Social Art and New Institutionalism. Examining how the Art Institutions have responded to sociallyengaged and participatory art practices. Niamh Brennan In partial fulfilment of the Limerick School of Art & Design, (LIT) Bachelor or Arts (Honours) Degree in Fine Art –Printmaking. 2012/2013 Table of Contents Title Page Table of Contents 1 List of Illustrations 2 Introduction 4 Chapter 1 Considering the Discursive Context; The Theories of “Social” Art. 8 Chapter 2 “New Institutionalism”; The “New Institution” and its Relationship with Social Art. 20 Part 1 21 Part 2 32 Conclusion 38 Bibliography 40 List of Illustrations 1. Rirkrit Tiravanija - “Untitled 1990 (Pad Thai)”. Project Room, Paula Allen Gallery, New York, NY, 1990 http://www.great.szpilman.de/index.php?/t/tiravanija-rirkrit/ Downloaded 14.05.13 2. Rirkrit Tiravanija - “Untitled (Pad See-ew)1990/2002”. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2002. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_M9HsFF0UB5Q/TUglw8_KQAI/AAAAAAAAAEE/Wny qV0wqLZw/s1600/Rirkrit+Tiravanija+%2527Untitled%2527+2002.jpg Downloaded 14.05.13 3. Kunstverein München - final edition of “Kunstverein München Drucksachen” under curator Maria Lind. 2004. http://www.kunst-buecher.de/shop/article_11719/GesammelteDrucksache.html?shop_param=cid%3D63%26aid%3D11719%26 Downloaded 14.05.13 4. Salt Galata, Salt Istanbul. Public research archives and library. http://www.saltresearch.org/primo_library/libweb/images/iwan.baan.corrected.smallS ALT-IST-0172.jpg Downloaded 04.05.13 2 5. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. “The Curious Museum…” research project. Response ‘tags’ attached to museum title cards. http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/browseall/?tx_vabdisplay_pi1%5Bptype%5D=29&tx_vabdisplay_pi1%5Bproject%5D=704 &cHash=40c97a2063 Downloaded 05.05.13 6. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. “The Curious Museum…” research project. Response ‘tags’ attached to museum title cards. http://vanabbemuseum.nl/typo3temp/pics/9575232a18.jpg Downloaded 05.05.13 3 Introduction The critical theorist George Dickie has developed an “institutional theory of art” 1, it is a theory which puts forward the idea that a “work of art” is understood as art because of its position and acceptance within a cultural framework that understands it as art. 2 This cultural framework according to Dickie is a “social institution” 3 that has been labelled the “artworld”, which includes the artist, the artworld public and a collection of “systems” that construct a “framework for the presentation of a work of art by an artist to an artworld public” 4 In the course of defining these concepts Dickie makes the claim that; “In their earliest [primitive] manifestations, the central roles of artist and artworld public pretty much are the culture’s artworld. Later the artworld contains many other roles: art galleries entrepreneurs, museum curators, art critics, art theorists, philosophers of art and others, All of these sophisticated roles are parasitical on the central roles of the artist and artworld public, the cultural framework that persists through time and constitutes the core of the art-making enterprise.” 5 Today there are many practitioners that feel this “sophisticated” “artworld” structure has complicated the “art-making enterprise” to the point that the contemporary postmodernist artworld has become an abstruse and insular institution. High levels of specialised arthistorical and theoretical knowledge are required by “artworld publics” to fully understand 1 Dickie, George Art and Value. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers (2001) p. 2 Martin Irvine, “The Institutional Theory of Art and the Artworld” Georgetown University. http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/visualarts/institutional-theory-artworld.html Accessed 07.07.13 3 Martin Irvine, “The Institutional Theory of Art and the Artworld” Georgetown University. http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/visualarts/institutional-theory-artworld.html Accessed 07.07.13 4 Dickie, George Art and Value. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers (2001) p. 61 5 Ibid. p.62 2 4 and participate in the appreciation of “works of art”. For publics uninitiated in these spheres of high cultural knowledge “fine” art and its institutions present a highly intimidating façade, against which accusations of elitism and self-serving self-interest have been made. Over the last twenty, years certain artist have begun to question and challenge this recondite and “parasitical” institutional paradigm that Dickie illustrates in the above statement. These artists are in a way perhaps, trying to return to a more direct relationship between the artist and the public. Trying to establish a face to face practice that doesn’t require the specialised intervention of artworld and art institutional players to mediate the importance, meaning and relevance of art and art pieces. Many of these artists are circumventing the traditional spaces of the artworld; the galleries and museums. They are trying to blur the boundaries between the cloistered cultural world and the wider socio-political world beyond the gallery walls. More than just creating art for or in public spaces however artists have been developing whole new approaches and paradigms to making, experiencing and understanding art. These artists are reimagining what art is, and what it is capable of achieving. The art these artists are making takes many different forms and follows many different patterns. They also go under many different names, socially engaged, community-based, new genre public art, littoral art, dialogical art. These practices vary subtly from label to label, however they tend to have certain characteristics in common. Many of these artists have developed practices that aim to entirely collapse the distance between creator and observer. Since its earliest emergence this type of artistic work has engendered consternation, conflict and debate. For many decades it has been largely rejected as a “high art” activity and been largely disregarded and ignored by the central institutions of the fine art-world. However, this situation has been gradually changing since the late eighties and early nineties. Critics and curators began to become interested in grass roots artistic activities operating on the fringes 5 and margins of the creative cultural spheres, artists were challenging predefined ideas of art and its potential role in a wider society, through the subsequent advocacy of such institutional players, there has emerged and spread an expanding/growing awareness and acceptance of these artistic practices and paradigms. Still, despite such growing acceptance this field of art remains a contentious cultural minefield. These socially engaged artistic strategies still engender debate and elicit much antagonism, and not simply amongst tradionalist or formalist artworld aficionados. Serious tensions exist internally within the field; between various critical advocates and theorists of this art, between artists and theorists and between artists and the paradigms, structures, hierarchies and procedures of the artworld, the art and cultural institutions. In this thesis I wish to examine these tensions, contentions and contradictions that are characterising and affecting this entire field and area of artistic practice. To examine the critical, theoretical discourses that have been developed by formal members of the academic cultural institutions, to help understand and establish how the such practices are being understood, through their definition in and by the establishments of the cultural world . I will consider demonstrations of institutional artworld acceptance of this socially-engaged trend, examining steps measures and models that have been developed to adopt, embrace, cater for, and present these practices within the physical and discursive spaces of the institutional bodies of the artworld. I shall also examine, how artists are affected by these attentions and interactions, and their responses to them. My first chapter shall aim to provide a clearer picture of what these practices consist of and what characterises these practices. In this chapter I shall undertake to examine some of the key critical, and theoretical texts that have been written and become key in the discussions and discourses pertaining to this field of socially engaged or participatory art. I hope, in this 6 chapter, to help to define what constitutes the understanding of socially engaged art practice, by exploring the academic theorisation and problems in this area of discourse. In chapter two I wish to examine the relatively recent moves, and attempts by players within the worlds of gallery and museum institutions to embrace and adopt participatory art practices. 