Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
on what John Hopkins wrote, with which I largely agree, a small rider - a jockey, if you will: State arts funding does not have the interests of the artist or of art at its centre as its reason. It is rather a symbolic - political and economic and ethological - allowance that such things might emerge as artists and arts which if they do may be managed and organised, judged and branded. The critical economy appears to be the next major franchise, of the semantic Web, for example, as copyright on material expression ceases to stick, given digital dissolution, and ownership of opinion arises, stratifies and propagates through personalisation of services, through P2P recommendation. +, like, : ... However, arts funding provides pre-eminently for the ecology that supports managers, organisers, and critical apparati, even if the latter often give the impression of parasitism. When societies do not allow the critical threshold of economic freedom to be reached such that a stage of emergence can be insured, then what is at risk is an ecology or network. The state in removing itself from the art/arts equation by withdrawing funding eliminates a hub from this network. This may not destroy the network but its deleterious effects will ramify throughout it. The current system of tertiary student loans in New Zealand we know to cost more to run than the previous system of student allowances. In fact, this was known before the system was implemented. Likewise, looking only at economic indexes, cutting state funding for the arts, above an ascertainable threshold of sufficient funding, costs the state more than continuing its support. How is it possible to ascertain the amount of funding that suffices? Where the existence of significant arts institutions is threatened, where that significance is given the larger meaning of 'acting as a hub for the (artistic, social, civic, ethological, economic, political, critical, and so on) network,' is where the threshold lies. Theatres and cinemas are clearly hubs, but that the former is also an artistic hub, bringing the company responsible for the work together in the same institution as that in which it is shown. Theatre therefore displays even more hub-like characteristics when has a resident company and is not simply the venue for visitors. Much of this discussion seems to have recycled notions of economic lean-ness or efficiency, whereby the arts in Europe have grown fat, Brad Brace for one advocating a crash diet and the dynamic individualism of a lean mean art-making machine. Is an excess of funding than what suffices in sustaining significant arts institutions adequate justification to cut state funding? I would like to live in a society in which such a problem arises. Justification is usually from the macroeconomic, with all the attendant ironies that even minor financial institutions are worthy of state bail-outs. And as they devolve on macroeconomic arguments they have recourse to the unscientific theories of fashionable economic thinking, or ideology. It is this idea that cutting state funding somehow works or creates benefits that needs to be demolished. best, Simon Taylor www.squarewhiteworld.com www.brazilcoffee.co.nz On 09/08/11 03:02, John Hopkins wrote: Hei Simon, et al... a few glitched musings... well, I don't think it's the norm, based on my experience, for people on the spectre list to have deep knowledge from both sides of the Atlantic, I was based in Northern Europe (IS, FI, NO, DE, NL, LT, LV, SE, DK, FR, IT) for about 18 of the last 25 years, participating in many of the events from which spectre arose, with the balance of that time in the US (Boston, LA, NYC, Colorado, Arizona, Washington DC, Alaska) and Australia (Sydney, Melb), and I was constantly amazed at the lack of knowledge of the US when in Europe. Of course 'everyone' has been to NYC and perhaps California, but neither of those places are typical by any stretch of the vast pseudo-cultural agglomeration that is the US. And there are massive and monumental cultural stereotypes that are frequently invoked among Europeans when framing the US. I have been to all 50 states, and spent significant time in a majority of them; both rural, suburban, and urban, observing, photographing, writing, so I take the allowance to pass along observations and comparisons whenever possible. Within Europe, I am better traveled than most Europeans as well, with time spent in numerous (central but also non-nexus) places across 20 countries. With that experience, I can state that there has been, on average 'easier' money and easier access to cultural activities in Europe, along with greater participation (if only as passive consuming audience) by local populations. One of the reasons I stayed mostly in Europe was the easier access to funded situations. It has changed over those two decades, yes, everywhere. As someone else
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
I thought Art Finance whether state or corporate driven is already
for ages extreme antisocial for its producers i.e. artists, its
mediators i.e. Art Dealers and the whole bunch of virtual capital
accumulators, distracting labour products from the mass of non
capital owners to the benefit of the ruling elites worldwide
2 Million Dollars for a Neo Rauch painting
4 Million for a badly done Picasso
1 Million for a outdated Lucian Freud
€500,00 - €1500,00 for a digital work of art by me!
Place your bids!
See:
nictoglobe.com/new/agam
Sharing a community place with other artists on a low budget?
See:
nictoglobe.com/residency
Buy a Lucky Drawing ?
See:
burgerwaanzin.nl/ld.html
Andreas Maria Jacobs
nictoglobe.com
burgerwaanzin.nl
On Aug 8, 2011, at 13:13, { brad brace } bbr...@eskimo.com wrote:
artists don't require support for what has become just more
frenzied, insider trading -- no illusion: abolish all arts
funding!
/:b
On Sat, 6 Aug 2011, Louise Desrenards wrote:
yes, I agree
On 6 August 2011 22:21, simon s...@clear.net.nz wrote:
The empty secret of the conspiracy of the state counterweights and
correlates with the conspiracy of art. Except for this performance
Louise
talks about. And this humour.
=
PROXY Gallery
http://bit.ly/proxygallery
global islands project:
http://bbrace.net/id.html
We fill the craters left by the bombs
And once again we sing
And once again we sow
Because life never surrenders.
-- anonymous Vietnamese poem
Nothing can be said about the sea.
-- Mr Selvam, Akkrapattai, India 2004
... for every star-driven enterprise there are corollary
benefits for those who support it and keep their mouths shut.
-- John Young, NYC 2010
Shikata ga nai -- There's nothing we can do about it.
-- Japanese tsunami survivors, 2011
{ brad brace }bbr...@eskimo.com ~finger for pgp
---bbs: brad brace sound ---
---http://69.64.229.114:8000 ---
---http://bradbrace.net/undisclosed.html ---
.
The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Projectposted since 1994
+ + + serial ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/b/bbrace
+ + + eccentric ftp:// (your-site-here!)
+ + + continuous hotline://artlyin.ftr.va.com.au
+ + +hypermodern ftp://ftp.rdrop.com/pub/users/bbrace
+ + +imageryhttp://12hr.noemata.net
News: alt.binaries.pictures.12hr alt.binaries.pictures.misc
alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.miscalt.12hr
. 12hr email
subscriptions = http://bradbrace.net/buy-into.html
. Other | Mirror: http://www.eskimo.com/~bbrace/bbrace.html
Projects | Reverse Solidus: http://bradbrace.net/
| http://bbrace.net
. Blog | http://bradbrace.net/wordpress
. IM | bbr...@unstable.nl
. IRC | #bbrace
. ICQ| 109352289
. SIP| bbr...@ekiga.net
. SKYPE | bbbrace
| registered linux user #323978
~
I am not a victimcoercion is natural
I am a messengerfreedom is artifical
/:b
__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
__
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Info, archive and help:
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Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
now this is funny, this call for inconsequence, like that in Incendies,
bury me face down naked, for I have not kept my promise; bring on the
hard ask of an ethology: I do not support the call to abolish arts funding.
The problem seems false, not true. There is the natural conflict of
patronage with entrepreneurship. Where state does for the former
alt-europa what private funds do for the latter in neu-welt. And
inbetween, we have the colonial dispensation, which we know to be and to
have been testing ground, a test-demographic.
There are different ethical calls to be made. In New Zealand we have
devoured our young of the 1970s! They were gone before the end of the
millennium. Julian Oliver has pointed to this, but only alluded to it in
its phenomenological deployment, not as a succession of stupidities with
which many artists are guilty of having been complicit: not as a process
now being initiated elsewhere...
I am on the side of shit when it comes to an opposition with gold; on
the side of modernist plumbing when it comes to leading sewage out of
the city; on the side of art when it comes to miming the process and
leading the shit back into town; on the side of plumbers and arts
bureaucrats for the networks they maintain to keep that damn urinal from
spraying in my face where it sits wherever it lies. In the new world,
I'm thinking.
But the numismatic battle if I may take the liberty is being waged far
from these parochial and skin-close concerns. Excuses are being made.
Pretexts asserted. And the only reason I feel I may comment is that I
know myself to be implicated in these pretexts. They propose a
Friedmannian/Straussian control-society answer to the plurality of cultures.
The cheapening is not by value but by scale. Europe better wise up quick
about what's in store.
Best,
Simon Taylor
www.squarewhiteworld.com
www.brazilcoffee.co.nz
On 08/08/11 23:13, { brad brace } wrote:
artists don't require support for what has become just more
frenzied, insider trading -- no illusion: abolish all arts
funding!
/:b
On Sat, 6 Aug 2011, Louise Desrenards wrote:
yes, I agree
On 6 August 2011 22:21, simons...@clear.net.nz wrote:
The empty secret of the conspiracy of the state counterweights and
correlates with the conspiracy of art. Except for this performance Louise
talks about. And this humour.
__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
..on Mon, Aug 08, 2011 at 04:13:40AM -0700, { brad brace } wrote:
artists don't require support for what has become just more
frenzied, insider trading -- no illusion: abolish all arts
funding!
To do this would be to yield to total economic rationalisation, herding our
respective practices into second-hand exile under the sign of 'capital
realism', rather than achieving a truly critical mobility.
