Lo sentimos, esta entrada solamente se encuentra disponible en Inglés. Próximamente estará disponible en Español.

 

AtrásKrytyka Polityczna,
Critical Art and Crisis of Criticism in Poland

 

44th AICA Congress, Asunción, Paraguay, 18.10.11

 

 

 

 

Five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, at an International Congress on Culture of the Time of Transformation in Poznań, Polish art critic Dorota Jarecka observed: “Nowadays you can hear everywhere: “there is no criticism”, “there is no place to write”, “there has been no true criticism in Poland for forty years, and there will be none in the future”.i Under socialism, she explained: “criticism in Poland […] adopted a rather slavish tone [in which] reviews turn into flattery”.ii But the post-transition state of critical impasse to which she referred was also, she argued, a symptom of a general over-investment in the idea of a new, true, criticism in the wake of 1989. Excessive expectations, she reasoned, were producing a vicious circle and inducing “a state of torpidity”, according to the logic that “there will never be any “true” critics, if there are no true periodicals and true art market, and the latter will not come to be since there is no “true” capitalism etc.”.iii She argued that this sort of defeatism was motivated by a deep-seated dual historical fear grounded, on the one hand, in a tendency to dismiss criticism as simply pseudo – the legacy of communist-era “newspeak”, and, on the other hand, anxiety about Western postmodernism with its “tolerance” and “difference” and its ideology of “provisional, rhizomatic and nomadic” thought.iv Polish criticism, post-transition, was caught between “Polish emptiness” and “the emptiness of pluralism”.v How to break out of this vicious circle? How to recover from the usurping of criticism by Communist newspeak without slavishly emulating Western critical trends? Such questions remain highly relevant today, as we continue to our search for a critical language adequate to the challenges of the present European crisis of populism, nationalism and xenophobia, recently aggravated by the global economic downturn. In what follows, I address how these questions relate to the critical activities of “Political Critique”, one of the strongest voices to emerge on the Polish scene in recent years.

The Political Critique Review was established as a quarterly periodical by a group of left-wing students from Warsaw University in 2002, and has grown exponentially Krytyka Polityczna, composed of journalists, scientists, writers, critics of art, film and literature, playwrights, artists, activists and students, claim to be “working on behalf of nearly 2,000 activists in Poland and abroad”, and describe themselves as a “left-wing think-tank and as a “critical university’”, comprising “Poland’s biggest intellectual magazine and team of regular social commentators who write for and appear in mainstream Polish media” as well as “a high-profile group of artists working in the visual arts, theatre, film, literature and music”.vi They collaborate with cultural foundations, museums, galleries, biennials, the press and other media, in a concerted effort to instigate public debate in actual and virtual space. Krytyka Polityczna now boasts a high traffic website (www.krytykapolityczna.pl), a network of clubs and cultural centres in cities throughout Poland, the most important of these being the Wonderful New World Club in central Warsaw, new branches in Kiev and London, and a major publishing house. The founding of a their publishing house, in 2007, has been warmly welcomed by a generation of young leftists in Poland, eager to fill their bookshelves with affordable, attractively packaged, critical literature. In addition to works of journalism, political philosophy, sociology, literature and literary criticism by Polish authors, the organization has translated and published work by writers and intellectuals such as Judith Butler, Jürgen Habermas, Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, Wiktor Pielewin and Slavoj Žižek.

The core members of the group, of whom Slawomir Sierakowski is perhaps the most prominent, describe themselves as reformist social democrats. Their stated aim? To revive the long-standing Polish tradition of oppositional writing and journalism that had played a key role in the rebirth of Polish civil society in the decades prior to the events of 1989. Krytyka Polityczna repeatedly declare their commitment to reinvigorating the Polish tradition of the engaged intelligentsia, arguing that the Polish socialist heritage “represented all the best things about Polish tradition: the ideals of democracy, social justice, freedom and civil rights, pluralism and tolerance, and finally, independence”.vii Deploying the full range of tools that have become available since 1989, they ultimately hope to overhaul the Polish intellectual landscape and “to produce new kinds of behaviour”.viii Uniting social science, culture, and politics around a common goal, Krytyka Polityczna’s goal is to impact social reality: “to prepare and introduce into the public sphere a project of struggle against economic and social exclusion” and to “spread the idea of deep European Integration”.ix How then, do these aims relate to the vicious circle Jarecka complained of in 1994? The short answer, I think, is that they refuse the binary terms of the dichotomy she outlined. Krytyka Polityczna refuse to dismiss all communist criticism as ‘newspeak’ and they refuse to label all western criticism ‘empty pluralism’. Instead, they seek to excavate an alternative critical tradition from between the fault lines of East and West. By seeking to reinvigorate leftist debate in a country where leftism has been discredited by the mainstream, the group appear to reinvest in the possibility of parallel cultural activity as a mode of political praxis, testing the viability of the working methods of former dissidents in relation to the specificities of the post-socialist situation. This, I think, is their primary accomplishment – their desire to work with past models and to adapt them to the present situation, introducing a new generation of political activists to the accomplishments of their predecessors, and to re-link a local history of activism with the global theoretical return to the left in the wake of the continued crisis of neo-liberalism.

In 2005, the group set up the
Stanisław Brzozowski Association
to oversee Krytyka Polityczna’s activities, adopting as their patron a key Polish philosopher, writer, literary and theatre critic and historian, credited with having introduced Marxism to Polish thought at the turn of the century, and strongly committed to engaging artists in the shaping of society. Active in the Polish independence movement, Brzozowski found himself incarcerated in a Tsarist prison, where he contracted typhoid, of which he would die, aged 33. Among Poland’s leading intellectuals, those he inspired include Czesław Miłosz, Andrzej Walicki, Maria Janion, Leszek Kołakowski, Adam Michnik. Adopting him as their patron, and republishing several of his key works, Krytyka Polityczna hope that he will inspire a new generation of socially engaged intellectuals. Following in Brzozowski’s footsteps, Krytyka Polityczna are committed to forging a new solidarity between journalism and critical art. The periodical’s artistic directors are Yael Bartana and Artur Żmijewski, two artists who have produced key works exploring the specificities of the Polish political and ethical landscape. Bartana and Zmijewski engage in a range of collaborations with other Polish and international artists, thus bringing them into the fold of the Krytyka Polityczna project. With their help, the periodical regularly includes photo-essays by well known artists such as Tania Bruguera, Olga Chernysheva, Sanja Iveković and Santiago Sierra.

The founding text for Krytyka Polityczna’s stance vis-à-vis art’s political potential is Artur Żmijewski’s ‘Applied Social Arts’ (2007), in which the video artist, sculptor and curator of the forthcoming 7th Berlin Biennale (2012), set out his arguments for critical art. x He identified the hidden enemy standing in the way of art’s “desire to be an active agent creating the social and political environment” as shame, recalling that artists’ historical complicity with totalitarian regimes has “compromised the very possibility of art becoming an instrument of politics”.xi “Shame”, he wrote, “has set in motion the mechanisms of repression and denial. Instead of drawing enjoyment from the outcome of their actions, the visual and performing arts are content merely to dream of such outcomes: fantasy has supplanted reality”.xii Żmijewski argued that, all too often, the political consequences of Polish “Critical Art” of the 1990s, were not the intended ones. Among others, he cites the example of “players from the realm of politics ‘learning’ how to use subversive strategies that had once been proper to art”, recalling the incident when “right-wing deputies to the Polish parliament Witold Tomczak and Halina Nowina-Konopczyna removed the stone (meteor) from the prone figure of Pope John Paul II in Maurizio Cattelan’s La Nona Ora during an exhibition curated by Harald Szeeman at Warsaw’s Zachęta gallery in December 2000”.xiii These sorts of “scandals breaking out over the topics art proposed to introduce into public debate” have generally failed to contribute positively to the development of critical discourse, says Żmijewski. In many ways, they have been counterproductive.xiv If “the continuing brutalisation of public debate has been attributed (by Gazeta Wyborcza journalist Anna Zawadzka) to the violent language used by art in the 1990s and the resulting media backlash”, then it now seems clear that “violating one set of taboos leads to the emergence of other taboos”.xv

Żmijewski blames art critics rather than artists for the alienation of critical artists within contemporary Polish society. He argues that the artist must wrest back power from the critic, for what really prevents art from serving as an instrument of knowledge, science, and politics, is “the archaic, circular mode of communication where critics mediate between the artist and the viewer”, and “lack of knowledge on the part of critics ‘forces’ artists to simplify their message. (…) For what the critic cannot understand cannot be expressed and never makes it into the circuit of knowledge”.xvi He says that artists need to speak out, rather than leaving commentary to the reviewers, thus abandoning autonomy and running the risk of “dependence on other discourses: politics and science”. He concedes that this may “lead to an ideological reduction of content to what is useful from the standpoint of a group’s political interests”, but thinks the risk worth running if art is to become socially useful, and begin “producing useful tools: tools for the implementation of power and of knowledge”.xvii These are ambitious claims. To what extent have they been proved feasible by Krytyka Polityczna’s artistic collaborators, to date?

Arguably, the loudest artistic collaboration by Krytyka Polityczna and the artistic establishment to date has been the making and screening of Yael Bartana’s Trilogy of films ‘And Europe will be Stunned…’ for the Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale this year. Bartana is the first non-Pole ever to have been offered the pavilion – a gesture designed to suggest a fresh wave of openness to new dialogues in artistic circles, challenging Polish self-identity, and striking at the roots of Poland’s current ethnic homogeneity. Krytyka Polityczna collaborated closely to make the three films, “Nightmares”, “Wall and Tower”, and “Assassination”. Sierakowski plays a key role in the first and third parts, among others from the circle. In Nightmares he delivers a carefully scripted “call for the return of three million Jews to Poland” in an empty stadium, surrounded by adoring young Pioneers. In Wall and Tower, the artist Wilhelm Sasnal and a group of enthusiastic Jewish settlers construct a kibbutz on the territory of the former Warsaw ghetto, to the consternation of local residents, taking the first steps to realise the ambitions of what they call the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland. In Assassination, Sierakowski becomes the martyr of the JRMP movement, and people flock first to the Palace of Culture in Warsaw to pay their respects at his open coffin, and then pay tribute to him in the portentously vast square in which John Paul II delivered a landmark address to the Polish people in 1979 galvanising social cohesion in the run up to the formation of the Solidarity movement.

The films are committed to pluralism, while admitting that there are no easy solutions. The ambiguities riddling the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland’s story include the following: Sierakowski’s call for the return of the Jewish people to Poland is delivered to an orderly group of young pioneers, who hang on his every word in the least discursive manner imaginable; the kibbutz constructed by the new Jewish settlers in Warsaw resembles a concentration camp, alienating local residents with its Hebrew signage; a cult of personality develops around the head of the movement, following his assassination. Possibly in an effort to undermine the didacticism of their message, the trilogy compulsively anticipates and stages all the things that might go wrong. The nail in the coffin comes as part of Israeli journalist Yaron London’s address to the impossible multicultural crowd bearing English language banners at Sierakowski’s mock-funeral. London explains that Israel and its armed forces are the only guarantors that there can never be another holocaust, that Israel is the only fatherland of the Jews that can secure their future, and that it cannot be in the Jewish people’s interests to return. Strangely, these self-critical measures are delivered in such euphoric and solemn tones that it becomes difficult to distinguish between send-up and political fantasy. The trilogy’s narrative and aesthetic excesses become those of a bad propaganda film, as a result of which, I think, the political message, if there really is one, is lost.

For all its noble intentions, it seems that Bartana’s material is so contradictory, its themes so sensitive, its history so unresolved, that it threatens to stifle rather than to inspire debate. After all, what educated leftist would disagree that Polish anti-Semitism is a scandal and that Poland should do so much more to tackle it? Surely, Bartana and Krytyka Polityczna are just preaching to the converted, mobilising internal inconsistencies to thwart the possibility of external criticism. What concerns me is that the ‘shame’ associated with assuming a didactic position, here manifested in a series of internal deconstructions, continues to cloud the trilogy’s potential to be taken seriously as an activist work, not least because of its excessive theatricality. It seems to me that Sierakowski, as head of Krytyka Polityczna. Has been the loser in this particular collaboration. The critic has been co-opted as an actor in an artistic project. Rather than assuming the traditional role of the critic, stepping back from Bartana’s project and assessing its applied social potential, Sierakowski has dived in head-first, hoping to deliver his own message via art. The collaboration, and its contradictions, in the end, tells us more about recent changes in the relation between art and criticism, than it does about the potential to deliver the ambitions of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland, with the Trilogy itself sliding into a troubling parody of wish-fulfilment – an apocalyptic vision of becoming a martyred leader in an English speaking, united colours of Benetton Poland, with little hope of actively bringing this utopia any closer.

Needless to say, one rarely finds any criticism of work by Krytyka Polityczna’s artists on the pages of the journal. However, in an excellent review, published in the periodical Dwutygodnik Sztuki, the young critic Karol Sienkiewicz has been among the few to take on the trilogy.xviii He observes that the film is uncritical of Zionism, particularly gallingly in view of its dedication to a martyred Palestinian activist. As Sienkiewicz points out, the slogan of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland – “we will be strong in our weakness” – is a Zionist slogan legitimising the growth of the Israeli military complex. He also challenges the title of the Trilogy: “Why will Europe be stunned? Because it is less liberal than it thinks?”.xix After all, one needs only open a newspaper to discover this – there is no stunning secret. His hardest hitting point, however, concerns the absent ghosts whom Sierakowski addresses in Nightmares. He argues that those most immediately absent from the Warsaw stadium are not the 3 million Polish Jews exterminated or forced into exile by the Holocaust, but rather the immigrant stallholders who have brutally expelled by Polish Police force in recent years. Given the historical proximity of this violence, Sienkiewicz argues that if Krytyka Politycna are really serious about looking for a martyr around whom to rally, then rather than worshipping at the coffin of Sierakowski, they might do better to honour the Nigerian Maxwell Itoya, who was shot by Police at the stadium, highlighting the plight of politically unrepresented immigrants in Poland today. By choosing the empty stadium as a backdrop, without referring to the recent atrocities that took place there, Sienkiewicz implies that Krytyka Polityczna betrayed a tendency to project violence into the past, missing the opportunity to connect this history with the xenophobic policies in neoliberal Poland today. If the Bartana / Sierakowski collaboration represents Krytyka Polityczna in realpolitik mode, what does this tell us about their vision of criticism?

Sierakowski is always well armed with answers: “Everything is spectacle”, he says, “we know that, we knew from the beginning; and that in this spectacle you can never be completely outside it and you cannot act like a virus within it. We want in a sense to build a second circuit within the first one – and this is our strategy for this system”.xx Sierakowski explains: “first you have to earn positive connotations for leftist ideas, build you own means and methods of communication, and then you have to try to instil the ideas of the left with the help of open politics. We are widening public debate in Poland to include the voice of the left, making space and the conditions for the possibility of the existence of a leftist politics in this country”.xxi Whether Krytyka Polityczna can succeed in carving out a space for their voice in the political sphere as they have in the worlds of art and publishing will be interesting to see. Sierakowski recently wrote a widely debated Open Letter to the Party, published in the mainstream newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, declaring that party politics in its current, globalised, neoliberal form, in which artificial cultural debates and ‘public relations’ are fired by the mass media to produce a semblance of ideological difference between parties whose economic policies are identical, is not the pluralism for which people hoped in 1989. Recalling the legacy of Polish solidarity, he asked: “Is populism really the greatest threat to democracy, or is it the virus of cynicism that paralyses all action left of centre right?”.xxii The message is clear – cynicism and refusal to rally behind a cause are the real enemy – not populism. The trouble is that Krytyka Polityczna may, in the end, prove more cynical than populist.

Indeed, I think we would be hard pressed to find a better illustration of the cynicism Żmijewski sought to target in his ‘Applied Social Arts’ (“Instead of drawing enjoyment from the outcome of their actions, the visual and performing arts are content merely to dream of such outcomes: fantasy has supplanted reality”).xxiii The Trilogy breaks certain taboos, but in doing so, produces new ones. Ultimately it addresses the converted crowds of art-goers in Venice, rather than the Polish population. Krytyka Polityczna’s open hostility to the Catholic church is likely to prove a practical impediment to the popularisation of Leftist ideas that forms the core of their fantasy. After all, even the spectacular success of Solidarity in Poland was in part due to its endorsement by John Paul II. But perhaps this anxiety is also a symptom on cynicism, this time on my part. For now, it is interesting to watch Krytyka Polityczna continue to wrestle with leftist newspeak, the fantasy of pluralism, and the trappings of cynicism. If they eventually form a political party, as people have begun to urge them too, it will be interesting to see what their policies will be and whether their spectacular version of leftism can withstand the pressures of globalised neo-liberalism in crisis.

 

© Klara Kemp-Welch

 

Back

Arte, crítica y contexto histórico

 

44° Congreso AICA, Asunción, Paraguay, 18.10.11

 

 

 

 

Nací en un tiempo de angustias, desastres y esperanzas, y en un espacio devastado por una guerra de exterminio en el siglo XIX y por otra en que poderosas transnacionales arrojaron a dos pueblos al infierno de hambre y sed de un desierto que ocultaba un mar de petróleo, según estimaban los amos del mundo de la época. Y sobrevivo en otro siglo en que los señores de la economía y la guerra, pueden ordenar, como hace el presidente Obama, el asesinato de cualquiera que se oponga al omnímodo poder imperial y lanzar guerras genocidas conforme a su arbitrio. Un tiempo en que los tesoros de las culturas más antiguas son saqueados por los traficantes de arte de eso que llaman el primer mundo. Un tiempo en que se agotan los recursos naturales del planeta, arrasado por la codicia de monstruosas empresas trasnacionales y sus agentes políticos.

Pero nuestra época es también la de Agustín Barrios y Augusto Roa Bastos en el Paraguay, y de Picasso, Malévich, Duchamp, Joyce, Kafka, César Vallejo, Schönberg y Webern en el mundo occidental: un tiempo de creadores radicales y visionarios.

Menos visibles, algunos críticos de arte como Herbert Read y Giulio Carlo Argan han acompañado el devenir del arte moderno en su condición problemática y su dimensión social. Hoy apenas se los menciona. Pero la crítica del arte no pasa solamente por una práctica inmediatista sino también por un contexto teórico más amplio, un terreno en el que se debaten ideas contradictorias y a menudo fugaces. Pero en este ámbito han dejado ya su marca los grandes semiólogos de nuestro tiempo y el pensamiento crítico de Pierre Bourdieu y Edward Said, así como las líneas teóricas menos volubles del pensamiento artístico actual.

Hablar del arte y del pensamiento artístico desde una burbuja aséptica hoy, sobre todo, no tiene sentido. Prefiero hacerlo desde la condición problemática ―desde la crisis permanente― de una esfera de creación y crítica que ha conocido el desaliento pero no se resigna a la banalidad y la cobardía intelectual del todo vale.

Pues no, en este campo restringido y un tanto extrañado del mundo que en estos días acoge a los críticos más destacados del planeta, se han dado sin embargo expresiones significativas a partir de un entrecruzamiento de líneas estéticas y formas de vida y pensamiento diferentes.

Comenzaré recordando a un artista paraguayo acerca de quien no muchos escuchan hablar hoy. Me refiero al pintor, grabador, escultor y ceramista Julián de la Herrería, cuyo verdadero nombre era Andrés Campos Cervera. Se marchó del Paraguay en 1912 para buscar en Europa una mejor formación y se quedó en París durante toda la guerra europea del 14-18, después de pasar por Madrid y Roma. Cuando volvió a Paraguay, en 1920, hizo una exposición de pinturas que sólo tuvo un eco débil en la sociedad y en los diarios de Asunción. Crítica no hubo ninguna y hoy nos llama la atención que ni siquiera se diera en la prensa alusiones a las novedades del lenguaje pictórico, en un medio en que el gusto se hallaba aún asociado a un naturalismo de cuño académico. Poco después, Julián pasó a dedicarse casi exclusivamente a una técnica artística considerada menor, la cerámica, con la cual intentaba ganar una dimensión de sentido americano mediante la recuperación de motivos del arte prehispánico. Ya al final de su vida ―murió relativamente joven aún, a los 52 años­― volverá sus ojos a otra zona casi inexplorada, la de los temas y formas del arte popular, logrando obras de una gracia y un vuelo poético excepcionales. En su patria, el arte de Julián de la Herrería no halló eco en la crítica, simplemente inexistente todavía.

Sería su esposa y discípula Josefina Plá quien reivindicaría tras su muerte la importancia de su aporte artístico. Ella también vendría a ser, a fines de la década del 30, la primera en sustentar los valores de la modernidad artística y literaria. Con su propia obra poética, narrativa y dramática, se convertiría en maestra de los jóvenes escritores, entre ellos Augusto Roa Bastos, a principios de la década del 40. Y unos años después, encabezará el grupo Arte Nuevo, que consolida los atisbos de artistas precedentes en el camino hacia las formas del vanguardismo artístico. No se ha hecho hasta hoy una evaluación abarcadora de su vasto trabajo intelectual, en particular en el campo de la crítica, la historiografía y el ensayo artísticos. A principios de la década del 60, ella funda, junto con Ramiro Domínguez y quien les habla, la sección paraguaya de la AICA. Su labor crítica, y en general la vida cultural del Paraguay, se dio en condiciones particularmente difíciles. Una sangrienta guerra civil había aventado en 1947 a las voces más calificadas del país, que desde 1940 sufría los avatares de varios regímenes fascistoides, que alcanzaría su peor y más larga fase con la dictadura de Stroessner. En aquellos tiempos oscuros ―¡treinta y cinco años!― tuvo lugar la producción literaria y artística más desconocida de nuestra América. En el exterior del país, los transterrados Gabriel Casaccia, Hérib Campos Cervera, Augusto Roa Bastos y otros elaboraban una obra de notable valor. En el exilio interior, Josefina Plá y un grupo de artistas sustentaban, frente a la brutalidad autoritaria, los valores de la libertad y el pensamiento crítico. Algunos conocieron la cárcel y otros diversas formas de represión, como la exclusión de las aulas universitarias o el confinamiento en los márgenes de la vida social y cultural.

