Consumerism absorbs dissent and transforms it into entertainment. Does the use of artists and of strategies developed by artists by funders/galleries etc allow for an appearance of innovation and opposition without any critical resistance?
The use of artists and of artists strategies and of language originating from artists led discourse by funders, and galleries allows for an appearance of innovation, of an openess to critique and to an opening up of culture often without any actual commitment to the issues that have driven the development of those strategies, critiques and lexicons.
I think all too often institutions get away with making gestures towards artist led culture and policy makers get away with selling our own heritage as contemporary artists back to us through usurping our communities words and ideas and by incorporating them into their strategies designed to harness the arts for the governments ends. Under these terms the concept of artist led culture is reduced to a sales pitch competing with others for ever dwindling resources. We must return under these circumstances to the origins of the artists group as conscious of its oppositionality and offer resistance in terms of directing our own agendas, or else be reduced to another de- politicised consumer option for curators, policy makers, funders and the government to make.
We should remeber art makes culture, culture does not make art.
[...usurping our communities words and ideas and by incorporating them into their strategies designed to harness the arts for the governments ends]
should be flattered ;)
The superficiality and ends-driven appropriation you refer to is because the words are not the art (unless of course they are) - but tokens designed for various other purposes (among them, justifying the fundworthiness of a proposal - which is all very circular).
[art makes culture, culture does not make art]
hmmm, maybe rather the two intertwine and make each other - we should remember there's no such thing as art...
www.imaginativeeye.co.uk
" ...no such thing as art" - Me thinks this is a provocation, yes!
If I name it as art it is art, whatever it is. This is the post-modern creed. From Duchamp to Beuys tp Kosouth.
Art is a name, so whatever you say is art it is art, whatever the art is, it is art because of its naming. The idea of art is in its proper name as art.
" Whenever you issue an aesthetic judgment formulated as 'this is art' you are babtizing an object that struck you as as art with reference to a collection of samples which, to you, were art already. The word art in this sentence was used in the same way that proper names, according to Kripke, are used: to fix the reference and not to convey a meaning"
So says Thierry de Duve.
Words are also the stuff of culture, they drive or can be driven.
If your perception is faulty you may be more in a position to know art when you see it, or name it when you see it.
Faults in the perception of art are akin to faults in the perception of sight. That is, do we know if the world out there exists, or is it something different or nonexistent, how do we really know the world?
What about an artist setting up a programme that proves the world does not exist?
ken
[...usurping our communities words and ideas and by incorporating them into their strategies designed to harness the arts for the governments ends]
should be flattered ;)
The superficiality and ends-driven appropriation you refer to is because the words are not the art (unless of course they are) - but tokens designed for various other purposes (among them, justifying the fundworthiness of a proposal - which is all very circular).
[art makes culture, culture does not make art]
hmmm, maybe rather the two intertwine and make each other - we should remember there's no such thing as art...