Start
First Nations Pavillion" entitled de-grammatical and poetics of dead space where the melody is composed out of extinct languages (native americans/first nations)
Section 1
Intorducing the weeks issues/themes
I am David Goldenberg and welcome to this evenings program looking at contemporary art through the prism of Post Autonomy
We have just listened “De-grammatical” by the Austrian artist Elisabeth Penker which looks at the effect of colonisation on the languages of the First Nations in North America,
- we will play another piece at the end of the program.
Penker suggests that further development in art is not possible without resolving arts link to Colonisation and Globalisation.
It is unquestionable that Modernism or the Euro centric tradition of art – is linked to Colonisation and Globalisation.
- Besides looking for other perspectives to interrogate this Euro centric tradition
The question is what choice do we have? Do we stay with this tradition and model or are there other options?
There is a choice through the development of another model of art which we call Post Autonomy -
Where Post Autonomy through the end of autonomy signals the conclusion and collapse of the trajectory of a Euro centric tradition of art – which I understand to imply the end of the Bourgeois Enlightenment project – with the switch into the uncharted space and discourse within the space of post autonomy – something equivalent to the space of the radio
Where the use of speech becomes the material of art.
art doesn’t end but becomes a point to renegotiate the attributes and function of art – particularly around issues of arts link to colonisation and globalisation - yet we don’t recognise the attributes of that space nor the form the practice is to take.
What we are describing is something precarious
For having made this brief sequence of claims how do we know whether they are true?
Lets make a broader generalisation
How do we make truth statements, claims and self- descriptions within the field of art – when the role of observations about art have been said to have eroded i.e. we don’t appear to recognise the role of observations about art and the role of text and speech – yet there appears to be a proliferation of observations and opinions about art. Boris Groys suggests that this is a symptom of the enlightenment having finished and the beginning of a new religious moment. This leads to the next question how are we expected to have confidence in any observation made about art?
But the real question is what actual room for change exists within the field of art to implement the space of post autonomy?
Let us bring these issues together – How do we understand the actual substance of discourse, power, the relationship between art & politics and the possibility for change?
In “The next Documenta” the Belgian Philosopher Dieter Lesage refers to Oliver Marchart book to map out the field of art by comparing D 10 & 11 with 12. He asks what is the possibility for change through art? Is there a possibility for revolution and emancipation or the lesser possibility of a cultural revolution?
Marchart describes museums, biennials and other large-scale art exhibitions such as documenta as hegemony machines, functioning not unlike the World’s Fairs that have contributed significantly to the project of Nation-building since the mid-nineteenth century.
Roughly speaking we can say that D10 & 11 examined the possibility for the institution of art to offer the tools to examine the relationship between art, politics, critical thinking, commentary on art and arts role in colonisation and Globalisation. While D12 appeared to throw considerable doubt on the capacity for art institutions to address Globalisation because of the suspicion that art appears to support the totalising effect of colonisation and globalisation and whether it is the role of art to pose and address such questions.
The key statement that applies to implementing the space of post autonomy -
Marchart identifies 2 options for change – changing positions or opting out of existing institutions.
Marchart defines hegemony as a precarious balance between dominant and subaltern forces that through the networks of society’s institutions (museums, biennials, and large-scale exhibitions) establishes a momentary primacy of certain forces. These forces can always be overturned, depending on shifts in an ongoing “war of positions.”
The concept of hegemony can be explained as the way in which consensus is produced as a primordial means of securing the dominance of certain forces. Every institution which may at some moment seem to consolidate dominant bourgeois culture, may at another point be useful for a counter-hegemonic project – one that could eventually establish another hegemony.
Interview between David & Raimi
Section 2
Yourspace and developing another model for exhibiting art
Yourspace and developing another model for exhibiting art
Interview between the Dutch curator Freek Lomme & David Goldenberg
Section 3
Open discussion – invisible labour
Section 4
Discussion with the London based artist Amanda Francis
Finish
Poetics of dead space by Elisabeth Penker