A pesar de ello, se fue urdiendo poco a poco un tejido crítico como contraparte de una creación artística cada vez más pujante y partícipe de las luchas de contestación a los poderes. La larga noche de la dictadura paraguaya se extendería a otros países. Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Perú, Venezuela, República Dominicana, sufrirían también los horrores de regímenes sangrientos, que llegarían a extremos no menores que los del nazi-fascismo de la primera mitad del siglo XX.

En estas circunstancias, la producción intelectual de Paraguay y de otras naciones del continente se asumió en su condición histórica problemática conjugando los signos de su expresión artística y social con la intensidad y altura de las grandes creaciones de nuestra época. ¿Necesito recordar que un gran compositor paraguayo, Agustín Barrios, es reconocido, décadas después de su muerte, como el mayor compositor de guitarra del siglo XX? ¿O que la novela Yo el Supremo, de Augusto Roa Bastos, es considerada por muchos críticos y teóricos de la literatura como la culminación del proceso de la modernidad narrativa? ¿No habrá que desocultar, ante la crítica, en el campo de las artes plásticas, otros hechos igualmente relevantes?

La crítica del arte y de la literatura, en nuestra América, no han estado ausentes a la hora de las grandes formulaciones teóricas. Recordemos los aportes de Ángel Rama y Marta Traba en Hispanoamérica, o Antonio Cándido y Mario Pedrosa, en Brasil, que anticiparon aspectos de la sociocrítica y el pensamiento poscolonial, o la casi monstruosa construcción híbrida de narratividad y universo semiótico en Yo el Supremo, de Augusto Roa Bastos, discípulo de Josefina Plá.

Esta crítica ha ido, en sus mejores expresiones, mucho más allá del divertimento erudito o estético para afirmar, desde su misma raíz problemática y agónica, frente a los señores de la guerra y la muerte de nuestra época, la dignidad del pensamiento crítico, en una apuesta por la supervivencia de la cultura de los hombres humanos (como decía el poeta César Vallejo).

Así, conjugando voluntad de expresión y conciencia crítica, se han podido dar expresiones radicales tanto en el orden de la creación artística como en el del pensamiento crítico, en un juego de espejos que, sin negar la herencia de Occidente, revela las particularidades de una condición oprimida pero insurrecta, en una dimensión estética y cultural de profundas raíces.

 

© Miguel Ángel Fernández

 

AtrásWe are sorry. We only have this lecture available in Spanish. Soon, it will be available in English.

 

Back

Lo sentimos, esta entrada solamente se encuentra disponible en Inglés. Próximamente estará disponible en Español.

 

AtrásThe Narrative of Resistence
(No Paradise in Sight)

 

44th AICA Congress, Asunción, Paraguay, 18.10.11

 

 

 

 

How did Islam and Terrorism get so deeply intertwined in the narrative of Terrorism in the mainstream media is an interesting story of engineered rhetoric in which words like crusades, jihad, ‘God is on our side’, Axis of Evil etc were used for emotive responses. In the beginning, this knee jerk reaction may have come from the political leaders of the US faced with the attacks of 9/11, but after ten years and two catastrophic wars, the fact that Islam is still in the forefront of this debate and has created a serious a trust deficit between the followers of the world’s two major religions and heightened anxieties around the world.

Tarek Fateh, in his widely read book Chasing A Mirage, The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, observes :

“ The Right ( in the West) is all too quick to see fundamentalism as culturally determined or grounded in a distinctness of Islamic ‘civilization’ as opposed to a Western , rationalist one. The Left, on its part has been wedded to an economically determined notion of exploitation via globalization and underdevelopment, to explain recent events”. 1

According to Tariq Ali, the well known author and social commentator “ Symbiotic and perfidious relationships between many Islamic groups were spawned and indulged by CIA and Imperialism ….for decades the United States had clandestinely helped jihadi groups squash pro-communist and nationalist Muslims inside the Muslim world . By the end of the 1970s, this covert practice was visible and US had become a covert supporter of international Jihad”. 2

In the last ten years researchers and commentators, and Wikileaks documents, all point to a complex architecture of espionage built and patronized by neo- imperialists makes the claims of Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, seem simplistic and uni-dimensional.

My paper focuses on the emergence of a new discursive framework that addresses the ideological crisis within Pakistan created by the country’s geographical proximity to the Afghan War and its role as the training ground for the Mujahideen during the Anti-Soviet War in Afghanistan.

This discourse is centered round moderate voices that espouse a personal and reformist Islam as opposed to the exclusivist and violent version created by extremists and un-questioningly picked up by the global media. As the mainstay of the War on Terror rhetoric, this has had an international implication that has turned a political confrontation into a religious one.

Interventions by artists and art critics to re-contextualize Islam have taken place at a particularly difficult and dangerous time for despite the repressive environment they understand the urgency to turn the tide of politicization and militant-ization of Islam with an alternative narrative that represents the views of the peaceful majority.

Pakistan, which was founded almost 65 years on the fault lines of tension between conservative religious groups and the moderate Muslim population of the Indian Sub-Continent. The independence of the new country was opposed by the leading seminaries for they distrusted Jinnah, who as a secularist lawyer envisioned a modern Pakistan. Most importantly they feared being relegated to the political fringe.

Their fears were realized when the biggest political party with a religious agenda, Jamat-e-Islami, was never accepted for a political role by Pakistanis and continued to be rejected at the ballot box till the 1980s.

The popular verdict of the Pakistani voter was discarded in 1980s when the frustrated zealots of Jamat-e- Islami got an advantage during the Anti-Soviet Afghan War. This was when the Western Powers entrusted them with the task of creating the Mujahideen or religious army, which was the ideological genesis of Al Qaida and Taliban.

Throughout the 1980s when Pakistanis suffered under the extremely repressive regime of dictator Ziaul Haq, who connived with Western powers against his people and empowered Jamat-e- Islami to open jihadi madrassas (schools with emphasis on a curricula based on orthodox teachings ) to create nurseries for the Mujahideen.

This historical chapter is aptly documented in the film Charlie Wilson’s War, A bi-product of this intervention which is lesser known is how the forced introduction of the orthodox interpretation of Islam through the national school curricula, a parallel religious judiciary (Federal Shariat Court) and religion based constitutional amendments undermined human rights. Not only did this alienate the population from its cultural moorings but the large scale infiltration of arms, fractured the nation with violence.

The religious fundamentalism used by Ziaul Haq as a tool to entrench his power was rejected and actively resisted by writers, artists, journalists and civil society activists in a movement which was brutally crushed and protestors were beaten up, jailed and tortured.

At the forefront of this resistance was painter A R Nagori whose subversive work was banned from official venues by the Zia Regime. Nagori was the first to take on the army by portraying it as a party to the state violence against the people of Pakistan. In this caricature like depiction that uses the totem pole to depicts the changing power structure under the dictator.

His series of small paintings, the size of a child’s primer, phonetically connects the alphabet to instruments of violence and oppression allude to grassroots pedagogic change and erasure of history, introduced by the Zia Regime via text books and curricula. For the madrassah’s ( traditional schools), the lessons of violence started early and ‘… even the textbooks for the Jihadi madrassah’s came from United States. In these books , the alphabet consisted of jeem for jihad , kaaf for Kalashnikov , and tay for tope ( cannon).’ 3 Here a similar work by Kadim Ali, in the revivalist miniature genre creates a page from the primer in which , Alif the equivalent of A which once stood for Anar , the Urdu word for the pomegranate, mutates into a grenade, which the children after the Afghan War had became more familiar with as their gardens of pomegranate were being destroyed by ‘daisy cutters’ and cluster bombs.

It was against this political and social backdrop of emerging extremism that artists began to introspect on challenges that pushed religion from a personal space into the public and political arena. This could only be done by breaking out of the prescribed space of Islamic Art and subverting the canon with fresh symbols. Their focus became issues of gender, freedom and knowledge, as these were the entry points of extremist manipulation.

The attempts to impose Sharia or Religious Law to validate orthodox practices by declaring it as divine law was opposed by citizens who wanted this theoretical discipline to integrate the time-space factor into its system so it could be responsive to the realities of social change.

According to progressives Muslims ‘ The Holy Quran’ lays down fundamental laws , and the working details are left out to be determined by the people according to specific circumstances’ .

Ziaul Haq introduced two very controversial Sharia based ordinances, that violated the constitutional rights of women as equal citizens. With this began the thirty year long struggle for its reversal. Despite evidence of its extensive abuse, it still has not been completely revoked because of the powerful lobby that defends it in the Parliament.

For the artists, writers and human rights activists there was no compromise on the social and political status of women and these discriminatory laws gave impetus to a home grown feminist movement that gave a strong voice to women in the national narrative.

The artists, by subverting the veil, the very garment used by the orthodox clergy to objectify and control women, transformed it into a potent symbol of autonomy and insubordination.

Aisha Khalid, since the 1980s has invested veil with new meaning in her exquisite miniature paintings. Employing the double meaning of the word purdah, that in Urdu means both the veil and curtain she has created a corpus of work that comments on social alienation caused by the forced segregation and veiling pushed into the social mainstream by the orthodox clergy. In her work floral and geometric patterns become a devise that optically expands and constricts the space around the ever present shrouded figure that sometimes becomes near invisible. Her art conveys the growing distance between societal expectation and personal freedom for a woman in Pakistan.

For sculptor Jamil Baloch who hails from the conflict ridden province of Balochistan, presents a group of larger than life completely shrouded figures titled Silence. This work was banned from display in the front courtyard of the National Art Gallery, in the capital to avoid a backlash from extremists.

His is a deliberate attempt to use scale to break the Silence. The pared down faceless forms reinforce their physical presence to all those who wish to banish unveiled women from public space. It also foregrounds the fact that any country that silences fifty percent of its population can have no hope of progress.

This politically charged work became a banner outside the National Gallery that was inaugurated by General Musharraf , five years ago, as it questioned the violation of rights and freedom enshrined in the constitution for women as citizens of Pakistan.

Mariam Agha’s installation ‘72 Virgins for my Suicide Lover’ deals with the link between sexuality and extremism. It underscores how radicalized youth are often enticed with pleasures in the afterlife. According to the training videos captured, the men brainwashed to become suicide bombers are often promised financial support for their impoverished families and a place in heaven, where according to a myth, 72 virgins await the martyr. Thus the extremists are not above bribing the youth with forbidden pleasures.

The installation based on 72 swatches of cloth bear stitched line drawings of the vagina. Embellished with beads and sequins they evoke the garments in a bride’s trousseau that is invested with the dreams of a life that sharply contrasts with the objectification of her body.

Mariam’s art questions the way extremist interpretation of Sharia denies women respect and treats them as sexual objects and points to the blatant contradiction of the women rights enshrined in Quran.

Progressive Islamic scholar Hasan Mahmud emphatically states ‘No law that perpetuates injustice against our mothers and daughters can be considered Islamic . Sharia forces Muslims to turn away from Islam’s spirit of moral guidance, and instead make ordinary Muslims pawns in a manmade political power struggle’ 6

Yet another law under the Sharia framework , against blasphemy has fueled violence and bigotry putting both Muslims and non-Muslims at risk.

The most high profile victim of the Blasphemy Law was Governor Salman Taseer after he publically declared support to a poor peasant woman on death row after she was convicted under the controversial Blasphemy Law. Salman Taseer was gunned down in the street by his own police guard, a self-confessed fanatic incited by the hate rhetoric of his religious mentor. Amean J, in a memorial to Salman Taseer uses a montage of metal plates etched with bullets to convey the violence of his death which resulted from 29 bullet wounds according to the autopsy report. Shaped like a coffin reflected in mirror that echoes its shape. The visitor reflection in the mirror suggests vulnerability when death threatened everyone who spoke out against the blasphemy law.

The murder in broad by a member of the police detail that was suppose to protect Governor Taseer, shook the nation. Even the priests who worked for the Governor House mosque were unwilling to lead his funeral prayer. The priest who finally did has had to flee the country in fear of personal safety.

In October 2011 under tremendous pressure from activists the murderer finally received the death penalty after almost 11 months of the crime. This can be seen as a minor victory of the civil society as their efforts through protest marches and an anti blasphemy law campaign in the media, showed results.

The work is a monument to Governor Taseer’s courage and to the courage of the activists who continue to struggle for the repeal of the blasphemy law.

Muslim youth indoctrinated with de-contextualized Quranic quotations on Jihad, who were once fodder for the Anti- Soviet War and later for Taliban and Al Qaida, today form the nucleus of the suicide squad that have killed over 33, 000 Pakistani citizens by mid 2011. ‘ The death cult of the jihadis ‘ evolved into a form of a death cult where the highest level of Islamic worship is to die and leave this world to its satanic existence’ explains Tarek Fateh 7. According to Tariq Ali these terrorists have no social vision as “their goal is to seek paradise, not in life but in death” 8

Artists who are a witness to this bloodstained history of bomb blasts, assassinations and drone attacks mediate with diverse aesthetic strategies. Durriya Kazi’s life size terracotta figure which was displayed in a grass patch to simulate bomb death at a roadside. Its face concealed in the grass and arms still clinging to the dead infant are a grim echo of a war fought by faceless combatants in the streets, bazaars, schools and places of worship. Made from unbaked clay and displayed in public unpaved sites, the artist’s objective it to allow it to disintegrate into the soil like the nameless victims of violence.

Nausheen Saeed’s Baked Delicacies deals with issues of loosing human empathy through over-exposure to blood and gore as she presents a life size truncated body made from baked dough in wooden bakers trays. Her work emphasizes the way tragic deaths become as routine as serving bread and yet her life-size body has the power to shock the audience into introspecting on the brutalizing effects of violence.

Inviting visitors to stand under a ‘flying carpet’ of drone like forms crafted from menacing box-cutters blades, Abdullah Syed, evokes the anxiety of a population that live under the constant threat of hovering un-manned predators. Misleadingly conveyed in the media as precise and clinical, these attacks, according to the interview of victims, are far from being so. The large number of women, elderly and children killed and maimed vastly outnumber the terrorists killed in drone attacks. This phychological scarred population has become the forgotten collateral damage of the Afghan War.

Abdulla who associates the drones with the romantic legend of flying carpets explains “ Poetically viewed the flying rug conjure dark complexities that elicit serious thought on the part of the viewer , rather than the repetition of didactic certainties or so proclaimed in extremist propaganda and the populist media.” 9

Imran Qureshi’s site specific work (Sharjah Biennale 2011) ‘Blessings Upon the Land of My Love’ covers the courtyard of a heritage building, with red pigment stains and splashes that seem to emerge from chrysanthemum like flowers painted in the same blood red pigment. Standing over the painted surface one is not sure if blood has drowned the flowers or flowers are emerging from the blood.

Bizarrely evocative of a bomb blast site, it invites refection on how public carnage sites in the recent past have been washed to destroy precious evidence. His reference is to the death of public figures like Benazir Bhutto, Governor Taseer and others.The work also reflects the artist personal encounter with a blomb blast side on the way to his children’s school.

The title Blessings Upon the Land of My Love , acts as a prayer in response to a trauma that the nation has deeply internalized.

The Madrassah, which has been a source of affordable education to impoverished millions, before they were turned into nurseries for Mujahideens in the 1980s, in recent years have been demonized by the Western media, not unlike the harem by Orientalists in the past. The work ‘ God grows on Trees” by Hamra Abbas with its 99 portraits of children is the outcome of her time spent time with madrassah students. It can be read as a ‘ critique on the ambiguity and duality on the nature of her subjects , between spirituality , militancy and her own sense of identity’. 10

Another work that mediates a space between perception, reality and stereotyping is her ‘Woman in Black’ with her aggressive posture with a stick and in a body hugging black veil deconstructs the myth of the docile veiled woman. This work is inspired by the women students of the Lal Masjid seminary who took over a neighboring Children’s library by force. When confronted by the State, hundreds appeared in black veil with sticks on the seminary roof. Later many of them died when their seminary was attacked by the army in a bid to close it down. The work combines the techniques of illuminated manuscript and stained glass, techniques identified with Christian and Islamic arts to point to osmosis of influences.

Amin Rehman who lives in Toronto focuses on global perceptions of the war on terrorism. In his encaustic paintings words become the tool to mediate an identity that is increasingly identified with Islam. With textual statements layered and stylized to resemble classic Arabic Kufic script over functional san serif fonts Amin work communicates the double speak of what has been called the ‘rhetoric of aggression’ in the media. The works deal with ‘looking both ways’ which is also the title of a work.

The artist overlays a Quranic verse that treats the killing of a soul as the killing of entire mankind with a suicide bomber claim that his act is a ticket to heaven. As one contradicts the other, the truth is lost in the propaganda of war. Perhaps the most telling is a sign stridently claiming in neon, ‘God is on our side – Allah on your side’. This unpacking of cultural, religious and political dichotomies quoted by the extremists and media to support their agenda. In the end his art calls attention to the power of language, its presentation and accessibility.

 

Conclusion

The contemporary art in conversation with Islam is personal, experiential and activist as it treads into a new territory previously closed to them by anti-ijtihad religious scholars that had closed the door on discussion on scholarly interpretation of Quran. The contemporary artists with this corpus of interventionist art, transcends the historical frames of reference that have connected art and Islam only through a precise and sanctioned format with little space for individual interpretation.

The art critics provide the didactic to interpret the art that questions what, Tarek Fateh calls Islamo- fascism and provide the context of a nation’s splintered unity through systematic erasure of history and exploitation of religion. This re-thinking and re-visualizing prompted by the anti-tolerance, anti-humanist environment has made this art an important document of 21st century terrorism.

Any serious attempt to study the ideological crisis spawned by terrorism in Islamic countries calls for a new theoretical framework free of interpretative limitations and one that takes into account cultural and religious sensitivities. It needs to be a discursive space free of ideological privileges so it can gain legitimacy outside the existing centers of power.

Such a framework has begun to evolve in countries where artists and critics are working against extremism to further progressive Islam “By eliminating the spirit of imitation and obedience that is the hallmark of popular religion and replacing it with a critical revolutionary , aggressive spirit of independent reasoning ”. 11

 

Notes

1- Pg 300, Fateh, Tarek, Chasing A Mirage, The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State Publisher : John Wiley & Sons , Canada, Ltd. 2008

2- Pg 273, Fateh Tarek, Chasing A Mirage, The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State. 2008

Pg 300, Fateh, Tarek, Chasing A Mirage, The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State Publisher : John Wiley & Sons , Canada, Ltd. 2008

3- Pg 273, Fateh Tarek, Chasing A Mirage, The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State. 2008

3-Pg 269, Fateh, Tarek , Chasing A Mirage, The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, 2008

4-Pg 239, Fateh,Tarek, Chasing A Mirage, The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, 2008

5- pg 122, Ali Amra, No Honor in Killing – Making Visible Buried Truth, NuktaArt, Vol 6, One 2011

6- pg 249, Fateh Tarek, Chasing A Mirage, The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, 2008

7- pg 272 Fateh, Tarek, Chasing A Mirage, The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, 2008

8- pg 280 Arooj Zia, Learn from Latin America, The Daily Times, Lahore, Sept 5, 2007

9- Pg 155, Artists Statement, Exhibition Catalog, The Rising Tide, New Directions in Art From Pakistan 1990- 2010,

10- pg 45, Ali, Amra , The Pakistani Diasporas- A Home Perspective , NuktaArt Vol 5, Two, 2010. www.nuktaartmag.com

11- Ali Shariati, Modernization and Islam: Refinement of Cultural Resources and from where we should begin? http:/ www. Ghazali.net/book4/ Appendix I appendix –i.html.

 

© Niilofur Farrukh

 

Back

Lo sentimos, esta entrada solamente se encuentra disponible en Francés. Próximamente estará disponible en Español.

 

AtrásLa création en Afrique et la crise mondiale: Une nouvelle revendication humaniste

 

44th AICA Congress, Asunción, Paraguay, 18.10.11

 

 

 

 

La mondialisation et la crise, qui l’accompagne, n’épargnent pas l’Afrique, fragilisée par de nombreuses difficultés : l’aggravation de la pauvreté, la famine, les pandémies, les conflits interethnique et interreligieux, auxquelles il faut ajouter les violations des droits de l’homme.. L’Afrique n’en a pas le monopole. Mais c’est en Afrique où la situation est la plus préoccupante. Nous sommes en présence d’une crise profonde des valeurs, une véritable crise morale caractérisée par le triomphe de l’individualisme et de l’argent, un renversement des valeurs qui résulte de l’abandon d’une logique communautaire basée sur la solidarité au profit d’une logique de l’individu qui conduit à l’indifférence.

