing “(s)he is, I am, they are” can be read, for example, as “I are, they is, he are, we am”[2].
Ultra-Red related to the process of perception of space and time in the situation of crisis and stress. They focused on the social and psychological meaning behind the sounds of the spaces in Lecce and in Castri, where they worked with the growing community of those often forced into nomadism, refugees and migrants. The people whose experience of “exit” of the nation state in both physical and conceptual sense is apparent and recent were invited to share their experience of the new of the spaces sounds.
The ‘laboratory’ designed by me was devoted to the subject of possible political system that embodies in itself all necessary functions for providing functionality of social system, but deals away with the actual form of contemporary political ‘normality’ - the nation state. I saw my task as contextualization of the discussion and brainstorming beyond the ideological meta-frame of ‘ever-lasting Present’ and push the process of group thinking into a free float.
I departed from where the concept of nation state originated - metaphor of Leviathan that was introduced by Thomas Hobbes in his seminal book bearing the same title. A state was described by him as a corporeal body, that is composed of the citizens as its cells. The organs of this meta-body are the functional elements of the political system and this anthropomorphic thinking about politics chained the discourse of political theory for the centuries to come. I engaged in a group conversation and brainstorming with the participants, where we discussed present theoretically, but still unimaginable in practical sense (beyond naivety) point: can we detach the form of politics in society from its function?
“You ask us to do the impossible” - reacted one of the participants - “For example, I wake up in the morning and look out of the window and see a landscape, sun, etc. And you tell us: imagine this is all un-existent, it’s only a form, and think about only its function”. I responded: “Yes, that is exactly what I am asking you to imagine. Imagine warmth without the sun, air without the clouds, smell of the fresh-cut grass without the grass itself”.
The first day was the hardest in this process: several times we seemingly got completely stuck, and several times the process of conversation needed to be ‘rebooted’ in order to step somewhere further. I used the aesthetic form of Dutch and Italian Renaissance period anatomical theatre (minus actual corpses): drawing the body and associating the functions of political system with its specific organs, representing their interconnections and interdependency. What was very important to reflect upon is that those interdependencies in many cases had nothing to do with the actual functions of the organ: the connections between them were justified exclusively by the aesthetic forms of representation. I was sure that we have to break through this barrier or representational thinking in order to go further: and it happened. After launching associative dialogue with form/function dichotomy in the center, participants actively engaged in the process of Artaud like cruelty theatre: deconstruction of the body and de-association of the formal structures to reconstruct a new one from functional value[3]. By the third day, we arrived to the visualization of the formless, openly-structured and geometric, but free from formalization and hierarchisation composition of functions, that was somehow natural and extra-terrestrial at the same time.
The processes of interconnection and communication between various functional ‘modules’ of this structure were named ‘osmosis’ by one of the participants. Another participant envisaged a possibility of detachment of the modules from the common structure when necessary. There was no necessity to think in the form of ‘skeleton’ or ‘spine’, no need for a central structure or (potentially) abusive leadership in a form of be-or-not-to-be integration. The result was pure form of organized, functionally structured chaos, which is addressing the challenges and needs at the moment of necessity. This system doesn’t try to survive for the sake of survival alone: it does not exist and clings to biological presence, but rather lives, breathes, changes, embraces curiosity and flexibility.
Hypostatization of subjectivity, introduced by post-structural thought, is the cornerstone for envisioning the world after the end of nation state. The participants of the art and theory laboratory “State-after-State: Future Potentiality of Post-Nation” were guided through the process of departing from the anthropomorphic analogy of the nation state. My approach was following the spirit of early school of critical theory, brilliantly contextualized by Walter Benjamin as ‘politicization of aesthetics’. The goal was not to develop or present certain alternative ideology to current narrative and trap ourselves in continuous loop of dialectical repetition with masters and slaves just changing their roles without reflecting and deconstructing the actual functional order.
