lne Gevers	curator  \  writer  \  activist

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Running up against the limits of Curating Within the practice of curating aesthetical and ethical responsibilities overlap. They do so within the well-designed (defined) setting of the exhibition. Exhibitions are systems of represen­tation. As such they have their limits, like any other symbolic system (like language). Facing or even revealing these limits from within can be a tactic to trans­gress them (if only temporally). During this talk I shall clarify what is meant by 'running up against the limits of curating' (the title) and talk about methods I used in some of my projects. Exhibitions are producers of meaning through the display of objects, artefacts, texts made by others within the context of -usually- a museum. The parame­ters shift from project to project, especially when symposia, congresses, filmscree­nings also fall under cura­torial projects. These forms of curating have in common the discipline of installati­on. The concept of installati­on is to an exhibition what syntax is for language: they are the glue as well as the context within which the different objects/words become meaningfull. Indeed, exhibiti­ons can be compared with systems of signs, for instance language. Although instead of words the elements exhibited are 'things' or 'images', the signifying practices involved are the same. Every choice -to show this rather than that, to show this in relation to that, to say this about that (labeling), how much space is left open between this and that- is a choice about how to represent a specific work, an individual artist, a culture etc. Germano Celant, the promoter of Arte Povera in the '70's and active as curator since then, commen­ted on the practice of exhibition-making as follows: "In all exhibitions, past and present, the intervals of wall or space between artworks (the "territory" of the individual work) automatically establish a linguistic connection, in the sense that their regularity or overall plan creates the visual and volumetric terms of the exhibition. This rhythmic measuring off of the space extends connections between works and creates an expository phraseolo­gy, whereby objects can be arranged for their similarity as well as their contrast. For this reason the totality created by an exhibition can be subordinated to the infinite possibilities of the personal language of a single producer (in the case of a one-artist or retrospective show), and can also be seen as the demonstration of an argument (in the case of a thematic show)". Celant described the resemblance between an exhibition and the semantics of language in a rather formal way. But we can imagine paralells to exist even more when more complex, semiotic relations­hips are at stake. An But even more important: like language, curating always implies appropriati­on, interpreta­ti­on and mediation. An exhibition is a system of representation, embodying endless possibilities to create meaning but also loaded with rules and prohibitions. Because of its representational methods its relation to what is 'outside' will always be arbitrary. Ludwig Wittgen­stein dedicated his entire life to examine the limitati­ons of language precisely because of this arbitrary relation with the world outside. He intended to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use (to say nothing except what can be said..) and he considered it our ethical responsibility to "run up against the limits of language" (An die Grenze der Sprache anzurennen). Only from the interior of language these limits can appear. According to Wittgenstein we are subject to, but not identified with, ordinary language. As in the ship of fools, we are embarked, without the possibility of an aerial view or any sort of totalisati­on. In other words, as soon as we have entered the order of language we cannot come out. We are caught within its system(..). There is no priviliged position outside that would authorize us to deal with the relation between words and things, between language and the real world of experien­ces. Like language also the practice of 'curating' brings forward a (symbolic) system that makes us foreigners on the inside, indeed recognizing an outside but painfully aware that it will reamin ineffable. Captured within this practice of represen­tation are destined to a similar "foreig­ness-at-home". For this reason I think it is our ethical responsibility as curators to "run up against the limits of curating" as well. We should play on the edge. Or, again following Wittgen­stein: we have to draw these limits from within in order to understand what exceeds it (language/ exhibition). Within the projects I will discuss today I have investigated these limits in different ways. What connects them (PPPP, I + The Other, Beyond ethics and aesthetics) is the trial and error that accompanies this 'running against the limits'. They are all try-outs. Not in trying to make these boundaries appear but also in order to transgress them. For instance by inverting certain rules and values from within. Not only my own playing with the