Such mobility is dependent on the increase of options not the reduction of
them. The vulnerability here in Europe is the lack of reserve (or companion)
strategies and experience for sustaining development in a climate of shifty
political actors and economic austerity.
Cheers,
Julian
On Sat, 6 Aug 2011, Louise Desrenards wrote:
yes, I agree
On 6 August 2011 22:21, simon s...@clear.net.nz wrote:
The empty secret of the conspiracy of the state counterweights and
correlates with the conspiracy of art. Except for this performance Louise
talks about. And this humour.
=
PROXY Gallery
http://bit.ly/proxygallery
global islands project:
http://bbrace.net/id.html
We fill the craters left by the bombs
And once again we sing
And once again we sow
Because life never surrenders.
-- anonymous Vietnamese poem
Nothing can be said about the sea.
-- Mr Selvam, Akkrapattai, India 2004
... for every star-driven enterprise there are corollary
benefits for those who support it and keep their mouths shut.
-- John Young, NYC 2010
Shikata ga nai -- There's nothing we can do about it.
-- Japanese tsunami survivors, 2011
{ brad brace }bbr...@eskimo.com ~finger for pgp
---bbs: brad brace sound ---
---http://69.64.229.114:8000 ---
---http://bradbrace.net/undisclosed.html ---
.
The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Projectposted since 1994
+ + + serial ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/b/bbrace
+ + + eccentric ftp:// (your-site-here!)
+ + + continuous hotline://artlyin.ftr.va.com.au
+ + +hypermodern ftp://ftp.rdrop.com/pub/users/bbrace
+ + +imageryhttp://12hr.noemata.net
News: alt.binaries.pictures.12hr alt.binaries.pictures.misc
alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.miscalt.12hr
. 12hr email
subscriptions = http://bradbrace.net/buy-into.html
. Other | Mirror: http://www.eskimo.com/~bbrace/bbrace.html
Projects | Reverse Solidus: http://bradbrace.net/
| http://bbrace.net
. Blog | http://bradbrace.net/wordpress
. IM | bbr...@unstable.nl
. IRC | #bbrace
. ICQ| 109352289
. SIP| bbr...@ekiga.net
. SKYPE | bbbrace
| registered linux user #323978
~
I am not a victim coercion is natural
I am a messenger freedom is artifical
/:b
__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
--
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http://julianoliver.com
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Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
arterasa will be happy to assist in this procedure
www.arterasa.org
best,
–
stefan riebel
pf 440413, 12004 berlin, germany
m: +49 176 630 515 85
www.stefanriebel.de
Am 08.08.2011 um 14:36 schrieb Julian Oliver:
..on Mon, Aug 08, 2011 at 04:13:40AM -0700, { brad brace } wrote:
artists don't require support for what has become just more
frenzied, insider trading -- no illusion: abolish all arts
funding!
To do this would be to yield to total economic rationalisation, herding our
respective practices into second-hand exile under the sign of 'capital
realism', rather than achieving a truly critical mobility.
Such mobility is dependent on the increase of options not the reduction of
them. The vulnerability here in Europe is the lack of reserve (or companion)
strategies and experience for sustaining development in a climate of shifty
political actors and economic austerity.
Cheers,
Julian
On Sat, 6 Aug 2011, Louise Desrenards wrote:
yes, I agree
On 6 August 2011 22:21, simon s...@clear.net.nz wrote:
The empty secret of the conspiracy of the state counterweights and
correlates with the conspiracy of art. Except for this performance Louise
talks about. And this humour.
=
PROXY Gallery
http://bit.ly/proxygallery
global islands project:
http://bbrace.net/id.html
We fill the craters left by the bombs
And once again we sing
And once again we sow
Because life never surrenders.
-- anonymous Vietnamese poem
Nothing can be said about the sea.
-- Mr Selvam, Akkrapattai, India 2004
... for every star-driven enterprise there are corollary
benefits for those who support it and keep their mouths shut.
-- John Young, NYC 2010
Shikata ga nai -- There's nothing we can do about it.
-- Japanese tsunami survivors, 2011
{ brad brace }bbr...@eskimo.com ~finger for pgp
---bbs: brad brace sound ---
---http://69.64.229.114:8000 ---
---http://bradbrace.net/undisclosed.html---
.
The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Projectposted since 1994
+ + + serial ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/b/bbrace
+ + + eccentric ftp:// (your-site-here!)
+ + + continuous hotline://artlyin.ftr.va.com.au
+ + +hypermodern ftp://ftp.rdrop.com/pub/users/bbrace
+ + +imageryhttp://12hr.noemata.net
News: alt.binaries.pictures.12hr alt.binaries.pictures.misc
alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.miscalt.12hr
. 12hr email
subscriptions = http://bradbrace.net/buy-into.html
. Other | Mirror: http://www.eskimo.com/~bbrace/bbrace.html
Projects | Reverse Solidus: http://bradbrace.net/
| http://bbrace.net
. Blog| http://bradbrace.net/wordpress
. IM | bbr...@unstable.nl
. IRC | #bbrace
. ICQ| 109352289
. SIP| bbr...@ekiga.net
. SKYPE | bbbrace
| registered linux user #323978
~
I am not a victimcoercion is natural
I am a messenger freedom is artifical
/:b
__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
--
Julian Oliver
http://julianoliver.com
__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
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Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
..on Mon, Aug 08, 2011 at 02:52:00PM +0200, cont...@stefanriebel.de wrote:
arterasa will be happy to assist in this procedure
www.arterasa.org
Hehe. Both hilarious and timely. I'm sure they will have plenty of work in the
near future: I hear Berlusconi has called for a 37% cut in cultural funding,
raising tax on petrol to 'save' opera. Oil finally made its way on stage. In
his defence the finance minister Tremonti said You can't eat culture.
It seems you can.
Cheers,
Julian
–
stefan riebel
pf 440413, 12004 berlin, germany
m: +49 176 630 515 85
www.stefanriebel.de
Am 08.08.2011 um 14:36 schrieb Julian Oliver:
..on Mon, Aug 08, 2011 at 04:13:40AM -0700, { brad brace } wrote:
artists don't require support for what has become just more
frenzied, insider trading -- no illusion: abolish all arts
funding!
To do this would be to yield to total economic rationalisation, herding our
respective practices into second-hand exile under the sign of 'capital
realism', rather than achieving a truly critical mobility.
Such mobility is dependent on the increase of options not the reduction of
them. The vulnerability here in Europe is the lack of reserve (or
companion)
strategies and experience for sustaining development in a climate of shifty
political actors and economic austerity.
Cheers,
Julian
On Sat, 6 Aug 2011, Louise Desrenards wrote:
yes, I agree
On 6 August 2011 22:21, simon s...@clear.net.nz wrote:
The empty secret of the conspiracy of the state counterweights and
correlates with the conspiracy of art. Except for this performance Louise
talks about. And this humour.
=
PROXY Gallery
http://bit.ly/proxygallery
global islands project:
http://bbrace.net/id.html
We fill the craters left by the bombs
And once again we sing
And once again we sow
Because life never surrenders.
-- anonymous Vietnamese poem
Nothing can be said about the sea.
-- Mr Selvam, Akkrapattai, India 2004
... for every star-driven enterprise there are corollary
benefits for those who support it and keep their mouths shut.
-- John Young, NYC 2010
Shikata ga nai -- There's nothing we can do about it.
-- Japanese tsunami survivors, 2011
{ brad brace }bbr...@eskimo.com ~finger for pgp
---bbs: brad brace sound ---
---http://69.64.229.114:8000 ---
---http://bradbrace.net/undisclosed.html ---
.
The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Projectposted since 1994
+ + + serial ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/b/bbrace
+ + + eccentric ftp:// (your-site-here!)