Un tel contexte ne peut être favorable au développement, à la démocratie, à la paix. La question qui se pose est donc de savoir si l’Afrique a la capacité de résister ou, pour parler comme HESSEL, de s’indigner. D’où peut-elle tirer l’inspiration, l’énergie nécessaire pour surmonter ces difficultés, si ce n’est de son propre fond, de ses traditions, de sa propre culture ? Mon intention est précisément de répondre à cette inquiétude et de montrer que malgré un environnement souvent désespérant et désolant, elle a pu trouver la force de faire face au destin, de résister et d’innover particulièrement dans le domaine de la résolution des conflits et dans celui de la création. C’est avec confiance et presque naturellement que s’impose aujourd’hui le modèle sud-africain de la fameuse Commission Vérité et Réconciliation. Mais, en même temps, l’on observe sur le continent une prodigieuse vitalité artistique qui se manifeste non seulement par la diversité et la richesse des productions culturelles mais par la participation des artistes eux-mêmes à l’effort de vérité, de justice et de paix, sur le continent et partout ailleurs dans le monde, contribution de l’Afrique à ce que Edgar Morin appelle la « nouvelle revendication humaniste. »

J’articulerai mon analyse autour de trois axes que j’intitule :

1) Tradition africaine de résolution des conflits : la Parole poétique

2) Création artistique, Vérité, Justice et Réconciliation

3) Les créations d’Ousmane SOW, un exemple, comme appel à la « nouvelle revendication humaniste ».

 

I

Il n’est pas exagéré de penser que de tous les problèmes que nous avons à résoudre aujourd’hui en Afrique, le problème de la vérité, de la justice, de la réconciliation et de la paix est le plus préoccupant. Ces dernières années le continent a été le théâtre de multiples foyers de tensions et de conflits internes. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Prix Nobel de la Paix, Présidente de la République du Libéria, faisait remarquer que « quand la vérité émerge, l’humanité se rachète de la lâcheté et se libère des griffes de la violence ». La question de la vérité, de la justice et de la réconciliation ne concerne pas uniquement que l’Afrique. Le monde nous offre en effet un spectacle de discordes, de divisions ethniques, sociales, religieuses qui engendrent des guerres et la violence, favorisent la haine. Mais, c’est en Afrique que ce besoin de vérité, de justice et réconciliation est le plus pressant du fait de l’inculture grave en matière de politique des dirigeants , de leur mépris des droits humains qu’ils violent allègrement sans état d’âme avec un sentiment de totale impunité, quant à la religion et aux institutions religieuses, ils ne s’y intéressent que pour les instrumentaliser à des fins autres que spirituelles, incapables, par ailleurs, de concevoir que l’on puisse résoudre un différend autrement que par la force et la violence. Ils sont plus préoccupés de sauvegarder leurs intérêts personnels, leurs privilèges que de promouvoir la vérité, la justice et la réconciliation.

Il est inutile de citer des pays, nous les avons tous en mémoire. Mais là où commence la difficulté c’est après la cessation du conflit quand on n’a pas su le prévenir. Comment reconstituer l’unité d’une nation dont les membres se sont violemment opposés. Quelle stratégie de résolution des conflits mettre en place afin d’assurer une paix durable qui repose à la fois sur la vérité, la justice et la réconciliation, qui puisse garantir la démocratie et le développement ? Nelson Mandela, à la fin de l’Apartheid, alors président de l’ANC, a été confronté à ce problème. Il lui a fallu de la volonté pour imposer à son peuple sceptique qu’il était nécessaire de faire table-rase de toutes les atrocités commises durant la période de l’Apartheid au profit de la paix. Si l’on voulait que le pays survive, il fallait nécessairement se réconcilier. La Commission Vérité et Justice a donc été créée et la présidence confiée à l’Archevêque du Cape Monseigneur Desmond TUTU.

Le modèle sud-africain a été suivi, avec quelques variantes, partout où un processus de démocratisation a conduit à des traumatismes graves : en Sierra Leone, au Liberia, en Guinée-Conakry, en Côte d’Ivoire. Les autorités d’Abidjan ont dénommé la Commission « Commission pour le dialogue, la vérité et la réconciliation ». Dans le cas du Rwanda, c’est le Tribunal Pénal International qui a été chargé de juger les principaux responsables du génocide. Le gouvernement rwandais a cependant estimé utile de créer à côté du TPI une structure puisée au plus profond de la culture du peuple Rwandais : le GACHACHA qui donne une voie de recours au dialogue, à la rencontre entre bourreaux et victimes pour permettre une réconciliation pour le futur. C’est d’une certaine façon ce modèle ancestral, le GACHACHA, que reprennent implicitement les Commissions Vérité et Réconciliation dans leur différentes variantes. C’est parce qu’elles renvoient à la culture africaine qu’elles sont adoptées presque naturellement par les pays où elles ont été mises en place.

Mais il faut préciser qu’avant les commissions vérité et réconciliation l’Afrique avait fait l’expérience dans les années 1980 d’une autre forme de stratégie visant la résolution des conflits. Il s’agit des Conférences nationales. La première fois qu’elle a été expérimentée, c’était au Bénin sous le régime du Président Kérékou. La particularité de la Conférence nationale du modèle béninois était de suspendre la constitution sans y toucher, sans l’abolir, et d’organiser le dialogue entre les parties, avec pour effet d’empêcher le recours à la violence. Au Bénin elle a permis une transition démocratique sans violence.

Toutes ces formes de stratégie de résolution des conflits, de lutte contre la violence, initiées en Afrique et expérimentées dans plusieurs Etats, les conférences nationales, les commissions vérité et réconciliation, le Gachacha s’apparente à une pratique ancestrale de la culture africaine : la palabre qui se déroulait sous l’arbre à palabre. Il s’agit autrement dit de la proise de Parole, la Parole Poétique ou Poïétique, c’est-à-dire celle qui crée la culture. Les écrivains et poètes de la Négritude l’ont bien vu. Permettez-moi de citer deux vers d’un de ses amis que Senghor reprend dans son Dialogue sur la poésie francophone

 

Rien ne subsiste que par la Parole

Rien n’est créé que pour la Parole

 

Notre analyse nous conduit à l’art par le biais de la Parole poétique. Il s’agit en effet d’instaurer le dialogue, de se parler, de réapprendre à se parler, en reconnaissant ses responsabilités dans les actes qui ont été commis, de solliciter le pardon faisant appel à l’intelligence et au cœur de l’autre. La force de la Parole c’est de réunir, de créer les conditions de la reconnaissance mutuelle des hommes comme hommes, comme personnes humaines, sujets libres. Tout art est poésie. La poésie, selon Senghor, est parole plaisante au cœur et à l’oreille. Pourquoi au cœur ? Parce qu’elle nous touche, elle crée une émotion. Précisément l’art, la création n’a pas pour fonction de transformer le réel ou de résoudre les problèmes, sa fonction est de nous toucher, d’éveiller et de réveiller en nous l’humain.

L’on peut rappeler ici le témoignage de Jacques Derrida qui dans un entretien revient sur une exposition qu’il avait organisée en 1983 « Art contre Apartheid » avec des artistes dont les œuvres s’adressaient aux noirs victimes de l’Apartheid. L’exposition qui avait circulé partout en France lui avait été présentée, 13 ans plus tard, en 1996, lors d’une visite au Parlement du Cape. De son propre aveu il n’imaginait pas, au moment où il montait cette exposition, qu’il lui serait donné de la voir dans une Afrique du Sud démocratique et libérée de l’Apartheid. Cette exposition par les œuvres qui la composaient se voulait un témoignage d’artistes, contribution à la lutte contre l’Apartheid. C’est l’illustration de la double nature de l’art : « appel » et « dénonciation », appel à la conversion des cœurs, à « l’ indignation » et à « l’engagement ». Cette conviction est partagée par le danseur chorégraphe Burkinabé, Salia Sanou, qui l’exprime autrement : « Je persiste à penser, dit-il, que danser est un acte social et un acte politique et que plus largement, être un artiste c’est d’abord être à l’écoute de la société. »

Il s’agit donc de redécouvrir notre commune humanité oubliée du fait des traumatismes vécus. Ce qui exige une véritable conversion, un retour sur soi. Hélène Cixous qui s’est intéressée au génocide cambodgien perpétré par les Kmers rouges et qui a consacré des études sur ce drame, nous éclaire sur le travail physique et psychologique indispensable à la reconquête de soi après un traumatisme de cette gravité : « Lorsqu’un pays a terriblement souffert, et par la violence qu’ont exercée sur lui les grandes puissances brutales, et par ses propres cruautés intestines, il a vitalement besoin de refaire connaissance avec lui-même par la mémoire, le récit, la réflexion, la rude vérité. Il a besoin de cultiver ses racines, bien et mal mêlés. » Ces propos qui se rapportent au Cambodge peuvent s’appliquer également à l’Afrique.

 

II

Est-ce la raison pour laquelle les arts se développent en Afrique avec autant de vitalité ? Il suffit de voyager à travers l’Afrique pour se rendre compte de la prodigieuse vitalité artistique du continent. Malgré la crise économique et financière qui a des répercussions en Afrique, les activités artistiques continuent à se développer. Des manifestations culturelles à vocation nationale, régionale ou internationale sont organisées régulièrement depuis plusieurs années : le Festival mondial des arts nègres dont la première édition à eu lieu à Dakar en 1966, a connu sa troisième édition, revenant à Dakar, en 2010, le FESPACO à Ouagadougou au Burkina Faso, la photographie à Bamako, au Mali, la Biennale de l’art africain contemporain de Dakar, le DAK’ART, qui en 2012 organisera sa 20ème édition, à laquelle le Président de l’AICA Internationale, le professeur Yacouba Konaté, a consacré un ouvrage fort utile. et d’autres manifestations dans le domaine de la Danse, de la Musique programmées dans chaque pays, constituent désormais des événements qui attirent les artistes du continent et d’ailleurs. Ce sont là des occasions de rencontres enrichissantes entre la jeune génération et les aînés, une opportunité pour les jeunes talents de se faire connaître. La circulation de nos artistes ne se limite pas à l’intérieur de l’Afrique, elle s’étend hors d’Afrique malgré les nombreux obstacles qu’ils rencontrent liés à la règlementation draconienne des services de l’immigration. Parce qu’ils ont foi en la création comme acte de témoignage, de résistance, de dénonciation, ils parviennent, pour certains, à participer au rendez-vous internationaux hors d’Afrique. Beaucoup, principalement parmi les chorégraphes, émigrent et s’installent à l’étranger en France ou au Canada. Plusieurs sont des ambassadeurs nommés par les organisations internationales et sillonnent le monde en participant à l’effort de vérité, de justice, de réconciliation, de la paix.

Un événement mérite d’être souligné. En effet, au dernier Synode des Evêques pour l’Afrique, qui a eu lieu en 2009 au Vatican, consacré au thème de la réconciliation, de la justice et de la paix, l’on a pu remarqué parmi les invités du Pape Benoît XVI des artistes africains dont le célèbre artiste Congolais « Papa Wemba ». C’est la religion qui s’associe à l’art pour faire triompher la vérité, la justice, la réconciliation et la paix. Il y a de la noblesse dans l’art quand on ne le limite pas au simple divertissement, au futile. Ce n’est pas hasard si le Pape Benoît XVI, lors de sa dernière visite en France, a donné une conférence sur les arts et la culture, au collège des Bernardins, devant un public d’artistes et d’écrivains, des hommes et des femmes de culture. Les religieux s’aperçoivent en effet qu’ils ont une responsabilité dans l’avenir de la paix dans le monde.».

On aurait pu citer d’autres artistes, le Reggaeman Alpha Blondy. Dans le domaine de la chorégraphie nous constatons un dynamisme qui ne s’explique que par le réseau de manifestations culturelles sur lequel elle s’appuie dont les deux maillons importants sont constitués par les Rencontres chorégraphiques de l’Afrique et de l’Océan Indien, initiées en 2995 par Alphonse Tiérou, un Ivoirien, historien et théoricien de la danse. La création à Dakar dans les années 1975 à la demande de Léopold Sédar SENGHOR, de Mudra Afrique, parrainée par Maurice Béjart et dirigée par la danseuse chorégraphe Germaine Acogny qui a créé à quelques kilomètres de Dakar sa propre école de danse « l’Ecole des Sables », à Toubab Dialaw. Les deux premières éditions des Rencontres chorégraphiques ont eu lieu à Luanda, en Angola, alors en guerre. Elles se voulaient porteuses de messages d’espoir et de paix, un appel aux hommes à vivre non au rythme des canons et des armes, mais au rythme des danses du continent. L’engagement de l’artiste en faveur de la paix demeure, on le voit, quelle que soit la situation vécue.

Il n’ya pas lieu de procéder à une analyse détaillée de chaque œuvre d’artiste et dans tous les genres. Il nous suffit simplement, ici, à cette étape de notre réflexion, de remarquer que la plupart de nos artistes africains de réputation nationale et internationale tiennent à s’imprégner de leurs cultures, à garder de solides racines rythmiques africaines. Leur apport à l’effort de vérité, de justice, de réconciliation et de paix, qui est, me semble-t-il, l’enjeu majeur de ce début du XXIème siècle est à ce prix. La notion d’enracinement a quelque rapport avec la terre. Le déraciné est « privé de sol ». En d’autres termes : « être déraciné, cela veut dire n’avoir pas de place dans le monde, reconnue et garantie par les autres ». La formule est de Hannah Arendt que cite Soko Phay- Vakalis dans son article consacré à deux artiste Cambodgiens Vann Nath et Sera. Le danseur et chorégraphe Béninois Koffi Kôkô insiste sur « cet ancrage au sol », il constitue, selon lui, notre manière d’être sur terre qui explique que l’Afrique résiste encore. Nous reviennent comme en écho ces vers de Senghor :

 

« Ils nous disent les hommes du coton du café de l’huile

Ils nous disent les hommes de la mort.

Nous sommes les hommes de la danse, dont les pieds reprennent

Vigueur en frappant le sol dur. »

 

Ce rapport au sol, à la terre , donc aux traditions ancestrales, aux cultures, est essentiel. Dans ce rapport il y a plus que de la physique. Il s’agit de faire corps avec la vie. Ce que les artistes d’Afrique apportent et témoignent à travers leurs productions, dans ce monde en crise, c’est le sens de la vie. C’est cette dimension que je voudrai davantage analyser en rentrant dans le détail de l’œuvre d’un artiste Sénégalais, un sculpteur, Ousmane SOW.

 

III

Ancien kinésithérapeute, il est devenu le sculpteur que nous connaissons aujourd’hui, après avoir exercé pendant plusieurs années son métier en France, plus exactement, à Montreuil-Sous-Bois, puis à Paris dans le 20e me.: « J’ai appris l’anatomie, dit-il, non dans le but de faire la sculpture, mais dans celui de soigner le corps humain ». Il fait remarquer, dans le même entretien, que « le corps humain est une architecture » avant de regretter que l’on n’étudie pas l’anatomie aux Beaux-Arts. Son œuvre porte la marque de ses racines africaines que nous rappelle les noms qu’il a donnés à ses créations : NOUBA, MASAI, ZOUOU, PEULH. L’analyse de ses créations, LITTLE BIG HORN qui met en scène les Indiens d’Amérique ou celle intitulée Victor HUGO, finit toujours par révéler le lien avec l’Afrique.

Ce qu’il nous représente dans son œuvre c’est le corps. C’est par là qu’il m’intéresse. Il a une connaissance parfaite de l’anatomie, de la musculature. Il a une sensibilité tactile qu’il a acquise après plusieurs années de pratique de son métier de kinésithérapeute, ce qui a contribué, dira-t-il, à le « décomplexer », à le rendre libre par rapport au corps. Il précise lui-même sa pensée : « le fait d’avoir travaillé sur le corps humain m’a permis la liberté. Je sais jusqu’où aller sans faire un monstre, sans défigurer. Je connais les limites ». En d’autres termes, les personnages qu’il nous présente dans ses créations ne sont pas des monstres. S’ils nous paraissent démesurés, gigantesques, ils ne sont pas difformes ni laids, Il n’y a pas d’erreur dans les proportions, il n’y a pas de désordre. Il faut avoir vu ses œuvres pour se convaincre qu’elles sont le résultat d’un long travail et d’une longue réflexion, une méditation, sur le corps humain. C’est la médecine qui l’a mieux préparé à son métier d’artiste, à la sculpture, « l’art souverain » dont Senghor dira « qu’il est parmi les arts plastiques, l’art le plus typique ».

Ces sculptures nous frappent au premier abord par leur étrangeté. Elles sont, en effet, énormes, monumentales, bien que de taille humaine, imposantes par leur volume, par la force, la puissance qu’elles dégagent. Ces personnages ont besoin d’espace. La vie a toujours besoin d’espace. Je les ai vues, lors de l’exposition sur le Pont des Arts, à Paris. Elles ont été exposées dans plusieurs pays, y compris à Dakar, partout où elles pouvaient être vues et même touchées, où on pouvait en faire le tour, grandeur-nature. Ce qui retient l’attention, c’est l’impression qu’elles nous donnent d’être en dialogue, d’être en mouvement. Pour le percevoir, il faut du recul, une certaine distance. L’artiste le reconnaît lui-même. Commentant l’attitude de l’un de ses personnages, la « femme Peulh » entrain de tresser un autre personnage, il fait observer qu’elle a les mains levées, le regard orienté, elle est ni debout, ni assise, et cependant ses mains travaillent. C’est qu’elle est en mouvement. Le mouvement est encore bien plus visible avec LITTLE BIG HORN, qui met en scène la dernière bataille livrée par les Indiens, tribus Sioux et Cheyennes rassemblées, contre les Américains, dernière bataille, mais victorieuse, gagnée par les Chefs, aux noms mythiques pour ceux de ma promotion, habitués des Westerns, SITTING BULL, CRAZY HORSE, Chief GALL. L’histoire nous apprend, par ailleurs, que les Indiens paieront très cher le massacre des soldats américains commandés alors par le Général CUSTER, qui lui-même sera tué au cours d’un corps à corps, seul combat, semble- t’il, digne de ce nom pour un Sioux. Comment expliquer qu’ils n’aient pas tiré profit de leur victoire ? Ils seront, quatorze ans plus tard, anéantis par l’armée américaine. Est-ce parce qu’ils n’ont pas tenu compte de la mise en garde de leur Chef SITTING BULL qui les avait pourtant prévenus en ces termes : « Tuez-les, mais ne prenez pas leurs fusils, ni leurs chevaux. Ne les dépouillez pas. Si vous fixez vos cœurs sur les biens des Blancs, cela provoquera une invasion de cette nation ». Ils ne l’ont pas écouté : « parce que vous avez pris les dépouilles, leur dira-t-il alors , vous convoiterez désormais les biens de l’homme Blanc, vous serez à sa merci, il vous affamera ». IL y a bien d’autres raisons que celles-là qu’il n’est pas nécessaire d’évoquer.

Mais revenons à nos personnages, à la création, à la représentation de cette bataille qui fut un véritable carnage le long de la rivière Little Big Horn. Imaginez un véritable champ de bataille. CRAZY HORSE à cheval s’élançant vers un assaillant, ici, à terre, gisant. le Général Custer tué à bout portant, plus loin, un Indien écorchant un soldat, là une scène de scalp, des combats au corps-à corps, ou encore des soldats qui se battent dos à dos, à côté des chevaux morts qui s’empilent les uns sur les autres. Un peu plus loin, vous apercevez au centre, d’autres chefs Indiens, TWO MOON, Chief CALL, SITTING BULL.

Il ne s’agit pas d’une représentation sur toile, semblable à GUERNICA de PICASSO. Ces personnages sont des êtres qui campent dans un espace réel, des êtres, certes sculptés, mais en mouvement, en action. Ils ne sont pas figés. Un soldat, ici, enlève la selle de son cheval blessé, plus loin encore des combattants blessés prennent la fuite. Que dire des traits de ces valeureux guerriers, de leurs regards, de leur énergie, de leur force, leur résistance, leur cris, leurs peurs, de leur angoisse, de leurs souffrances. Les soldats comme leurs chevaux passent par toutes sortes d’émotions. C’est presque comme un film qui se déroule sous nos yeux. La puissance évocatrice de ces sculptures est fascinante. Elles nous paraissent insolites, c’est-à-dire qu’elles nous surprennent, elles sont en rupture avec ce que nous avons l’habitude de voir. Comment de simples mains d’homme peuvent-elles, modelant la matière, la terre, la triturant, la déformant, la transformant pour la dompter, la plier à ce que l’artiste veut exprimer, parviennent-elles à insuffler une telle puissance ? Focillon a fait l’éloge de la main dans La vie des formes. Ousmane SOW fait l’éloge du corps. Et tout en étant hors norme, démesurés par la grosseur des muscles, la profondeur des regards, l’expression des visages, la lourdeur des corps, il se dégage, en même temps, de ces créations,- car NOUBA, MASAI, ZOULOU, PEULH, LITTLE BIG HORN, sont des créations dont chacune se compose de thèmes mettant en scène des personnages, insolites, comme venus d’ailleurs, – une harmonie des formes, une légèreté et une simplicité des gestes, une élégance des postures et attitudes, une sérénité des visages, une gravité aussi qui rassurent. Autant de traits qui, comme un envoûtement, vous aspirent. Vous captivent. Votre esprit s’arrête. Ce qui vous captive c’est l’irruption du corps renouvelé, subitement, sa beauté. L’on ne peut qu’être bouleversé par la puissance de la vérité du réel, la beauté d’évocation, le talent de l’artiste. Le corps une œuvre de beauté, une nouvelle création ! L’émotion qui s’empare alors de notre être nous projette hors de nous-mêmes pour répondre à l’appel au partage, au dialogue qui nous vient de ces créations. Nous atteignons là l’essence poétique de l’œuvre. L’œuvre poétique provoque en soi un choc, au point d’être tiré hors de soi, de s’arracher à soi, d’être jeté dans un rêve ou contraint de descendre au plus profond de soi, à la racine de l’être. Nous sommes prêts à donner à ces sculptures des sentiments humains tant est puissant ce qui s’y exprime d’humain. Ces sculptures bien charnelles, terreuses et majestueuses que nous disent-elles ? Elles « disent la permanence de l’homme, de son corps, de ses désirs et de ses rêves ». Ce qui signifie qu’il y a quelque chose de l’ordre du spirituel qui résonne, qui s’entend. Mais encore faut-il savoir regarder et écouter.