politics and poetics of curating was at stake here, those of others as well. Mostly inspired by artists (avantgarde and contemporary artists), I follow their tactics to try and transform dominant practices of represen­tations closely. The curatorial settings they created throug­hout this century to test existing and non-existing models and relations (f.i. between the object and the observer), thus questioning fixed positions and meanings from within, still are among the best exam­ples. PPPP Having been curator and tutor at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht for some time, I organised several exhibiti­ons and symposia. Often a marriage between the two. Today I will talk about one project specifically: Place Position Presentation Public (1992). This symposium (PPPP) may serve as an example of how I tried to map the efforts of other curators, artists and writers to examine the limits of their curating/artistic intervention and how they developed tactics that prevented them from becoming complete closures. Place Position Presentation Public aimed to give an impetus to the debate that has evolved around the question of a possible critical function of art. The discussion concentrated on the tense relationship between art and the channels that are used to (re)present it. These channels may create the conditions necessary for art's existence, at the same time they limit its effectiveness. The following distinctions were made in the context of this symposium: Museums and Galleries as institutions which legitimize and authorize art, but thereby implicitly subdue or reduce its critical sounds to an acceptable level; The Public Space as a "place" where works of art can enter into more direct relations with the environment (in a physical, spatial, and temporal, but also social and political sense) but also a place which has become proble­matical because it has become obsolete; and The New Media which, both as contexts and as instruments, have opened perspec­tives for new realities within which other priorities hold (in terms of logic, myth, and ideology). From this perspective, choices that were made with respect to place, position, presentation and public had far-reaching consequences for the meaning, functioning and effectiveness of the work of art. They could no longer be considered to be external factors outside of the signifying field of the work but rather should be seen as an essential element in the production process as a whole. The question which was the basis for these issues, and also the guideline for the symposium, was formulated as follows: how is it possible for a work of art, given the manipulative and ideologically affirmative strategies of the (institutional) systems within which it has to function, to play a role that is of any political, social, or aesthetic interest?   Today, inspired by Michel de Certeau's thoughts on the strength of the tactics of 'the weak' (women, colonised, poor, consumer, artist) in Practice of everyday Life, I would formulate it as follows: which are the (artistic) moments that mark the actual transformation of meaning within fields that are limited and controlled by others (a question that is applicable to both artists and curators)? The participants (among whom Charles Harrison, Andrea Fraser, Fritz Rahmann, Martha Rosler, Adrian Piper, Judith Barry, Peter Weibel, Laura Mulvey, Keith Piper, Jean Fisher) were required to have clearly demonstrated political or social commitment within their works. But there were other criteria. Although political and social commit­ment were a prerequisite, other factors determine the very possibility of taking a position, and both its nature and quality. In other words, subjective conditions such as race, class, sex, and age determine one's identity - however fragmenta­ry - which is the basis for taking any position. Therefore a variety in race, sex, langua­ge, cultural background and age were aimed at during the selection of the partici­pants. This would provide us with a large differentiation of standpoints, in itself a destabilizing factor in reference to notions such as place and position. The fusion of object and subject, of product and producer, of producer and consumer, could no longer be ignored. Although the notions of 'placing', 'positio­ning', 'presenting', and 'interpre­ting' were at first instance to be read as relating to the object (work of art, text, media installation), they could also be interpreted in connection with the producing and consuming subjects. Recog­ni­zing that a work of art, a text, or an intervention influences the way subjectivity is produced in our society, also implies that this influence is reversible: subjectivity in its turn influences the meaning and function of the work. As every work is produced by at least one subject, these subjects (including the so-called consumers) may have their own intenti­ons in creating/re-creating a work or a text> Therefore there is no decisive authority over its meanings or implications. Other interests could not have had such an effective impact on the programme had they been explicitly discoursed about. Instead