There is no ambition to push forward via aestheticisation a certain form of political activism in the Nationless Pavilion, no pretense of presenting alternative ‘truth’. Even the good intentions of this form are dangerous, as the consequences of such process are beyond the control of initial intentions, as history showed us numerously. Our goal was and is to reveal the invisible in ways that will trigger critical thinking, shake the grounds of eternal form of nation state, geographical and political borders. We don’t want to re-draw the map - we want to imagine the life without those lines.
Refugees are invisible in the structures of nation state, they constantly exist in the limbo in-between space, not here (because they are undesired, problematic and not belonging to a “host”) and already not there (as they left there place of origin). Nomadism of other kinds is conceptually similar and the generation of globe-trotters of today’s 20-somethings feel this awkwardness of the socio-political “reality” which they inhabit, although find it complicated to contextualize the problem. It is clear why it is hard to grasp: the conversation of the systematic change is not taking place in any authoritative institutions, that possess power of legitimization of that “reality” we inhabit. Here enters contemporary art with all it’s institutionally perceived “awkwardness”: having no certain medium, agenda, standards and norms. It is a pure space of possible, where new[4] as Boris Groys brilliantly writes is not something that interprets the events of change on the grounds of historical understanding of it’s meaning, but is a “comrade of time”. New aka contemporary is something that going alongside with the currents of time. Nation state is obviously out of touch with the time we live in, and I am afraid it is so for quite long already.
The Nationless Pavilion, Nation 25 Under Construction, Installation view, Sale Docks, Venice 2015 © Nation25
Presentation in the context and in conversation with the nation state is paramountly important for the case of “what is to come after?” conversation having any impact on the discourse at all. This is the strategic reasoning behind the decision of Nation25 to be present in the form of Nationless Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Arguably the most important institutional art event of the global magnitude, it claims to locate in the space of conversation “old” and “new”, and still is the best setting for discovering “possible” in manner of trans-disciplinary inquiry. The connection with the world through web of institutional contributors in the form of ministries of culture, galleries, collectors and private donors, artists and independent collectives provides a snapshot of “the state of the arts” as the medium of human activity. The natural mission of the Nationless Pavilion is to respond to the urgent crisis of socio-political reality by staging platforms for collaborative work and brainstorming between people of various backgrounds and origins, both visible and invisible in the context of contemporary definitions. The urge of pushing ourselves out of the comfort zone is necessary: the collapse of ‘the Present’ will be more catastrophic longer we postpone the change. Transdisciplinary platform of conceptual art has the potential to unite forward-thinking beyond the constraints of immediate practical application. Theory and research are fundamentally different - where the first one is asking the questions and the other one is suggesting hypotheses for designing potential problematics. Current time demonstrate growing cleavage between the two - how can you answer the questions that are staying within the limited contextual frame? This is exactly the problem of our ‘smupid’ (‘smart + stupid’, Douglas Coupland) times, when we are able to make high-definition pictures of Pluto surface and at the same time live in the socio-political institutional framework which was designed to host slavery, world wars and oppression.
I am happy to be part of the ambitious attempt to offer an alternative platform for thinking beyond this vicious deadlock of wanting to seem inescapable repetition.
References:
[1] Ulrich Beck, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1992.
[2] Referring to the Nation25’s work Pangea published in Spaces of Exception, Milieu Edizioni, Milano, 2016.
[3] Cfr. M. De Marinis, La danza alla rovescia di Artaud, il Secondo Teatro della Crudeltà (1945-1948), I Quaderni del Battello Ebbro, Porretta Terme, 1999 and C.Pecchioli, Antonin Artaud, Segni e Disegni, Culture Teatrali, Ed. Carattere, Bologna, 2014.
[4] Boris Groys, On the New. Translated by G. M. Goshgarian, Verso Books, London, Brooklyn, 2014.