+ + + continuous hotline://artlyin.ftr.va.com.au
+ + +hypermodern ftp://ftp.rdrop.com/pub/users/bbrace
+ + +imageryhttp://12hr.noemata.net
News: alt.binaries.pictures.12hr alt.binaries.pictures.misc
alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.miscalt.12hr
. 12hr email
subscriptions = http://bradbrace.net/buy-into.html
. Other | Mirror: http://www.eskimo.com/~bbrace/bbrace.html
Projects | Reverse Solidus: http://bradbrace.net/
| http://bbrace.net
. Blog | http://bradbrace.net/wordpress
. IM | bbr...@unstable.nl
. IRC | #bbrace
. ICQ| 109352289
. SIP| bbr...@ekiga.net
. SKYPE | bbbrace
| registered linux user #323978
~
I am not a victim coercion is natural
I am a messenger freedom is artifical
/:b
__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
--
Julian Oliver
http://julianoliver.com
__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
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--
Julian Oliver
http://julianoliver.com
__
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Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
dear julian, dear all, Am 08.08.2011 um 14:36 schrieb Julian Oliver: The vulnerability here in Europe is the lack of reserve (or companion) strategies and experience for sustaining development in a climate of shifty political actors and economic austerity. i am not sure if there is really a lack of strategies. couldn't it be possible that these strategies are already there and in practice, but not visible? or better to say, perhaps these strategies are just hidden by the existing art-infrastructure which is obviously very well developed in euroland? my current hometown düsseldorf for example has more than 30 self-organized off-spaces, which are run with no or very small support by the city. (for those who understand german: http://www.vierwaende-off.de/ and http://www.vierwaendekunst.de/ ) hamburg and berlin have very energetic off-scenes too and switzerland got the http://www.offoff.ch/ of course there are always interferences and links between the 'on'- and the 'off'-scene, so it doesnt really make sense to deepen any trenches. and this is not my intention. but to be honest i know some quite good boys and girls who do really awesome work without any or at least with very very small support from institutions. and not all of them are 'loosers'. ;-) most of them are experimenting with this form of autonomous selforganization because they want it. to be honest, especially when you dont care to much on a vitae or a portfolio, these whole institutional world is even as difficult as the artmarket. please dont misundertand me, i really do not want to glorify the lack of institutional support. to have it, makes everything much easier. but i am not sure if i really would agree with your theses there would be a lack of strategies. best regards florian __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
..on Mon, Aug 08, 2011 at 03:24:39PM +0200, hello | florian kuhlmann wrote: dear julian, dear all, Am 08.08.2011 um 14:36 schrieb Julian Oliver: The vulnerability here in Europe is the lack of reserve (or companion) strategies and experience for sustaining development in a climate of shifty political actors and economic austerity. i am not sure if there is really a lack of strategies. couldn't it be possible that these strategies are already there and in practice, but not visible? or better to say, perhaps these strategies are just hidden by the existing art-infrastructure which is obviously very well developed in euroland? my current hometown düsseldorf for example has more than 30 self-organized off-spaces, which are run with no or very small support by the city. (for those who understand german: http://www.vierwaende-off.de/ and http://www.vierwaendekunst.de/ ) hamburg and berlin have very energetic off-scenes too and switzerland got the http://www.offoff.ch/ of course there are always interferences and links between the 'on'- and the 'off'-scene, so it doesnt really make sense to deepen any trenches. and this is not my intention. but to be honest i know some quite good boys and girls who do really awesome work without any or at least with very very small support from institutions. and not all of them are 'loosers'. ;-) most of them are experimenting with this form of autonomous selforganization because they want it. to be honest, especially when you dont care to much on a vitae or a portfolio, these whole institutional world is even as difficult as the artmarket. please dont misundertand me, i really do not want to glorify the lack of institutional support. to have it, makes everything much easier. but i am not sure if i really would agree with your theses there would be a lack of strategies. What you say makes sense. Certainly in many parts of Europe countless artists get along just fine. In Spain (where I've lived for some years) and in Italy people get by on very little (or no) arts funding (or institutional support in other forms) largely by leveraging local resources within their own community. The software art community has low resource overheads, for instance. Here in Berlin, a poor capital really, we do a lot with little. I'm at home in this regard as I come from New Zealand, where the D.I.Y culture is also strong. Danja Vasiliev and I have a project called Newstweek (http://newstweek.com/overview) and it's been very successful. I doubt we've invested more than a couple of hundred Euro in the project. Regardless of such low costs, I would rather have spent my own money on it than chase arts funding, go through the aquittal process and balance legal issues in relation to that funding due to its controversial nature. However it's not really this scale I'm talking about. There is a limit to the scale of what one can do without funding and/or institutional support. It's a tangible issue and represents a glass ceiling in development and production. Labs like Steim, V2_, Mediamatic, Madrid MediaLab Prado, RD programs, PhD fine-art programs, festivals are facing trouble as they don't have alternative strategies at their disposal when enduring infrastructural cuts. Cheers, -- Julian Oliver http://julianoliver.com __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
hi again, Am 08.08.2011 um 15:47 schrieb Julian Oliver: There is a limit to the scale of what one can do without funding and/or institutional support. i agree with this. there is definetly a limit in these form of selforganizations. since you are from berlin you could know the project chances of crisis? http://www.arttransponder.net/412.0.html they have done a good job concerning this issues after the first wave of the financialcrisis. Labs like Steim, V2_, Mediamatic, Madrid MediaLab Prado, RD programs, PhD fine-art programs, festivals are facing trouble as they don't have alternative strategies at their disposal when enduring infrastructural cuts. yes this is true. there could be a problem. best regards florian__ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
Hei Simon, et al... a few glitched musings... well, I don't think it's the norm, based on my experience, for people on the spectre list to have deep knowledge from both sides of the Atlantic, I was based in Northern Europe (IS, FI, NO, DE, NL, LT, LV, SE, DK, FR, IT) for about 18 of the last 25 years, participating in many of the events from which spectre arose, with the balance of that time in the US (Boston, LA, NYC, Colorado, Arizona, Washington DC, Alaska) and Australia (Sydney, Melb), and I was constantly amazed at the lack of knowledge of the US when in Europe. Of course 'everyone' has been to NYC and perhaps California, but neither of those places are typical by any stretch of the vast pseudo-cultural agglomeration that is the US. And there are massive and monumental cultural stereotypes that are frequently invoked among Europeans when framing the US. I have been to all 50 states, and spent significant time in a majority of them; both rural, suburban, and urban, observing, photographing, writing, so I take the allowance to pass along observations and comparisons whenever possible. Within Europe, I am better traveled than most Europeans as well, with time spent in numerous (central but also non-nexus) places across 20 countries. With that experience, I can state that there has been, on average 'easier' money and easier access to cultural activities in Europe, along with greater participation (if only as passive consuming audience) by local populations. One of the reasons I stayed mostly in Europe was the easier access to funded situations. It has changed over those two decades, yes, everywhere. As someone else remarked earlier, the absence of health care is a critical issue in 'autonomy' in the US ... but, anyone working in the arts here likely falls below the limit for paying (much if any) taxes... Maybe it's just a difference between the path the money flows along -- through the state a bit more or through the corporate sector a bit more... Does this really make a difference in the end? It is the movement of abstracted social value, following a pathway mandated cumulatively by the social institution through which it passes: subsequently re-distributed to certain participants in the social system. In places like Norway (admittedly unique because of petrodollars), there is simply no comparison to the US. I have numerous friends who lived there and elsewhere in the Nordic countries and have survived by their art alone (though not without complaining about the meager NOK10k project stipends). They do a bit of optional teaching. But maybe it is comparing blueberries and mangos: each social system seeks self-survival, each individual within is motivated to the same, generally. Each expends what is necessary to maintain viability, then with what is left-over, both life-time and life-energy, they push expression of presence outwards towards the Others. Energized creative output requires an energy source. Each social system has relatively different access to differing sources, qualities, and quantities of energy. In this regard, Europe and the US are different. In some sectors, there is more sufferation, in others, less. There are the hungry scattered everywhere. The gorged and vacantly satiated are Legion as well. But creative flow, while always theoretically available, comes to where there is a pathway, human-to-human for it to move along. There are those individuals who, sacrificing an extended life, use the energies immediately available to them to burn up, brightly Lighting their immediate surrounds for a short time. Or those who speak in the still, small voice which eventually moves mountains. What affect would wealth have on their trajectory? I think impossible to predict or determine even in retrospect. A faster burn? A longer fade, an ensuing state of walking death? A bigger NAME? I ask somewhat sarcastically: Is it possible to have a creativity without cash? I answer, channeling Blake: Where any view of Money exists, Art cannot be carried on, but War only. I have not observed elsewise over the years: this retort resonates through every established cultural institution, through those struggling to become established cultural institutions, and through a sizable fraction of the humans who populate those institutions. Neither cash nor credit are energy sources, they are only proxies (http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/archives/1199). You can't eat money. jh __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
Chers Collègues muets de France, Je parlerai justement de l'état de l'art et/ou de l'art d'état en France, lors d'ISEA à Istanbul en septembre prochain, en rapport avec les nouveaux médias. http://isea2011.sabanciuniv.edu/content/critical-perspectives-economies-art-today En France, l'on ne se contente donc plus seulement d'injecter des millions d'euros dans des bâtiments vides, l'on est désormais aussi le premier pays d'Europe à se faire voler une exposition dans sa totalité (*). Bye FA (*) http://www.rue89.com/oelpv/2011/06/04/une-expo-photo-de-fontcuberta-volee-dans-sa-quasi-integralite-206115 __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