7 Chapter 1 Considering the Discursive Context: The Theories of “Social” Art. “Socially-engaged” or “participatory” art has been gathering increasing respect and recognition in recent discourses of cultural production. This art is an emergent and ascending force in the mainstream consciousness of cultural participants, but just what kind of practices and values do terms such as “socially engaged” represent? In the schools of critical cultural discourse, contrasting and frequently antagonistic approaches have accompanied attempts to classify the trend. In this chapter my aim is to establish a general understanding of the characteristics and objectives common to much of this “socially engaged” artistic field. However at the outset it is important also to acknowledge that there are fundamental differences and variations in the artistic and theoretical values that distinguish various types of “participatory” art. These differences have complicated the field of “participatory” art and have led to the confusion and conflation of certain artistic praxes. In order to examine these differences I intend to turn to the discourse that surrounds this wide ranging field of practice. By examining works of critical theory I hope to identify some of the main differences and tensions that exist between various forms of practice, doing so I hope shall also allow a clearer picture of what defines “socially engaged” art to emerge. Focusing on theoretic works that have become instrumental to the development of the critical reasoning that is shaping the thinking and 8 approach of both artists and institutional bodies, I intend to construct a brief comparative study of the major works of curator and critic Nicolas Bourriaud and the academic theorist Grant H. Kester. The field and scope of “socially engaged” art is vast. It is not limited to any one form, style or method. Many artists over the last twenty years have been making work that is increasingly responding to the social conditions that shape the way people exist in the world. The range of issues addressed by artists is as varied and complex as the socio-political conditioned experiences of everyday life. The strategies used to address these issues differ entirely from artist to artist. Many forms of art corralled in this area of production claim ostensibly to stand in opposition to the hegemony of capitalist culture and incumbent consumer values. Efforts are made to subvert traditional models of artistic production and consumption. Often this subversion involves a radical reimagining of the function of gallery space, for some artists the involvement of a gallery is eschewed entirely in favour of direct intervention in an alternative public environment. 6 Often contributing to this desire to subvert rarefied codes of institutional practice, is the aspiration to bridge class and cultural barriers that many perceive, historically, fine art has presented. Artists attempt to circumvent an elitist fine art by adopting models of engagement, interaction or participation that redress the opaque or evasive qualities of preceding modernist and post-modernist art forms. The attempt to find points of reference in the “everyday” is a common feature. This concern with the everyday can trace its origins to the theoretical work of Henri Lefebvre and the Situationist International, their 6 Lynn Frogget, Robert Little, Alastair Roy, Leah Whitaker, “New Model Arts Institutions and Public Engagement, Research Study; Headline Findings”, University of Central Lancashire, Psychosocial Research Unit, http://www.bluedrum.ie/documents/Newmodelartsorganisationsandpublicengagementemergentfindings.pdfDow nloaded …, p. 2 - 3 9 tenant, the unification of the production of art with life “directly lived” 7, even if not directly referenced by all artists, correlates with the socio-political outlook of many socially engaged practices. A collective concern with social relationships (economic, cultural political, race, age etc.) is another key interest across the fields of social art, as such most “socially engaged” art pieces involve some aspect of human interaction or communication. It is this characteristic that has provided the basic conceptual outset in the theoretical works of the curator-critic Nicolas Bourriaud and the academic theorist Grant H. Kester. Each of these writers has generated theories premised on the aesthetic value of conversation that is produced in the course of, or as a result of an artistic practice. Both writers contend that by being produced conversation becomes a subject worthy of aesthetic contemplation and analysis. Bourriaud and Kester both value and champion artistic practices that allow for or facilitate a production, of conversation or dialogue, between multiple parties; however their theoretical approaches and the artistic practices they foreground are very different. Their theories in fact illustrate a major divide between two major types of “participatory” or “engaged” practice. “Relational Aesthetics”, written by the curator and theorist Nicholas Bourriaud, represented the first attempt to explore and define a growing trend of interactive art often based on models of alternative artistic exchange. For Bourriaud this exchange featured some element of an inter-personal interaction. Bourriaud labelled this trend “relational art”, “an art taking as its theoretical the realm of human interactions and its social context,” 8. He defined “relational” as “a factor of sociability and a founding principal of dialogue” 9. “Relational” art 7 Guy Debord, Donald Nicholson-Smith,(trans.), “The Society of the Spectacle”. New York: Zone Books (1995), p. 12 8 Nicolas Bourriaud, “Relational Aesthetics”, Dijon: Les presses du reel (1998, French. 2002, English), p. 14 9 Ibid., p. 15 10 as described by Bourriaud encourages” immediate discussion” 10 , individuals become participants and an element in the realisation of an artwork in which they are encouraged to make a direct face-to-face contact and engage in, ideally, a direct conversation. This art ideally creates a space that is apart from and opposes a socio-economic environment otherwise dominated by empty modes of communication. 11 Bourriaud’s text aimed to identify and define the artistic value of non-object based ‘relational practices’. 12 The most convincing example of such a practice referenced by Bourriaud in “Relational Aesthetics” is created by the artist Rirkrit Tiravanija. Tiravanija’s signature work, involves cooking for groups of people, within a gallery setting. The meals he cooks are served, and the visitors invited to enjoy a free meal. What both Tiravanija and Bourriaud have identified as the object of significant value in this mode of work is not the food produced, but the conversation that is generated and the convivial social space that the sharing of food facilitates. 10 Ibid., p. 16 Ibid. p. 17 12 Ibid., pp. 20 - 23 11 11 (Image 1.) Rirkrit Tiravanija, “Untitled 1990 (Pad Thai)”. At the Project Room, Paula Allen Gallery, New York, NY, 1990. (Image 2.) Rirkrit Tiravanija, “Untitled (Pad See-ew) 1990/2002”. At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2002. 12 Bourriaud’s aesthetic theory claims that works such as Tiravnija’s present “a state of encounter” 13 that establish, “ways of living and models of action within the existing real”. 14 However these “models” are subject to particular aesthetic criteria, they should conform to a materialist “form” 15. This form relates to a “coherent unit, a structure… which shows the typical features of a world” 16. These “relational worlds” for Bourriaud can exist only in “a space partly protected from the uniformity of behavioural patterns” 17, the perceived hegemony of the real world. Bourriaud advocates the creation of “micro-utopias” 18 , intimate worlds that not so much undermine as escape the hegemonic isolation of contemporary social structures. Bourriaud demands that these micro worlds, contained within galleries and museums, create “a specific ‘arena of exchange’” 19 and “sociability” 20 that “must be judged on the basis of aesthetic criteria” 21, criteria such as form, symbolic value and image. Much criticism has been levelled at Bourriaud and his theoretic model for its retreat from reality and what amounts to its refusal to consider the world beyond the gallery walls. 22 In an article entitled “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics” Claire Bishop critiques Bourriaud’s failure to address the serious socio-political issues and antagonistic realities of intersubjective relations. 