Curatorial parcour through ‘Imprints’
In “The Human Condition,” political theorist Hanna Arendt speaks about “vita contemplativa” (contemplative, passive life) as the condition of Western society. It is a condition that opposes “vita active,”or dynamic living, where the subject produces reality, instead of passively consuming its established narratives. This dynamism can be seen as one of the grey lines connecting works in this exhibition. One recent video and an object or drawing was selected from 5 of our represented artists to shape an accidental exhibition built on a series of coincidences and the bonds that grew out of them. Other lines appear in what can be seen and what cannot. Presence is given to the invisible ashes, traumas and concerns that shape each piece in the show.
The exhibition in June 2016 at Harlan Levey Projects featured works of Marcin Dudek, Amelie Bouvier, Petr Davydtchenko, TR Ericsson and Emmanuel Van der Auwera. More information.
Bureau for Public Insecurities: a conversation between curators Denis Maksimov (DM) and Caroline Carrion (CC)
curatorial duo DNV [dan'etvɐzmoʐnə], Caroline Carrion and Denis Maksimov
DM: Conversations about insecurities in modern life seem infinite. What do you think?
CC: Borders are socio-political conventions, so it seems only fair that notions of territory and limits, both in their material as metaphorical meanings, would be blurred and somewhat fluid in moments when certain paradigms about civilization are being revised.
During the still young 21st century, we have been watching the emergence of an economic crisis (leading to social convulsion) all over the world, from the EU and the US to the BRIC countries, accompanied by the outbreak of terrorist groups, like ISIS or Boko Haram. We must keep in mind, when looking at such phenomena, that the idea of crisis is essential to the functioning of capitalism, especially in its current neoliberal form. Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that local historical processes and idiosyncrasies can be disregarded. The effects in material well-being that result from this growth in insecurities are very different for the European middle-class compared to those experienced in Latin American, for instance.
DM: Poetry is, from a practical perspective, useless when it comes to the issue of dealing with risk to material comfort. However, its emotional and psychological effects are, from my perspective, invaluable. Is it possible to reveal the essence of this treasure we possess, which is becoming more and more rare in light of growing materialism, consumerism and omnipresent culture of entertainment?
CC: I’m not sure if it’s useless from a practical perspective. In the short term, this uselessness is unquestionable, but long term, poetry has the revolutionary potential of affecting opinions and world views, reaching the core of contemporary modes of understanding the self and the other, which necessarily will create material impact–thus the importance of poetic approach to the issue, as you mentioned.
I believe that critical forms of thinking, from aesthetic philosophy to social theory and psychoanalysis, attempt to reveal the essence of this treasure, as you called, but they can only do it within their own language, in the form of knowledge and information. The experience of real revelation can only come from art itself. In times like ours, when entertainment is more powerful in mind-shaping than any propaganda conceived by totalitarian governments, being in touch with art can be a transformative experience. For me, this is particularly true for the fruition of visual art forms, with their immediate impact and variety of interpretations.
Even with all the possible criticism that we can, and should, make, we must acknowledge the essential role that the art market plays in the diffusion of art, and the possibilities it creates for artists to make a living. On the other hand, experimental and independent art exhibitions are fundamental for works that stretch beyond the bounds of the market’s dictates. As for us, as curators and art critics, I believe that we can do our part to expose treasure by creating a forum for the artworks to be known and seen.
DM: Mitigation of risk is not the same as avoidance of risk. It is indeed about reaching the point of being at peace with living in a world of constant flux. Any sort of “promise” that all our systems provide us are as ephemeral and uncertain as an economic forecast. So why do we keep building the castles of predictability, all those foresight models and “2050s” plans? Isn’t it better to communicate to the public that living in constant unpredictability is the norm? I don’t want to sound Marxist, but from my perspective, it’s all just grounding for the usurpation of power and control of resource distribution systems.
CC: I couldn’t agree more. And this control you mentioned doesn’t happen exclusively within the realm of social hierarchies, but also in our understanding of subjectivity. The rigid and univocal comprehension of identity, sexuality, gender, political affiliations, etc., is directly related to the control of material prosperity. That’s why, in my opinion, the deleuzian concept of devir [‘what is to come’, ‘emergence’] remains so important–after all, the devir is always a devir-minority.