they became manifest through the setting up of implicit (but nevertheless unmistakable) tactics that shaped the conditions as well. These hidden strategies consisted of shaping a multi-layered platform on which not only 'academical' lectures were possible, but also perfor­mances, installations, interventi­ons. Because of the usage of forms of presenta­tion that do not necessari­ly belong to the official canon of a 'symposi­um', it was not possible to accumulate disembodied knowledge in its academic sense only. Here a continuous battle had to be fought between the many levels on which several 'discourses' demanded our attention in order to share experience and knowled­ge. Included intentionally as well, but not named, was the carefull arrangement of the moderators for the three days. All of them were women (Martha Rosler, Jean Fisher, and Patricia Philips). These women would lead the discussion, put forward the closing remarks etc. Women made the final ordering, the concluding interpretation and thus representation of the debate. These 'implicit' tactics were to be decisive of the outcome of this symposium. One of its results was the imposibility to, again, supply one overall description that would do justice the complex processes of significa­tion that had taken place. So, while actually talking about (institutional) boundaries and limits, in fact attempts had been made to transgress them from the very start. I + The Other In the summer of 1994 we (me and the artist Jeanne van Heeswijk) organized the exhibition I + the Other. Art and the Human Condition in the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam. The starting-point was a context that would not be strictly defined by the institution of Art. The exhibition was in fact to be the result of a cooperation between two institutions that were, as a matter of saying, not even aware of each others' existence: the Art institution (the artists, the exhibition makers, the foundation Artimo)- and the help-organisation the Red Cross. Already in the concept it was clear to us that this exhibition should not be used as a power to define certain conditions or ideas. On the contrary, we were more interested in, again, showing the limits of such representational systems.  We wanted to intervene, not didactically by questioning predispositi­ons, but rather by deconstructing certain representations of 'the Real'. Thus opening up a space within which negotiating between people would again be possible. We decided to make an exhibition whose concern was not just art and its aesthetics. A much broader territory had our attention: that of the area, or the possible space, where ethics and aesthetics might meet. We were looking for the possibility of realizing a context within which different positions and discourses would come into dialogue with one another, sometimes without effort and almost self-evident, at other moments with hesitation and clearly forced. In such a setting contradictions would be inevitable and we planned in advance not to avoid incoherences, confrontations and disquietedness etc. All of this had to be done critically, although of course we did not have an independent position in relation to both the institution of Artr and the Red Cross. The project however would only succeed if we were able to intervene and question the constructed identities of both institutions from within. How does art function within and without the self-erected white walls and what is the meaning of the term 'autonomy' when notions like the intrinsic meaning of the art object and the universa­lity of subjective aesthetic experiences are no longer self-evident? And what can (still) be the meaning of 'neutrality' of an institution like the Red Cross in a society where one has become even more complicit (to power) by 'neglecting' the making of choices, especially whithin situations of war and conflict? Further, how to interpret terms like 'humanness' and 'human dignity' when these historically and ideologically defined concepts are to be held responsi­ble for at least a severe limitation of what being human could mean? (Lyotard/ Foucault)) Any attempt to define or represent 'humanity' according to those tradition­al, monoholitical principles (since Enlightenment reason, conscience and selfreflection are seen as the basic human qualities), is bound to exclude 'others' from this category, whatever might have been the intentions. When deconstructed it becomes clear that those principles are far from objective or without self-interest (I   just recall how the ideal 'man' of the enlightenment was mainly a representation of an ideal self-image of western capitalist and partiarchal culture). In the exhibition the selfrepresentation of both institutions (the institution of art and the Red Cross) could be used as tools to confront the other and vice versa in a way that would inevitably show how their identities were constructed. Both so-called autonomous and neutral positions, to which we referred in terms of its aesthetics mainly, seemed historical­ly and ideologically determined and rather fictitious when it came to its actual lived reality within contemporary society. By enscenating a confrontation between these two utterly different systems of representation we were able to reveal their self-imprisonment at the same time. Because of this a new space (inbetween)openend up, a space in which the works of art and other artefacts would 'work' in quite another way, as such stimula­ting and enriching meaningful relations between objects, images and observers and between the people themselves.  