Une de ses critiques nous invite a reconnaître que l’un des caractères singuliers du travail de l’artiste c’est de dire et de dévoiler l’injustice dans une approche toujours renouvelée de l’expression formelle et spatiale, susciter l’émotion des grands textes immémoriaux qui gouvernent l’humanité. La création ZOULOU, par exemple, évoque le grand chef ZOULOU d’Afrique du Sud CHAKA qui a inspiré plusieurs leaders africains. Senghor lui a dédié un poème dont je me permets de vous lire un extrait, le songe de Chaka, qui a quelque rapport avec notre réflexion.

 

«Mon calvaire.

Je voyais dans un songe tous les pays aux quatre coins de

L’horizon soumis à la règle, à l’équerre et au compas

Les forêts fauchées les collines anéanties, vallons et fleuves

Dans les fers.

Je voyais les pays aux quatre coins de l’horizon sous la grille

Tracée par les doubles routes de fers

Je voyais les peuples du Sud comme une fourmilière de

Silence

Au travail. Le travail est saint, mais le travail n’est plus

le geste

Le tam-tam ni la voix ne rythment plus les gestes des saisons.

Peuples du Sud dans les chantiers, les ports les mines les

Manufactures

Et le soir ségrégés dans les kraals de la misère.

Et les peuples entassent des montagnes d’or noir d’or rouge

Et ils crèvent de faim.

Et je vis un matin, sortant de la brume de l’aube, la forêt

Des têtes laineuses

Les bras fanés le ventre cave, des yeux et des lèvres immenses

Appelant un dieu impossible.

Pouvais-je rester sourd à tant de souffrances bafouées ?»

 

Ces sculptures nous parlent, leur forme est parole. Elles parlent à la fois à l’intelligence et à nos sens. Mais l’intelligence ou la raison, devenue orgueilleuse, parce que triomphante, a tendance à vouloir seule chercher à comprendre, en cherchant des proportions, des rapports de grandeur. Elle sera alors toujours déçue, car, ici, tout est beauté, charme, volupté, force et rythme.

C’est par-là que l’œuvre d’Ousmane SOW rejoint, même s’il ne le dit pas aussi nettement, – « l’essentiel, dira-t-il, c’est d’appartenir à une civilisation à une ethnie, à un pays »,- la statuette africaine, l’Art Nègre selon les écrivains et artistes de la Négritude ou l’Art africain expression qui semble avoir aujourd’hui la préférence. On l’a comparé à RODIN, GIACOMETTI, BOURDELLE, MAILLOL, Camille CLAUDEL. Ils nous introduisent dans un monde de significations, de valeurs, un monde éthique. Il y a, en effet, de mon point de vue, une parfaite continuité entre la statuette africaine et les NOUBA, les MASAI, ZOULOU, PEULH, les Indiens et leurs chevaux. Par leurs formes, également insolites, elles révèlent la vie, la force, le mouvement que Senghor appelle le rythme.

Nous ne connaissons pas les auteurs de ces œuvres qui existent dans le musée imaginaire de l’art Nègre, dans les pays du Nord et chez les collectionneurs. Certaines de ces créations manifestement n’ont pu être faites que par des artistes qui possédaient aussi une connaissance, certes empirique, de l’anatomie. La fonction sociale de l’art qui avait aussi sa place dans la médecine traditionnelle exigeait quelques compétences. Certains pensent aussi, c’est le point de vue du théoricien de la danse, Alphonse Tiérou , que ces statuettes africaines révèlent, quand on sait les regarder, qu’elles traduisent un mouvement, qu’elles ne sont pas figées, qu’elles ont des pauses de danseurs. Il y aurait donc une correspondance entre la sculpture et la danse. Sculpture et danse glorifient la vie, qui est mouvement, rythme, plénitude.

Dans un brillant essai sur les rapports de Senghor à la philosophie et à l’art africain, Souleymane Bachir Diagne évoque le texte du Président-Poète « Ce que l’homme noir apporte » dont il résume la pensée : « Découvrir cet apport, en comprenant pleinement ce dont témoignent les formes qu’il sculpte, lorsqu’il est artiste, dans la pierre, le bois, le bronze ou les mots, c’est aller alors à la recherche d’un vrai monde qui existe et non s’en inventer poétiquement un, contrairement à ce que dit Sartre. C’est sur cette voie que Senghor invite à entrer dans un univers tissé de rythmes dont il dit qu’il est ce que découvre la vision de l’artiste africain. » En clair, l’art africain ne se livre à nous que si nous savons regarder, écouter, faire un avec l’objet.

Ousmane SOW dira du corps qu’il est une architecture. La statuette africaine comme les sculptures démesurées, et nous savons en quel sens il faut l’entendre, sont sous-tendues par une métaphysique, une ontologie de la force et du rythme. Elles révèlent une réalité derrière ou sous les apparences physiques visibles. Cette sous-réalité est la réalité même. D’où la spiritualité de l’objet. Nous sommes donc en présence d’un autre monde, d’une autre humanité, autre parce qu’elle est nouvelle pour nous. Nous la découvrons subitement, humanité que nous cherchons à laquelle nous aspirons, et pourtant présente, une vraie humanité, un vrai monde, qui demande pour être vu que l’on fasse appel au cœur, à l’émotion, à l’intuition au sens bergsonien. L’art a ici une fonction d’éveil, de critique. Il nous rappelle qui nous sommes et ce que nous sommes : matière et esprit, une conscience incarnée.

La démarche de l’artiste Sénégalais que j’ai tenté de montrer est un appel à une nouvelle revendication humaniste. Avec l’œuvre d’Ousmane Sow, l’art, la création en Afrique ne s’essouffle pas. Elle nous met en garde contre l’orientation prise par la science moderne, les sciences biomédicales, qui la rend incapable de décrire la réalité humaine d’une manière qui soit à la fois scientifiquement rationnelle et philosophiquement respectueux de l’intégralité de son être. Elle nous met en garde contre l’excessive commercialisation du corps dans le monde d’aujourd’hui, manipulé de mille manières Si nous percevons clairement ce que l’anatomie apporte aux Beaux-arts, à la sculpture, mais peut-être que ce que l’art apporte à la science, sur quoi repose le progrès de notre monde d’aujourd’hui mérite-t-il d’être plus explicite. Qu’est-ce que le corps ? Qu’est-ce que le corps humain ? Il n’est pas que matière. Il est plus que cela, langage universel, en tant que reflet de notre âme plongeant ses racines au plus profond de notre culture, de notre propre histoire. L’art parce qu’il est poésie nous touche, parle à notre âme, notre conscience , reflet de la société. C’est à cette question centrale que nous sommes conduits. C’est la même chose que de se demander qu’est-ce que l’homme ?

C’est donc à redécouvrir notre humanité vraie que nous invite l’œuvre des artistes africains. Elles démontrent par leur dynamisme et leur vitalité que l’art en Afrique n’est pas en crise mais qu’il demeure plus que jamais critique : « appel » et « dénonciation ».

 

© Aloyse – Raymond Ndiaye

 

Back

Lo sentimos, esta entrada solamente se encuentra disponible en Inglés. Próximamente estará disponible en Español.

 

AtrásPublic Art in Age of Government Austerity

 

44th AICA Congress, Asunción, Paraguay, 18.10.11

 

 

 
Although the policy objectives of public art have been reformulated frequently over the practice’s relatively short history in the United States, the installation of public art within the urban fabric has always been—and I would argue is inherently—a political exercise. The promotion of public art, however, has a tendency to create false consensus and mask underlying political objectives by appearing to advance the seemingly neutral and uncontroversial policy of urban beautification, so it is important to subject these objectives to critical scrutiny. In my talk today, I will bring public art outside the bounds of aesthetic discourse and criticism and resituate it within urban discourse in order to understand its relationship to economic and political conditions. Today, the role of government in American society is being debated and questioned—in healthcare, in the regulation of the financial system, in cities, and, indeed, in the arts, so I wonder…in what ways does public art reflect this?

To answer this question, I will backtrack a bit in time to talk about public art during the Great Depression, an important historical precedent of “art-as-stimulus.” I will discuss the emergence of public art as a tool of economic development following New York City’s fiscal crisis in the 1970s. And finally, I will use Olafur Eliasson’s New York City-based piece The Waterfalls as a case study to understand the impact of the current economic crisis on the practice and evaluation of public art.

The Great Depression has frequently been referenced in the popular and business media as a relevant counterpoint to the most recent recession from which the global economy is still reeling. Though the more responsible economic forecasters never predicted anything of its magnitude, casual references abound, from the “Great Recession” to the “Lesser Depression” to talk of the “worst crisis since the Great Depression.” While less has been made of the comparison of public art during the Great Depression compared to public art during the present economic crisis—perhaps because the idea of art as stimulus is a distant one—a closer examination of this era may reveal intricacies in the relationship of public art to its political and economic context that are pertinent today.

The New Deal’s socially progressive programs greatly advanced government patronage of the arts. From 1933 to 1943, artists produced more than a hundred thousand artworks with government support, administered by alphabet agencies like the PWAP, the WPA, and the TRAP, with the goal of facilitating economic recovery and job creation. For the largest program, the Works Progress (later, Works Projects) Administration’s Federal Art Project, artists were given work on the basis of financial need rather than the merit of past work or a proposal for future work.

This art established the federal government’s role as benefactor to neighborhoods and communities and symbolized it’s changed and changing relationship to the people: during the Great Depression, the federal government built housing, regulated the stock market, provided relief, and became a patron of the arts for the first time. For the first time, too, the federal government established a visual presence in remote towns and rural areas in the form of post office murals and sculpture, which reflected a shift in power away from state and local governments to the federal government, a shift that was justified by the belief that the federal government was better equipped to deal with the pervasive structural and economic problems that were plaguing the country. This shift did not occur without resistance, however, and the tension between regional and national identity played out in many commissioned pieces.

Another tension that emerged was that between the ideals of fine art and democracy, a polarity that continues to dominate the debate on public art today. Most New Deal public art employed a visual language of American art accessible to a broad public, rather than an academic or avant-garde elite. Abstract painters, for example were excluded from most commissions, which is the main reason art produced during this period and its legacy has been largely neglected by modernist-formalist art historians and critics that treat American art as beginning with Abstract Expressionism. Despite laudable democratic ambitions, commissioning agencies reserved final approval of any mural or sculpture and at times sought to influence the entire creative process. This is a big part of the New Deal era public art’s complicated legacy.

We see further complications in New York in the 1970s, when the city faced an unprecedented fiscal crisis. The city barely avoided declaring bankruptcy, which resulted in a massive paradigm shift in urban governance. During this time, economic development replaced redistributive policy and service provision as the primary function of local governments as cities sought to generate income without driving away the middle class with increased taxes. Tourism emerged as a favored development strategy because it allowed cities to import spending and export tax burden. Large public investment in cultural and entertainment facilities became commonplace, fueled by the competition between cities for tourism revenue. First, I will describe the conditions that presaged [PREH’-SIJED] the rise of economic development as a central component of urban policy and then I will talk about how public art came to be subsumed as a tool of economic development.

New York City became a major tourist destination in the late 1970s even though it was not exactly a viable place to live and work for its citizens: people continued to flee to the suburbs, crime soared, and social disorder reigned. The 1970s are widely considered to be the city’s nadir. This contradiction was overcome through an extensive image-control campaign, whereby the city co-opted the corporate strategy of branding and harnessed its position as a major media and communications center to project an image of itself to potential visitors as a safe, fun, and hospitable place. While urban boosterism is hardly a new phenomenon, starting in the 1970s, marketing professionals and economic development practitioners began operating with large budgets and had much greater influence than the amateur, de-centralized efforts of earlier eras.

In addition to comparatively inexpensive tourism marketing campaigns, political elites began partnering with their private-sector counterparts to construct “tourism infrastructure,” which serves the dual purposes of attracting tourists and providing ample opportunities for them to spend money, which is presumed to have an exponential, or multiplier, effect on the local economy. While scholars have analyzed the role of convention centers, retail malls, and major-league sports franchises as components of an urban entertainment infrastructure that serves to promote tourism, public art has not received such attention from urban political economists, even though its emerging role in urban growth politics begs explanation. Urban economic development, after all, is not just about bricks and mortar, but is realized through more intangible tactics such as city image. Furthermore, public art is not simply the object of urban development schemes; operating in an increasingly competitive environment where marketing and entrepreneurialism are the favored strategies, public art itself has been transformed.

Though they constitute an intervention into the urban built environment, temporary public art installations occupy an intermediate realm between physical tourism infrastructure and symbolic urban imagery. Due to the unpopularity of urban renewal tactics, culture war controversies on arts funding, and federal devolution in general, New York City has not built a major cultural center since the 1960s. Public art, by contrast, represents a decentralized cultural offering and a strategy of incremental change to the urban built environment. [oh-LA-fur ELLIE-a-son] Olafur Eliasson’s piece The Waterfalls, which I will discuss later on, is unique in that it is not part of a cultural center or comprehensive development project, such as New York’s Lincoln Center or Millennium Park in Chicago, and thus serves a different role. Public art lacks the immediate legibility of function that other types of urban development have—like sports stadiums, housing, and office developments—so it requires greater scrutiny.

Public art fulfills the symbolic function of bolstering confidence in urban centers once suffering from disinvestment and decline through the historical association of the arts with affluence and prestige. Public art serves as a patina of cultural sophistication in a thriving post-industrial economy by creating visible distance from the non-aestheticized spaces of the old manufacturing economy. Similar strategies have been employed more recently in an attempt to illustrate regenerative ability of cities against persistent economic downturns. [oh-LA-fur ELLIE-a-son] Olafur Eliasson’s The Waterfalls is a key example.

The Waterfalls was installed in 2008, in the middle of the recession. At a total cost of $15.5 million (which includes building materials, construction, operation, disassembly, and promotional and educational materials), The Waterfalls represents the largest public art undertaking in New York City since The Gates by Christo and Jeanne-Claude in 2005. The piece consists of four- 90 to 120 foot structures located near the Brooklyn Bridge, the Brooklyn Piers, Pier 35 in Manhattan, and the north shore of Governor’s Island, which denote the widest prospect of the harbor. The Waterfalls pump water from the East River that cascades down scaffolding constructed out of simple industrial materials. The project received a $2 million grant from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, a joint state-city corporation that was formed in 2002 to plan the reconstruction of Lower Manhattan after the September 11 attacks. The Public Art Fund, a New York City-based non-profit, raised the remaining $13.5 million in funds from private donors. The project was justified by the fact that it was expected to generate $55 million in economic activity during its almost four month run, an estimate based on attendance at Millennium Park in Chicago in 2004, [ELLIE-a-son] Eliasson’s Weather Project at the Tate Modern in 2003, and The Gates in 2005, which are the only examples of adequate scale to justify the comparison.

While that may seem like a lot of numbers to describe this proto-Earth Art piece, a focus on quantification pervades the discussion of The Waterfalls. The height of the structures, the amount of materials used, and the rate that water was pumped from the East River are essentially product specs that serve to convince taxpayers and other project funders that they are getting a good deal for the price. It is a kind of “conspicuous consumption” on the part of a city that is not afraid to flaunt the project’s extravagant price tag despite the dismal economic climate.

In general, this kind of cost-benefit mindset pervades cash-strapped city governments, trapped in the zero-sum game of resource allocation where the burden is on them to prove that each tax dollar was spent with maximum efficiency. Thus, even before The Waterfalls was installed, the New York City Economic Development Corporation commissioned a market research consulting firm to conduct an “impact analysis” to determine the amount of tourism revenue that The Waterfalls would generate. According to their estimates, which were based on surveys and visitor counts at seven vantage points in Manhattan and Brooklyn, nearly 1.4 million people visited The Waterfalls. 79,322 of these supposedly would not have visited or would not have extended their visit to New York if not for The Waterfalls. The Economic Development Corporation reported that these visitors generated $42 million in direct spending and a total impact of $69 million, exceeding the original estimate.

As a researcher in the Program Evaluation division of a city agency that conducts plenty of “impact analyses” of subsidized housing programs in New York City, I have frequently faced the political imperative of using research to justify government policy and expenditure. During my tenure, I have worked to reframe the agency’s mindset from that of the “impact analysis,” with its attendant emphasis on generating development, cost-saving measures, and return on investments, to that of the “needs assessment.” I think this is an approach that may benefit the field of public art as well. Rather than “What kind of public art will have the greatest economic impact?” the question then becomes, “What kind of public art do communities, neighborhoods, and individuals need?” Or, “How to create work that is monumental and draws the attention of global audiences while still being responsive and accessible to New Yorkers?”

I am also troubled by this focus on quantitative data because I believe it is evidence that public art is being held responsible for the obligations of government. In general, it seems that programs that promote the arts and “creative cities” have taken precedence over and even replaced programs that are more closely tailored to address pressing social and economic problems. After all, it is probably easier to fix government investment in the arts than it is to fix the country’s macroeconomic system. I would even argue that The Waterfalls did more harm than good; through it’s spectacular elements, it may have masked underlying inequality, polarization, and conflict that is exacerbated in times of economic crisis.

As with The Waterfalls, public art is usually framed in terms of functionality and social, political, or economic instrumentality. But I think this is not conducive to a public art that reflects and comments upon the complexities of contemporary society. Function, after all, rarely enters the picture when it comes to the evaluation and criticism other types of art. If we do choose to reject the framework of functionality, what forms of evaluation are appropriate? How can we engage in an aesthetic discourse that is not depoliticizing and instead challenges the motives of urban regimes? These are the questions I would like to leave you with today. Thank you.

 

© Emily Baierl

 

Back

Archivomanía

44th Congreso AICA, Asunción, Paraguay, 17.10.11

 

 

 

 

Si el pasado insiste es por la ineludible exigencia vital de activar en el presente sus gérmenes de futuros enterrados. Walter Benjamin (psicografiado)[1]

 

 

 

Hay cultura, que es la regla. Y hay excepción, que es el arte… Todos dicen la regla: los cigarrillos, las computadoras, las camisetas, la televisión, el turismo, la guerra. Nadie dice la excepción. Eso no se dice. Eso se escribe… se compone… se pinta… se filma… O eso se vive. Y es entonces el arte de vivir… Es de la regla querer la muerte de la excepción. Jean-Luc Godard, Je vous salue, Sarajevo [2]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Una verdadera compulsión alrededor de archivos se ha apoderado del territorio globalizado del arte en el transcurso de las últimas décadas; compulsión que abarca desde investigaciones académicas de archivos existentes o aún por constituirse hasta exposiciones basadas parcial o íntegramente en ellos, pasando por frenéticas disputas entre coleccionistas privados y museos por la adquisición de estos nuevos objetos de deseo. Sin lugar a dudas, el fenómeno no es fruto de una pura casualidad.

En este contexto, urge preguntarse acerca de las políticas de archivo, ya que son muchos los modos de abordar las prácticas artísticas que se pretende inventariar. Dichas políticas se distinguen menos por las opciones técnicas que orientan la producción de un archivo, y más por la fuerza poética que el propio dispositivo propuesto es capaz de transmitir. Me refiero a su aptitud para hacer que las prácticas inventariadas tengan la posibilidad de activar experiencias sensibles en el presente, necesariamente distintas de las que se vivieron originalmente, pero con un mismo tenor de densidad crítico-poética. Ante esta propuesta, de entrada se impone una pregunta: ¿cómo sería un inventario portador de esta fuerza en sí mismo, es decir, la producción de un archivo “para” y no “sobre” una experiencia artística, o su mera catalogación, pretendidamente objetiva?

La problematización de esta distinción depende al menos de dos bloques de preguntas. El primero se refiere a los tipos de poéticas inventariadas: ¿qué poéticas son éstas? ¿Tendrían aspectos comunes? ¿Estarían ubicadas en contextos históricos similares? ¿En qué consiste inventariar poéticas y en qué se diferenciaría esta operación de la que se ciñe a inventariar objetos y/o documentos? El segundo bloque de preguntas se refiere a la situación que engendra el frenesí con relación a los archivos: ¿cuál es la causa de la emergencia de este deseo en el contexto actual? ¿Qué políticas de deseo sirven de impulso a las diferentes iniciativas alrededor de archivos, a su surgimiento, sus modos de producción, presentación, circulación y adquisición? Pretendo aquí proponer algunas pistas para responder a estas preguntas.

Partamos de la constatación innegable de que existe en efecto un objeto privilegiado por las ansias de archivar: se trata de una amplia gama de prácticas artísticas, agrupadas bajo la denominación de “conceptualismo”, que se desarrollan en el mundo en el transcurso de los años 1960 y 1970. Dichas prácticas, así como otras, igualmente osadas para los parámetros de la época, son el resultado de un fenómeno que comienza en el pasaje del siglo XIX al XX: la acumulación de imperceptibles movimientos tectónicos en el territorio del arte que llegan a un umbral en aquellas décadas y se plasman en ciertas obras que, al tornar dichos desplazamientos sensibles, reconfiguran enteramente su paisaje. Es ése el contexto en el cual los artistas posteriormente calificados como “conceptuales” toman como objeto de la investigación el poder del “sistema del arte” en la determinación de sus creaciones. Su foco son las diversas dimensiones del referido sistema: desde los espacios destinados a las obras hasta las categorías a partir de las cuales la historia (oficial) del arte las califica, pasando por los medios, los soportes, los géneros reconocidos, etc. La explicitación y la problematización de tales limitaciones en la propia obra pasan entonces a orientar la práctica artística, en la búsqueda de líneas de fuga de sus fronteras establecidas. Esta operación constituye la médula de su poética y la condición de su potencia pensante, en la cual reside la vitalidad propiamente dicha de la obra, el virus que la misma porta.