23 For Bourriaud, the practices and the goals of “relational art” remain ultimately aesthetically disinterested, more concerned with the symbolic form and poetic choreography of a gesture or event. In the work of relational artists such as Rirkrit Tiravanija the generation of simplistic face-to-face conversation or a “convivial” exchange, is a sufficient aim. Bourriaud remains largely uninterested in the potential that this ‘conversation’ 13 Ibid., p. 18 Ibid., p. 13 15 Ibid., pp. 18 - 19 16 Ibid., p. 19 17 Ibid., p. 09 18 Ibid., p. 31 19 Ibid., p. 18 20 Ibid, p. 15 21 Ibid., p. 18 22 Ibid., p. 31 23 Claire Bishop, “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics”, October110, Fall (2004) pp. 67 - 68 14 13 could possess to enact the possibility of change or action in the ‘real’ world, he even seems to suggest that attempts to do so, to be ”directly” critical” 24, may be disparaged as “futile” 25. His outlook represents in truth a reiteration of an inward-looking, self-reflexive postmodernism, he is content to oversee self-serving “microtopias”, isolated islands of a certain cultural consensus and conviviality. The theoretical work of the academic Grant H. Kester represents a very different approach to the understanding of ‘social art’ and a very different view of its role and possibilities. Grant Kester’s book “Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art”, also endeavours to build a paradigm of aesthetic appraisal based on verbal exchange. However the “dialogical conversations” that Kester discusses are far are more complex and politically charged than Bourriaud’s affable relational affairs. Kester assumes to undertake a careful and conscientious study of a “dialogical art”, which he identifies as an art that generates projects that “share a concern with the creative facilitation of dialogue and exchange” in which “the conversation becomes an integral part of the work” 26. The premise seems similar to Bourriaud’s aesthetic approach, however unlike Bourriaud, Kester envisions these conversations as actions with the possibility of “creating a framework for empathetic identification” 27 and from this empathetic understanding developing further “into a set of positive practices directed toward the world beyond the gallery walls” 28 For Kester “dialogic” art practices have a definite aim of enacting, facilitating or catalysing change or transformation within ‘real-world’ social/political structures. Generally, the artists he endorses are involved in practices that take steps to 24 Nicolas Bourriaud “Relational Aesthetics”, Dijon: Les presses du reel (2002, English) p. 31 Ibid. 26 Grant H. Kester, “Conversation Pieces; Community and Communication in Modern Art”, Berkeley: University of California Press (2004), p. 09 27 Ibid. p. 183 28 Ibid., p.09 25 14 interact or collaborate with social bodies, communities or groups that may be understood as often falling outside the traditional constituencies of artworld audiences. Kester acknowledges that ‘dialogic’ models of practice have been challenged and denounced by “traditional critics”. 29 Kester illuminates that his intentions in undertaking this study embody an effort to counter these challenges and qualify discourse based practices as viable and valuable art. In order to do this Kester deems it necessary to develop a new “aesthetic and theoretical paradigm” 30. In developing this paradigm, Kester considers the models of aesthetic evaluation developed by formalist exponents of both modernism and postmodernism, regarding them as intellectualised constructs that shrouded the art object in layers of inscrutable meaning. He suggests that the emphasis on these models lead to an elitist mystification of art in cultural institutions. Kester goes on to argue that this taciturn attitude is in fact removed from aesthetic thought as it was first conceived. Kester claims that aesthetic models, as conceived by early modern philosophers, such as Kant, in fact supported ideals of “potential communicability” 31, the potential of aesthetic experience to catalyse new insights or modes of thought. 32 Via the combination of this premise, with critical theories from the fields of social theory and ethics, Kester proceeds to develop an alternative, hybrid aesthetic theory. The artistic practices that Kester discusses span a spectrum of artistic practices. Projects by artists such as the British Stephan Willats 33 who works with the residents of high rise flats aim to develop a “a critical community consciousness” 34 and build a mutual critical understanding of their collaborator’s surroundings through creative projects, without taking any further steps. Other artists use such creative, communal projects as steps in building a 29 Ibid., p. 13 Ibid., p. 12 31 Ibid., p. 89 32 Ibid., p. 90 33 Ibid., pp. 91 - 97 34 Ibid., p. 174 30 15 form of collective solidarity, unity or understanding that can become a politicised voice with enough power to challenge social or political hierarchies and campaign for physical or procedural changes, achieving “concrete interventions” 35 within the spaces and fabric of wider socio-political society. An example of this type of practice could be the Viennese artist collective, WochenKlausur whose practice centres on realising through consultation with various social organisations and representatives small but “concrete interventions” in the social/political world of the localities they are invited to as artists. 36 ******** Though these practices seem to span a wide gap in praxis, according to Kester they are linked by certain attributes and characteristics important to “dialogical” practice. In “dialogic” practices the artists empathetic and contextually sensitive understanding of the area and people with whom they are working are of vital importance. For “dialogic” projects to be realised artists must have a willingness to allow both themselves and the project to be open and receptive to the influence and the specific needs of their collaborators 37. According to Kester the ideal “dialogic” work should create a “discursive framework” 38 with the ability to “catalyse understanding…and sustain an ongoing process of empathetic identification” 39. In order to facilitate such a sustained process, and to build a rounded understanding of a social context, Kester emphasises a relative importance for the “dialogic” artist to be present and integrated in the world and reality of their collaborators. Some level of a committed integration on the part of the artist is essential in order to achieve the environment of mutual 35 Ibid., p. 174 WochenKlausur, Artist Collective, Vienna, http://www.wochenklausur.at/methode.php?lang=en Accessed 31.09.13 37 Grant H. Kester “Conversation Pieces; Community and Communication in Modern Art”, Berkeley: University of California Press (2004) p. 175 38 Ibid., p. 11 39 Ibid., p. 118 36 16 and reciprocal learning and participation that is necessary to create the empathetic and intersubjective nature 40of a “dialogic artwork”. 41 In Kester’s theoretical paradigm the achievement of a “concrete outcome”, a tangible intervention in the socio-political field, while not absolutely necessary, is a valuable aim in a “dialogical” project. Kester’s theory also expresses a particular preference for the type of participant or collaborator that should be partnered with by artists creating “dialogic” projects. Kester favours the inclusion/participation of “politically coherent communities”, these according to Kester, are communities or groups that have come to establish themselves and are united by a shared interest in a common social or political issue. Kester’s reasoning for favouring such communities stems from an opinion that such communities may be less likely to be instrumentalised by the authorial force of artists less open to reciprocal creation. 42 This concern surrounding the insrumentalisation of participant collaborators is of widespread interest across the fields of discourse surrounding socially engaged arts. Many of the artists that Kester discusses in terms of their “dialogic” practices have already been practicing under prior existing labels such as “socially engaged art”, “community-based art”, “activist art”, “littoral art”, “new genre-public art”. Most of these practices represent very different artistic praxes to those that Bourriaud dealt with under the heading of “relational” aesthetics. Those artists that Bourriaud identifies as relational artists, remain the central authors and architects of their works, works which often assemble symbolic aesthetic gestures, which serve to facilitate the realisation and fulfilment of their own individual symbolic artistic metaphor 43.This symbolic expression is very often dependant on the context and environs of the ideological ‘purity’ of the exhibition space of the cultural institution for 40 Ibid., p.151 Ibid., p. 151 42 Ibid., p. 150 43 Nicolas Bourriaud “Relational Aesthetics”, Dijon: Les presses du reel (2002, English) p. 17 41 17 its realisation, presentation and reception. The majority of “dialogic” (etc.) artists aim to engage non artworld publics and in order to do this many practice beyond walls of the gallery. Many “dialogic” or “socially engaged” artists desire to challenge cultural/social norms, structures, practices and hegemonic forces in the “real world”. These artists unite activist values with artistic ideals and a new range of artistic skills and strategies, striving towards “concrete” outcomes. It is highly useful to recognise the faults, drawbacks, and miss-readings of these aesthetic theories texts. Bourriaud’s “Relational Aesthetics”, represents a substantial misreading in the discursive field of participatory and social art. Though the theory is often cited in context of debates on ‘socially engaged art’, and assumed to be a contribution to the development