Bewilderment was one of the hidden tactics of this exhibition (by way of combining certain works as well as by selecting works that already evoked a certain uneasyness themselves). The implication of this notion of bewilderment if not alienation came as a consequence of our continuous dialogue with the representa­tives of the Red Cross, the artists, scientists, and writers. Although a theoretical concept was the foundati­on of the exhibition, the crucial state of mind of bewilderment emerged during the proces of making, in the practice of actually perfor­ming. Not that this state of mind was unknown to us. In fact we both had experien­ced a sense of uneasyness, for instance with the art world that most of the time comes close to being an institutionali­zed circus with trained artists, curators, critics and public. Each of them willing to perform their tricks along predescribed aesthetic lines evoking experiences that are more of fixed givens rather than intersubjective experiences. In fact a cynical situation nobody at present can escape. We also felt bewildered in our dialogue with the Red Cross institution. Arising out of and supported by a basically Western-oriented establishment, this organization had gone through all kinds of contortions to manage and maintain shreds of its traditional neutrality and prove its credibility as being an organization that is primarily there for all human needs. As we proceeded working on the exhibition and discussing with the artists involved, it became clear that, in general, we felt alienated in a society in which plurality is not celebrated but rather denied, where differen­ces are accepted only in terms of othering the Other and where alterity is negated. Alterity here is not limited to differences in race and culture only. Differences in terms of gender, class, health, mental abilities, intelligence and so on, are dealt with in quite the same way. They are either denined or exaggerated in order to decide what can be tolerated and what is shut out, who is included and who is excluded. We shared this state of mind of alienation (to be read as alienation in the world instead of from) and the choice to critically engage with the world instead of accepting it as it is with the artists we invited. Adrian Piper, Christine Borland, Cindy Sherman, Roy Villevoye, Marina Griznic, David Wojnarowicz, Derek Jarman, Marlene Dumas, Nancy Spero, Andrea Fisher and Martin Lucas, to mention some, were interested in subverting the traditional notion of identifying, classifying or representing 'the human being' in any fixed manner, an attitude they share with many other artists throughout the centuries. Needless to say how such a monolithical system of representing humanity will lead to uniformity rather than pluriformity, excluding numbers of people on the basis of rules and prohibitions. The selection of artists, however, was not based on so-called 'politically correct' art or 'art with a message'. Of relevance was the presence of the works, the way they could generate their own meaning by not allowing themselves to be represented by either the dictation of the Red Cross or the standardised system of the institution of Art. Or, to paraphrase Michael Bakhtin, works that ultimately reach their consummation by realizing the complex proces of interactions between object, maker and viewer, all with their specific background, presuppositions and prejudi­ces.  To achieve this within the exhibition works of art were not only to be presented in relation to each other but confronted with all sorts of documents as well. By means of this confrontation between document and art we tried to cut through fixed patterns and structures, concerning preconceived interpretations of documents (Red Cross material, advertising, press photography, television programs, computer games) and concerning the production of aesthetic meanings when works of art are involved. "If", and I quote Oscar van Alphen's comment on this exhibition, "documents so far offered too many possibili­ties to suppression, then the confrontation with what he called 'the monstrous forces in contemporary art' is capacious enough to let us see the cracks in the mirror, about which the chairman of the Red Cross, M. Sommaruga, speaks in the catalogue". The knife did cut at both sides, though. All representations of 'Reality' were mixed: art, document, real objects, until the level that identifica­tion was not really possible. The oppositions neverthe­less were sharp. Where documentary images presented a much too singular meaning, the works of art embodied irony, invertion, the multi-layeredness and plurifor­mity of meaning. But the confrontation