Pero no es que la compulsión de archivar abrace cualquier práctica artística realizada en este movimiento durante las referidas décadas. Se ubican especialmente en la mira las propuestas que se produjeron fuera del eje Europa Occidental–Estados Unidos, más precisamente aquéllas creadas en Latinoamérica, en países que en ese entonces vivían bajo regímenes militares. Tales prácticas han sido incorporadas por la historia del arte producida en este eje y establecida como pensamiento hegemónico que define los contornos del territorio internacional del arte. Es desde esta perspectiva que se interpreta y se categoriza a la producción artística elaborada en otras partes del planeta, lo que tiende a causar ciertas distorsiones en la lectura de las referidas prácticas, generando efectos tóxicos en su recepción y propagación.

 

Se rompe el hechizo

Debido al avance del proceso de globalización, desde hace algunas décadas se ha venido operando una desmitificación de “esa” historia del arte. Tal fenómeno se inserta en el contexto más amplio de disolución de la actitud idealizadora ante la cultura dominante por parte de las demás culturas que hasta entonces estaban bajo su influencia. Hay una ruptura del hechizo que las mantenía cautivas y que obstruía el trabajo de elaboración de sus propias experiencias con su textura y densidad singulares y la peculiaridad de sus políticas de cognición.

Es todo un mundo instaurado por el pensamiento hegemónico el que se desestabiliza: se transmuta subterráneamente su territorio, se modifica su cartografía, se desdibujan sus límites. Se opera un proceso de reactivación de las culturas sofocadas hasta ese entonces que introduce otras sensibilidades en la construcción del presente, lo que provoca distintos tipos de reacción. Para quedarnos tan sólo en sus extremos, en la posición más reactiva se encuentran los fundamentalismos de toda índole, que crean la ficción de una identidad originaria y se fijan en ella. La versión de esta tendencia en los países dominantes es la xenofobia. En el caso específico de Europa Occidental dicha tendencia ha venido intensificándose asustadoramente en los últimos años, como un canto de cisne que se debate contra la muerte anunciada de su hegemonía. Por detrás del confinamiento en este espejismo de una esencia identitaria, existe una denegación de la experiencia de proliferación de una alteridad múltiple y variable, como así también de la flexibilidad subjetiva y cultural que la misma demanda, características propias del proceso de globalizacióni. En tanto, en el extremo de la posición más activa, se producen toda la gama de invenciones del presente, movidas en cambio por la apertura a esta pluralidad de otros culturales y a los roces y tensiones de sus efectos, en el embate con el modo en que el nuevo panorama incide en cada contexto, y en las experiencias culturales inscritas de los cuerpos que lo habitan. A medida que avanza una de estas posiciones, se intensifica su opuesto. Evidentemente, estos dos extremos no existen en estado puro: lo que existe en realidad son diferentes especies de fuerzas que se presentan en una escala variada de matices entre el polo activo y el reactivo, e interactúan en un vasto crisol de culturas. Es en esa dinámica que se delinean las formas de la sociedad transnacional.

La archivomanía aparece precisamente en este contexto signado por una guerra entre fuerzas que disputan la definición de la geopolítica del arte. Pero, ¿por qué son especialmente codiciadas por esta obsesión de investigar, producir, exponer y/o adquirir archivos ciertas prácticas artísticas llevadas a cabo en aquellas décadas en Latinoamérica? ¿Y por qué lo son preferentemente en los países del continente que en ese entonces se encontraban bajo dictaduras? En efecto, existe un aspecto común a todas esas prácticas, que no obstante adquiere matices singulares en cada una: se le agrega la dimensión política a las demás dimensiones del territorio institucional del arte, cuyo excesivo poder sobre la creación empieza a problematizarse en el período. Sucede que la política, que necesariamente permea el territorio del arte en su transversalidad, sea cual sea el contexto, se vuelve más explicita en Estados autoritarios, ya sean de derecha o de izquierda, debido a que es más violenta su incidencia en la determinación de las acciones artísticas.

No obstante, hay que distinguir entre dos modalidades de presencia de este aspecto en las prácticas artísticas latinoamericanas tomadas por la archivomanía: macro y micropolítica. Las acciones artísticas de índole macropolítica transmiten básicamente contenidos ideológicos, lo que las convierte en prácticas más cercanas a la militancia que al arte. En tanto, en el segundo tipo de acciones lo político constituye un elemento intrínseco a la investigación poética, y no algo ubicado en su exterioridad. Independientemente del valor que se les quiera adjudicar a cada una de estas modalidades, el problema es que, desafortunadamente, la vertiente macropolítica ha sido generalizada por la historia hegemónica del arte para interpretar al conjunto de las propuestas artísticas de aquellas décadas en el continente, bajo la denominación de “arte conceptual político” o “ideológico”. Esta categoría ha sido instituida por ciertos textos y exposiciones que se realizaron a partir de mediados de los años 1970 en el eje Europa Occidental–Estados Unidos, que se han vuelto paradigmáticosii. La misma implica en la denegación de la naturaleza micropolítica de las acciones artísticas en cuestión, trabando su reconocimiento y su expansión. La invención de esta categoría puede ser interpretada como un síntoma que, como tal, impone la urgencia de un trabajo de elaboración que explicite cuáles son las fuerzas reactivas que el equívoco de esa calificación revela, de modo tal de combatir más eficazmente sus efectos. A tal fin, se vuelve necesario detenerse en la diferencia existente entre ambas modalidades de presencia de lo político en las prácticas artísticas, especialmente en contextos de terrorismo de Estado.

Si bien la incidencia de los regímenes totalitarios en la cultura se manifiesta más obviamente a través de la censura, su cara macropolítica, es mucho más sutil y nefasto su efecto micropolítico imperceptible, pero no por ello menos poderoso. Este efecto consiste en la inhibición de la propia emergencia del proceso de creación, antes incluso de que su expresión haya empezado a bosquejarse. Dicha inhibición es producto del trauma inexorable de las experiencias de pavor y humillación que les son inherentes. Esas experiencias, producto de los métodos de prisión, tortura y asesinato, practicados hasta el hartazgo por los gobiernos autoritarios con cualquier persona que a ellos se oponga, impregnan la atmósfera de una sensación aterradora de peligro inminente. La situación afecta al deseo en su meollo y lo debilita, pulveriza la potencia del pensamiento que éste convoca y dispara, y así la subjetividad queda vaciada de consistencia. Al ser el terreno por excelencia en el cual se producen las excepciones a la regla de la cultura, el arte es especialmente afectado.

Experiencias de ese género se inscriben en la memoria inmaterial del cuerpo, que es la memoria física y afectiva de las sensaciones, distinta, empero indisociable de la memoria de la percepción de las formas y de los hechos, con sus respectivas representaciones y las narrativas que las enlazan (en este caso, generalmente protagonizadas por la figura de la víctima, que los interpreta apelando a un discurso puramente ideológico). El desentrañamiento del deseo para librarlo de su impotencia constituye una tarea tan sutil y compleja como el proceso que provocó su represión y la figura de la víctima que de ella resulta. Dicha elaboración puede extenderse durante treinta años o más, para plasmarse recién y efectivamente durante la segunda o la tercera generación. La especial vulnerabilidad de ciertos artistas a esta experiencia en su dimensión corporal (aquende y allende la conciencia que tengan de ella o de su interpretación ideológica) es lo que los lleva, en diferentes contextos, a afirmar en sus obras la potencia micropolítica inmanente a la práctica artística; una actitud que se distingue del uso del arte como vehículo de información macropolítica.

Cabría preguntarse entonces si a la fuerza micropolítica del arte puede convocársela y revelársela únicamente con base en experiencias de dolor, miedo y angustia, y más especialmente aún cuando éstas son movilizadas por situaciones de opresión macropolítica, ya sea en regímenes totalitarios o en las relaciones de dominación y/o explotación de clase, raza, religión, género, etc.

Sería absurdo pensar de ese modo: precisamos librarnos de las huellas de esta trampa romántica que alía la creación al dolor. Cualquier situación en la que la vida se vea constreñida por las formas de la realidad y/o el modo de describirlas produce extrañamiento. Y éste es sucedido de un malestar que moviliza la necesidad de expresar lo que no cabe en el mapa vigente, creando nuevos sentidos, la condición para que la vida vuelva a fluir. En eso consiste la experiencia estética del mundo: ésta depende de la capacidad del cuerpo de volverse vulnerable a su entorno, de dejarse tomar por la sensación de disparidad existente entre las formas de la realidad y los movimientos que se agitan bajo su supuesta estabilidad, aquello que lo pone en “estado de arte”. Una especie de experiencia del mundo que va más allá del ejercicio de su aprehensión reducida a las formas operado por la percepción y su asociación con ciertas representaciones a partir de las cuales se les adjudica sentido. La tensión de la dinámica paradójica entre estos dos modos de aprehensión del mundo vuelve intolerable la conservación del status quo; y es esto lo que nos causa extrañamiento y nos fuerza a crear. Y el cuerpo no se apacigua mientras no traigamos a la superficie de la cartografía vigente aquello que pide paso, horadando su cerco y modificando sus contornos.

Ahora bien, el malestar del extrañamiento en cuestión no necesariamente viene embebido de miedo y/o angustia; éstos son sentimientos conscientes del yo, producto de la impotencia ante circunstancias específicas, que incluyen el autoritarismo y la desigualdad social, pero no se ciñe a ellos. En situaciones extremas, tales sentimientos, como hemos visto, traen aparejado el riesgo de inhibir la potencia de creación, lo que lleva a reemplazar al pensamiento por fantasmas y proyecciones. Así es como el trauma producido en contextos dictatoriales puede provocar el reemplazo del pensamiento por la ideología. La consecuencia es la transformación del artista en activista y su obra en panfleto portador de los afectos tristes de la víctima, de su resentimiento y del deseo de venganza, afectos que se movilizan igualmente en su recepción y que tienen tan sólo dos destinos posibles: la esperanza de redención o la desesperanza movida por una alucinación de apocalipsis. Encubierta bajo el velo de proyecciones ideológicas, tejido con hilos de deseo romántico y emoción religiosa, la experiencia se nubla y sus tensiones se tornan inaccesibles. De este modo, estas últimas mantienen un poder inconsciente sobre la subjetividad, y es eso lo que la lleva a adoptar estrategias defensivas para protegerse, que al mismo tiempo la limitan. Tiende a producirse entonces un malentendido acerca de la relación entre arte y política que, debido a que tiene su origen en una operación defensiva, no es fácil deshacerlo.

Para captar dicha operación más precisamente, vale la pena recordar que la sensación opera en el plano corporal inconsciente, mientras que el sentimiento o la emoción operan en el plano psicológico. El objeto de la sensación es el proceso que deshace mundos y engendra otros, lo cual ocurre, tal como hemos visto, en cualquier contexto en que la vida se encuentre disminuida en su potencia. Es ese proceso el que mueve a la creación artística. La sensación es por lo tanto portavoz de la fuerza de creación y diferenciación que define a la vida en su esencia, constituyéndose así en una especie de «emoción vital», lo que la distingue de los sentimientos y emociones psicológicas, voceros del yo y de su conciencia. Sin embargo, los contextos que movilizan sentimientos exacerbados de angustia pueden impregnar a punto tal las sensaciones del proceso en curso que se tiende mezclarlos, como si fuesen lo mismo. Pero no debemos confundirlos: aunque el malestar de la sensación de la disparidad existente entre las formas de la realidad y las fuerzas que causan su desguace esté también signado por turbulencias difíciles de sostener mientras aquello que presiona no se resuelve en obra, este estado produce al mismo tiempo una extraña alegría. Sucede que la creación abre canales para la afirmación de la vida y alimenta la confianza de que logra imponerse incluso en situaciones límite, aun en contextos de opresión macropolítica, tal como es el caso de las prácticas artísticas que aquí se enfocan. Por eso, aunque lo que convoca a la acción artística en los regímenes dictatoriales en curso sea precisamente la presencia brutal de la macropolítica en la creación, la naturaleza de su potencia sigue siendo micropolítica. Lo que orienta al artista acá es su escucha de la realidad intensiva que presiona, y ésta solamente logra perforar la barrera y hacerse presente si se concreta en las entrañas de su poética. Esa capacidad hace del arte un poderoso reactivo químico que, al propagarse por contagio, puede interferir en la composición molecular de los medios en que se inserta, disolviendo sus elementos tóxicos.

Es precisamente ésta la dimensión política del arte que caracteriza a las propuestas artísticas más contundentes elaboradas en América Latina durante las dictaduras de las décadas de 1960 y 1970. Encarnada en la obra, la insistencia de la fuerza de invención ante la experiencia omnipresente y difusa de su opresión se volvía sensible, en un medio en el cual la brutalidad del terrorismo de Estado tendía a provocar una reacción defensiva de ceguera y de sordera voluntarias, por una cuestión de supervivencia. Por ende, tales acciones artísticas son de una índole totalmente distinta de aquélla que rige en el plano en que operan las que se acercan a las acciones pedagógicas o doctrinarias de concientización y transmisión de contenidos ideológicos, aun a las acciones socioeducativas de “inclusión”. Debido a que no inciden en el plano de la experiencia estética, estas últimas no tienen el mismo poder sobre el debilitamiento del deseo y de la subjetividad en su capacidad pensante.

Otro malentendido tiende a generarse en este mismo tipo de situación consiste en suponer que en las prácticas artísticas en las cuales se afirma su poder político, la forma sería irrelevante. Una cosa no se contrapone a la otra, al contrario: en dichas prácticas, el rigor formal de la obra ­–ya sea ésta pintura, escultura, intervención urbana, instalación, performance, etc.­– es más esencial y sutil que nunca. Con todo, en este caso, no son sus formas per se, separadas del proceso que les da origen, lo que las hace poderosas y las vuelve seductoras; la forma aquí es indisociable de su rigor como actualización de las sensaciones que tensan y obligan a pensar-crear. Un tipo de rigor que es estético, pero es también e indisociablemente ético: estético, porque vuelve sensible a aquello que los afectos del mundo en el cuerpo anuncian; ético, porque implica hacerse cargo de las exigencias de la vida para mantenerse en proceso. En ese sentido, cuanto más preciso y sintónico es su lenguaje, más vigorosa es su cualidad intensiva y mayor su poder de seducción, y es eso lo que le otorga una energía de influencia efectiva en los ambientes por los cuales circula. Al alcanzar este grado de rigor, el arte se convierte en una especie de medicina: la experiencia que promueve es capaz de intervenir en el proceso de subjetivación de aquéllos que se acercan a él, precisamente en el punto en el que el deseo tiende a volverse cautivo y a despotencializarse. Cuando esto sucede, se reanima el ejercicio del pensamiento y se activan otras formas de percepción, pero también y por sobre todo, de invención y de expresión. Se delinean nuevas políticas del deseo y de su relación con el mundo, es decir, nuevos diagramas del inconsciente en el campo social que se actualizan en reconfiguraciones de la cartografía vigente. En definitiva, se trata de un rigor vital que se mueve a contracorriente de las fuerzas que dibujan mapas cuya tendencia es mutilar la vida en su propio meollo, y que consiste, como hemos visto, en su insistencia en reciclarse en la creación permanente del mundo.

Por ende, el carácter político específico de las prácticas artísticas a las cuales nos abocamos aquí reside en aquello que pueden suscitar en los medios que son afectados por ellas. Y no se trata en este caso tan sólo de la conciencia de las tensiones (su cara extensiva, representacional, macropolítica), sino fundamentalmente de la experiencia de este estado de cosas en el propio cuerpo y de los afectos movilizados por las fuerzas que lo componen (su cara intensiva, inconsciente, micropolítica).

Se gana así en precisión de foco, el cual en cambio se enturbia cuando todo lo relativo a la vida social en el arte se vuelve a reducir exclusivamente a un abordaje macropolítico, el cual, como hemos visto, tiene a estimularse en situaciones signadas por la opresión por parte del Estado y/o por la vigencia de una exacerbada desigualdad social. Tal fue el caso de ciertas prácticas artísticas durante las mismas décadas de 1960 y 1970 en Sudamérica, como así también de ciertas prácticas contemporáneas, principalmente a partir de los años 1990 (y no sólo en este continente). A estas prácticas artísticas, y solamente a éstas, podría efectivamente calificárselas como “políticas” o “ideológicas”.

Es en este punto que se sitúa el desafortunado equívoco cometido por la historia (oficial) del arte, cuya narrativa pasó de largo de la esencia de las acciones aquí privilegiadas: al incidir potencialmente sobre la naturaleza afectivo-vibrátil de la subjetividad y no solamente sobre su conciencia, dichas acciones bosquejaron la superación de la escisión entre lo poético y lo político. Una escisión que se actualiza en el conflicto entre la figura clásica del artista, destituido de la dimensión micropolítica propia de su práctica y la del militante, destituido de la dimensión estética de su subjetividad y disociado del cuerpo como brújula vital en su interpretación del mundo y en las acciones que de ello resultan. Este conflicto extirpa del arte la energía micropolítica que le es inmanente y crea la figura del artista militante, cuyas acciones operan en el plano macropolítico, desde donde se rotula como formalistas a las acciones artísticas que no abordan directa y literalmente ese plano. Si bien es cierto que ese bosquejo de superación ya estaba presente en las vanguardias artísticas de comienzos del siglo XX, y que el mismo avanza y se disemina a lo largo de la primera mitad del siglo, y más intensamente en la posguerra, durante las décadas del 1960 y 1970 la activación de la micropolítica hace eclosión como un vasto movimiento en el arte, el cual incide en la cultura en el sentido amplio del término que se extiende a los modos de existencia. Éstos se transmutan irreversiblemente durante dicho período, cuando la excepción del arte se mostró más fuerte que las reglas de la cultura. De allí que se le haya dado el nombre de “contracultura”iii a este movimiento. Es ésta la reactivación que, al sufrir el golpe micropolítico de las dictaduras, tendió a retraerse nuevamente en el silencio de su represión.

 

La represión colonial

Para que esta radiografía se vuelva más precisa, resulta indispensable recordar que la articulación entre lo poético y lo político tampoco tiene su inicio con las vanguardias históricas; la misma proviene a decir verdad de mucho más lejos en el tiempo. Podríamos incluso afirmar que dicha articulación constituye uno de los aspectos fundamentales de la política de cognición que, de diferentes modos, caracterizaba a buena parte de las culturas dominadas por la modernidad fundada por Europa Occidental. Un régimen cultural que, tal como sabemos, es inseparable de sus corolarios en el campo de la economía (el régimen capitalista) y también en el campo del deseo (el régimen del individuo moderno, origen de la subjetividad burguesa, cuya estructura psíquica Freud circunscribió bajo la denominación de “neurosis”). Recordemos también que esta modalidad cultural se le impuso al mundo como paradigma universal por medio de la colonización, cuyo blanco no fueron solamente los otros tres continentes (América, África y Asia), sino también las diferentes culturas sofocadas en el interior del propio continente europeo.

Entre estas últimas, hagamos hincapié en las culturas mediterráneas, que nos atañen más directamente, en especial, la cultura árabe-judía, que predominaba en la Península Ibérica antes de las navegaciones intercontinentales que resultaron en la colonización. Como es sabido, a partir de ese período, los practicantes de esa cultura sufrieron la violencia de la Inquisición, lo que llevo muchos de ellos a refugiarse en el Nuevo Mundo que, en ese entonces, se empezaba a construir en la América Ibéricaiv. Ahora bien, dicha violencia se perpetró en el transcurso de los mismos tres siglos que África sufrió la violencia de la esclavitud, y las culturas indígenas americanas la violencia de su cuasi extinción. Un triple trauma fundacional de algunos países latinoamericanos, entre los cuales se ubica Brasil. Pero la cosa no se detiene por ahí: las formas de violencia que caracterizaron a la  época colonial dejaron marcas activas en la memoria de los cuerpos de las sociedades americanas post Independencia, empezando por los arraigados prejuicios de clase y de raza. Remanentes de la política de deseo colonial-esclavista, dichos prejuicios generaron y siguen generando la peor de las humillaciones y constituyen probablemente uno de los traumas más graves y difíciles de superar, debido a la permanencia del estigma y su incesante reiteración en la vida social. Reforzando y prolongando este proceso, otros males en el plano macropolítico, tales como la miseria, la exclusión social, el dominio externo y los regímenes autoritarios, se fueron mezclando con los anteriores, lo que en el plano micropolítico ha agravado los traumas preexistentes y ha creado nuevos en el transcurso de la historia y aún hoy en día. Podemos entonces suponer que la represión de la articulación inmanente entre lo poético y lo político tiene su inicio con la propia instalación de la modernidad occidental, y culmina en los días actuales con la política de cognición del capitalismo financiero transnacional, habiendo pasado por las dictaduras en el caso del Cono Sur. Me arriesgo a decir que, desde el punto de vista micropolítico, esta operación desempeña un rol central en la fundación de esta cultura y en su imposición al mundo, a punto tal que propongo denominarla “represión colonial”. Si leemos la colonización desde esta perspectiva, constatamos que quizás éste haya sido su dispositivo más eficazv.