of social art theory, when surmised in context texts such as Kester’s, it becomes clear that Bourriaud’s artistic philosophy is considerably different to the philosophies of “social engagement” or “community based” art. Kester’s work I feel also signifies a troubling propensity in the discourses of socially engaged art. Kester’s is a work of justification. In response to the sceptical attitudes expressed by some critics, he has responded in a manner that adheres to their accustomed academic expectations in order to achieve validation. It is easy to argue that this work satisfies an institutional impulse that needs to assimilate these divergent artistic trends within pre-existing formalised institutional frameworks. I sense an inherent danger in an irony that on hindsight seems to permeate Kester’s work, for though his theory encourages balanced and potentially open forms of communication, the very application of aesthetics, I find an unsettling concept. Despite Kester’s claims, the school of aesthetics has long supressed any contemplation of the influences of transformative socio-political contexts in an art work, and instead stands as an academic system that aspires 18 to apply formal mensurability to the experiences of art. The treatment of the subject of a socially engaged art in the terms of schools of academic aesthetic theory and rhetoric could, I fear, pose the threat of a consequent re-mystification of previously relatively unconstrained and organic trends in social art production. The texts explored briefly here have served to introduce some of the main personalities associated with the schools of critical assessment and dialogue in socially engaged practice. It allowed a brief introduction to some of the key concepts and concerns of these theorists. A grasp of these basic concepts is needed to fully comprehend the conditions that are shaping the roles and trajectories of social practices. Concepts such as the amalgamation of aesthetic, ethical and social theory, as illustrated by Kester are useful to understand as this is the academic rhetoric that has formed the backbone to the operations and discourses of certain artistic cultural institutions. By creating a brief survey of arguments and counter-arguments that have attempted to demarcate the principals and boundaries of this art, my hope is also that this chapter will provide a foundation, upon which subsequent chapters can examine the relationship between these works of critical theory, the institutions and the extended community of artistic practitioners. I hope that this chapter will establish a contextual basis which allows for further consideration of the symbiotic relationship and mutual dependencies that exist between these institutions and those involved in the wider fields of ‘socially engaged’ cultural production. 19 Chapter 2 “New Institutionalism” The “New Institution” and its Relationship with Social Art. “New Institutionalism”; “the buzzword of current European curatorial discourse” 44, according to an essay written by critic Claire Doherty, “classifies effectively a field of curatorial practice, institutional reform and critical debate concerned with the transformation of art institutions from within. …” 45. Doherty surmises that it; “embraces a dominant strand of contemporary art practice – … [and] responds to (… even …assimilates) the working methods of artistic practice and furthermore, artistrun initiatives, whilst maintaining a belief in the gallery, museum or art centre (and by association their buildings) as a necessary locus of (or platform for) art.” 46 This institutional movement, which aspires to create new formats for the presentation and facilitation of a public engagement with art, might appear to offer a natural and symbiotic home for artists interested in socially-engaged, collaborative or participatory art. However, for artists interested in exploring these areas of alternative artistic action, there are underlying issues inherent to “New Model Arts Institutions” 47 as arenas of cultural dissemination. These 44 Claire Doherty, "New Institutionalism and the Exhibition as Situation," in Protections Reader, ed. Adam Budak Graz: Kunsthaus Graz (2006) p. 1 45 Ibid. p. 1 46 Ibid. p. 1 47 Frogget, Lynn Little, Robert Roy, Alastair Whitaker, Leah “New Model Arts Institutions and Public Engagement, Research Study; Headline Findings”, University of Central Lancashire, Psychosocial Research Unit. 20 issues may have significant bearing upon the ultimate execution or connotations of an artistic project. In Part 1 of this chapter I will delineate the development and the features of “New Institutionalism”, as an ideological and applied undertaking. I shall discuss elements of the practices of some various “New Model” institutions and shall focus particularly on the Van Abbemuseum, a Dutch museum under the directorship of ‘new institutional’ curator Charles Esche. Part 2 will go on to attempt to identify issues that affect the field of “new institutionalism” and its relationship with socially-engaged artistic practices in more detail. I shall examine the role and impact of the curator, and consider the influence of contemporary political environments on the cultural institutions. This discussion will also feature reflections of the ideological, and socio-historical legacies of the art institution. This chapter shall draw on the work of several theorists, critics, writers and curators including Claire Doherty, Alex Farquharson, Miwon Kwon, Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach, Hal Foster, Charles Esche and Maria Lind. Ultimately I wish to apply these examinations to the question of what impact the role of the institution has upon the act, function and execution of an art that desires to challenge and maybe change the way we experience and understand art. Part 1: The ideals of New Institutionalism have grown out of the same discourses that surround socially-engaged, community based, dialogical and relational art that I reviewed in the previous chapter. In the way that certain artists increasingly began to aim to create works, projects or events that in some way directly engaged and interacted with their public or http://www.bluedrum.ie/documents/Newmodelartsorganisationsandpublicengagementemergentfindings.pdf Downloaded 07.12.11 p. 2 21 audience, certain curators also wished to create cultural environments that might reimagine the traditionally distanced nature and roles of art institutions. 48 Doherty identifies the trend as having emerged from the convergence of three fundamental factors. The first was the increasingly frequent development, on the part of artists, of ‘relational’ or ‘socially-engaged’ type working practices during the nineteen-nineties. The second factor closely linked to this was the parallel professional development of subsequently influential curators. Some of these curators had close working links with ‘relational’ or ‘engaged’ artists and shared their interest in imagining new ways of approaching art. The final factor began to emerge around the turn of the century as, particularly across Europe, increased funding for cultural activities and the construction of new cultural venues became available to urban regions under schemes of urban renewal, as a result of political desires to develop the “cultural industries”. 49 By the time new contemporary art and cultural spaces were coming on-line in the early 2000s, a generation of young, internationally networked and mobile curators was coming of age. Many of these curators had incubated their careers within the globalised and dynamic environments of international biennales 50, whose temporary nature and “carnival” 51 atmosphere allowed them to be a space where experimental approaches to cultural praxis could be tested and shared, through novel display formats, dialogical projects, lectures or symposiums. Some curators had also worked directly with artists and artist groups as they had been developing participatory or inclusive methods. The curators Charles Esche and Maria Lind were both deeply involved with independent artist led spaces in the United 48 Alex Farquharson "I curate, you curate we curate…” Art Monthly 9, no. 269 (2003) Claire Doherty "New Institutionalism and the Exhibition as Situation." In Protections Reader, edited by Adam Budak. Graz: Kunsthaus Graz (2006) p. 3 50 An example is the experimental and wandering Manifesta biennale. http://manifesta.org/biennials/about-thebiennials/ Accessed 17.04.13. Maria Lind, later of Kunstverein Munchen, co-curated this event in Luxemburg in 1998. http://www.manifesta.org/manifesta2/e/curateur.html Accessed 17.04.13 51 Claire Doherty "Curating Wrong Places... Or Where Have All the Penguins Gone?" In Curating Subjects, edited by Paul O'Neill. Amsterdam: De Appel (2007). p. 1 49 22 Kingdom, 52 Nicolas Bourriaud built close ties with ‘relational’ artists through self-published critical projects 53 and curatorial collaborations. The consolidation of New Institutionalism as a compelling progressive establishment movement, rather than simply fringe activity, lay in recognition at ‘city hall’ level of the considerable socio-economic remunerative value of “cultural capital” 54. Such recognition led to increased investment in cultural infrastructures. As new art spaces were built or revamped, a slew of impassioned young curators were in prime place to take on newly available executive roles. These curators found themselves placed in positions where, as part of innovative new institutional paradigms, they could attempt to emulate and expand the fluid, dialogic experiences that had characterised the dynamism of biennale events and the experimentalism of artist led spaces,. A desire emerged to build a reciprocal space, a platform and support structure for socially engaged and relational art, that could be “part community centre, part laboratory and part academy”, 55 a “proactive laboratory of social evolution”. 