It is interesting, though, to notice how the appearance of social mobility and gain of freedom are essential for such societal systems. The austerity imposed by neoliberalism is only acceptable with hope of future personal prosperity. If it were clear to all that financial gain remains in the hands of the 1%, while the costs and crisis are paid by everyone, changes would come quicker than ever imagined.
DM: I feel contemporary art is among the very few mediums, where the conversation about the fundamental problems of the neoliberal capitalistic totality, foreseen by Theodor Adorno, is still possible. Do you agree?
CC: Yes. Despite being inserted in a multimillionaire market, one that isn’t always legit (as we are getting to know better now, with the leak of the Panama Papers), contemporary art is a platform for critical thinking. While some artists engage in openly politicized practices, others assume a critical posture by insisting on slow and artisanal modes of production and adopting anti-consumerism lifestyles; either way, they point to alternative lifestyles and create a point of disruption, no matter how minimum it is, within the established order.
Identity and univocality are one face of totality; oppositions and plain dialectics are another. Just by existing, contemporary artworks points to multiplicity and question totality.
DM: I really love neologisms – they allow language to stay alive and erode the power of institutional oppression. I find them so important in fighting attempts to close up any subjectivity in opposition to strictness of the objective view of “the winner”. History is always written by the victor, and reality is narrated by those who possess the means to alter the rules of storytelling. How would you describe “danetvozmozhno” [dan'etvɐzmoʐnə] neologism meaning from a universal perspective?
CC: I am a lover of neologisms myself, as I am of etymology. First of all, I believe it’s significant that “danetvozmozhno” derives from a colloquial expression. The original term in Russian means “yes, no, maybe”, but never at the same time. It is my understanding that it all depends on context and intonation. As a neologism, “danetvozmozhno” represents an utterly grey zone, where “yes”, “no” and “maybe” are indiscernible and simultaneous – a space of complete uncertainty that, contrary to the original expression, creates no hierarchies of power between the utterer and the receiver, as both of them are in the same undefined position. It means the coexistence of exclusionary categories (affirmation, negation, and possibility), which is basically a way to summarize the permanent flux condition that you already mentioned.
DM: Brazil is going through very intense period of political and economic turmoil. In the upcoming exhibition “Bureau for Public Insecurities”, art sort of steps in to address the issues in which socio-political and economic institutions seem to fail. Do you think art can and should replace the failed structures functionally? I see it as the main problem with so-called “socially engaged art” for me. I believe art can inspire, instigate, motivate but should never function, promote or propagate because at this moment it stops being art and turns into design, which serves particular goal and betrays aesthetics.
CC: For sure: either design or propaganda, which is even worse. As I mentioned before, one of the most powerful aspects of art, in my opinion, resides in the production of multiplicity, that is, in the fact that it has no final function and provides no final answers.
The desire of presenting the “Bureau for Public Insecurities” came from Brazil’s current situation and from the perception that it is not a local problem. By that I mean the world is entering an era of growing insecurity and precariousness. The artists invited to take part in the show approach matters of relevance for the current socio-political agenda, without the intention of solving them. When Giuditta Vendrame, for instance, presents an installation and a performance based on her research on how to get passports from several European countries, she isn’t providing a service or attempting to promote the acquisition of passports as a solution for a more secure way of living. Her action questions the idea of nationality in itself, the pertinence of the concept of nation in contemporary global societies and the power relations implied in the concept. There’s a certain ironic approach shared by many of the works in the show, which is also ironically titled–after all, we are creating a fictional “Bureau” that offers no ‘real’ service.
DM: Do you think “insecurity profiles” are different or rather similar in global cultural contexts? The exhibition will feature the selection of European and Brazilian artists, who will create or adapt works for the Bureau and create a sort of Frankenstein out of insecurities originating from very diverse environments and historical moments.