sometimes lead to the other direction as well. Where works of art would depend too much on a notion of a universal kind of subjective aesthetical experien­ce, fully isolated from other area's of life that are as important in the constitution of shared experience, there documents would form a counterbalance. In short, by running up against the limits of two oppositional systems of representation we tried to open up a third space inbetween, a space where meanings were not yet fixed. Within this space different agents used their own tactics, wether it were the works of art, the documents or the viewers who had their agenda's as well. The result was an exhibition that was at times rough and violent in its contradictions, but within which the works were not confined to a predescribed set of meanings and norms. Here the works of art could do their work. The book Beyond ethics and aesthetics, published by the SUN, Nijmegen, in 1996, can be considered to be a follow-up of the exhibition I + the Other in many ways. In both senses of the term I + the Other formed the pre-text of the book. The book was made while being conscious of the fact that the presentation of any body of work -be it an artwork, an exhibition, a book or a conference- can never be a definite or exhaustive statement in itself. To take such a position would mean to fall into that very trap of authoritarianism that assumes a 'subject-who-knows'. The alternative does not have to be the presentation of a shapeless body altogether, but a body highly framed by a set of propositions or questions whose resolutions are not concerned with forming closures on the problem in review, but developing new ways of approaching it, new insights or alternative strategies. What was it all about? As I have already sketched we tried, with the exhibition I + the Other, to present a confusing, bewildering context by staging a confrontation between art and documents (of life). By creating the preconditions for alternative links and unprece­dented connections, possibilities for new relations, dialogues and meanings openend up. We wanted to share these experiences and points of view with artists, curators and theorists with whom we felt affiliated in our efforts to actually bring some movement in the fixed positions and relations we came across, wether in the field of art or in 'real life'. Our goal was to unite these energies in our search for new attitudes in relation to both the ethics and aesthetics of lived reality. With the authors we shared an interest in art that would have consequen­ces for our perception, experience and actions (Art that would function as Human Condition) as well as an interest in the strategies that could lead to such a relations­hip. (This notion of 'relationship between art and life' by no means implied that we saw art and life as completely equal to one another. A certain distance remains necessary for a fertile 'coalition'. And, although historically attempts by avantgarde artists and writers to forge links with life have to be understood symbolically, they have nevertheless led to a number of valuable splinters within the neatly constructed web of a reality that has become increasingly removed from direct experience.)  The book did not pretend to create an all-encompassing context, since attempts to approach reality 'objectively' would only result in disappointment. Instead we have chosen smaller frameworks: contexts that, far from being all-uniting or universal, strive to bring together various ideological, psychological and social positions and discourses. By stimulating, even forcing a dialogue between these different areas, a transformation process was set in motion, generating meanings and unlocking new spaces. This approach partly explains the enormous diversity of the contributions with regard to both the choice of authors -their backgrounds, disciplines and practices- and the way in which various approaches, personal choices and individual strategies have been presented. A diversity that was not only the result of a preference for a multiplicity of ideas, but certainly stemmed from our belief in the performative act itself. As such Beyond Ethics and Aesthetics, with essyas, interviews, discussions and image essays from Oscar van Alphen, Marianne Brouwer, Adrian Piper, Simon Critchley, Helmut Draxler, Jean Fisher, Multiple Autorenschaft, Jouke Kleerebezem, Viktor Misiano, Everlyn Nicodemus, Fordacity, Sadie Plant, Martha Rosler, Krzystof Wodiczko, Ute Meta Bauer & Yvonne Doderer, Rirkit Tiravanija, Jorinde Seydel a.o., was not so much a theoretical legitimiza­tion of subversive practices in art and theory, but was rather aimed at 'action' itself. With the book Beyond Ethics and Aesthetics the trajectory that started with what was learned from the experience of the exhibition becoming the basis of the book did not end. In its turn the book formed a horizon from which a new discussion could emerge in yet another form: the conference Beyond Ethics and Aesthetics we organised in october 1997. What this expressed was exactly how we have felt and believed artistic projects to be: an organic growth and