56 For New Institutional curators the role of activities promoting the exchange of information, knowledge, understanding and the generation of active communication are as essential as displaying art. Artist talks, lectures, seminar programmes or symposium events are common and necessary features for “New Model” 57 institutions. The New Institutional paradigm has 52 Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt “Harnessing the means of Production.” Commissioned by the Office for Contemporary Art, Norway,New Institutionalism ( 2003). http://www.shiftyparadigms.org/harnessing_means.htm Downloaded 18.09.13 53 Farquharson, Alex “Bureaux de Change.” Frieze 101, September (2006) http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/bureaux_de_change/ Downloaded 16.09.13 54 Louise C. Johnson “Cultural Capitals: Revaluing The Arts, Remaking Urban Spaces.” Surrey, Ashgate Publishing (2009) 55 Charles Esche, quoted in Claire Doherty "New Institutionalism and the Exhibition as Situation." In Protections Reader, edited by Adam Budak. Graz: Kunsthaus Graz (2006) p. 2 56 Ibid. p. 2 57 Frogget, Lynn Little, Robert Roy, Alastair Whitaker, Leah “New Model Arts Institutions and Public Engagement, Research Study; Headline Findings”, University of Central Lancashire, Psychosocial Research Unit. 23 centralised and elevated the propagation of information, discussion and audience education, pursuits which were under traditional curatorial models, activities ancillary to the main projects of collecting, conserving and displaying objects d’art. For many of these institutions an interest in active communication is demonstrated through various strategies and tools, including artist presentations, seminars and discussion groups. New institutional curators also aspire to imagine other creative methods of facilitating engagement with the ideals of their space, for instance the in-house publication of selfreflexive theoretical work is a key undertaking for many institutions of this type. Such publications do not confine themselves to the narrow subject range of a current exhibition, and “act as separate platforms for a parallel exploration of ideas through interviews and commissioned essays” 58, which can be circulated and shared, even with audiences unable to physically attend the art space. At the Kunstverein München, during her directorship there, the curator Maria Lind initiated the production of a heavily intellectual quarterly journal, “Kunstverein München Drucksachen” that epitomised this kind of project. 59 The provision of research spaces or artistic production spaces are another means utilised by “new institutional” spaces to attempt to facilitate participatory, democratic communication. In the contemporary art space SALT Galata (formerly Platform Garanti) in Istanbul, under Vasif Kortun, an extensive archival library of material relating to art, design and cultural theory was opened to the public. 60 According to SALT’s website the “library’s facilities have been developed … to reflect SALT’s desire to encourage research, learning and debate” 61. http://www.bluedrum.ie/documents/Newmodelartsorganisationsandpublicengagementemergentfindings.pdf Downloaded 07.12.11 p. 1-2 58 Farquharson, Alex “Bureaux de Change.” Frieze 101, September (2006) http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/bureaux_de_change/ Downloaded 16.09.13 59 Alex Farquharson “Is the Pen Still Mightier.” Frieze 92, June/August (2005). https://www.frieze.com/issue/article/is_the_pen_still_mightier/ Downloaded 16.09.13 60 Farquharson, Alex “Bureaux de Change.” Frieze 101, September (2006) http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/bureaux_de_change/ Downloaded 16.09.13 and; Salt Research webpage, 24 (Image 3.) Kunstverein München, final edition of “Kunstverein München Drucksachen” under curator Maria Lind. (2004) (Image 4.) Salt Galata, Salt Istanbul. Public research archives and library. http://www.saltonline.org/en/#!/en/182/salt-research_break/http://www.saltonline.org/en/#!/en/42/saltgalata_break/ Accessed 11.04.13 61 Salt Research, Istanbul, http://saltonline.org/en/182/ Accessed 11.04.13 25 The art that ‘new institutions’ display and engage with is a key factor in their paraxial identification. A theoretic recognition of the value that lies in the experience of the active processes of producing art has influenced a “new institutional” desire for a unification of production and reception, the energies of creation and contemplation. To this end new institutional curation solicits art practices “which employ dialogue and participation to produce event or process-based works, rather than objects for passive consumption” 62. The works of relational artists, such as Rirkrit Tiravanija, lend themselves easily to inclusion in new institutional programming strategies, their sociable “micro-utopias” sit well in experimental gallery spaces. Though the works of relational artists often speak largely to pre-established art audiences, most new institutional curators also highly value practices that are more focused on working in environments, and with audiences beyond those typically engaged by traditional fine arts institutions. It has become a practice widely perceived to be key to new institutional approaches 63 to commission or invite artists and art collectives that are “political, sometimes activist, well networked at a local and international level…[and] self-organised rather than instrumentalised” 64, to engage in collaborative, inclusive projects with members or groups from a local community. The activities which constitute these projects can unfold either within the walls of the institution building itself, or outside the gallery walls in the everyday spaces and environments of the social partners involved. An example of this type of ‘socially 62 Claire Doherty "New Institutionalism and the Exhibition as Situation." In Protections Reader, edited by Adam Budak. Graz: Kunsthaus Graz (2006) p. 1 63 Alex Farquharson “Bureaux de Change.” Frieze 101, September (2006). http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/bureaux_de_change/ Downloaded 16.09.13 64 Ibid. 26 engaged’ project guided by the group Oda Projesi and commissioned by Maria Lind at the Kunsthalle München 65, will be discussed in more detail later in Part 2 of the chapter. To complete this overview of “New Institutionalism” I wish to look at an institution that exemplifies many of the principles of the ‘new institutional’ programme. The Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, The Netherlands has been under the directorship of Charles Esche since 2004. 66 It is interesting to consider that this museum is in fact primarily a modernist art museum, housing an important collection of modernist works. Before 2004 Van Abbemuseum might have been comparable to the traditional ‘white cube’ museum model offered by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where the primacy of the collection is central to all museum activities and a strong tendency towards a “top-down” 67 pedagogical approach to the audience can be felt. 68 The institution that Esche has developed however appears, at first, to be quite different. Van Abbemuseum’s online homepage offers a telling indication of the museum’s overall institutional outlook. 69 A rhetoric recalling the spirit of Grant Kester’s ‘dialogic aesthetic’ permeates the organisation’s self-representation; “The museum has an experimental approach towards art’s role in society. Openness, hospitality and knowledge exchange are important.” 70 “In the museum the visitors are offered multiple ways for entering into conversation with the museum.” 71 65 Maria Lind “Actualisation of Space: The Case of Oda Projesi.” in “Contemporary Art from Studio to Situation.” (ed.) Claire Doherty, London: Black Dog Publishing (2004) pp. 110 - 121 66 Alex Farquharson “Bureaux de Change.” Frieze 101, September (2006). http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/bureaux_de_change/ Downloaded 16.09.13 67 Ibid. 68 The Museum of Modern Art, New York, “MoMA > Learn”, http://www.moma.org/learn/index Accessed 06.05.13 69 Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/about-us/ Accessed 18.04.13 70 Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, “About us”, http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/about-us/ Accessed 18.04.13 27 Van Abbemuseum under Esche has reimagined the function of some of the features that structure the basic interface between the art institution and visitors, in “an attempt to create a new channel of communication with our visiting public”. 