the continuous cultural bail-outs, conceptual ponzi-schemes, and insider quid-pro-quo (critical mobility...) are finally coming to a joyously redemptive end; the options for (non-complicit) artists will no longer be reductively dependent on obstructionist oligarchical art-agencies to celebrate this event and concurrent devaluations, I've quickly (without any funding,) designed a FREEE pinback button appropriated from US Federal Currency Seals: ENCUMBRANCE EXCLUSION EQUIVOCATION (only $2.99 for shipping, delivered anywhere); provide cash, cheque, or paypal with delivery address via bbr...@eskimo.com http://bradbrace.net/EEE.html awesome! /:b __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
Hi Mattyo I can see where you are coming from and appreciate you have experience living and working in all three of the environments you were discussing (US, UK, Europe). I have a similar history (with a couple of other places thrown in for good measure) and appreciate travel puts things in context. But spectre is the sort of place where experience like our's tends to be typical. My feeling is that there is no need for a tirade. Whilst I do not want to point at anybody there might be something in the folk myth that Americans are the least travelled and most insular of people's (we all know the statistics about most American's not having passports). Perhaps it's about glass houses... best Simon On 5 Aug 2011, at 18:36, mattyo wrote: Hi Simon, My tirade was mostly directed at continental Europe, but I didn't want to bog myself down with qualifications, although I was thinking this isnt really true in the UK at various points while I was writing. I know the UK is, as I said, no Germany, although I do meet loads of people at festivals whose tab was picked up by the British Council. Prins Bernhard Fonds doesn't support artist directly either, I think -- my point is that funding may not be direct, and can be indirect in many ways. Note that I said free or extremely inexpensive education. Not to get self-pitying here, but £3,500 will buy you about two months at NYU. I'm well aware that those rates are disappearing as well, but again, I never really considered the UK Europe, exactly. I am by no means claiming that Europe (and particularly the UK) was the land of milk and honey, while all us poor suckers scrape for grubs in the US. I have lived in the Netherlands and London, and I know the deal. My point was mostly the extent to which many continental europeans are simply unaware of the depth of the sea that they swim in. \M On Aug 5, 2011, at 12:21 PM, Simon Biggs wrote: I'd like to correct errors in Mattyo's post. The British Council does not fund artists directly. It funds organisations to assist them to bring UK artists to non-UK events. The objective is to promote UK culture overseas. They do not cover artist fees. They will assist with travel and marketing costs but would not consider fully funding the costs. They only contribute a percentage. Their funds are extremely limited. In last year's bonfire of UK Qangos the British Council was on the long list of those to be closed down. It was reprieved, but with its wings further clipped. The Arts Council is the body that funds UK artists at home. However, since the 1990's it has very limited funds for direct funding and tends to operate by funding third party organisations (museums, galleries, theatres, etc) to commission artists to produce work. This includes a few organisations that focus on experimental work but most of the money goes to companies that are driven, more or less, by audience demand (eg: Royal Opera, Royal Ballet, National Theatre, Tate). That is not a recipe for risk but it does keep UK museums mostly free to access. This benefits UK residents but also tourists. As for art education...where did the idea it was free in the UK come from? Current fees in England and Wales are £3,500 per year for UK/EU citizens and £10,000 plus for non-EU. This will rise to £9,000 in 2012 for UK/EU students and £12,000 plus for non-EU. Some degrees are now up to £27,000 per year (MBA's, for example). The basic cost of a degree in the fine arts, including foundation year, is therefore around £28,000 just in fees. This is inline with costs in the US state sector. There is no rent control in the UK. There are no subsidised work spaces I am aware of. Squatting is illegal and squatters are criminalised. Unemployment is only available for a limited period, after which you are on your own. There is no employment insurance system to speak of. We do have free health but it costs every tax payer 11% of their pay packet so it is not really free. But it is cheaper than what it costs the average US citizen in medical insurance. It's not so much about how the system is paid for but how efficient it is. Generally the UK system is similar to that in other anglo-saxon countries, like the US, Canada and Australia. As for Europe, each country is different and many have more generous systems than that in the US (or the UK), but not all. It is also about culture. In the States there is a culture of benevolence (corporate and individual) that does not exist in Europe. Successive UK governments have encouraged business to give to the arts and other sectors but till now this has been largely unsuccessful. The tax breaks you have in the US do not exist here. You should also note that personal and corporate taxation is far higher in Europe and equivalent salaries lower than in the US. I would double my salary working in the States and
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
Hi! Sorry but you are making a use of Baudrillard to contribute to your thesis but from a misunderstanding about him and about his text. Baudrillard has not written The conspiracy of Art from a reformist point of view nor from economic point of view, but as an act of critical art -- of critical active poetry itself -- walking itself as entropy into the contemporary. It is a symbolic challenge. It does not concerns --in nothing-- your subject. (Same misunderstanding than about Forget Foucault) Best On 6 August 2011 16:04, Julian Oliver jul...@julianoliver.com wrote: Hi Mattyo, Thanks for your comments, that was a good read. For what it's worth I myself am not European. I'm a European resident from New Zealand. There we have very little arts funding. Students often come out of university degrees with 30-40k loans, artist fees are very rare and exhibiting in galleries is only free if you are well known, in almost all cases. I've also travelled extensively and have lived in Australia, in East and West Europe and also spent plenty of time in the United States. Many on this list will be the same I think; part of doing what we do requires travel and taking residencies and work abroad. We're all old hands at it.. Based on my experiences I most certainly don't think the New World offers a better model in general and my text doesn't express that. Artists I know in America are some of the hardest working I've ever met, often having a full time day job while still managing to produce incredible work. Several media artists I know in the U.S work in advertising, or as software engineers, for instance. As regards crowd-sourcing, while a fan I am also wary of it, not least in that the Right is ever quick to cast crowd-sourcing in a patriotic light while washing their hands of a need to support the arts directly. Corporate sponsorship and funding is also problematic, for a great many reasons. I am very interested in artist's relationship to money in their given political and economic context. I see money as a root, steering power in the movements, creative directions and choices artists make. Money has us moving countries, rationalising our work, making it more acceptable to reach a 'broader audience' or positioning it as an 'answer' to a funding call. We're terrified of money, if only for the fear of not having it. Funding calls and awards have us competing with each other to get it, maldistributing it in our favour. I compete against other artists for funding myself. I love receiving funding but am not shy of discussing its deep impact on my work, how I feel about it, how I make and distribute it. I am interested also in the differences between corporate, community and state arts funding, as felt by the artist in relation to their work by way of a natural desire to 'please' the funder. This pleasing expresses a power relation and takes different forms: corporate (brand bolstering, corporation as public good), community (popularity contest, utility) or state (cultural tourism, stimulation of new markets etc). Funding calls are made, and we dance to the tune. Of course we do. At worst we may even read a CFP and invent a project to fit that call in an attempt to win the money; great new work can come out of this too. Here the CFP is akin to inspiration. Funding has us positioning our work in an economic and strategic frame and we feel rewarded and even valued when we are funded. In this way, funding expresses a teleology, one endemic to the arts today. In New Zealand the state is not considered a reliable partner of the arts. It's a non-committal, occasional, unreliable source of these rare numbers we call money. Festivals, publications and media-labs really do run on extremely little funding, if at all. In Australia the situation is much better but there is always (at least in the 6 years I lived there) a felt instability; it could always be cut in half with a change of government or simply disappear in a snap. To build a 'career' as an artist is a felt risk whereas in some European countries there is even a sort of social welfare for artists, something still miraculous to me. These differences are important. In the 7 years I've lived in Europe, I've seen a root, accepted understanding that culture is funded and that it should and always will be, a wonderful thing indeed. This is expressed in the shock and surprise at the Dutch cuts. Such a thing was clearly simply unimaginable for many, as though the sun had turned off. Unlike painting, drawing or even musical production, the expense and complexity of media art binds it closely with money, a vital organ. Because of this money further sets the frame in which media art is developed, impacting the kind of work we make, the risks we take. If the risks we wish to take are political in nature, funding is itself consequential. When we make work that offends the state (as I have) one
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