Vale la pena retomar la descripción de la política de cognición que la represión colonial tiene como objeto, ahora ubicado en el marco del horizonte histórico. Tres aspectos la caracterizan: el vigor de la vibratibilidad del cuerpo ante las fuerzas que se agitan en el plano intensivo (la experiencia estética del mundo); la sensación movilizada por la tensión de la dinámica paradójica entre esta experiencia y la de la percepción, y la potencia del pensamiento-creación que se activa cuando dicha tensión alcanza un cierto umbral. El objeto de la represión es precisamente esa fuerza de la imaginación creadora y su capacidad de resistencia al deseo de conservación de las formas de vivir conocidas, deseo signado por una política que consiste en adoptar el ejercicio de la percepción como la vía exclusiva de conocimiento del mundo. La operación de represión hace que la subjetividad ya no logre sostenerse en la referida tensión, el motor de la máquina del pensamiento que produce las acciones en las cuales la realidad se reinventa. En definitiva, el objeto de esta represión es el propio cuerpo y la posibilidad de encarnarlo, de lo que depende su poder de escucha del diagrama de fuerzas del presente, como principal brújula para el ejercicio de la producción cognitiva y su interferencia en el mundo: una brújula cuya función no consiste en ubicarnos en el espacio visible, sino en lo invisible de los estados de pulsación vital. La activación de esta aptitud del cuerpo que fue reprimida por la modernidad instaurada por Europa Occidental constituye una dimensión esencial de cualquier acción poético-política. Sin ello, no se hacen sino variaciones alrededor de los modos de producción de subjetividad y de cognición que nos fundan como colonias de Europa Occidental, condición de la cual precisamente pretendemos apartarnos.

Dicha represión se opera mediante complejos procedimientos que se diferencian en el transcurso de la historia. Quedémonos tan sólo en las experiencias más recientes, aquéllas que estamos examinando aquí. En los regímenes totalitarios, como hemos visto, el ejercicio del pensamiento se ve concretamente impedido y termina por inhibirse, bajo los efectos del miedo y de la humillación. En cambio, en el capitalismo financiero, la operación de represión es mucho más refinada: no se trata ya de impedir este ejercicio, ni tampoco de anhelar su parcial o total inhibición. Al contrario: se trata de incitarlo e incluso de festejarlo, pero para ponerlo al servicio de los intereses puramente económicos del régimen, destituyéndolo así de la fuerza disruptiva inmanente a su poética. Es por eso que muchos pensadores contemporáneos consideran que es de la fuerza de trabajo del pensamiento-creación que el capitalismo contemporáneo extrae su principal fuente de energía; de allí que lo hayan calificado como “capitalismo cultural”, “cognitivo” o “informacional”, una idea que se ha vuelto moneda corriente.

Este régimen moviliza la fragilidad que provoca la tensión entre los dos vectores de la experiencia del mundo, y en ella se inscribe, mediante la promesa de un apaciguamiento instantáneo. El deseo de enfrentar esta presión y la energía de creación que la misma moviliza tienden a ser canalizados exclusivamente hacia el mercado. Esto se opera por diversos medios, entre los cuales el más obvio es la incitación de la subjetividad a una caza de imágenes de formas de vivir prêt-à-porter que pueblan la cultura de masas y la publicidad, incansablemente difundidas por los medios de comunicación, que ofertan una variadísima gama de posibilidades para identificarse. En ella se incluyen ofertas específicas de cultura de lujo igualmente homogeneizadas. En esta categoría ocupan una posición privilegiada ciertos Museos de Arte Contemporáneo y sus ostentosas arquitecturas, así como también la proliferación de bienales por todas partes, un fenómeno al cual el pensamiento crítico le ha dado el nombre de  «bienalización» del planeta. Ambos funcionan actualmente como dispositivos de turismo cultural de las clases medias altas y las elites, en las cuales se forja una lengua internacional común clasificada como “alta cultura”, compuesta por algunas palabras y floreos de la retórica del momento, algunos nombres de artistas y curadores meteóricamente celebrados por los medios de comunicación y un cierto “estilo” de comportamiento que comprende griffes de moda, diseño, gastronomía, etc. El deseo es capturado por algunas de esas imágenes que selecciona y, mediante un proceso de identificación simbiótica con las mismas, se desencadena una compulsión de consumo de los productos asociados a éstas, con el objetivo de realizar el mundo que proponen en nuestras existencias, ilusionados por la promesa de admisión en una especie de paraíso terrenal. Lo que atrae el deseo y hace que éste se deje capturar por esa dinámica es el espejismo de ser reconocidos y reconocernos en alguna de las mise en scènes que ofrece el menú del día. El objetivo es librarnos de la angustiante sensación de vaciamiento de uno mismo y recuperar nuestro valor social supuestamente perdido, como por arte de magia. Sin embargo, el mantenimiento de esta ilusión tiene su precio: con la instrumentalización del deseo, se pierde el olfato para husmear la pulsación vital y sus trabas, y nuestra capacidad de invención se desvía de su foco primordial, que consiste en abrir nuevos caminos para que la vida vuelva a fluir cuando esto se hace necesario.

 

El retorno de lo reprimido y la archivomanía

Con todo, existe una contrapartida: no es solamente el trauma de la articulación entre lo poético y lo político causante de su represión lo que se encuentra inscrito en la memoria de los cuerpos que habitan las regiones bajo dominio de la cultura dominante, sino también la memoria de la vivencia de la referida articulación, que queda a la espera de hallar las condiciones como para reactivarse y escapar de su confinamiento. Éstas se presentan en ciertos tipos de situaciones sociales que favorecen la neutralización de los efectos patológicos de su trauma en la conducción de la existencia y de sus destinos.

Pues bien, una situación de este tipo se plantea en la propia vivencia del estado de cosas en la actualidad. El destino de la proliferación de imágenes-mundos que aparecen y desaparecen sin cesar a una velocidad vertiginosa, promovida por el desarrollo de las tecnologías de la comunicación, no es únicamente la instrumentalización de nuestras fuerzas subjetivas por parte del mercado. Si le añadimos a ello la polifonía de culturas que puede oírse y vivenciarse a toda hora y en cualquier punto del planeta, veremos que su efecto es también el de hacer imposible que un repertorio, sea cual sea, mantenga un poder estable, ni mucho menos absoluto. Esta imposibilidad es una de las causas de la ruptura de la fascinación y la seducción ejercidas por la modernidad europea y norteamericana, ahora en su versión neoliberal, que viene sucediendo en las últimas décadas, tal como se evocó al comienzo de este texto. No estamos más en un momento de oposición y resentimiento, ni de su contracara: la identificación y el pedido de reconocimiento, es decir, la demanda de amor, que en este caso es el síntoma de una subjetividad humillada que idealiza al opresor y depende de su deseo perverso. El movimiento actual consiste precisamente en los mayores o menores desplazamientos del lugar de humillación y de la consiguiente sumisión al opresor, en busca de activar lo que fue reprimido en nuestros cuerpos.

Sería estúpido pensar que el objetivo de esta vuelta al pasado es “rescatar” una supuesta esencia perdida que se encontraría en las formas de existencia africanas, indígenas o mediterráneas anteriores al siglo XV, o en la inflexión contracultural de los años 1960-1970. Dicho movimiento se caracterizó precisamente por esta tendencia a idealizar un supuesto origen perdido, lo que llevó a parte de la generación que lo creó a una especie de caza del tesoro en esas regiones, como si su pasado estuviese allí resguardado en “estado puro” y pudiese ser “revelado”. En lugar de ello, el objeto de la reconexión con ese pasado es ahora el ejercicio de la ética del deseo y del conocimiento que regía en aquellas culturas y en sus actualizaciones: velar por la preservación de la vida, que depende de la factibilidad de la experiencia estética, para escuchar sus movimientos y adoptarlos como balizas en la orientación de la existencia; una ética que, dicho sea de paso, se encuentra hoy igualmente reprimida en aquellas regiones. Ahora bien, la reconexión con este ejercicio no pasa por la reproducción de las formas que esta ética habría engendrado en el pasado, sino por la activación, en el actual contexto, de la propia ética en cuestión para reorientar las reinvenciones de la cartografía del presente, a contramano de las operaciones que reiteran su represión.

Es precisamente en este contexto que irrumpe una voluntad ineludible de revolver los archivos existentes o de constituir nuevos a partir de los rastros de las prácticas artísticas realizadas en América del Sur en los años 1960-1970, una voluntad que se disemina como una verdadera epidemia. Sucede que, con las dictaduras, la experiencia de la fusión de la fuerza poética y la fuerza política vivenciada en estas prácticas había quedado encapsulada en la memoria de nuestros cuerpos bajo un manto de olvido; solamente lográbamos llegar a ella en la exterioridad de las formas en que se plasmaba, y aun así, fragmentariamente. Su potencia disruptiva –y lo que ésta desató y podría seguir desatando en su entorno–, como hemos visto, quedó enterrada bajo el efecto del trauma que le causaron los gobiernos militares, a lo que le siguió su reanimación perversa por parte del capitalismo cognitivo que los sucedió.

 

El equívoco tóxico de la historia (oficial) del arte

Pues bien, éste es el aspecto crucial de la producción artística de los años 1960-1970 en el continente que parece habérsele escapado a la historia del arte. Aunque mantengamos esa producción bajo el paraguas del “conceptualismo“, es inaceptable rotularlo a éste como “ideológico” o “político” para caracterizar a la peculiaridad que la misma habría introducido en esta categoría, peculiaridad que en la práctica ha ampliado sus límites y transformado potencialmente sus contornos. Sucede que, si bien encontramos efectivamente en estas propuestas un germen de integración entre lo político y lo poético, vivenciado y actualizado en acciones artísticas, como así también en los modos de existencia que se crearon durante el mismo período, dicho germen era empero aún frágil e innombrable en ese entonces. Ahora bien, el tacharlo de “ideológico” o “político” es un síntoma de la denegación de la excepción que esta experiencia artística radicalmente nueva introdujo en la cultura y el estado de extrañamiento que esto produjo en las subjetividades. La estrategia defensiva es sencilla: si lo que allí experimentamos no es reconocible en el dominio del arte, entonces, para protegernos de ese ruido molesto, lo encasillamos en el dominio de la macropolítica y todo vuelve a su lugar. Se deniega la dimensión micropolítica inmanente al arte, se aborta el germen de su activación, y junto con él, también aquello que está por venir, que en el mejor de los casos queda incubado.

La gravedad de esta operación es innegable si recordamos que el estado de extrañamiento que la excepción del arte instaura constituye una experiencia crucial, ya que resulta de la reverberación de la multiplicidad plástica de fuerzas del mundo en nuestros cuerpos, captadas por su capacidad vibrátil. Un espacio de alteridad que se instala en la subjetividad, la desestabiliza, la inquieta y le exige un trabajo de recreación de sus contornos y del mapa de sus conexiones como condición para alcanzar un nuevo equilibrio. El hecho de soslayarlo implica el bloqueo de la vida pensante que da impulso a las acciones artísticas y de la cual depende su influencia potencial en las formas del presente. Es precisamente dicha denegación el elemento tóxico contenido en las tristes categorías establecidas por la historia del arte para interpretar las propuestas artísticas en cuestión; ésta es la fuerza reactiva que el síntoma de su equívoco revela, al tiempo que nos suministra la pista del objeto al que apunta.

En este estado de cosas, urge activar la articulación intrínseca entre lo poético y lo político y la fuerza de afirmación de la vida que depende de ella. Ésta es la condición para que el deseo se libre de su debilitamiento defensivo, de manera tal de hacer factible la expansión vital en función de la experiencia vivida por el cuerpo vibrátil en el tiempo presente. He allí el contexto que, de diferentes maneras, desencadena una serie de iniciativas generadas por el fervor de investigar, crear, exponer y/o poseer archivos que ha tomado el territorio del arte.

Sin embargo, esta misma situación moviliza igualmente una política del deseo diametralmente opuesta: en el preciso momento en que dichas iniciativas reaparecen, y antes de que hayan vuelto a respirar los gérmenes de futuro que traían incubados, el sistema global del arte las incorpora, para transformarlas en fetichizados expolios de una guerra cognitiva disputados por los grandes museos y coleccionistas de Europa Occidental y Estados Unidos. Dicha operación tiene el poder de devolver a esos gérmenes a la penumbra del olvido; y esto hace de ella un eficiente dispositivo del capitalismo cognitivo. Como sugiere Godard, «es de la regla querer la muerte de la excepción». Si el movimiento de pensamiento crítico que se dio intensamente en los años 1960-1970 en América Latina fue brutalmente interrumpido por los gobiernos militares, en el preciso momento en que su memoria empieza a reactivarse, este proceso se ve nuevamente interrumpido, y ahora con el refinamiento glamouroso y seductor del mercado del arte, cuando sus intereses cobran demasiado poder sobre la creación artística y tienden a ignorar sus poéticas pensantes. Una operación muy distinta de los groseros y atroces procedimientos ejercidos contra la producción artística por los gobiernos dictatoriales. Un nuevo capítulo de la historia, mucho menos poscolonial de lo que nos gustaría…

He aquí que la política de producción de archivos y la necesidad de distinguir sus múltiples modalidades cobran relevancia. El desafío de las iniciativas que pretenden desobstruir el acceso indispensable a los gérmenes de futuros, soterrados en las poéticas que toman como objeto, consiste en activar su contundencia crítica, para crear así las condiciones de una experiencia de igual calibre en el enfrentamiento de las cuestiones que se plantean en la contemporaneidad. Es así como la fuerza crítico-poética de dichos archivos puede sumarse a las fuerzas de creación que aparecen en nuestra actualidad, ampliando su poder en el combate contra los efectos de la vacuna toxica del capitalismo cultural que neutraliza al virus del arte, lo que contribuye a que la misma tienda a funcionar únicamente a favor de sus designios. Una operación que no incide únicamente en el ámbito del arte, pero que en este campo específico se da a través del mercado y, tal como se evocó anteriormente, incluye entre sus principales dispositivos a muchos museos de arte contemporáneo y a la proliferación de bienales y ferias de arte.vi

Resulta obvio que no se trata de demonizar al mercado, ni al coleccionismo ni a las galerías que le son inherentes, pues los artistas deben tener una remuneración por sus trabajos, y los coleccionadores no tienen por qué privarse del deseo de convivir con obras de arte; ni mucho menos se trata de demonizar a los museos en sus importantes funciones de constituir archivos de las producciones artísticas, velar por su preservación y ponerlas a disposición del público. El mercado y los museos no constituyen una extraterritorialidad del arte, sino que son parte integrante de su dinámica. La vida no puede regirse por una moral maniqueísta que divide a las actividades humanas en buenas y malas; lo que cuenta es el combate entre fuerzas activas y reactivas en cada campo de actividad, en los diferentes tiempos y contextos que lo atraviesan. Así también es en el territorio del arte: es en las fuerzas que lo rigen en cada momento, en toda su compleja transversalidad, y no en un supuesto territorio imaginario idealizado, donde deben pensarse las producciones artísticas, críticas, curatoriales, museológicas y archivistas, cuando son instigadas por el deseo de inscribir la excepción del arte en la cultura globalizada, contribuyendo así a preservar el ejercicio del “arte de vivir” en su trazado polifónico.

Si hubo un logro micropolítico significativo luego de los movimientos de los años 1960-1970 que nos aparta de aquel período, éste reside precisamente en la posibilidad de abandonar los antiguos sueños románticos de “soluciones finales”, ya sean utópicas o distópicas, que siempre han desembocado en regímenes totalitarios. Ahora bien, el proceso de reactivación de la potencia vibrátil de nuestro cuerpo actualmente en curso, pese a estar aún en sus albores, nos permite entrever que no existe otro mundo sino éste, y que es desde dentro de sus impasses que otros mundos pueden estar inventándose en cada momento de la experiencia humana. Éste es el esfuerzo del trabajo del pensamiento: ya sea que se plantee en el arte o en otros lenguajes, su tarea es la composición de cartografías, que se dibujan al mismo tiempo que cobran cuerpo nuevos territorios existenciales, mientras otros se deshacen.

Pero no seamos ingenuos: nada asegura que el virus crítico-poético que los mencionados gérmenes portan se propague efectivamente como una epidemia planetaria; ni siquiera el virus transmisible que porta cualquier obra de nuestro tiempo, por más poderosa que sea. Siempre existirá la cultura que es la regla y el arte que es la excepción. Lo que “puede” el arte es arrojar el virus de lo poético en el aire. Y eso no es poco en el embate entre distintos tipos de fuerzas, cuyo resultado son las formas siempre provisorias de la realidad, en su interminable construcción.

 

© Suely Rolnik

 

AtrásArchive Mania

 

44th AICA Congress, Asunción, Paraguay, 18.10.11

 

 

 

If the past insists, it is because of life’s unavoidable demand to activate in the present the seeds of its buried futures. Walter Benjamin, Psychography [1]

 

 

 

There is culture, and that is the rule. There is exception, and that is art. Everything tells the rule: cigarettes, computers, T-shirts, television, tourism, war. Nothing says the exception. That is not said. It is written, composed, painted, filmed. Or it is lived. And it is then the art of living. It is of the nature of the rule to desire the death of exception. Jean-Luc Godard, Je vous salue, Sarajevo [2]

 

 

 

 

 

The globalized art world has been overtaken in recent decades by a true compulsion to archive—a compulsion that includes anything from academic research into preexisting archives or those still to be constructed, through exhibitions fully or in part based on them, to frantic competition among private collectors and museums in the acquisition of these new objects of desire. Without a doubt, this phenomenon is not the result of chance.

In view of this, it is urgent that we problematize the politics of archiving, since there are many different ways of approaching those artistic practices that are being archived. Such politics should be distinguished on the basis of the poetic force that an archiving device can transmit rather than on that of its technical or methodological choices. I am referring here to their ability to enable the archived practices to activate sensible experiences in the present, necessarily different from those that were originally lived, but with an equivalent critical-poetic density. Facing this issue, a question immediately emerges: How can we conceive of an inventory that is able to carry this potential in itself—that is, an archive “for” and not “about” artistic experience or its mere cataloguing in an allegedly objective manner?

This distinction can be explored according to at least two sets of questions. The first refers to the kind of poetics that are being catalogued: Which poetics are these exactly? Do they share common traits? Do they originate from similar historical contexts? What does it mean to catalogue poetics, and how is this operation different from the cataloguing of objects or documents? The second set of questions refers to the situation that has given rise to the current archive fever: What is the cause of the emergence of such desire today? What different politics of desire has given impulse to the many initiatives focused on archives, their emergence and means of production, presentation, circulation, and acquisition? In what follows, I aim to propose some clues to answering these questions.

Let us begin with the undeniable fact that there exists a privileged object of this yearning for the archive: the broad spectrum of artistic practices framed by the label “Conceptualism,” which were developed throughout the world during the 1960s and 1970s. Such practices, as well as others that shared a similar daring attitude in relation to the standards of their time, are the result of a phenomenon that starts at the turn of the nineteenth century into the twentieth: an accumulation of imperceptible tectonic movements within the art world that reached a threshold during those years and resulted in works that, by making such movements sensible, completely reconfigured the artistic landscape. This is the context in which the artists subsequently referred to as “Conceptual” emerge, adopting as the subject of their research the way in which the “art system” determines their creations. Their focus is on the diverse levels of such a system: from the spaces where the works are exhibited, to the categories and genres that the (official) history of art uses to qualify them, and to their media, supports, etc. The making critically explicit of such limitations within the artworks themselves provided at that moment in history a key orientation to artistic practice in search of lines of flight from such established boundaries. This operation provides the core to the poetics of those artistic proposals, and the conditions for the potency of their thinking—here resides the vitality of those artworks and the virus that they carry.

But the compulsion to archive hasn’t extended to every Conceptual artistic practice that emerged during those decades. The compulsion’s main focus is artistic proposals made outside the axis formed by Western Europe and the US—especially proposals originating in Latin America, in countries then under military rule. Such practices have been incorporated into the art history that has been written from within the Western Europe–US axis—an art history that has become the hegemonic discourse and defines the boundaries of the international art context. This is the perspective from which artistic production made elsewhere is interpreted and categorized today, which tends to distort the reading of such practices and generate toxic effects in their reception and dissemination.

 

The Spell Is Broken

For the past few decades, due to the advance of globalization, a demystification of that art history has been taking place. Such a phenomenon is part of a broader one, a process by which the previously idealizing view of the dominant culture that was held by other cultures—cultures that were until then under its influence—progressively fades. The spell that kept them captive has been broken, and with it the impediments it set to the possibility of elaborating their own experiences, with their own texture and density, and with the peculiarity of their own politics of production of knowledge.

A whole world, instituted by that hegemonic thought, is being destabilized. Its territory is being transformed from underground, its cartography modified, its limits redrawn. A process is beginning in which the cultures that until then had been suffocated are being reactivated, and new sensibilities introduced in the construction of the present, giving a cue to different modes of response. If we consider exclusively the two extreme positions, at the most reactive pole we find all kinds of fundamentalisms—movements that create the fiction of an originary identity that is lived as truth and that shapes subjectivity. In the hegemonic countries, this movement manifests itself in the form of xenophobia. In the specific case of Western Europe, the tendency has intensified in recent years to a dangerous degree, like a swan song responding to the announced death of such hegemony. Behind this mirage of an identitarian essence there is a denial of the experience of a multiple and variable alterity, and of the subjective and cultural flexibility that such alterity demands—phenomena that are the result of globalization. Simultaneously, at the most active pole, a whole range of inventions of the present are being produced. They are motivated, in contrast, by an opening up to the plurality of cultural others, and to the brushes and tensions that result from the collision with the new panorama in each particular context, chiefly with the cultural experiences inscribed in the bodies that inhabit it. As either one of these two positions advances, its opposite gains in intensity. Evidently, these two extremes do not exist in a pure state—what actually exists are different types of forces that manifest themselves in a range of different shades between the active and reactive poles, interacting in a vast cultural melting pot. Through this dynamic, the forms of transnational society are shaped.