72 Stating that, “At the Van Abbemuseum we like a good conversation” 73, the institution invites potential visitors to approach museum staff for “a chat about art” 74. Their floor-staff combine the functions of invigilators and tour guides. The intended approachability of this staff alters the potential of a visitor’s interaction with the gallery space, offering perhaps the opportunity for a less introspective, internalised gallery experience and one more openly shared and articulated. The alteration of a second basic structural feature at the Van Abbemuseum, continues the “attempt to create a new channel of communication” 75 with visitors. Though logistically a small change, this ‘new institutional’ alteration in a modernist museum represents a somewhat quietly radical gesture. As part of a long term project, “The Curious Museum…” is an initiative that allows visitors to interact and engage directly with artworks on display and intervene in the institutional space. 76 “The Curious Museum…” project invites visitors to write their own thoughts on the once sacred wall of the museum. Visitor members can attach ‘tags’ to the title cards of works, on which they are welcomed to record in keywords their responses to a piece. In this way viewers’ cognitive responses are made visible and hence, according to Van Abbemuseum, “become a platform for enthusiastic exchange between artists, curators and visitors.” 77 The project will archive the ‘tagged’ responses in conjunction 71 Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, “The Curious Museum ”, http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/browseall/?tx_vabdisplay_pi1%5Bptype%5D=29&tx_vabdisplay_pi1%5Bproject%5D=704&cHash=40c97a2063 Accessed 18.04.13 72 Ibid. 73 Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, ‘Learn and Experience’, http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/learn-andexperience/conversations-in-the-museum/ Accessed 15.05.13 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid. 76 Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, “The Curious Museum…”, http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/browseall/?tx_vabdisplay_pi1%5Bptype%5D=29&tx_vabdisplay_pi1%5Bproject%5D=704&cHash=40c97a2063 Accessed 18.04.13 77 Ibid. 28 with the museum’s “collection online” system. 78 In this way the opinions and contributions of museum visitors will become a part of the museum’s official theoretical discourses This type of active inclusivity marks a significant departure from traditional institutional practices, and displays a type of dialogical production that epitomises ‘new institutionalism’. (Image 3.) and (Image 4.) Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. “The Curious Museum…”, research project. Response ‘tags’ attached to museum title cards. Of course ‘new institutional’ ideals penetrate deeper in Van Abbemuseum than basic surface gestures. Very important to the museum’s mission statement under Charles Esche is the conception of “The Museum as Network”; “Our ambitions as a museum are not confined to within our walls but extend well beyond them. …. we take part in external projects together with other institutes, initiatives and 78 Ibid. 29 individuals. In effect, we form part of a national and international network of players in the contemporary art world.” 79 Van Abbemuseum has also endeavoured to engage with parties that lie outside the usual scene of the “contemporary art world”. The institutions website claims that the museum has made efforts to integrate itself into its local context and social environment; “as the museum has expanded its network in Eindhoven, it has managed to set up projects for neighbourhoods, schools, and youth groups, as well as workshops for businesspeople.” 80 The two major aspects of ‘new institutional’ engagement are illustrated in these statements. The first statement surmises what is a more usual art institutional configuration. It comprises of the interaction of players largely from the “cultural industries” or “creative industries” 81including, but not limited to, artists, curators, academics, other museum institutions, publishers, libraries, archives or universities. 82 Van Abbemuseum is interested in “engage[ing] in projects – often long-term in character – aimed at raising understanding and provoking discussion of contemporary art in relation to the world at large.” 83 Such projects can include research programmes, joint exhibition ventures, publishing projects, artistic or intellectual workshops and conferences, and curator and artist exchanges and residencies. 84 A strong emphasis on international exchange reflects the globalised and mobile nature of the established contemporary artworld. These projects can tend to be largely self-reflexive and 79 Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, “The Museum as Network”, http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/network-anddebate/ Accessed 18.04.13 80 Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, “The New Studio”, http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/browseall/?tx_vabdisplay_pi1%5Bptype%5D=29&tx_vabdisplay_pi1%5Bproject%5D=706&cHash=6c6d3edfe9 Accessed 15.05.13 81 Louise C. Johnson “Cultural Capitals: Revaluing The Arts, Remaking Urban Spaces.” Surrey, Ashgate Publishing (2009) pp. 8 -9 82 Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, “Networks”, http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/network-and-debate/networks/ Accessed 15.05.13 83 Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, “The Museum as Network”, http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/network-anddebate/ Accessed 18.04.13 84 Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, “Networks”, http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/network-and-debate/networks/ Accessed 15.05.13 30 often a familiarity with cultural institutional theory and a measure of personal “cultural capital” 85 is necessary for a full and meaningful participation. The second type of engagement typifies the “socially-engaged” face of the ‘new model arts institution”. A desire to enact a “local” engagement reflects a ‘new institutional’ interest in left leaning social theory and politics. By immersing itself in local activities the institution is attempting to anchor itself in a local consciousness and by doing so perhaps hoping to propagate the perception of the art institution as a democratic, egalitarian space. Van Abbemuseum illustrates this approach by declaring an objective to reach out to those who might usually be intimidated by fine art and contemporary art through the museum’s inclusive rhetoric and through special inclusive projects. 86 However despite these egalitarian objectives, there remain discrepancies between the ideals of “new institutionalism” and the practical realities of running and organising the institutional space. In the case of Van Abbemuseum despite the claims of experimentation and openness, there seems to be a disconnect between the museum’s programmes that engage, on one hand, the “national and international network of players in the contemporary art world” 87 and on a seemingly smaller scale its local “network”. Based on a more detailed scrutiny of the museums’ catalogue of projects 88, there seems to be minimal cross-over between these two strands of activity and engagement. If the “new institution” was to be a “proactive laboratory 85 Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Darbel, (extract from) “The Love of Art; European Art Museums and their Public” in “Art in Modern Culture: An Anthology of Critical Texts”, Francis Frascina,; Jonathan Harris , (eds.). London: Phaidon Press (1992) pp. 177-178 86 Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, “The New Studio”, http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/browseall/?tx_vabdisplay_pi1%5Bptype%5D=29&tx_vabdisplay_pi1%5Bproject%5D=706&cHash=6c6d3edfe9 Accessed 15.05.13 87 Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, “The Museum as Network”, http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/network-anddebate/ Accessed 18.04.13 88 Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/browseall/?tx_vabdisplay_pi1%5Bptype%5D=29&tx_vabdisplay_pi1%5Bproject %5D=1&cHash=3e51305422ab11f2c1bedbfa343e2972 Accessed 03.08.13 31 of social evolution” 89 , where traditional models and hierarchies of institutional paradigms are transformed, would not a greater level of creative interaction between artworld and nonartworld players allow the kind of reciprocal and mutually enlightening experiences that Kester discussed in his theory, and that the museum’s rhetoric appears to advocate? Part 2 The disconnection between international artworld networking and local engagement might be reflecting historical structures of the cultural institution, and also their inherent ideological issues. Since their early evolution museums and galleries have been largely the purlieu of the learned or upper classes. Art museums were not made open to the general public until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 90, at which point they were becoming understood as institutions that could serve to fulfil a function of moral and civic pedagogy for the citizenry of the city or state. 