The conspiracy of art is a lampoon -- and all the contrary of your view this text could be a real hommage toward the wide On 6 August 2011 16:25, Louise Desrenards louise.desrena...@free.fr wrote: Hi! Sorry but you are making a use of Baudrillard to contribute to your thesis but from a misunderstanding about him and about his text. Baudrillard has not written The conspiracy of Art from a reformist point of view nor from economic point of view, but as an act of critical art -- of critical active poetry itself -- walking itself as entropy into the contemporary. It is a symbolic challenge. It does not concerns --in nothing-- your subject. (Same misunderstanding than about Forget Foucault) Best On 6 August 2011 16:04, Julian Oliver jul...@julianoliver.com wrote: Hi Mattyo, Thanks for your comments, that was a good read. For what it's worth I myself am not European. I'm a European resident from New Zealand. There we have very little arts funding. Students often come out of university degrees with 30-40k loans, artist fees are very rare and exhibiting in galleries is only free if you are well known, in almost all cases. I've also travelled extensively and have lived in Australia, in East and West Europe and also spent plenty of time in the United States. Many on this list will be the same I think; part of doing what we do requires travel and taking residencies and work abroad. We're all old hands at it.. Based on my experiences I most certainly don't think the New World offers a better model in general and my text doesn't express that. Artists I know in America are some of the hardest working I've ever met, often having a full time day job while still managing to produce incredible work. Several media artists I know in the U.S work in advertising, or as software engineers, for instance. As regards crowd-sourcing, while a fan I am also wary of it, not least in that the Right is ever quick to cast crowd-sourcing in a patriotic light while washing their hands of a need to support the arts directly. Corporate sponsorship and funding is also problematic, for a great many reasons. I am very interested in artist's relationship to money in their given political and economic context. I see money as a root, steering power in the movements, creative directions and choices artists make. Money has us moving countries, rationalising our work, making it more acceptable to reach a 'broader audience' or positioning it as an 'answer' to a funding call. We're terrified of money, if only for the fear of not having it. Funding calls and awards have us competing with each other to get it, maldistributing it in our favour. I compete against other artists for funding myself. I love receiving funding but am not shy of discussing its deep impact on my work, how I feel about it, how I make and distribute it. I am interested also in the differences between corporate, community and state arts funding, as felt by the artist in relation to their work by way of a natural desire to 'please' the funder. This pleasing expresses a power relation and takes different forms: corporate (brand bolstering, corporation as public good), community (popularity contest, utility) or state (cultural tourism, stimulation of new markets etc). Funding calls are made, and we dance to the tune. Of course we do. At worst we may even read a CFP and invent a project to fit that call in an attempt to win the money; great new work can come out of this too. Here the CFP is akin to inspiration. Funding has us positioning our work in an economic and strategic frame and we feel rewarded and even valued when we are funded. In this way, funding expresses a teleology, one endemic to the arts today. In New Zealand the state is not considered a reliable partner of the arts. It's a non-committal, occasional, unreliable source of these rare numbers we call money. Festivals, publications and media-labs really do run on extremely little funding, if at all. In Australia the situation is much better but there is always (at least in the 6 years I lived there) a felt instability; it could always be cut in half with a change of government or simply disappear in a snap. To build a 'career' as an artist is a felt risk whereas in some European countries there is even a sort of social welfare for artists, something still miraculous to me. These differences are important. In the 7 years I've lived in Europe, I've seen a root, accepted understanding that culture is funded and that it should and always will be, a wonderful thing indeed. This is expressed in the shock and surprise at the Dutch cuts. Such a thing was clearly simply unimaginable for many, as though the sun had turned off. Unlike painting, drawing or even musical production, the expense and complexity of media art binds it closely with money, a vital organ. Because of this money further sets the
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
..on Sat, Aug 06, 2011 at 04:25:19PM +0200, Louise Desrenards wrote: Hi! Sorry but you are making a use of Baudrillard to contribute to your thesis but from a misunderstanding about him and about his text. Baudrillard has not written The conspiracy of Art from a reformist point of view nor from economic point of view, but as an act of critical art -- of critical active poetry itself -- walking itself as entropy into the contemporary. It is a symbolic challenge. It does not concerns --in nothing-- your subject. Indeed his primary challenge is within the symbolic. However he certainly does cover the economic element and it's driving relation to the movement of contemporary art into simulation after Warhol, or 'null' as he calls it: Behind this mechanical snobbery, there is in fact an escalation of the power of the object, the sign, the image, the simulacrum and value of which the best example today is the art market itself. This goes well beyond the alienation of price as a real measure of things: we are experiencing a fetishism of value toat explodes the very notion of a market and, at the same time, abolishes the artwork as work of art. Conspiracy of Art, p44, Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series, 2005. Cheers, Julian On 6 August 2011 16:04, Julian Oliver jul...@julianoliver.com wrote: Hi Mattyo, Thanks for your comments, that was a good read. For what it's worth I myself am not European. I'm a European resident from New Zealand. There we have very little arts funding. Students often come out of university degrees with 30-40k loans, artist fees are very rare and exhibiting in galleries is only free if you are well known, in almost all cases. I've also travelled extensively and have lived in Australia, in East and West Europe and also spent plenty of time in the United States. Many on this list will be the same I think; part of doing what we do requires travel and taking residencies and work abroad. We're all old hands at it.. Based on my experiences I most certainly don't think the New World offers a better model in general and my text doesn't express that. Artists I know in America are some of the hardest working I've ever met, often having a full time day job while still managing to produce incredible work. Several media artists I know in the U.S work in advertising, or as software engineers, for instance. As regards crowd-sourcing, while a fan I am also wary of it, not least in that the Right is ever quick to cast crowd-sourcing in a patriotic light while washing their hands of a need to support the arts directly. Corporate sponsorship and funding is also problematic, for a great many reasons. I am very interested in artist's relationship to money in their given political and economic context. I see money as a root, steering power in the movements, creative directions and choices artists make. Money has us moving countries, rationalising our work, making it more acceptable to reach a 'broader audience' or positioning it as an 'answer' to a funding call. We're terrified of money, if only for the fear of not having it. Funding calls and awards have us competing with each other to get it, maldistributing it in our favour. I compete against other artists for funding myself. I love receiving funding but am not shy of discussing its deep impact on my work, how I feel about it, how I make and distribute it. I am interested also in the differences between corporate, community and state arts funding, as felt by the artist in relation to their work by way of a natural desire to 'please' the funder. This pleasing expresses a power relation and takes different forms: corporate (brand bolstering, corporation as public good), community (popularity contest, utility) or state (cultural tourism, stimulation of new markets etc). Funding calls are made, and we dance to the tune. Of course we do. At worst we may even read a CFP and invent a project to fit that call in an attempt to win the money; great new work can come out of this too. Here the CFP is akin to inspiration. Funding has us positioning our work in an economic and strategic frame and we feel rewarded and even valued when we are funded. In this way, funding expresses a teleology, one endemic to the arts today. In New Zealand the state is not considered a reliable partner of the arts. It's a non-committal, occasional, unreliable source of these rare numbers we call money. Festivals, publications and media-labs really do run on extremely little funding, if at all. In Australia the situation is much better but there is always (at least in the 6 years I lived there) a felt instability; it could always be cut in half with a change of government or simply disappear in a snap. To build a 'career' as an artist is a felt risk whereas in some European countries there
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
so what? Lampoon is lampoon it is a simulation in real aspect of what it criticizes: Du miroir et de l'écran, de la pensée radicale / On the mirror and on the screen, on the radical thought Abstract: Certitude does not exist. Are you sure? (Instabilité et métastabilité / Instability and metastability) Qu'en est-il de la physique quantique, de la physique des fractales et des catastrophes, du principe radical d'incertitude dans notre univers, dans l'univers humain — moral, social, économique et politique ? Il ne s'agit pas de transfert de concepts comme métaphores, mais de les transfuser littéralement au cœur du monde “ réel ”, selon des homologies rigoureuses. De les faire surgir dans notre monde réel comme objets théoriques non identifiés, comme attracteurs étranges — ce qu'ils sont déjà dans le microcosme scientifique, qu'ils ont révolutionné, et qu'ils deviennent aussi dans notre macrocosme, dans notre univers dit “ réel” (car à partir de là se pose la question de sa “ réalité ”), qu'ils sont en train de bouleverser de la même façon, sans que nous en prenions vraiment conscience. Tous ces concepts venus des confins de la science ne sont pas à prendre métaphoriquement, comme le font éventuellement les sciences humaines et les scientifiques eux-mêmes lorsqu'ils extrapolent leurs intuitions à la dimension de notre monde — il faut les concevoir littéralement et simultanément dans les deux univers. Le fractal, la relation d'incertitude, le chaos, ne sont pas le privilège du champ scientifique, ils sont partout actifs ici et maintenant, dans l'ordre des mœurs et des événements, sans qu'il y ait priorité de l'un sur l'autre. Cela fait même partie de l'incertitude qu'on ne puisse dire si telle intuition de la science est relative à tel état de la société ou à tel moment de l'Histoire — ou l'inverse. Ce problème de relation causale et de mécanique disciplinaire est lui-même un problème déterministe, et n'a donc pas de sens. Tout cela fait irruption simultanément et il faut déplorer l'impuissance de notre pensée et de notre discours, incurablement causal et déterministe, à affronter cette simultanéité de notre univers matériel et mental. Libre à chacun d'ailleurs d'avoir sur tout ceci le jugement philosophique qu'il veut : l'usage, métaphorique ou non, des concepts de la science n'entraîne justement pas de vérité objective, seulement des effets de vérité — puisqu'il n'y a plus, selon le principe même d'incertitude, de définition de cette science, non plus que de notre monde “ réel ”. http://www.criticalsecret.com/n10/JEAN%20BAUDRILLARD/ On 6 August 2011 17:40, Julian Oliver jul...@julianoliver.com wrote: ..on Sat, Aug 06, 2011 at 04:25:19PM +0200, Louise Desrenards wrote: Hi! Sorry but you are making a use of Baudrillard to contribute to your thesis but from a misunderstanding about him and about his text. Baudrillard has not written The conspiracy of Art from a reformist point of view nor from economic point of view, but as an act of critical art -- of critical active poetry itself -- walking itself as entropy into the contemporary. It is a symbolic challenge. It does not concerns --in nothing-- your subject. Indeed his primary challenge is within the symbolic. However he certainly does cover the economic element and it's driving relation to the movement of contemporary art into simulation after Warhol, or 'null' as he calls it: Behind this mechanical snobbery, there is in fact an escalation of the power of the object, the sign, the image, the simulacrum and value of which the best example today is the art market itself. This goes well beyond the alienation of price as a real measure of things: we are experiencing a fetishism of value toat explodes the very notion of a market and, at the same time, abolishes the artwork as work of art. Conspiracy of Art, p44, Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series, 2005. Cheers, Julian On 6 August 2011 16:04, Julian Oliver jul...@julianoliver.com wrote: Hi Mattyo, Thanks for your comments, that was a good read. For what it's worth I myself am not European. I'm a European resident from New Zealand. There we have very little arts funding. Students often come out of university degrees with 30-40k loans, artist fees are very rare and exhibiting in galleries is only free if you are well known, in almost all cases. I've also travelled extensively and have lived in Australia, in East and West Europe and also spent plenty of time in the United States. Many on this list will be the same I think; part of doing what we do requires travel and taking residencies and work abroad. We're all old hands at it.. Based on my experiences I most certainly don't think the New World offers a better model in general and my text doesn't express that. Artists I know in America are some of the hardest working I've ever met, often having a full time day job while still managing to produce incredible work. Several