Archive mania appears within a context shaken up by these contending forces regarding the definition of the geopolitics of art. But why were certain artistic practices that took place in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s especially embraced by this obsession with investigating, producing, exhibiting, and acquiring archives? And why especially those that took place in the Latin American countries that were under dictatorial regimes? There is, in fact, a shared element to all these practices, which nevertheless adopts distinct forms in each case: the problematization of the political dimension of the institutional territory of art was added to its other dimensions whose excessive influence on artistic creation was criticized during those years. Politics, which permeates art in its transversality, regardless of the context, becomes more explicit in authoritarian states—both Left and Right—because its effect on artistic actions is more violent.

However, it is necessary to differentiate between two modes of politics present in the Latin American artistic practices that are the object of this archive mania: macro- and micro-politics. Artistic actions of a macro-political nature basically transmit ideological content, and this brings them closer to activism than to art. In contrast, in the second type of actions the political constitutes an element that is intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, to poetic investigation. Independent of the value that might be assigned to each of these types, unfortunately, the macro-political tendency has been taken by hegemonic art history as a general interpretive tool for all Latin American artistic practices from those decades, through the label of “political” or “ideological” Conceptual art. This category was established by certain texts and exhibitions in the mid-1970s within the Western Europe–US axis—texts and exhibitions that have since become canonical.1 It contributes to the denial of the micro-political artistic actions, hindering both their recognition and their expansion. The invention of this mistaken category can be interpreted as a symptom of reactive forces, and it demands urgent redress in order to counter its effects. With that in sight, it is necessary to focus on the difference between the two modes in which politics is present in artistic practices, especially in contexts affected by state terrorism.

While the effect of totalitarian regimes on culture manifests itself most clearly through censorship—its macro-political face—its micro-political, imperceptible effect is much more subtle, but no less nefarious. It consists in the inhibition of the emergence of the creative process, even before artistic expression begins to take shape. Such inhibition is the result of an inexorable trauma caused by the experiences of fear and humiliation inherent to dictatorial regimes. Those experiences, which are the product of the tactics of imprisoning, torturing, and killing applied by authoritarian governments to those who oppose them, impregnate the atmosphere with a terrifying sensation of imminent danger. The situation affects desire at its core and weakens it, shattering the potency of thinking that desire summons and releases, and emptying subjectivity of its consistency. Since art is the privileged territory for exceptions within the rule of culture, it is especially affected.

Experiences of this kind are inscribed in the immaterial memory of the body, the physical and affective memory of sensations, different but inseparable from the memory of the perception of forms and facts, with their respective representations and their connective narratives—in this case, conventionally led by the figure of the victim, who interprets them by appealing to a purely ideological discourse. The unraveling of desire, the attempt to free it from its impotence, constitutes a task as subtle and complex as the process that caused both its unconscious repression2 and the figure of the victim that results from it. Such a task can endure for thirty years or longer, and may take shape with the second or third generation. The special vulnerability of some artists to this experience in its bodily dimension (regardless of whether or not they are aware of it or of its ideological interpretation) is what drives them to seek the micro-political potency that is immanent to artistic practice—an attitude that is very different from the use of art as a vehicle for macro-political information.

But it would be absurd to think that the micro-political power of art can be summoned and revealed exclusively on the basis of experiences of pain, fear, and anguish—especially when these are prompted by situations of macro-political oppression, whether in totalitarian regimes or in relationships of domination and exploitation through class, race, religion, gender, etc. We must free ourselves from the romantic trap that binds creation to pain. Any situation in which life is constrained by forms of reality and their description creates estrangement. And this estrangement is followed by a malaise that creates the need to express what does not fit into the current map, creating new meanings that are the condition for life to flow again. That is precisely what the aesthetic experience of the world is about. This experience depends on the ability of the body to become vulnerable to what surrounds it, to let itself be taken over by the sensation of disparity between the forms of reality and the movements that fluctuate underneath its apparent stability, which set it in a “state of art.” Such experience of the world goes beyond the apprehension of mere forms, as practiced by the perception associated with representations through which they are assigned meaning. The tension created by the paradoxical dynamic between these two modes of apprehension of the world makes maintaining the status quo intolerable—this causes estrangement and is what drives us to create. The body is not appeased until what is demanding to come into existence is brought to the surface of the current cartography, piercing what encloses it and changing its contours.

The malaise caused by such estrangement is not necessarily generated by fear or anguish. These are ego-conscious feelings, the product of impotence in the face of specific circumstances, including but not restricted to authoritarianism and social inequality. In extreme situations, feelings like these, as we have seen, bring with them the risk of inhibiting the power to create, and with it the replacement of thought by phantasms and projections. This is the way in which the trauma that results from dictatorial contexts can cause the substitution of ideology for thought. As a consequence of this, the artist becomes an activist, and his or her work a pamphlet expressing the sad affect of the victim, or his or her resentment and desire for vengeance—affects that are also mobilized in the artwork’s reception, with only two possible outcomes: the hope of redemption or the hopelessness fueled by the hallucination of an apocalypse. Covered by the screen of ideological projections, woven with the threads of romantic desire and religious emotion, experience is clouded and its tensions become inaccessible. Such tensions retain an unconscious power over subjectivity, which is led to adopt defensive strategies aimed to protect it but that at the same time limit it. At this juncture, a misunderstanding about the relationship between art and politics tends to emerge—a misunderstanding that, because it has its origin in this unconscious defensive operation, is not easy to undo.

In order to perceive that operation in more detail, it is worth remembering that sensation operates in the unconscious, corporeal realm, while feeling or emotion operates in the psychological realm. The object of sensation is the process that unmakes worlds and generates others, which happens, as we have seen, in any context in which life’s power is diminished. This is the process that moves us to artistic creation. Sensation therefore voices the power of creation and differentiation that defines the essence of life, a type of “vital emotion” distinguished from feelings and psychological emotions that merely voice the I and its consciousness. However, contexts that mobilize exacerbated feelings of anguish can impregnate those sensations to such an extent that they tend to become confused with one another. This confusion must be overcome: even though there is in fact a malaise caused by the disparity between the current forms of reality and the forces that aim to destroy them in order to create something new, and this malaise is difficult to sustain when what pushes through is not yet actualized in a new form of living or in an artwork, this state also results in a strange joy, because life is germinating. Artistic creation opens life-affirming channels and promotes a confidence in its ability to triumph even in extreme situations such as contexts of macro-political oppression, as was the case with the artistic practices under discussion here. Because of that, despite the fact that what spurs artistic action in dictatorial regimes is precisely the brutal presence of macro-politics in the process of creation, the nature of its strength is still micro-political. What guides artists is listening to the intensive reality that spurs them, and this reality can only puncture its boundaries if it is made concrete within the artist’s poetics. This ability makes art a powerful chemical reactive that, propagating through contagion, can interfere in the molecular composition of the environments it enters, dissolving its toxic elements.

This specific political dimension characterizes the sharpest artistic practices developed in Latin America during the dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s. In the face of the omnipresent, diffuse experience of oppression, the activation of the power of invention embodied in those works points out that it is possible to maintain the exercise of thinking even in this kind of situation, which can have effects against the tendency to defensive reactions of voluntary blindness and deafness as a matter of survival. Because of this, such artistic actions are of a completely different kind from the pedagogical or doctrinaire sort of action that aimed to increase awareness and communicate an ideological content, as well as the social and educational actions of “inclusion.” Because they do not take place within the realm of aesthetic experience, the latter lack the power over the weakening of desire and subjectivity.

Another misunderstanding that tends to emerge in this situation is the assumption that within the artistic practice in which political potential is affirmed, form is irrelevant. The political and form are not opposed; on the contrary, in such practices, the formal rigor of the work—whether painting, sculpture, urban intervention, installation, or performance—is more important and often more subtle than ever. In this case, forms are not powerful and seductive in their own right, or autonomous from the process that gives birth to them; form here is inseparable from its role as an actualization of the sensations and tensions that force the artist to think-create. This is an aesthetic rigor, but it is also and inseparably an ethical one—aesthetic, because it renders sensible what is announced by the affects of the world within the body; ethical, because it implies taking charge of the demands of life to remain in process. In this sense, the more precise and in tune the artistic language, the more vigorous its intensive quality and the stronger its seductive power—this is what provides it with the energy that enables it effectively to influence the contexts through which it circulates. When it reaches this degree of rigor, art becomes a sort of medicine: the experience it promotes might intervene in the subjectivity of those who come close to it, precisely at the point when desire tends to become trapped and to lose power. When this happens, the exercise of thought is reanimated, as well as other types of perception—but also, and above all, of invention and expression. A new politics of desire and its relationship to the world is then drawn—new diagrams of the unconscious in the social field, actualized through reconfigurations of the current cartography. In conclusion, it is a vital rigor that opposes those forces that draw maps in order to cripple life at its core, and that consists, as we have seen, in a persistent renewing of itself in the permanent creation of the world.

The specific political character of the artistic practices that we are considering here lies, therefore, in what they can give occasion to in the environments that are affected by them. The issue is to be aware not of the tensions (their extensive, representational, macro-political face), but of the experience of this state of things within the body itself, and of the effects mobilized by the forces that make them up (their intensive, unconscious, micro-political face). In this manner, focus is increased—the same focus that is lost when what is related to the social life of art is exclusively reduced to a macro-political approach, which, as we have seen, tends to be fostered by situations of state oppression or extreme social inequality. Such was the case with certain artistic practices during the 1960s and 1970s in South America, as well as with certain contemporary practices, mainly since the 1990s (and not only on that subcontinent). These artistic practices, and only these, can truly be called “political” or “ideological.”

Here resides the unfortunate misunderstanding promoted by (official) art history, which ignored the essence of the actions on which we are focusing here. By acting on the affective-resonating nature of subjectivity, and not only on consciousness, such actions began to overcome the split between the poetic and the political. This split used to be actualized in the classic figures of the artist and the activist: the first dispossessed of the micro-political dimension of his practice, and the second dispossessed of the ethical dimension of his subjectivity and dissociated from the body as a vital compass in the interpretation of the world and the actions that result from it. This conflict extricates from art the micro-political energy that is immanent to it, and in that case when politics is introduced within artistic practices it is reduced to the macro dimension and gives rise to the a third figure: the militant artist. From this figure’s perspective, artistic practices that do not directly and literally tackle the macro-political dimension are dismissed as formalist. While it is true that the overcoming of this split between the poetic and the political was already in process within the artistic avant-gardes of the early twentieth century, and that it was developed and disseminated during the first half of that century—and more intensively in the postwar period—it was during the 1960s and 1970s that this connection acquired the consistency of a vast movement in art, influencing culture in a broader sense, which includes modes of existence. These changed irreversibly during that period, when the exception of art proved to be stronger than the rules of culture—hence the name it has been given: “counterculture.”3 Such reactivation, when it suffered a military coup, tended to retract back to the silence of unconscious repression.

 

Colonial Unconscious Repression

For this picture to gain precision it is necessary to point out that the joint articulation of the poetic and the political does not start with the historical avant-gardes; it actually starts much earlier. We could go as far as to say that such articulation is one of the fundamental aspects of the politics of cognition that, in different ways, characterized a great part of the cultures dominated by Western European modernity. This cultural regime is inseparable from its counterparts in the field of economy (the capitalist system) and in the field of desire (the modern individual, source of bourgeois subjectivity, and whose psychic structure Freud framed under the concept of “neurosis”). Let us not forget that this cultural mode was forced on the world at large as a universal paradigm through colonization, targeting not only other continents (America, Africa, and Asia) but also the different cultures that were smothered within the European continent.

Among these are the Mediterranean cultures, especially the Arab-Jewish culture that was dominant on the Iberian Peninsula prior to the intercontinental travels that launched colonization in the late fifteenth century. As is well known, from then on those practicing this culture suffered the violence of the Inquisition, and many of them took refuge in the “New World” that was being built in America.4 Such violence was perpetrated throughout the same three centuries when Africa suffered the assault of slavery, and when indigenous American cultures suffered the assault of near extinction—a triple foundational trauma in some Latin American countries, among them Brazil. But there is more: the forms of violence that characterized the colonial period left active scars on the collective body’s memory of American societies after they had secured their independence, starting with deep-rooted class and racial prejudices. Remnants of a politics of colonial, slavery-inflicted desire, such prejudices generated, and still generate, the worst kind of humiliation and probably the most serious traumas, hard to overcome due to the persistence of the stigma and its recurrence in social life. Reinforcing and prolonging this process, other evils in the macro-political context—such as poverty, social exclusion, external domination, and authoritarian regimes—started to mix with the above, and this, in the micro-political dimension, has worsened the preexisting traumas and created new ones, in the past and still today. We can assume, therefore, that the unconscious repression of the immanent articulation of the poetic with the political has its origins in Western modernity, and culminates today with the cognition politics of transnational financial capital. We could even risk stating that, from a micro-political perspective, such an operation had a central role in the foundation of Western culture and its imposition on the rest of the world, and because of this I will refer to it as “colonial unconscious repression.” If we consider colonization from this perspective, we might conclude that this has perhaps been its most effective device.5

It is worth returning to the description of the politics of cognition, which is the object of colonial unconscious repression, in the framework of our historical horizon. It is characterized by three aspects: the vigor of the body’s capacity to resonate in the face of the forces that agitate in the intensive plane (the aesthetic experience of the world), the sensation mobilized by the tension of the paradoxical dynamics of this experience and that of perception, and the power of the thought-creation that is activated when such tension reaches a certain threshold. The object of this kind of repression is precisely this strength of inventive imagination and its capacity to resist the desire to maintain the familiar forms of life—a desire that is characterized by a politics that adopts perception as the exclusive means of knowing the world. Unconscious repression makes subjectivity unable to support itself on such tension, the engine of the thought machine that produces the actions in which reality is reinvented. In conclusion, the object of this type of repression is the body itself, and the possibility of inhabiting it. In this operation what is repressed is its ability to listen to the diagram of forces of the present, as the key compass for the exercise of the cognitive production and its interference in the world—a compass that is meant to guide us not in the visible space, but in the invisible states of life-pulse. The activation of the bodily ability that was repressed by modernity constitutes an essential dimension for any poetic-political action. Without such activation, the only possibility is to produce variations around the modes of production of subjectivity and of cognition that found us as colonies of Western Europe—precisely the condition from which we want to escape.

Unconscious repression functions through complex procedures that have been transformed throughout history. Here, we are examining only the most recent experiences. In totalitarian regimes, as we have seen, the exercise of thought is concretely hindered, and this ultimately leads to its inhibition, threatened by fear and humiliation. In contrast, in the context of financial capitalism, the unconscious repression operation is much more refined. The goal is not to prevent such exercise, or to aim at its partial or full inhibition, but to foster it, even to celebrate it, in order to place it at the service of the purely economic interests of the regime, voiding it of the immanent disruptive force of its poetics. This is what drives many thinkers to conclude that contemporary capitalism finds its main energy source in the power of thought-creation, and has led them to call it “cultural,” “cognitive,” or “informational” capitalism—an idea that is common currency today.

This regime takes advantage of the fragility caused by the tension between the two vectors of experience of the world, through the promise of an instant appeasement. The desire to confront this pressure and the energy of creation that it mobilizes tend to be channeled exclusively to the market. This takes place in several modes, among which perhaps the most obvious is the move to push subjectivity toward images of ready-made forms of life, such as the ones that populate mass culture and publicity, tirelessly spread by the mass media and offering a diverse range of possibilities of identification. These ready-made forms of life also include luxury cultural offers that are equally homogenized. In this area, some museums of contemporary art, with their ostentatious architecture, fulfill a privileged role, as does the proliferation of biennials—a phenomenon that has been critically referred to as the “biennialization” of the planet. Both currently work as facilitators of cultural tourism for the middle and upper classes and shape a shared international language that is considered “high culture,” made up of a few words and ornaments taken from the dominant rhetoric—the names of artists and curators fleetingly celebrated by the media—and a certain “style” of behavior that includes elements of fashion, design, gastronomy, etc. Desire is trapped by some of the images it selects through a process of symbiotic identification, triggering a compulsion to consume the products associated with them, with the goal of reproducing the world that they propose in everyday life, deceived by the promise of admission to a paradise on earth. What attracts desire and traps it within this dynamic is the mirage of being recognized and recognizing ourselves in one of the mise-en-scènes that this operation offers. The intention is to free ourselves from the distressing sensation of one’s emptiness, and to recuperate, as if by magic, a social value that seems to have been lost. However, in order to maintain this illusion, a price must be paid: with the instrumentalization of desire, the flair to track the vital pulse and its obstacles is lost; our capacity for invention is diverted from its primordial focus, which consists of opening up new roads for life to flow.

 

The Return of the Repressed

However, there is a reverse side to this dynamic: the memory of the bodies that inhabit the regions controlled by the dominant culture is not only inscribed with the trauma of the articulation of the poetic and the political that causes its unconscious repression. It is also inscribed with the experience of that articulation, which waits for the right conditions to reactivate itself and escape from its confinement. These conditions are caused by social situations that favor the neutralization of the pathological effects of the trauma, in the way it shapes existence and its destinies.

A situation of this kind can be found in the experience of the state of things today. The proliferation of world-images that incessantly appear and disappear at a blinding speed, promoted by the development of communication technologies, will not just result in the instrumentalization of our subjective forces by the market. If we add to this situation the polyphony of cultures that can be heard and experienced at any time and in any place, we can see that their effect is also to make it impossible for any repertoire to have a stable or absolute power. This impossibility is one of the reasons for the decline during recent decades of the fascination and seduction of European and North American modernity, now in its neoliberal version. Today is no longer a time of opposition and resentment, or of its flip side—the identification and demand for recognition, which means the demand for love that is in this case the symptom of a humiliated subjectivity that idealizes the oppressor and depends on his perverse desire. The current movement consists precisely in major or minor displacements out of humiliation, and the subsequent submission to the oppressor, with the goal to reactivate what has been repressed in our bodies.

It would be mistaken to think that the objective of this return to the past is to “rescue” a supposed lost essence from African, indigenous, or Mediterranean forms of existence that were in place before the fifteenth century, or in the countercultural shift of the 1960s and 1970s. This movement was characterized by a tendency to idealize an alleged lost origin, and this led part of the generation that created it on a treasure hunt in those regions, as if their past remained there in its “pure state” and could be “revealed.” Instead, the object of reconnecting with that past is to engage in the ethics of desire and of knowledge that was practiced in those cultures and in their actualizations—their effort to ensure the preservation of life, which depends on the fact of the aesthetic experience, in order to listen to life movements and adopt them as orientation points for existence. (This ethics, it must be said, is also repressed today in those regions.) Getting back in touch with this exercise does not demand the reproduction of the forms that such ethics generated in the past; it demands the activation, in today’s context, of this ethics as a way in which to reorient the new inventions of the cartography of the present, against the operations that aim to secure their unconscious repression.

In this context, the will to return to existing archives emerges, as does the will to create new ones from the traces of the artistic practices produced in South America in the 1960s and 1970s—a will that is today almost epidemic. With the dictatorships, the experience of the fusion of poetic and political forces put forward by such practices remains veiled in the memory of our bodies. We could only access it through the exteriority of the forms in which it was manifested, and always in fragmentary form. As we have seen, its disruptive power—and what this power triggered and could continue to trigger—was buried by the effect of the trauma that the military governments caused, and this was followed by their perverse reanimation by the cognitive capitalism that followed it.

 

The Toxic Misunderstanding of the (Official) History of Art

This major aspect of South America’s artistic production in the 1960s and 1970s seems to have escaped art history. Even if this production could perhaps be labeled with the umbrella term “Conceptualism,” it is unacceptable to call it “ideological” or “political” in order to characterize a peculiarity that in practice has widened its limits and potentially transformed its surroundings. While it is true that we find in these proposals a seed of the integration of the political and the poetic, as experienced and actualized in artistic practices and in the modes of existence that emerged at that time, such a seed was fragile and unsayable. To call it “ideological” or “political” is a symptom of the denial of the exception that this radically new artistic experience introduced into culture and the state of estrangement this caused in the subjectivities. The defensive strategy is simple: if what we experience there is not recognizable within the realm of art, in order to protect ourselves from the bothersome noise we place it within the category of macro-politics, and everything is then in place. The micro-political dimension that is immanent to art is therefore denied, its process of germination is interrupted, and what is to come remains incubated at best.

The seriousness of this operation is undeniable, especially if we remind ourselves that the state of estrangement to which the exception of art gives rise is a crucial experience—one that results from the reverberation of the plastic multiplicity of the forces of the world on our bodies, picked up by its resonating capacities. This is a space of alterity that opens up within subjectivity, destabilizes it, disturbs it, and demands a reworking of its boundaries and the map of its connections in order to achieve a new equilibrium. Ignoring it demands blocking the thinking life that gives an impulse to artistic actions, and that allows it to have a potential influence on the forms of the present. Such denial is the toxic element contained in the sad categories mobilized by art history to interpret the artistic practices under discussion here; such is the reactive force that its misunderstanding reveals and that at the same time hints at its goal.

In this state of things, it becomes urgent to activate the intrinsic articulation between the poetic and the political, and the life-affirming force that depends on it. This is the condition for desire to free itself from its defensive weakening, in order to allow for a vital expansion on the basis of the experience lived by the resonating body in the present. Here is the context that, in different ways, has triggered a series of initiatives generated by the fever to investigate, create, exhibit, and own archives that has taken over the domain of art.