91 There is a question as to whether “new institutions” rather than challenging and transforming these underlying ideologies are in fact reiterating them despite their apparently altered approaches. Is it the case that institutions such as Van Abbemuseum instead of truly realising a “social evolution” 92, are engendering strategies that result in a cultural assimilation of marginalised social demographics under long-standing hegemonic systems and hierarchies? Many art critics and theorists have problematised the practices of “socially-engaged” and “community-based” artists, as potentially exploitative especially of these marginalised ‘communities’. The critic Hal Foster has commented that artists can fail to recognise their position of privilege and power, as culturally, and institutionally sanctioned specialists, in 89 Claire Doherty "New Institutionalism and the Exhibition as Situation," in Protections Reader, ed. Adam Budak Graz: Kunsthaus Graz (2006) p. 2 90 Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach “The Universal Survey Museum” in “Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts.” Bettina Messias Carbonell (ed.) Oxford. Blackwell Publishing (2004) pp. 55 - 59 91 Carol Duncan “Civilising Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums.” Oxford, Routledge (1995) pp. 13 - 15 92 Claire Doherty "New Institutionalism and the Exhibition as Situation," in Protections Reader, ed. Adam Budak Graz: Kunsthaus Graz (2006) p. 2 32 relation to non-artworld participants. He criticises artists whose projects effect “only limited engagement of the community” 93 and in which the artist remains insensitive to the ideology of their position. Such projects he suggests can display a “sociological condescension” 94, in which the artist’s collaborators become subjects, presented in a “neo-primitivist guise” 95 to the institution and its artworld visitors. Kester has noted how artists are accused of cynically using “communities” in order to “empower [themselves] politically, professionally and morally.” 96 Though there are artists that could be accused thusly, many artists interested in socially-engaged practices are troubled by such implications. However the academic Miwon Kwon, in her study of “new genre public art”, has drawn attention to the “often unacknowledged” 97, but fundamentally influential role of the curator and sponsoring institution over the form and realisation of socially-engaged or community-based art projects. In response to criticism, such as that of Foster and Kester, Kwon advises that “what looks... like an artist’s ethnographic selffashioning… [or] the kind of reductive and equalizing association drawn between an artist and a community group is not always the work of a self-aggrandising, pseudo-altruistic artist but rather a fashioning of the artist by institutional forces” 98 The curator has considerable influence in the “triangulation (of power) between the artist, the sponsoring institution and the chosen community group” 99. As the creator and gatekeeper of their institutional organisation’s ideals and values curators are in the position to select the artists they will commission, invite or accept. They have the power to decide which project 93 Hal Foster “The Artist as Ethnographer” in “Participation. Documents of Contemporary Art”, Claire Bishop (ed.) London/Cambridge, Whitechapel/MIT Press (2008) p. 76 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid. 96 Grant H. Kester “Conversation Pieces; Community and Communication in Modern Art”, Berkeley: University of California Press (2004) p. 148 97 Miwon Kwon “One Place the Other: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity”, Massachusetts: MIT Press (2002) p. 124 98 Ibid. p. 140 99 Ibid. p. 136 33 proposals they will accept, or reject, based on their correlation with their organisations values and outlook. Curators can have the role of deciding whether projects will be realised outside or inside gallery spaces and where and how projects might be presented, or re-presented, to gallery audiences. Curators decide upon the timescales available to artists for the duration of projects, and how to fit them within the overall programming of the organisation. It is also the case that the curator can select or predetermine the ‘community’ a “socially-engaged” artist will work with when invited to the institution. Kwon highlights such practices with the example of the 1993 “Culture in Action” programme organised by the ‘New Model’ commissioning body Sculpture Chicago with curator MaryJane Jacob. 100 In the organisation of this project Kwon describes how the curator and the organisation were instrumental in establishing, mediating and facilitating connections between local social issue groups and non-local artists.101 She elucidates how in such situations artists can “find themselves assigned to a certain community group…or be given a list of groups to choose from” 102, such curatorial assignation can result in pairings that are essentialised or stereotypical. 103 Kwon reports how such curatorial approaches during the planning stages of “Culture in Action” caused the artist Rachel Green to withdraw entirely from the project, unhappy with how the institution was delimiting her interests and her potential work. 104 Kwon also reports how the curator rejected other artists as she felt their proposals didn’t match with the objectives of her visions for the project. 105 This can be seen to illustrate how curators will select the project that transmits the image they wish to convey 100 Ibid. pp. 100 - 103 Ibid. pp. 121 - 122 102 Ibid. p. 122 103 Ibid. p. 141 104 Ibid. p. 140 105 Ibid. pp. 124 -125 101 34 to their audiences. In this way both artists and community groups, can become appropriated 106 as subjects in the institution’s overall grand project Of course, the institutional organisation is also subject to political interests and pressures. In our neo-liberal societies art institutions, particularly when in receipt of public funding, are certainly increasingly expected, by their financial backers, to be seen to provide justification for cultural expenditure. 107 Evidence is suggesting that increasingly civil political bodies are calling for cultural organisations to demonstrate an engagement with the general (nonartworld) society. For institutions, commissioning socially-engaged or community-based projects are a way to comply with such demands. However political bodies tend to have a certain vision of social-engagement, one in which art is seen as a potentially “therapeutic or correctional interaction” 108 which will promote “’social inclusion’…within society as an integrated whole”. This view is directly comparable with the Enlightenment view of the art museum as an institution capable of ‘integrating’ the socially marginalised with the values of the civic hegemony in a unified society. It is also in part a view that has led to the political endorsement of the use of culture as an agent of urban regeneration. The type of art favoured by political bodies tends to lean towards rhetoric of social healing or spiritual rejuvenation, and critics have noted that it is this art that often veers towards a simplification of communities and social issues 109, rather than becoming an art in which a social critique is explored bilaterally by artists and non-artist collaborators. Critics and artists have pointed out how this type of art is often being encouraged, in political climates where 106 Ibid. p. 139 “Not in Our Name”, Artist collective, Hamburg, quoted in “Art in Slack Spaces.” by Annette Moloney, Limerick, Self –published, (2010) p. 15 108 Editorial for Grant Kester “Dialogical Aesthetics: A Critical framework for Littoral Art.” Variant 9, Varient Supplement: Socially Engaged Practice Forum. Winter (1999-2000). http://www.variant.org.uk/9texts/KesterSupplement.html Downloaded 06.12.11 p.1 109 Grant Kester “Dialogical Aesthetics: A Critical framework for Littoral Art.” Variant 9, Varient Supplement: Socially Engaged Practice Forum. Winter (1999-2000). http://www.variant.org.uk/9texts/KesterSupplement.html Downloaded 06.12.11 p. 6 - 8 107 35 progressive public social support services have been cut back and/or ‘farmed out’ to private agencies and contractors. In this climate the cultural institution can risk becoming analogous to a compensatory social service agency and the art it commissions a conciliatory but “ineffectual social work” 110. How extensively this becomes the case depends on the level to which curators’ outlooks concur with the conciliatory desires of political echelons. Mary Jane Jacob of “Culture in Action” expressed the view that “Public art is now being viewed as a means of stabilising community development throughout urban centres” even going so far as to claim that “newgenre public art” or social art could “improve[e] society” and go “from enriching lives to saving lives”. 