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
hi to all, Am 06.08.2011 um 18:30 schrieb Simon Biggs: Jean has hit the nail on the head with that one. I think he could go further and propose that the art market abolishes art, at least within the domain that is the art world, which now equates to the art market. hope you dont perceive this to much as promotion. but since we are chatting about art and the context of art, in a big round of artists, an artpiece itself should also be allowed as an edaquate contribution. it fits quite well into this point of the discussion, even if it perhpas offers a more affermative view on the relationship arts-and-economy/market. ... and perhpas a quite critical view on 'art' itself. :-) http://www.the-alpha-and-the-omega.com/ theres is also an english-text behind the image, for those who care. i follow the discussion with great interest and i am curiuos where this whole thing will shift too. best regards florian __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
Probably yes. But his last conference @ Whitney Biennal (end of the eighties) where he dismissed the pending of positive words to renew the concepts of contemporary arts was exactly that proposition from which they began to hate him for a long in NY. So it is exactly from where he wrote Conspiracy of Art in the nineties as ironical performance of these matters into truth of essay... http://www.liberation.fr/tribune/0101179372-le-complot-de-l-art (1996) On 6 August 2011 18:30, Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk wrote: Jean has hit the nail on the head with that one. I think he could go further and propose that the art market abolishes art, at least within the domain that is the art world, which now equates to the art market. best Simon On 6 Aug 2011, at 16:40, Julian Oliver wrote: Behind this mechanical snobbery, there is in fact an escalation of the power of the object, the sign, the image, the simulacrum and value of which the best example today is the art market itself. This goes well beyond the alienation of price as a real measure of things: we are experiencing a fetishism of value toat explodes the very notion of a market and, at the same time, abolishes the artwork as work of art. Conspiracy of Art, p44, Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series, 2005. Simon Biggs | si...@littlepig.org.uk | www.littlepig.org.uk s.bi...@ed.ac.uk | Edinburgh College of Art | University of Edinburgh www.eca.ac.uk/circle | www.elmcip.net | www.movingtargets.co.uk __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre -- - __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
Don't confuse Baudrillard attitude with Jean Clair attitude about the conspiracy;-) the conspiracy of art was a pleasant suggestion @ Baudrillard like the art as object conspiring itself as subject --following his implicit idea that all the fate of the subject was transfered now in the object (his criticism of Philosophy), it was not a claim nor a regret but a radical performance on this strategy. All the contrary @ Jean Clair as academician and former director of the museum of modern art in Paris, it was not a performance but a real claim (really former rightism) http://dvanw.blogspot.com/2009/03/132-complot-de-lart.html http://dvanw.blogspot.com/2009/03/132-complot-de-lart.html On 6 August 2011 18:55, Louise Desrenards louise.desrena...@free.fr wrote: Probably yes. But his last conference @ Whitney Biennal (end of the eighties) where he dismissed the pending of positive words to renew the concepts of contemporary arts was exactly that proposition from which they began to hate him for a long in NY. So it is exactly from where he wrote Conspiracy of Art in the nineties as ironical performance of these matters into truth of essay... http://www.liberation.fr/tribune/0101179372-le-complot-de-l-art (1996) On 6 August 2011 18:30, Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk wrote: Jean has hit the nail on the head with that one. I think he could go further and propose that the art market abolishes art, at least within the domain that is the art world, which now equates to the art market. best Simon On 6 Aug 2011, at 16:40, Julian Oliver wrote: Behind this mechanical snobbery, there is in fact an escalation of the power of the object, the sign, the image, the simulacrum and value of which the best example today is the art market itself. This goes well beyond the alienation of price as a real measure of things: we are experiencing a fetishism of value toat explodes the very notion of a market and, at the same time, abolishes the artwork as work of art. Conspiracy of Art, p44, Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series, 2005. Simon Biggs | si...@littlepig.org.uk | www.littlepig.org.uk s.bi...@ed.ac.uk | Edinburgh College of Art | University of Edinburgh www.eca.ac.uk/circle | www.elmcip.net | www.movingtargets.co.uk __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre -- - -- - __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
do not feel guilty, we arrive at a time when young people are unaware
of analysis which work in real time against their symbolic issues that
have marked our generation and the immediate next ... and they
reinterpret the texts in line in the current time. This
misunderstanding is that the authors continue to be read in spite of
their actions in their lifetime, and basically that's what can happen
better to them in their posthumous life. I'm just an old kind and I
know what I should try to convey even I'm not the proper author.
Anyway, economy is not art. Current Art cannot take care of being
useful, it just must try to exist and keep its symbolic function. But
the cost of unuseful things must be in perspective of the States, or
unless the common link of societies is dying.
On 6 August 2011 21:03, { brad brace } bbr...@eskimo.com wrote:
The conceptual lollygag is here symbolic and just supposes a
social or transdisciplinary attention, in all cases a
metapolitical and atopical one; so far as it is fractured
and diversified it can be only understood in terms of paid
institutionalized actuality. ;)
/:b
=
PROXY Gallery
http://bit.ly/proxygallery
global islands project:
http://bbrace.net/id.html
We fill the craters left by the bombs
And once again we sing
And once again we sow
Because life never surrenders.
-- anonymous Vietnamese poem
Nothing can be said about the sea.
-- Mr Selvam, Akkrapattai, India 2004
... for every star-driven enterprise there are corollary
benefits for those who support it and keep their mouths shut.
-- John Young, NYC 2010
Shikata ga nai -- There's nothing we can do about it.
-- Japanese tsunami survivors, 2011
{ brad brace } bbr...@eskimo.com ~finger for pgp
--- bbs: brad brace sound ---
--- http://69.64.229.114:8000 ---
--- http://bradbrace.net/undisclosed.html ---
.
The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Project posted since 1994
+ + + serial ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/b/bbrace
+ + + eccentric ftp:// (your-site-here!)
+ + + continuous hotline://artlyin.ftr.va.com.au
+ + + hypermodern ftp://ftp.rdrop.com/pub/users/bbrace
+ + + imagery http://12hr.noemata.net
News: alt.binaries.pictures.12hr alt.binaries.pictures.misc
alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.misc alt.12hr
. 12hr email
subscriptions = http://bradbrace.net/buy-into.html
. Other | Mirror: http://www.eskimo.com/~bbrace/bbrace.html
Projects | Reverse Solidus: http://bradbrace.net/
| http://bbrace.net
. Blog | http://bradbrace.net/wordpress
. IM | bbr...@unstable.nl
. IRC | #bbrace
. ICQ | 109352289
. SIP | bbr...@ekiga.net
. SKYPE | bbbrace
| registered linux user #323978
~
I am not a victim coercion is natural
I am a messenger freedom is artifical
/:b
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http://www.criticalsecret.net
http://www.criticalsecret.org
http://www.lanuithenight.com
Podcast thématique
http://www.criticalsecret.com/n15/index.php
Auteur et partenaire éditorial
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Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
The empty secret of the conspiracy of the state counterweights and correlates with the conspiracy of art. Except for this performance Louise talks about. And this humour. Best, Simon Taylor www.squarewhiteworld.com __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
do not feel guilty, we arrive at a time when young people are unaware
of analysis which work in real time against their symbolic issues that
have marked our generation and the immediate next ... and they
reinterpret the texts in line in the current time. This
misunderstanding is that the authors continue to be read in spite of
their actions in their lifetime, and basically that's what can happen
better to them in their posthumous life. I'm just an old kind and I
know what I should try to convey even I'm not the proper author.
Anyway, economy is not art. Current Art cannot take care of being
useful, it just must try to exist and keep its symbolic function. But
the cost of unuseful things must be in perspective of the States, or
unless the common link of societies is dying.
On 6 August 2011 21:03, { brad brace } bbr...@eskimo.com wrote:
The conceptual lollygag is here symbolic and just supposes a
social or transdisciplinary attention, in all cases a
metapolitical and atopical one; so far as it is fractured
and diversified it can be only understood in terms of paid
institutionalized actuality. ;)
/:b
=
PROXY Gallery
http://bit.ly/proxygallery
global islands project:
http://bbrace.net/id.html
We fill the craters left by the bombs
And once again we sing
And once again we sow
Because life never surrenders.
-- anonymous Vietnamese poem
Nothing can be said about the sea.
-- Mr Selvam, Akkrapattai, India 2004
... for every star-driven enterprise there are corollary
benefits for those who support it and keep their mouths shut.
-- John Young, NYC 2010
Shikata ga nai -- There's nothing we can do about it.
-- Japanese tsunami survivors, 2011
{ brad brace } bbr...@eskimo.com ~finger for pgp
--- bbs: brad brace sound ---
--- http://69.64.229.114:8000 ---
--- http://bradbrace.net/undisclosed.html ---
.
The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Project posted since 1994
+ + + serial ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/b/bbrace
+ + + eccentric ftp:// (your-site-here!)