However, this situation also mobilizes a politics of desire that is diametrically opposed to the above: at the exact moment in which those initiatives appear, and before the seeds of the future that they brought with them emerge, the global art system incorporates them in order to transform them into fetishized objects, plundered in a cognitive war among the major museums and collectors of Western Europe and the U.S. Such operation risks sending back those seeds to oblivion and makes it an efficient device of cognitive capitalism. As Jean-Luc Godard suggests, “It is of the nature of the rule to desire the death of exception.” While the movement of critical thought that took place in such an intense manner in the 1960s and 1970s in Latin America was brutally interrupted by the military governments, at the exact moment its memory begins to be reactivated this process is again interrupted, now with the glamorous refinement and seduction of the art market—a market with interests that have too much power over artistic creation and tend to ignore its thinking poetics. This operation is very different from the atrocious actions exerted against artistic production by dictatorial regimes: it is a new chapter in history, yet much less postcolonial than we would wish.

The politics of the production of archives and the need to distinguish its multiple modalities become relevant here. The challenge of the initiatives that aim to unblock the necessary access to the seeds of the future, hidden in the poetics that they address, is to activate their critical acuteness in order to guarantee the conditions of an experience of the same caliber when facing the questions that are posed today. The critical-poetic force of these archives can in this manner come together with the forces of creation active today, adding to their power in the fight against the effects of the toxic vaccination of cultural capitalism, which neutralizes art’s virus and makes it work only for its own purposes. This operation is not only taking place in the context of art-making; it happens through the market and, as discussed earlier, includes, among its key instruments, many museums of contemporary art and the proliferation of biennials and art fairs.6

The point is not to demonize the art market, collecting, or commercial galleries, since artists must make a living from their work, and collectors should not repress their desire to live with artworks and enjoy them. Nor is it to demonize museums, which play an important role in the building of archives of artistic production, preserving them and making them available to the public. The market and the museums are not external to art, but an integral part of its dynamic. Life cannot be ruled by Manichaean morals that distinguish between good and bad human activities; what counts is the struggle between active and reactive forces in each field of activity, at different times and in different contexts. This is also the case in the domain of art: artistic, critical, curatorial, museological, and archiving activities must be thought through the forces that determine them at each moment, in their complex transversality and not as if in an idealized, imaginary territory. From an ethical perspective, what matters is if they are driven by the desire to inscribe the exception of art in a globalized culture, contributing to preserving the polyphonic exercise of the “art of living.”

If there is a micro-political achievement after the 1960s and 1970s that differentiates that time from ours, it is the possibility of abandoning the old romantic dreams of “final solutions”—be they utopian or dystopian—that have always resulted in totalitarian regimes. The process of reactivation of the resonating capacity of our body that is currently taking place, even if it is only just beginning, allows us to glimpse the fact that there is no other world but the one in which we live, and that only within its dead ends can other worlds be invented at each moment of human experience. This is the work of thought, in art or in other languages: to draft cartographies while new existential territories are taking shape and others are vanishing.

But let us not be naive: nothing guarantees that the critical-poetic virus carried by the seeds we have discussed will effectively spread as a world epidemic, not even the virus carried by work from our own time, no matter how powerful it might be. There will always be culture as rule and art as exception. What art can do is release the poetic virus out into the open air. And that is at least something, in the midst of the struggle between the different forces that shape the provisional forms of reality in their never-ending process of construction.

 

© Suely Rolnik

Back

Lo sentimos, esta entrada solamente se encuentra disponible en Inglés. Próximamente estará disponible en Español.

 

AtrásI Am for the Equality of Intelligence
Notes on Some Positive Effects of Times of Crisis on Art Criticism

 

44th AICA Congress, Asunción, Paraguay, 7.10.11

 

 

 

 
“Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river”—wrote Jorge Luis Borges. Antonio Gramsci famously stated: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” Gramsci also argued that although economic crises may not lead to historic transformations of society, which may or may not be constructive, they create a favorable climate for “the dissemination of certain modes of thought,” which nowadays we may call paradigms, épistemes, or simply inquires. With this in mind, today’s “crisis” might be best defined here as a slow and open-ended “testing time,” rather than, for example, a fast and conclusive “emergency event.”

In my presentation I will argue that “times of crisis” can impact art critics positively, for such times demand radical reevaluation and reshaping of the existing methodologies to synchronize them with the current praxis. I will quote numerous art critics to place my arguments in the context of a longer conversation and stress that we art critics form a community. It is, in fact, a conversational character of art criticism that interests me greatly.

Discussions of crisis in relation to modern criticism have had a long history, reaching back to Winckelmann, Goethe, Baudelaire, and Malarmé. I will return here to a more recent example, which as “random” as it is, I my opinion, still serves well to shed light on what we critics are confronted with, which is not a new phenomenon. In “The Crisis of Contemporary Criticism,” an essay written in 1966 for a conference at the University of Texas, the Belgian-born deconstructionist critic and theorist Paul de Man commented on the state of literary criticism:

Congress after congress devoted to the problem of criticism has taken place in France and elsewhere, and they have, in general, been as acrimonious as they are confused. One is tempted to speak of recent developments in Continental criticism in terms of crisis. To confine oneself for the moment to purely outward symptoms, the crisis-aspect of the situation is apparent, for instance, in the incredible swiftness with which often conflicting tendencies succeed each other, condemning the immediate obsolescence what night have appeared as the extreme point of avant-gardism briefly before. Rarely has the dangerous word “new” been used so frequently.

Following other thinkers, such as Friederich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell and Martin Heidegger (to name just three important thinkers), De Man cautioned against the use of the category “new,” seeing it as the result of a predilection for intellectual fashion among critics, rather than as their rigorous reflection on history. After providing a brief overview of the trends in blurring the boundaries between academic disciplines fashionable at that time—including the connection of criticism to the social sciences and linguistics, and to latest interests in the writings of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jacques Lacan—de Man suggested that the symptoms of the then current crisis-like situation had arisen from the fact that theory is often shaped in reaction to “actual institutional and economic interests,” rather than in reaction to the interests of the individual. Examining Western society in the 1960s, he noted the growing presence of the new masses demanding spectacle—a phenomenon that a year later Guy Debord would analyze in his book The Society of the Spectacle (La Société du spectacle)—a spectacle, which serves the interests of the consciousness-shaping industry. Nowadays, these ideas seem to be quite obvious. “But”—let’s remind ourselves, de Man continued on a positive note—“this does not mean that the moment of crisis itself, doomed as it may be, cannot be intensely interesting.”

Treating literary criticism as another form of writing, and therefore questioning its uniqueness, de Man considered criticality as a necessity to self-reflection, which is characteristic of all writings. Hence, “[t]o speak of a crisis of criticism is then,” he argued, “to some degree, redundant,” because such a “crisis” is embedded in the very notion of modern language. In other words, writing demands critical approach to its structure and its intent, regardless of the political or economic circumstances. He stressed, therefore, that the responsibility to remain self-critical lies on individuals, who must avoid being “blind to what takes place within themselves.” I will return to this idea later.

 

The old is dying and the new cannot be born.

The Italian writer and Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci wrote these words in prison in 1930. Perceiving cultural hegemony as a tool for maintaining political power, he questioned the relevance of the traditional intelligentsia (which usually avoids direct interaction with society at large and tend to focus on lofty ideas), and suggested that its place should be taken by an intelligentsia that emerges organically from within the society, a product of the modern and undiscriminating system of education and of dynamic and emphatic discourses related to the real conditions of life. Such a shift should be mentioned here not to suggest the abolition of any ancien régime, but rather to provoke us to rethink our role as critics in the context of the globalization of culture and the arts, which, to a large degree, diluted professionalism in art criticism (anybody can claim to be an art critic). Yet, we can still make difference; in fact, the more critics the better—as long as we keep questioning ourselves.

What kind of social consciousness should contemporary criticism reflect while facing not only global growth, but also widespread instability? How should we evaluate the impact of current developments in technology and science on art? What kind of art reflects the best actual culture and social reality? Which channels of communication do we need to privilege to make our voices heard? Here, we shall also ask ourselves: “What is AICA’s role in redefining art criticism for us all?

What is really dying?—probably nothing important. It is easy to link the ongoing changes in the role of art criticism to technological transformations and economic factors and their impact on how we practice our profession. The proliferation of online publications has created a virtual database that is highly useful, but also both extremely vast and largely inaccurate, because anyone can publish on the Internet—with the visibility of those postings directly linked to the financial resources of the institution or person who posts them. As one of my Facebook friends wrote to me recently: “There is a jungle out there, with millions of speedy bloggers eager to share their instant thoughts with anyone who is willing to go to their sites.” Millions of speedy bloggers is not necessary bad.

No doubt the rapid growth in digital technologies and science in recent years has produced faster channels of communication than have ever existed before. As a result of these, the printing press is in decline—not only because it can hardly sustain the fast-growing challenge from online publications, but in large part because of the miscalculations of publishers, who have often chosen to compete with the online publications by shortening the length of articles, and by making them more information-oriented, less analytical and, often, less intellectually rigorous. Similarly, publishing houses around the world have responded to the “crisis” by demanding that the authors make their books “more accessible” and shorter, offering, instead, coffee-table design, which clearly cannot supplement the lack of serious content. Responding to the “crisis,” (or shall we call it “disorientation”?) newspapers and art magazines now skillfully blend articles with advertisements—to satisfy their advertisers, who are fewer but wealthier. Dying therefore are, above all, old methods of reacting to the “crisis” by implementing various short cuts in production, which result in a weakening of the intellectual quality of writings—hence the loss of the readership.

Who are the new masses interested in art and art criticism? While the proliferation of biennial exhibitions and art fairs has caused the so-called art world to expand, it has also resulted in a loss of local specificity of art in different regions. Art promoted by those spectacular art events looks homogenous, whereas art produced locally, with no international stamp of approval keeps being marginalized. The Russian artist Ilya Kabakov compared the art world to a peculiar family: “The family moves just like flies. Completely free, flying through the air, organizing its exhibitions no matter where. In South Africa, or in South America, or in Norway, or in Iceland.” His “family” recalls in fact, Plato’s community constantly moving in unison (as opposed to the “poetic” and democratic society. In such a fast moving global art world, we witness growing bureaucratization and commercialization of art production and dissemination, which has resulted in a transfer of power from artists and critics to gallerists and curators, and it is the latter who determine what the “new” in art stands for nowadays and present it to the new “masses” in motion. But, are they really new masses, or perhaps it is just a larger group of followers that have little to do with an average viewer?

The art critic is yet again forced to reexamine his or her role vis-à-vis his or her audience, or he or she will be further marginalized. For a long time, art criticism was perceived as a form of “privileged consciousness,” an insight into the art, which required special skills and, hopefully, an artistic sensibility. The old art critic, whether he or she was a professional or a dilettante, once performed a regulatory, introspective and proscriptive function for the circulation and reception of art. That erudite has already been largely replaced by a fast moving, semi-professional critic-curator-art agent, who pursues a career that might or might not last longer than few years, depending on the rapidity of the success of his/her program. Art criticism practiced by those individuals wearing multiple hats, according to the American critic and artist Peter Plagens, has become “a subdivision of the entertainment industry.”

It is easy to be pessimistic, or skeptical. Assessing the current state of art criticism, James Elkins lamented its decline in What Happened to Art Criticism? in these words: “In worldwide crisis … dissolving into the background clutter of ephemeral cultural crisis… [art criticism is] dying… massively produced, and massively ignored.” His apocalyptic voice has joined the voices of others, who have already proclaimed an end to art and an end to history. But art and art critic are not dead, not yet.

Art criticism faces the challenge from new forms of communication, but to simply condemn modern technology as destructive to critical thinking is itself to exercise a sort of intellectual laziness. After all, as de Man argued: “unmediated expression is a philosophical impossibility.” As recent events in different parts of the world, such as the “Arab Spring” and the “occupation” of Wall Street by young demonstrators outraged by the greed of the bankers, have demonstrated, newly developed social media can provide effective means for public mobilization against the domination of prevailing systems of power, including that of the so-called “culture industry,” which is increasingly in the hands of large corporations and governments. With the growing political, economic and military instability of the current world, technology, when used in a conscious fashion, can become a powerful tool for dissemination of ideas and provide a new platform to activism; it is easily available to both artists and art critics.

The highly unstable political and economic situation in the world has already stimulated heated debates on its future direction for the world. “Communism: A New Beginning?” was the provocative title of a symposium co-organized by Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek that recently took place at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York. Lately, Badiou has been proposing the “communist hypothesis” as a response to having our lives taken over by the “primary fear” (instead of the more self-reflective “fear of the fear”) that governs nowadays. Obviously, he does not propose a return to Soviet-style Communism, or to any specific type of old-style Marxism, but rather that we embrace the old ideology of collective action on its most fundamental level—to respect the rights of the individual. Žižek has predicted that, “The long night of the left is coming to a close,” after several decades of being silenced by various right-wing demagogues. Let’s hope so. Unfortunately, the hermetic, highly specific language uses by the participants in the conference did not help to make the experience “communal.”

The voices of the left include those of other scholars and critics, who are deeply dissatisfied with the current state of affairs in the world, its intellectual climate included, but who do not simply proclaim the end of the old in its totality. Still, the number of those vocal scholars and critics appears to shrink, while the new ones are slow to emerge. The Japanese philosopher Takeshi Umehara perceptively linked those transformations with the intellectual wellbeing of global society when he wrote in the 1990s that the “complete failure of Marxism and the spectacular disintegration of the Soviet Union are only the predecessors of the collapse of Western liberalism, the main current of modernity. Far from being an alternative to Marxism and the dominant ideology at the end of history, liberalism will be the next domino to fall.” Badiou was more specific when he argued that the democratization of the world that came after the fall of the Berlin Wall, instead of bringing more freedom has resulted in the further economic and political polarization of West from East, and North from South. Thus, to remain optimistic, we should consider our new role to be that of preventing “old” liberalism from dying, instead of worrying that “the debate about the ‘crisis in criticism’” might turn into “a proxy for a real political debate” or become purely philosophical.

 

Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river

These words appear in Borges’s “New Refutation of Time” (“Nueva refutacion del tiempo”) included in Other Inquisitions (Otras inquisiciones) published in 1952. The sentence belongs to a longer thought, which I will quote entirely to preserve the beauty of the Argentinean writer’s prose, because such a beauty of writing is often absent in art criticism (As art criticism becomes more and more “mechanical,” I want to stress our responsibility to the language itself as an important component of our profession. As Oscar Wilde famously argued, the critic must be an artist to be a good critic): “Our fate (unlike the hell of Swedenborg or the hell of Tibetan mythology) is not frightful because it is unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and ironclad. Time is the thing I am made of. Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that tears me apart, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.” Is it really “unfortunate” that Borges was only Borges? Obviously, it isn’t and that is not how his words should be read. In the sentences I just quoted, the writer simply places a self-reflective mirror in front of himself (“fear of the fear), in order to avoid being blind to what takes place within him, and to be suspicious of his own authority and realistic about his ignorance.

Following de Man’s “deconstructive” approach to the then current interests among critics, we might argue that subsequent academic fashions keep expanding our horizons, yet they leave us partially dissatisfied, not because they are false or incomplete, not even because they often sound like the “old” rewritten in another scholarly jargon, but rather because they might blind to what takes place within ourselves. While examining the “theoretical production” (Hal Foster’s expression), we should remain cautious with dividing critics from scholars, practitioners from theoreticians. As the American critic Ben Davis observes “the debate about the ‘crisis in criticism’ seems a proxy for a real political debate: popular types defend some kind of humanist vision of the individual imagination against the art-theory bureaucrats; theory-heads clamor for art that has a didactic value, that doesn’t capitulate to popular wisdom, that takes a stand. This, it should be noted, is one of the all-time classic false oppositions.” This type of a common sense, pragmatic arguing is necessary for keeping us focus on real issues, but surprisingly it is “locked” in its exclusive focus on the local situation and local critics in the United States, while poking en passant at various French thinkers, from Michel Foucault to Jacques Rancière.

Let’s recall just a few of recent academic fashions here, to remind ourselves that they are not novel, but belong to a long tradition of universal critical thinking that attempts to anchor art in the present day, and as such might be viewed as a latest examples of collective dramaturgy of translations about the externality (rather than internality) of our experience. In fact, one might argue the successive fashions, often hermetic and “unreadable,” have proven de Man to be right in his assessment of the impact of academic discourse on our modes of thinking, which lately—in times of crisis—have been perceptively scrutinized and reevaluated.

For instance, let’s take Nicolas Bourriaud’s “Relational Aesthetics” of the late 1990s, a point of view that considers artistic activities to be a game, assigns an active role to the viewer and suggests the conversational aspects of art, while reducing the presence of the work itself to something of a “pretext” or a prop. By questioning newness as a valid criterion for art, Bourriaud followed in the footsteps of such writers as Guy Debord (“the spectacle”) and Jean Baudrillard, whose concept of “hyperreality” relies on a premise that modern man can no longer tell what reality is because he has become lost in a world of “simulacra,” images and signs created and presented as “real” by the mass media.

Going further back in time, some have argued that “hyperreality” is also nothing new; for instance, in the 18th century Bishop Berkeley had theorized that everything that individuals know about objects or events is their perception of it, a perception placed in their minds by God. Thus, Baudrillard simply replaced God with the mass media. One could also extend such a reading of reality to the non-religious Platonic notion of the cave. Confronted with the limitations of such a view of reality, even Baudrillard became skeptical of his own vision of it, when he asked: “What are you doing after the orgy?,” suggesting to move on.

In the United States, linking art to lofty theory still might be associated with formalism, with Rosalind Krauss remaining one of its most vocal proponents. One might view her so-called “method” as sort of a doctrine of aesthetic privilege—which in fact is an offspring of Greenbergian doctrine of purity of the artistic medium itself and echoes Kantianism. As one young American critic observed, in her methodology Krauss pushed the responsibility for artistic meaning toward the written, at the expense of the conditions in which the written is written. Her totalizing “method” has been, in fact, a favorite subject of criticism for postmodern critics, such as Nicholas Mirzoeff, whose concept of “Visual Culture” has already produced an intellectual dizziness in the United States and elsewhere.

“Visual culture”—Mirzoeff writes—“is concerned with visual events in which information, it means our pleasure is sought by the consumer in an interface with visual technology.” He argues that “observing” is not “understanding.” Observing belongs to culture (or rather leisure), understanding to history. Needless to say, this believe in a kind of contemporary flâneurie puts too much emphasis on the unavoidability of the impact of technology, making the viewer a largely passive recipient of its stimuli, pleasure (perhaps in a Kantian sense) being the principal one. Yet, in principle Mirzoeff denies the aesthetic condition to be sensory. What Mirzoeff “dematerializes” the most successfully is the presence of a neutral, homogenous identity, replacing it with a plethora of smaller ones—these once thought of as aspects of “the Other”—in a postmodernist manner.

Fortunately, views of historical passivity of the viewer have already been successfully challenged by writers such as Rancière, whose concept of the “emancipated spectator” questions the idea that looking and knowing are two different things. Let’s recall what the French philosopher argued for in his 2004 lecture, a few years ago extended into a book. “The master [let’s replaced “master” with “critic” here] cannot ignore”—writes Rancière —“that the so-called ‘ignorant’ who is in front of him knows in fact a lot of things, that he has learnt on its own, by looking and listening around him, by figuring out the meaning of what he has seen and heard, repeating what he has heard and known by chance, comparing what he discovers with what he already knew and so on.” If he or she wants to become a member of the emancipated community—he or she needs to become a “storyteller” or a “translator,” or both as I am attempting to do here.

Needless to say, in the consumer-driven society we live in academic discourse keep evolving quickly, one exclusive theory being replaced by another, making time feel like a river passing by. But how much those theories change our fundamental understanding of our role as art critics—and our understanding of art—how much they pass through us, remains an open question. How much do those theories demand from us to reexamine what takes place within ourselves? It demands a “reappropriation of Time.”

If I had to name one thing that I believe we must not allow to die, I would say it is personal responsibility vis-à-vis ourselves, individuals as part of a living collective and of history. To reexamine the meaning of such a personal responsibility and mutual recognition, we might need to return to a passionate, even opinionated, and informed approach to writing about art. As Elkins suggested, by doing so we might be able to reinstate “criticism important enough to count as history, and vice versa.” History might be defined here as a conscious inquiry (or ἱστορία in Greek, “inaccurately” told by Herodotus, which passed into Latin to become “history”) that allows one see himself or herself in the context of a longer view of the transformations of society and the critical reflections they generate. History can be (hi)story.

Without producing another totalizing approach to art criticism in such a short presentation, I would like to suggest a model that might be worth considering: this would be one that stresses the unity of art and life, rather than art as a reflection of an impotent relationship with mass culture that relies on technology, read economy. In this model, art would represent an active engagement with society perceived as a thoughtful collective organism, which acknowledges the value of “the equality of intelligence.” It is phenomenon, related to the knowable world of the senses—rather than noumenon, related to the unknowable world of ideas—that fosters the commonality of our experience and by doing so, also allows the art critic communicate with the existing audience in a active fashion, and hopefully gain a new public.

Such a “popular” (as opposed to “bureaucratic”) and sensory (for the use of multiple senses is what we seem to be loosing in the electronic age) approach to writing criticism—as partial and fragile as it might be—can make art critics’ words matter again, rather than ceding control over their meaning to others, be they art magazines, museums, galleries, or advertisers. As a result as such a resistance, “[t]he political consequences of the axiom, ‘there is only one world’,”—we shall repeat after Badiou—“will work to consolidate what is universal in identities,” which constitutes true globalism.

Perhaps the most appropriate way to finish this presentation is to return to the inconclusive words from Paul de Man’s essay, which I reference in this presentation: “This is not the endpoint, the telos [“purpose” or “goal”] but the starting point, the arché [“origin,” “first cause,” “power” and “sovereignty”] of literature” … art criticism included. To put it simply, we art critics still have job to be done.

 

© Marek Bartelik. New York, October 2011

Back