111 These dramatic claims correlate strongly with governmental beliefs in the apparent values of social art. However despite these ambitious desires, if the curator is intent on focusing on arranging projects that are principally motivated by ideals of therapeutic social healing, without criticality considering the complexity and inequity of ‘reality’, resultant projects and artistic engagement can remain largely performative, and fail to achieve any fundamental, or lasting transformative outcome for either artist or their social subjects. Such conciliatory projects could be considered similar to relational ‘micro-utopias’. Even if a curator is more aware of the ethical pit-falls of insensitive, simplified approaches to social participation and is more committed, as a result, to a greater level of critical awareness in their approach to social art, artists and external social groups, they can still be subject to the pressures of vested political interests. For instance, the curator Maria Lind, when discussing the coordination of a project at the Kustverein Munchen, alluded to the authority of institutional and political hierarchies over the management of the space, and so implicitly 110 Miwon Kwon “One Place the Other: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity”, Massachusetts: MIT Press (2002) p. 103 111 Mary Jane Jacob quoted in Miwon Kwon “One Place the Other: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity”, Massachusetts: MIT Press (2002) p.111 36 over the character of the projects undertaken and their subsequent form. Lind suggests her preference when liaising with socially-engaged art is to “support it in its “natural habitat” ie. The places from which it springs. [However] This is not usually popular with trustees and funders who expect things to appear in the exhibition spaces rather than in distant suburbs” 112. In her discussion of the project in question, it becomes apparent how these “institutional politics” 113 directly affect the eventual form of the project and the agency of the artists. Lind is discussing a project carried out in 2003 in Munchen, in which a Turkish artist group, Oda Projesi, was invited to Munich under a socially-engaged art scheme. 114 The initial part of the project consisted of a month long residency for the group in a space in a block of private flats in a suburban area. The apartments were largely inhabited by Turkish immigrants with whom the artists began to establish acquaintance. From initial interactions the artists began engaging and collaborating with their new neighbours in creating events, situations and projects that explored the understanding of urban spaces and their uses. This way of working was similar to a long term engagement they were known for in their native Istanbul. The projects they undertook in the apartment block were not object orientated, rather were discursive and process based, and were not created with the intention of being presented to an audience beyond their immediate collaborators. Nevertheless, intuitional stipulations necessitated that at the end of the month, the artists should present work in the gallery spaces of Kunstverein Munchen in order for the institution’s work “to be more visible within the city centre” 115. This subsequent representation of their work consisted of, an approximated reconstruction of their suburban 112 Maria Lind “Actualisation of Space: The Case of Oda Projesi.” in “Contemporary Art from Studio to Situation.” (ed.) Claire Doherty, London: Black Dog Publishing (2004) p. 120 113 Ibid. 114 Ibid. 115 115 Ibid. p. 120 37 apartment space with documentary photographs and texts relating to projects carried out during the residency. The artists were not physically present in this exhibition space. Lind admits that this presentation was deemed “a bit ‘out of place’….. [by] both the general public and some critics”, Lind herself seems to share reservations about its effectiveness and its justification. In later self-composed texts the artists have reflected that they themselves were not pleased or satisfied with this kind of re-presented work, as it does not adequately capture or express their artistic interest in activating every-day urban spaces and relationships. Conclusion “within the community-based art context, the interaction between an artist and a given community group is not based on a direct, unmediated relationship. Instead it is circumscribed within a more complex network of motivations, expectations, and projections among all involved.” 116 Many artists working in the field of social art are unhappy with their delimitation and instrumentalisation by institutional bodies. They are also deeply troubled by their co-option into political gambits, that equate to a form of “soft” social engineering” 117 intended to sanitise troubled ‘urban neighbourhoods, or to diffuse malaise among socially excluded constituencies. This has led to some practitioners, such as Oda Projesi, withdrawing from acting with or in the officially established institutional arena. Such artists are developing new paradigms and 116 Ibid. p. 141 Miwon Kwon “One Place the Other: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity”, Massachusetts: MIT Press (2002) p. 153 117 38 ways of engaging symbiotically with their social and physical surroundings. The work of such artists is carving out new ways to model and imagine artistic engagement and action in the social sphere. It will be interesting to look in the future to the development of their practices. 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Sherry, Jr, John “Disentangling the paradoxical alliances between art market and art world.” Consumption Markets & Culture 6, Issue 3, 155-181(2003) Krstich, Vesna “Disappearing Act: What’s Next for Istanbul’s Oda Projesi?” Art Papers Magazine 32, Issue 4, Jul/Aug (2008) Sickler, Erin “Alternative Art Economies: A Primer” Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of Economics, Culture and Society 24, No. 2, April (2012) Online Articles and Essays Farquharson, Alex “Bureaux de Change.” Frieze 101, September (2006) http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/bureaux_de_change/ Downloaded 16.09.13 Farquharson, Alex “Is the Pen Still Mightier.” Frieze 92, June/August (2005) https://www.frieze.com/issue/article/is_the_pen_still_mightier/ Downloaded 16.09.13 42 Frogget, Lynn Little, Robert Roy, Alastair Whitaker, Leah “New Model Arts Institutions and Public Engagement, Research Study; Headline Findings”, University of Central Lancashire, Psychosocial Research Unit. http://www.bluedrum.ie/documents/Newmodelartsorganisationsandpublicengagementemerge ntfindings.pdf Downloaded 07.12.11 Gordon-Nesbitt, Rebecca “Harnessing the means of Production.” Commissioned by the Office for Contemporary Art, Norway,New Institutionalism ( 2003). http://www.shiftyparadigms.org/harnessing_means.htm Downloaded 18.09.13 Irvine, Martin “The Institutional Theory of Art and the Artworld” Georgetown University. http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/visualarts/institutional-theory-artworld.html Accessed 07.07.13 Kester, Grant “Dialogical Aesthetics: A Critical framework for Littoral Art.” Variant 9, Varient Supplement: Socially Engaged Practice Forum. Winter (1999-2000). http://www.variant.org.uk/9texts/KesterSupplement.html Downloaded 06.12.11 Ozkan, Derya “Derya Ozkan in Conversation with Oda Projesi: Art’s Indecent Proposal; Collaberation. An Attempt to Think Collectively” OnCurating.org, Issue 11 (2011). http://on-curating.org/issue_11.php Downloaded 3.02.12 Ozkan, Derya “Spatial Practices of Oda Projesi and the Production of Space in Istanbul.” OnCurating.org, Issue 11 (2011). http://on-curating.org/issue_11.php Downloaded 3.02.12 Rajiva, Suma “Art Nature and “Greenberg’s Kant.” http://www.uqtr.uquebec.ca/AE/Vol_14/modernism/Rajiva.htm Downloaded 22.09.13 43 Stanford University, Metaphysics Research Lab “Kant’s Aesthetics and Teleology” Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-aesthetics/#2.6 Downloaded 5.04.12 Websites Kunstverein Munchen, http://www.kunstverein-muenchen.de/en/kunstverein-muenchen Manifesta, The European Biennale of Contemporary Art, http://manifesta.org/ Oda Projesi, Artist Collective, Istanbul, http://odaprojesi.blogspot.ie/ Palais de Tokyo, Paris, http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/fr/rencontres/rencontres SALT Istanbul, http://www.saltonline.org/en/info The Museum of Modern Art, New York, “MoMA > Learn”, http://www.moma.org/learn/index Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/about-us/ Witte de With Contemporary Art, Rotterdam http://www.wdw.nl/about/ WochenKlausur, Artist Collective, Vienna,http://www.wochenklausur.at/index1.php?lang=en 44