CC: It’s hard to say for sure, and I am actually very curious to see how the artists will interact and which departments will arise from this encounter. In the context of globalization and neoliberal capitalism, many uncertainties are common to different societies. Concerns with the means for assuring rent and food, fear of urban violence, doubts about one’s professional future are probably shared “insecurity profiles”. The risk of losing basic rights after the rise of a totalitarian regime, or the imminence of terrorist attacks are, in turn, “profiles” that vary according to the location–the first one is very present in Brazil at this moment, while the second isn’t really a concern for most Brazilians (which cannot be said of Europeans, for instance). No matter how different our lives are, every one of us can be fit in at least one “insecurity profile”, and that is the point of the Bureau, to address the only shared certainty we have: uncertainty.
Group exhibition Bureau for Public Insecurities was commissioned by Avenir Institute in September 5-18 2016 in the context of 32nd Bienal de São Paulo – Incerteza viva [Live Uncertainty]
This conversation was originally published by The Brussels Times Magazine in summer 2016
The artistic in aesthetic and the politics of loyalty
© The New Yorker
The fuzz about robots producing “artworks” brings about actuality of fundamental dichotomy between art and non-art. Robots might (and surely will) be able to produce enjoyable and perfect aesthetic symmetries, enticing and attractive visually. They are able and will be to improve the technique of producing aesthetic material, which has little to do with art. Art is a language. This language manifest infinite number of poetic and visual appearances, forms and structures. I would say that this also applies to creative production retroactively, meaning that most of historical museums of “art” hold in their collections products of craftwork. Robots and craftsmen are in this sense synonymous. The richness of authentic poetry in creative production defines identification of the result as the piece of art. In this sense, furthering the statement of Peter Osborne’s statement about all contemporary art being post-conceptual, I would say that all historical products of creative labour is either conceptual, or has little to do with art. We look at Hieronymus Bosch or Lucas Cranach oeuvre with admiration because both were not only are outstanding in technical production, but most importantly had the conceptual agenda, for instance, of eroding the institutions of power that dictated norms, aesthetic standards and specific functionality of the “artistic” production.
© Denis Maksimov
The relation between poetry as artistic component in creative production is similar in the spirit to relation between loyalty as unconditional support (what Machiavelli was calling “love”), manifesting power, in politics. The aesthetic, functional component in creative production stands for design, where aesthetics is “tasked” to serve specific purpose - propagate specific set of principles, etc. In political it is similar to dichotomy between holding on to power versus possessing control- where power is sustained by loyalty and legitimate support, while control at the other end is resting on forced obedience and fear.
Aesthetics of Power
Screentshot of Amir Yatziv work “Superstition in the Pigeon”, 2013
Art and power go hand in hand along the whole period of the history of civilisation.
Aesthetics was employed by the institutions of authority, political and religious, for communication of ideology. Mystification of power provided obedience, loyalty and stability of political order for thousands of years. In Ancient Egypt pharaohs and Roman emperors associated themselves with gods, European royalty was ‘blessed’ by institutionalised in church mystical social order. Aesthetics provided essential grounding and served political authority until the art individualised its impact and turned into independent political actor itself. Malevich called for revolution in visual perception in the Manifesto of Suprematism, while Bertolt Brecht tried to politicise art in order to turn it into an active agent of social change. Suddenly aesthetics earned the position of freedom from the narrative of political contextualisation.
Curated by Denis Maksimov, the programme “Aesthetics of Power” features a selection of notable works from both of these subjective periods of aesthetico-political dialogue. The first part of the programme features notable artworks and masterpieces that represent the period when glorification of political power was an essential function of artistic production. The second part features the contemporary video artworks that challenge the position of political institutions and power hierarchies via calling the viewers to contemplate on the very essence of the socio-political system we are inhabiting.