development of a body of ideas, practices and visual works that have a life within the variety of different public spaces, as such moving far beyond a sterile academicism. Parallel to the way in which the exhibition I + the Other (superficially) had been compared with the installation of the Venice Biennial by Germano Celant (because both exhibitions combined works of art with documents and other visual material, differen­t was the manner in which these works and objects were brought together in order to 'argu­ment'), the book and conference Beyond Ethics and Aesthetics had reminicenses with the Documenta, organised by Catherine David. Not it terms of its seize or ambitions of course, but on the level of political engagement. Accept for the more obvious differen­ces one aspect was the most distinghishing. Where in Documenta X the main adjectives were theory and reflection, within Beyond Ethics and Aesthetics central attention was given to 'experience'. Experience as it is embodied in the performa­tive act itself and experien­ce as shared by the observer/participants' empathyzing and consummating this act, leading to a new trajectory of 'perceiving and living reality'. It has to do with our bodies, with embodiment, materialisation, lived reality and the sharing of experiences which, according to Giogrio Agambden have been taken away from us ever since the birth of modernity.  Right now I am working on a new project. It's working title (for the moment) is: Diagno­sis: naturally Other. Terms like psychosis, schizophrenia and autism flutter around in contemporary art discourse. Most of the times these diagnostic terms are borrowed from psychiatric vocabularies to point at certain developments in current postmodern societies. In fact a strong paralell can be seen between contemporary popularisati­on and celebration of these terms nowadays and the use of terms like hysteria and neuroses in the early years of this century. Many artists play with these notions, either to critique contemporary cultural or on the level of visually imitating stereotypical notions of psychoses or schizophrenia, visually referring to them in playing with the abject etc. At first sight the exhibition I want to make will sketch different translati­ons of these romanticized or otherwise stereotyped notions. This will be done on the level of the exhibition as a representational system (and I suppose it will serve its purpose well). An underlying critique, also embo­died in the works of contemporary artists, will be directed at the distance or the distancing that is part of the spectaculi­zation and stereotypicalization of the Mad Other. In fact I will be able to make use of the wellknown discourse around the cultural Other, around colonisati­on and re-colonisation, the Jewish notion of diaspora, the importance of inclusion and exclusion for the construction of identities etc. More important is that, with this attempt to reveal the limits of this exhibition from within, I will inevitably run up against the limits of representation at large. If there is one thing that cannot be 'curated' in terms of represented (annexed, appropriated) it is the very differen­ce that makes the other Other. Because of the limitations of our language, our symbolic order, we seem to have no other option as to annex this Otherness and bring it into our system of the 'selfsame', thereby adjusting it till it fits into the stereotypes we already have. We are only able to measure otherness in terms of the same, to compare it along the scale running from absolutely identical to absolutely different. However, by assimila­ting the other to the self-same we necessarily rob it of its very 'difference' that makes the other Other. In other words: approaching the madness of the Other involves acknowledging our limits as well. It demands recognising our own imprisonment in a system that seems to be fully selfcentered and selfsufficient, it forces us to accept our own 'idioteness'. As a subversi­ve tactic this exhibition will therefore focuss on the works of artists attempting to mirror our won blindspots. They show us the imprisonment within a language that seems to only refer to itself and therefore cannot fullfill its promise of communication. The selfcentered­ness of (especcially Western) culture that violently establishes its identity by inclusion and exclusion of its people. They point at the inevitable loss of humanity Foucault has proclaimed so many times. Works will be incorporated by artists who use different tactics, among which: the return to pre-symbolic or non-symbolic presentations, transgression of taboos, and non-production. As Foucault said it is these artists who will find in this non-place' perhaps a 'place' from which to see the madness of ourselves, of our order and our culture. Again, this exhibition cannot be theorized beforehand. It will be based on based on the limits of curating on the one hand and, on the other, by the possibilities of bricolage, of tactical inversions created by all the agents involved. Ine Gevers International symposium Curatorial Practice: a Field of Study?, Le Magasin, Grenoble, 1998 [top]