Fred Wilson, Mine, Yours, 1993; Andrea Fraser, Gallery Talk (performance), 1989

The Cultural Arena of Tomorrow

The Stichting The Geuzen invited me to come and speak, suggesting that I talk about my ideas on the changing cultural paradigm of this moment, leading to perhaps radical changes in the near future. How could the cultural arena function differently and how do art and its system have to operate in order to communicate with its publics on a more satisfying level than is possible right now? That is to say: compared with the prescribed rules artists have to adjust to and the way in which art perception too is channelled in dominant settings like museums and academies. The next question is of course how I position myself as possible   contributor to that cultural space. Most of my activities can be described as curatorial projects (this definition also covers the making of symposia, congresses, editing of books)and therefore I am interested in the role of the exhibition in facilitating the shifting of positions of both cultural   producers and consumers in tomorrow's cultural arena.

Crucial to my understanding of the exhibition as a possible tool is that curating is as an aesthetical as well as ethical practice. My question is how, regarding the limits of its very system (curating being an act of representation), curatorial projects can be of relevance in order to show that actually things are happening beyond those very limits. The ethical aspect of curating for me is the effort to draw those limits from within, in order to be able to understand what exceeds them. During this talk I shall try and clarify first what the ideal cultural arena could be, and second how I have try to contribute to the transformation of existing cultural models in order to, if only temporally, make it happen.

I dream of a cultural arena where there will be more and more spaces in which artists are allowed to work on specific social and cultural issues and address only those audiences that are genuinely interested and engaged with these issues. Artists should no longer be obliged to produce works that are of (aesthetical) interest to a general, and non-specified public. Of course the notion of such a free-space where one can choose his/her own connections necessary to make a work succeed is not new. Everybody who has communicated with other cultural groups on Internet has experienced the infinite possibilities of interactively linking up on issues of mutual interest. Despite extreme   dislocation the identities of such groups are given support and form quickly thanks to the intensive communication and information exchange, to the possibilities of selective distribution and the constant shifting of contexts beyond disciplinary boundaries of internet. Except for this existence of hyperreal networks that produce new subcultures every day, it is much less a matter of course that there exist physical spaces (institutions)in which artists and visitors (co-producers) join forces in more or less similar ways.

Spaces that allow and even support this interdisciplinary gathering around whatever social or cultural subject that is of shared interest and in which all the agents are willing to invest. In such an environment both object- and subject-positions will shift rapidly. For instance the difference between producers and consumers will start to disappear. In fact, the process of reception itself will be envisioned as a form of cultural production. In itself it can develop further into visual and physical means of documenting and reflecting upon viewers responses. Consequently, artistic practices will be looked at in terms of their effect rather than their economic and symbolic value. Interventionist artists will therefore no longer be dissatisfied because of misrepresentation of their work and their intentions in order for it to be transferred to the art market. They will find other markets instead: networks, jobs, assignments within the different cultures they are helping to give form to.

Visitors will no longer be frustrated because they would not be in the possession of the proper knowledge of contemporary (abstract) art codes in general. Probably they still aren't, but their knowledge and (lived) experience in the subject-matter at stake is of far more importance. It could   even be that their insight and creativity in that particular field is far greater than that of the artist or curator. Both the artist and the selectively addressed visitor will be investing in a topic which they both understand and to which they can contribute equally.

I wonder whether such a cultural atmosphere will become reality soon. Although we already witnessed artistic impulses moving into this direction from the beginning of this century on, there has been a lot of opposition too (repressive tolerance). Since the early seventies artists began to use critical interventionist practices in museums explicitly. As a result museum professionals have been   challenged to re-examine the role of exhibitions in the construction of power relations in society. Artists such as Hans Haacke, Group Material, Fred Wilson, Fareed Armaly a.o. have exposed the undeniable links between the internal workings of museums and larger social, political and economic interests. These artists have led the way for other cultural practices to develop new dialogue & performative practices that engage audiences in active,   critical reflection. But even if such interventions already have transformed museums into sites of contestation and debate, places where art itself can be the medium of interrogating the role of culture in structuring social   relations, that doesn't mean that the old paradigm has been replaced. We still look at works of art as autonomous objects and at artists as sovereign authors. Their values are still seen as absolute and universal, if only they would be read correctly. Consequently we hold on to the old distinction   between producers (of culture) and consumers, between experts and novices, between high and low culture.

What happened? Artist-initiated work of the seventies and early eighties have been replaced by work developed in the nineties in response to invitations from curators and other museum officers who saw the value of art that can bring certain institutional contradictions into focus publicly. Art institutions have   embraced critical and interventionist practices almost as if they constitute a new style or movement. Examples are Wild Walls (1995)at the Stedelijk Museum (Leontien Coelewij/Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen) and This is The Show (1995)van Bart de Baere at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Gent. Interventionist artists have migrated from their positions as 'outsider agitators' to 'inside operators', with curators and assistants   acting not only as facilitator but as allies and collaborators (cynical attitude). Meanwhile things didn't really change. In one of her recent articles Andrea Fraser complains that almost all exhibitions, whether in commercial or noncommercial spaces, still have no other objective than the construction of their visitors as potential collectors. Regardless of the content, museums will legitimise the work: they confer value and help building a following and a market for an artist's work. Seen economically from the artist's position there is nothing wrong with that, but for many (interventionist) artists this limits the effect of the work as well. Visitors are trained to aesthetically enjoy and consume instead of engaging themselves. Spaces where artists can address their own publics, and co-operate with visitors on all kinds of issues on the basis of mutual interest instead of only offering a 'ready-to-buy' object, and in which artistic practices can be looked at in terms of their effect instead of their economic and symbolic value, are still in the minority.

How can we contribute to a future cultural arena of dialogue? And if so, how can we built an alternative economic system so that a basic income for these artists is guaranteed?

I do think there are possibilities. Not by waiting for this new phenomenon to become accepted and appropriated by the just mentioned institutions. It will take at least another 30 years before they will have banished their most traditional and absurd -because out-of-date- categories and disciplines, and only for this reason they will be misrepresenting interventionist artistic practice.

Interventionist artistic practices do not inherently fall into one category or the other. What gives them power is, on the contrary, their ability to transcend different artificial divisions, for instance the division between curatorial and educational work, or between independent art and art that is made on assignment. The second part of my presentation is about two projects: how the tactics inherent in these undertakings might be of use to this new development. With the exhibitions, symposia and books I have made until today I tried to either create models in which to test certain notions that are crucial for a new understanding of art and/or I tried to reflect on models created by others. The exhibition I + the Other and the book Beyond   Ethics and Aesthetics are examples of this practice. At this moment I am working on a new project entitled: Diagnosis: Different by Nature, which again will question some basic assumptions still dominant in the art world today.

I started this presentation by defining the exhibition as a system of representation. Like any other symbolic system (f.i. language) it has its limits. One possible strategy in order to reveal something of what might exceed these boundaries is to test them. Or, to paraphrase Ludwig Wittgenstein who spent his entire life to examine the limitations of language because of its arbitrary relation with the world outside: to run up against the limits. According to Wittgenstein there is no privileged position outside language, we cannot escape the representational structures of our symbolic orders, our cultures. The only way to confront these limits is by accepting them and, from point zero, link in with and relate to other cultures, orders and networks. His will create new, hybrid intra-cultural environments which, wired into our neurological networks as well, will have impact on our daily existence.

Ine Gevers

Lecture at De Appel, Amsterdam, on invitation by Stichting de Geuzen, 21 februari 1999

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