+ + + continuous hotline://artlyin.ftr.va.com.au
+ + + hypermodern ftp://ftp.rdrop.com/pub/users/bbrace
+ + + imagery http://12hr.noemata.net
News: alt.binaries.pictures.12hr alt.binaries.pictures.misc
alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.misc alt.12hr
. 12hr email
subscriptions = http://bradbrace.net/buy-into.html
. Other | Mirror: http://www.eskimo.com/~bbrace/bbrace.html
Projects | Reverse Solidus: http://bradbrace.net/
| http://bbrace.net
. Blog | http://bradbrace.net/wordpress
. IM | bbr...@unstable.nl
. IRC | #bbrace
. ICQ | 109352289
. SIP | bbr...@ekiga.net
. SKYPE | bbbrace
| registered linux user #323978
~
I am not a victim coercion is natural
I am a messenger freedom is artifical
/:b
__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
--
Animatrice, éditorialiste, directrice des éditions
http://www.criticalsecret.com
http://www.criticalsecret.net
http://www.criticalsecret.org
http://www.lanuithenight.com
Podcast thématique
http://www.criticalsecret.com/n15/index.php
Auteur et partenaire éditorial
http://www.larevuedesressources.org
--
-
__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
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Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
yes, I agree On 6 August 2011 22:21, simon s...@clear.net.nz wrote: The empty secret of the conspiracy of the state counterweights and correlates with the conspiracy of art. Except for this performance Louise talks about. And this humour. Best, Simon Taylor www.squarewhiteworld.com __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre -- - __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
Unfortunately I do not have the time to go into debate about most of the presumptions and insinuations in Julian Oliver's text. Let me just say it seems written from prejudice rather than knowledge. Prejudice about how funding bodies work, for example. To simply call them 'the state' or 'the government' is utterly simplistic. There are two statements in this article I want to take out in particular. There is NO basis for these at all. The Netherlands, Britain and most of Scandinavia especially are countries with a strong history of state support for the arts; development of a work of new media in these countries in particular often comes with an expectation of state support. This is nonsense. Surely you will find artists working this way, but for every single one of them you will find at least three or four that don't. In June 2011 Zijlstra, the Dutch minister for culture, announced a 200 million Euro cut to infrastructural funding in the arts sector. It may be the death knell for a great many organizations and initiatives throughout the Netherlands, some of which are considered to be canonical to the international media-arts scene (V2_, Sonic Acts, Mediamatic, NIMK, STEIM, to name a few). Many organizations under the axe where born directly out of arts funding and have benefited from persistent support from the Dutch state since their inception. V2 was born from a squatters/artists initiative, and worked as such for many years before it got regular funding. Similar stories for Mediamatic and NIMk. I am less familiar with the histories of Steim and Sonic Acts, but I am pretty sure these were also started from artists enthusiastically setting up something that became important, interesting and influential enough to get funding at some point. Meanwhile the tax-payer's conscious or unconscious investment in these fields (resulting in projects and vast, specialist bodies of knowledge) will likely go unarchived, even lost altogether; a shell of documentation on websites alone. ??? It is good to talk about new economic models, but to talk about them while kicking colleagues is not a good idea. J * __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
Hi Josephine, ..on Fri, Aug 05, 2011 at 10:09:58AM +0200, Josephine Bosma wrote: Unfortunately I do not have the time to go into debate about most of the presumptions and insinuations in Julian Oliver's text. Let me just say it seems written from prejudice rather than knowledge. Prejudice about how funding bodies work, for example. To simply call them 'the state' or 'the government' is utterly simplistic. Public arts funding is generally distributed over several smaller bodies, sometimes by a council (as in the case of England). Funding allotments may be regionally distributed also. Regardless, these government funded bodies are non-profits working in the state interest as part of its cultural expenditure agenda(s). The state most certainly does have a hand in how this funding is allotted, as you've just seen in the Netherlands. Unlike the Judicial System, culture and the funding of it is not separated from the state and its interests. It is my intention to open up a conversation about the problems of rigorous critical experimentation, fringe and emerging fields and their dependence on the state, especially in a time of austerity and political conservatism. In Australia I was part of a media-arts project called Escape From Woomera that sought to draw attention to the terrible treatment of refugees, many of them from wars, arriving in that country. We received AUD$ 25000.00 federal arts funding for this project. The project was a great success, receiving a lot of attention in the press, both locally and internationally. The Immigration Minister (who set up and/or supported the detention centers in the desert) was so incensed by the project that he called for a review of how and which projects were funded in the country. We are still blamed for that by some today. In his words: The decision reflects poorly upon the Australia Council and its judgement, that the organisation should lend its name to the promotion of unlawful behaviour. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/29/1051381948773.html There are two statements in this article I want to take out in particular. There is NO basis for these at all. The Netherlands, Britain and most of Scandinavia especially are countries with a strong history of state support for the arts; development of a work of new media in these countries in particular often comes with an expectation of state support. This is nonsense. Surely you will find artists working this way, but for every single one of them you will find at least three or four that don't. Indeed! My experience living in Sweden and Copenhagen (for nothing more than a year albeit) was that the development of a large work of new media often came with the expectation of state support, that it probably wouldn't be developed with out it. It makes absolute sense that would be the choice also. In June 2011 Zijlstra, the Dutch minister for culture, announced a 200 million Euro cut to infrastructural funding in the arts sector. It may be the death knell for a great many organizations and initiatives throughout the Netherlands, some of which are considered to be canonical to the international media-arts scene (V2_, Sonic Acts, Mediamatic, NIMK, STEIM, to name a few). Many organizations under the axe where born directly out of arts funding and have benefited from persistent support from the Dutch state since their inception. V2 was born from a squatters/artists initiative, and worked as such for many years before it got regular funding. Similar stories for Mediamatic and NIMk. I am less familiar with the histories of Steim and Sonic Acts, but I am pretty sure these were also started from artists enthusiastically setting up something that became important, interesting and influential enough to get funding at some point. Of course, that's why I didn't say all. XS4ALL is a fantastic example of the kind of D.I.Y strategies that we need to be celebrating (and studying) right now. Meanwhile the tax-payer's conscious or unconscious investment in these fields (resulting in projects and vast, specialist bodies of knowledge) will likely go unarchived, even lost altogether; a shell of documentation on websites alone. ??? It is good to talk about new economic models, but to talk about them while kicking colleagues is not a good idea. I'm far from doing that! I hope for a future where important media-arts organisations like Steim, V2_ and others are always with us. They are significant in my field and under no circumstances should a mere change of government or disinterested culture minister have full sway over their fate. I am concerned with realistic strategies for increasing economic mobility such that media art and experimental practices can continue to flourish. Partial or total independence from the state, especially as regards infrastructure, can only be a positive thing, especially now. Good to read you, -- Julian Oliver
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
The state most certainly does have a hand in how this funding is allotted, as you've just seen in the Netherlands. Unlike the Judicial System, culture and the funding of it is not separated from the state and its interests. What happened in NL is that the government put the advice of the arts council aside, which is a very unusual situation. __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
As a New Yorker working in the digital arts who lived in the Netherlands for seven years, I've seen both sides of this situation, and I'm familiar with some of the Dutch institutions mentioned below. I have thought a great deal about the differences between the European and American systems of arts funding, both of which, I believe have certain advantages and disadvantages. Apropos of Josephine's comments, I'd like to point out certain blind spots I've often seen amongst European artists regarding their relationship to state support of art. Regarding the expectation of state funding on the part of European artists, although Josephine is right in the sense that most artists are not having checks made out to them by the Prins Bernhard Fonds or the British Council, the state is supporting artist-friendly infrastructure in many indirect ways: Subsidized venues with reasonably good technology, often some money to actually get paid for a show (not much maybe, but €150 for a show is a lot more than I'm making playing for the door in New York), free or extremely inexpensive art education -- these are all forms of state support for the arts which European artists expect, but do not necessarly identify as state support as such. That is not to mention larger infrastructural state support which makes an artist's lifestyle easier: A housing system which (this varies from country to country, obviously) keeps rents under control, low or free medical insurance, subsidized workspaces -- all these are a kind of state support which is taken so much for granted in European social democracies that they are invisible to locals, but unquestionably amounts to state support for art. Regarding the institutions such as V2_ (I remember going there back when it was a squat!), I once again have to point out that the social system which once made squatting so easy to do in the Netherlands is yet another form of indirect state support for the arts and youth culture in general. (Sadly, the Dutch squatting scene has been under strong attack the past few years, and thus making starting new initiatives progressively more difficult.) Not having the National Guard show up and kick you out of your squatted building, as has happened here in New York, and permitting people to use a perhaps rickety but nevertheless rent-free space to make things happen, is in itself a subsidy. This is in no way intended to belittle the vast amounts of energy, imagination, and sheer hard work that goes into setting up these initiatives, and I am in no way belittling them -- I wish it was more possible over here, and I envy the social cohesion and artistic ferment they make possible. In the course of touring I've seen squats from one end of the continent to the other, and I am consistently impressed by the work people do and what they make possible. However, to pretend the tolerance and tacit assistance of the state is not involved is not unlike the American belief that we shouldn't have to pay any taxes because God put roads and bridges miraculously across the country. (Sonic Acts, by the way, was started by the Sound and Image department of the Royal Conservatory in Den Haag -- I was there at the time -- not exactly a ground-up initiative.) I disagree with many of Julian's conclusions -- the situation we have here, where one is constantly having to play the supplicant before many masters does not particularly guarantee any additional degree of freedom. The director of the NEA goes to the same parties as the director of the Ford foundation, and very few donor organizations want to tempt the wrath of the Republicans. Also, these foundations can be fickle, and it can be extraordinarily difficult to build up something with no guarantee of regular support. If the X foundation decides they aren't interested in media work anymore, or they decide you're not fufilling your community outreach goals, you're stuck. the crowdsourcing approach to funding is yet another route by which artists are forced into self-exploitative situations. As if it isn't bad enough that it is virtually impossible to make more than beer money from one's work, we are then expected to subsidize our friend's projects with money from our day jobs. This is a surrender to a wholly atomized culture with no sense of a commons, which I'm living through right now, and it's no picnic on any level, artist, economic, or cultural. I also disagree with his characterization of poor arts funding as a New World phenomenon -- I think it's roots are more Anglo-Saxon (we had Thatcher before Reagan), and from my time in England, it's no Germany as far as funding goes. The cuts in the Netherlands will make the entire country unrecognizable to many of us in a few years: As the institutional and educational infrastructure is dismantled, it will cease to be a haven for international artists, and the vibrant scene there will suffer badly as a