Participating artists: Amir Yatziv, Sara Tirelli and Elena Mazzi, Caterina Pecchioli and Benjamin Verhoeven
Watch the trailer here
Paper, stone, scissors: from dialectical simulacra to reification of subjectivity
lecture-performance / lecture: Denis Maksimov / performance “Bird, stone, water” : Adrijana Gvozdenovic, costumes by Aurora Zachayuss / FAAP residency, open studio day, April 2016, Sao Paulo
The original ideas and dialectical method of thinking in politics, culture and social existence remains central in the societies. Some of them lived through political experiments, which we aimed on the materialization of the idea of the society a posteriori the period of class struggle. Communist and socialist regimes of the Eastern Europe possess bitter memory of failed attempts to imagine the society after overcoming the dialectics of master and slave. The scattered societies of former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia are prime examples of this kind of failure. South America hasn’t experienced a bitter taste of false hopes for conceptual alternative to meta-ideology of market capitalism and institutionalized political and material inequality. The ideas and potentiality of fundamental change, disruption and tectonic shift from the currents of ‘everlasting present’ within the paradigm of liberal democracy and market capitalism are therefore strong.
In both cases meta-ideology of contemporary capitalistic form of structuring the society politically, economically and culturally are prevailing.
Representational democracy holds the status of the ideal and fair political order for redistribution of power.
Global market capitalism defines individual values, private property and material resources distribution, makes rich richer and thanks to technological progress soon almost immortal, while poor are increasing in proportional number.
Cultural industry embeds legitimacy of the order by creating complex intertwined multiplicity of simulacra for satisfaction of needs and demands for fairer alternative; turning as well art into the instrument of delusion and alienation.
All three are creepily widening the gap of inequality therefore continuously fertilizing the soil of potential for paradigmatic collapse of legitimacy of the whole system. It holds on fear of unknown complexity: if the system is indeed to collapse momentarily, the logical assumption of the consequences is to presume our return into the new Dark Ages. This institutionalized by cultural industry fear is increasing survivability of rotten, obviously unfair and ineffective system of operation of political, economic and cultural production.
The current meta-ideological order strive to mask itself as the final and the eternally better model of societal organization and above-mentioned weight of political history aids it in this task of presenting itself to increasing frustrated members of the society. Demystification of its status therefore is an urgent task for activation of the discussion about reification of fairer alternative. Instead of self-supporting structure of imaginary dialectics of contemporary capitalism, where representational democracy, global neoliberal capitalism and cultural industry work hand-in-hand, realization of all of them in group as one ‘thesis’ should trigger and accelerate formation of anti-thesis, that might provide the necessary synthesis for fairer form of the future. That is the loud moment that is necessary for attempting to escape the looping circles of dialectical thinking.
I are, (s)he am, they is.
The gaze of the Other is always evil, as it inexplicably defines the subject of observation and therefore limits the freedom of our self-identification. Reification of subjectivity in social, political and cultural life means escaping from the position of searching finite dictations of meanings from the position of power. Fluidity and dynamics of self and other identification neutralizes possibility to mask individual desire to dominate behind public interests.
How do we get there? Starting from abandoning the language of ‘normal’ in relation to social life, ‘absolute’ in relation to political order and ‘superior’ in addressing the culture is a major step. Naming is the ultimate power: freeing the discourse from the act of ultimate definition conceptually is an example of how critical theory looks like in action. There is nothing beyond language: as soon as it defined by closed structures, dialectical forms such as man/woman, democracy/dictatorship, high culture/barbarity, which construct the backbone of how the mapping of visible is constructed, the reification of post-dialectical thinking is blocked.
the artist as curator & the curator as artist: flattening hierarchies into horizontal plateaus of ‘potential’ through collaboration
The lecture at De Brakke Grond Arts Centre in Amsterdam was devoted to blurring institutional boundaries and roles in contemporary art world, exhibitions as total artworks or collaborative installations and pressure of “cultural industrialisation” and “entertainmentalisation” in the currents.