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
No French comments about this situation!/? __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
I'd like to correct errors in Mattyo's post. The British Council does not fund artists directly. It funds organisations to assist them to bring UK artists to non-UK events. The objective is to promote UK culture overseas. They do not cover artist fees. They will assist with travel and marketing costs but would not consider fully funding the costs. They only contribute a percentage. Their funds are extremely limited. In last year's bonfire of UK Qangos the British Council was on the long list of those to be closed down. It was reprieved, but with its wings further clipped. The Arts Council is the body that funds UK artists at home. However, since the 1990's it has very limited funds for direct funding and tends to operate by funding third party organisations (museums, galleries, theatres, etc) to commission artists to produce work. This includes a few organisations that focus on experimental work but most of the money goes to companies that are driven, more or less, by audience demand (eg: Royal Opera, Royal Ballet, National Theatre, Tate). That is not a recipe for risk but it does keep UK museums mostly free to access. This benefits UK residents but also tourists. As for art education...where did the idea it was free in the UK come from? Current fees in England and Wales are £3,500 per year for UK/EU citizens and £10,000 plus for non-EU. This will rise to £9,000 in 2012 for UK/EU students and £12,000 plus for non-EU. Some degrees are now up to £27,000 per year (MBA's, for example). The basic cost of a degree in the fine arts, including foundation year, is therefore around £28,000 just in fees. This is inline with costs in the US state sector. There is no rent control in the UK. There are no subsidised work spaces I am aware of. Squatting is illegal and squatters are criminalised. Unemployment is only available for a limited period, after which you are on your own. There is no employment insurance system to speak of. We do have free health but it costs every tax payer 11% of their pay packet so it is not really free. But it is cheaper than what it costs the average US citizen in medical insurance. It's not so much about how the system is paid for but how efficient it is. Generally the UK system is similar to that in other anglo-saxon countries, like the US, Canada and Australia. As for Europe, each country is different and many have more generous systems than that in the US (or the UK), but not all. It is also about culture. In the States there is a culture of benevolence (corporate and individual) that does not exist in Europe. Successive UK governments have encouraged business to give to the arts and other sectors but till now this has been largely unsuccessful. The tax breaks you have in the US do not exist here. You should also note that personal and corporate taxation is far higher in Europe and equivalent salaries lower than in the US. I would double my salary working in the States and pay 15% less tax, tripling my take home pay (which would help with the medical bills). Of course, if I didn't have a job I'd be better off here. The other points Mattyo makes are all good - but I wanted to clarify what the situation is in the UK. best Simon On 5 Aug 2011, at 16:31, mattyo wrote: As a New Yorker working in the digital arts who lived in the Netherlands for seven years, I've seen both sides of this situation, and I'm familiar with some of the Dutch institutions mentioned below. I have thought a great deal about the differences between the European and American systems of arts funding, both of which, I believe have certain advantages and disadvantages. Apropos of Josephine's comments, I'd like to point out certain blind spots I've often seen amongst European artists regarding their relationship to state support of art. Regarding the expectation of state funding on the part of European artists, although Josephine is right in the sense that most artists are not having checks made out to them by the Prins Bernhard Fonds or the British Council, the state is supporting artist-friendly infrastructure in many indirect ways: Subsidized venues with reasonably good technology, often some money to actually get paid for a show (not much maybe, but €150 for a show is a lot more than I'm making playing for the door in New York), free or extremely inexpensive art education -- these are all forms of state support for the arts which European artists expect, but do not necessarly identify as state support as such. That is not to mention larger infrastructural state support which makes an artist's lifestyle easier: A housing system which (this varies from country to country, obviously) keeps rents under control, low or free medical insurance, subsidized workspaces -- all these are a kind of state support which is taken so much for granted in European social democracies that they are invisible to locals, but unquestionably
[spectre] // The State of Art //
Hi list, I've written a short article on state-support of the arts. It seeks to draw attention to the problem of cultural dependence on arts funding while questioning the state as an artistic collaborator or producer more generally. It follows in the wake of severe cuts to the arts across several European countries. The full article can be found online here, including emphases, references and footnotes. http://julianoliver.com/state-of-art //-- THE STATE OF ART INTRODUCTION In 2004 Eleonora Aguiari made an art intervention on a larger-than-life statue of Lord Napier on Queens Gate, West London, by wrapping it in 80 rolls of red tape. Transformation of this prominent monument took 4 people, 4 days. Perhaps an unintended poetic dimension to this work is the vast amount of bureaucratic red tape the artist had to navigate to gain permission to perform her intervention. She had to ask the Victoria and Albert Museum's conservation department, the RCA conservation department, acquire permission from English Heritage (owners of the statue), the City of Westminster council, the councils of boroughs Chelsea and Kensington (whose boundary falls under the statue), the RCA Rector and even the current Lord Napier himself. Regardless, this 'authorised intervention' was a resounding success. Being in a very prominent position it was visible by countless commuters and drew a tremendous amount of attention to the monument, one that'd become so much a part of the landscape it struggled for visibility. In this way, the intervention achieved what the artist set out to do: “[...] statuary that symbolizes military past, or imperialism should be covered to make the topics of the past visible.” All said, it's unclear who was the primary actor in this intervention. Certainly we could say that if the state were painting a heritage statue and a member of public complained in protest, it would be difficult for that protest to be heard to effect. Yet if the artist had not asked for permission and her intervention was thwarted, the work would not have seen light and her personal investment in time and red tape would be lost. Would this intervention, in fact, be better described as a collaboration between the artist and the state? The long history of artistic intervention has been troubled with court cases and scuffles with authorities, even scuffles between artists themselves. As such this history represents a valuable practice of 'edge detection', delimiting the point at which critical action is not tolerated or readily appropriated. Intervention art always leaves us with a handful of important questions but in the context of Eleanora's piece, they become ever more interesting: What is the modern relation between the artist and the state? What do we mean by state support in the context of art? Should we always invite and encourage the state as a partner in creative endeavours? Should artists have a role in relation to the state and state interests? Throw in arts funding and further questions arise... Does public arts funding imply need for a tangible return for tax-payers? If funding is involved then clearly some sort of expected outcome is implied. When we talk of the state investing in art, what is the expected return from that investment? ART AS INVESTMENT Arts funding is widely considered to be a measure of the relative prosperity and cultural health of a given region or nation. It's safe to say a state that invests in the arts, even in areas of diverse experimentation for which a vocabulary may not yet exist, is certainly to be admired. Arts funding is not without its practical rationales however; funding is economically rationalised as an investment with very real capital and social returns. Robert Florida, the influential American Urban Studies theorist, positions technology workers, artists, musicians, lesbians and gay men as part of a creative class that he believes provably stimulate economic development in metropolitan areas. Many seem to believe him. His book The Rise of the Creative Class has arguably had a deep impact on policy decisions as relates the arts throughout North America with Florida himself sitting alongside the Director of the National Ballet of Canada and Investment Banker Robert Foster in advising the Creative Capital Initiative, a plan to upgrade Toronto's cultural expenditure. Other cities have followed his advice, so much so one wonders whether artists are strategically positioned as the vanguard of gentrification by providing low-rent incentives for them to move into poor neighbourhoods. The term Guggenheim Effect (or Bilbao Effect) refers to the economic and cultural transformation of an entire city through the addition of a museum. Frank Gehry's landmark Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (1997) has become famous for its deep impact on the economics and image of the city. Charters for investing in
Re: [spectre] // The State of Art //
Hey amigo, thanks for sharing this. I have a few ideas of my own about these developments... namely that less/no funding may actually force artists to make their own work again instead of subcontracting it out to hired labor while bringing about the death of the artist as hands-clean conceptual engineer and cultural manager, the end of Damien Hirst-esque big-budget hi-tech spectacle, and maybe even the return of craft over concept... But I haven't given nearly enough shape to these thoughts yet. Your assessment is a good starting point for these meditations, however. Cheers! Derek On 8/4/11 6:14 PM, Julian Oliver wrote: Hi list, I've written a short article on state-support of the arts. It seeks to draw attention to the problem of cultural dependence on arts funding while questioning the state as an artistic collaborator or producer more generally. It follows in the wake of severe cuts to the arts across several European countries. The full article can be found online here, including emphases, references and footnotes. http://julianoliver.com/state-of-art __ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
