Open Magazine 16 Cahier On Art and Public Domain The Art Biennal As Global Phenomenon Strategies in Neopolitical Times 1

Open 16: The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon.
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PUBLICATION
Open 21: (Im)Mobility.
Exploring the Boundaries of
Hypermobility
PROJECT
Portscapes - Maasvlakte 2
This anniversary issue of 'Open' focuses on the art biennial as a global

phenomenon.
On 19 October 2008, in connection with the first Brussels Biennial and in

association with the Flemish-Dutch Huis deBuren, the Flemish foundation for
visual, audio-visual and media art BAM and the Lectureship in Arts in Society
of the Fontys College for the Arts, Pascal Gielen organised a programme of
lectures and debates focussing on the art biennial as a global phenomenon.
PROJECT
The speeches by Chantal Mouffe, Michael Hardt, Boris Groys, Charles Esche
and Maria Hlavajova are now being published in Open, Cahier on Art and the
The Forgotten Space
Public Domain, supplemented with essays by Brian Holmes, Irit Rogoff, Simon
Sheikh and Thierry de Duve. The texts have been edited by Pascal Gielen and
Jorinde Seijdel, editor-in-chief of Open. This extra issue of Open is also a
http://www.skor.nl/eng/publications/item/open-16-the-art-biennial-as-a-global-phenomenon-strategies-in-neo-political-times?single=1[2011-12-30 14:27:27]
Open 16: The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon. Strategies in Neo-Political Times | SKOR
jubilee issue to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the cahier in its present form.
Open 16 is a co -production by BAM, de Buren, the Foundation for Art and

Public Space (SKOR) and the Fontys University of Fine and Performing Arts.
Open 16: The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon. Strategies in Neo-Political Times OPEN LAUNCH
Launch Open 21 at Immigrant
Movement International, New
Jorinde Seijdel York City
Editorial
The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon
Strategies in Neo-Political Times
Online article
Pascal Gielen
The Biennale: A Post-Institution for Immaterial Labour
Online article
By means of an analysis, sociologist Pascal Gielen attempts to get a better

handle on the problematic aspects of the art biennale as a global phenomenon. PROJECT
Only then can new strategies be developed for escaping the worldwide Art on the N34
competition hysteria, with all its negatives characteristics. Neoliberal city
marketing as the bogeyman is too facile an explanation.
Michael Hardt
Production and Distribution of the Common
A Few Questions for the Artist
Online article
According to Michael Hardt, the production of the common is the most

important economic mainspring in a time in which immaterial and biopolitical
production are dominant. By connecting economics, politics and aesthetics and OPEN LAUNCH
analysing their relations, Hardt arrives at questions concerning the role of the Launch Open 11 & SKOR-
artist and the meaning of his or her work in the distribution of the common.
lecture 3 by Saskia Sassen
Chantal Mouffe
Democratic Politics in the Age of Post-Fordism
Online article
Political philosopher Chantal Mouffe shows how the existing hegemonic

structures in current political systems can best be opposed by the development
of counter-hegemonic practices. Specifically, cultural and artistic practices can
play a major role in this because they are pre-eminently the terrain on which
new subjectivities can be developed.
LECTURE
SKOR-lecture 1: Allan Sekula
Thierry de Duve
The Glocal and the Singuniversal
Reflections on Art and Culture in the Global World
Online article
According to Belgian philosopher Thierry de Duve, the criticism of the art

biennial as a global phenomenon from the perspective of economic and
amusement value is too limited. By allowing the aesthetic value of art to again
be part of art criticism, a different type of opposition against the hegemonic
centres that are dominant in today’s global culture becomes possible. To
achieve this, De Duve lays claim to the Kantian idea of sensus communis – the
human ability to share feelings.
http://www.skor.nl/eng/publications/item/open-16-the-art-biennial-as-a-global-phenomenon-strategies-in-neo-political-times?single=1
Open 16: The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon. Strategies in Neo-Political Times
Boris Groys
From Medium to Message
The Art Exhibition as Model of a New World Order
Online article
Art philosopher Boris Groys sees the art installation as a way of making hidden
reality visible. The ambiguous meaning of the notion of freedom that Groys
observes in our democratic order is also present in the contemporary art
installation. This can be exposed by examining it and analysing the role of the
artist and the curator. The public space created by the installation, and by the
biennial, is the model for a new political world order.
Simon Sheikh
Marks of Distinction, Vectors of Possibility
Questions for the Biennial
Online article
In order to fathom the real meaning and opportunities of biennials as a global

phenomenon, Scandinavian critic and curator Simon Sheikh introduces the term
a politics of translation. Seen in this light, the biennial is a place where new
meanings, stories, histories and connections are constantly produced. This
condition of permanent flux may mean that biennials can do more than generate
capital.
Brian Holmes
The Interscale
Art after Neoliberalism
Online article
Now that neoliberalism seems to be in decline, Brian Holms wonders what this
will mean for the emergence of Asian biennials. In reference to the concept of
the sixth Taipei Biennial – undeniably a neoliberal stronghold – and a few of
the works of art presented there, he discovers possibilities to imbue this
transcontinental exchange with new meaning on various scale levels.
Chales Esche and Maria Hlavajova

The Making of Once is Nothing
How to Say No while Still Saying Yes . . .
Online article
Charles Esche and Maria Hlavajova were invited, as representatives of Van

Abbemuseum in Eindhoven and BAK in Utrecht respectively, to contribute to
the Brussels Biennial. With ‘Once is Nothing’1 they tried, from their position
of institutional responsibility, to find an answer to the fleeting character of
many biennials and their economically motivated quest for modernization.
Irit Rogoff
Geo-Cultures
Circuits of Arts and Globalizations
Online article
‘Geo-Cultures’, a research project conducted by Irit Rogoff, a professor at

Goldsmiths College in London, investigates how the contemporary practice of
art informs rather than reflects globalization processes. Seen in the framework
of this study, biennials are interesting places. They have evolved into circuits of
research, exchange and dialogue that combine specific local features with the
illumination of conditions elsewhere in the world.
http://www.skor.nl/eng/publications/item/open-16-the-art-biennial-as-a-global-phenomenon-strategies-in-neo-political-times?single=1[2011-12-30 14:27:27]
editorial
JORINDE SEIJDEL als really represent an alternative
political voice in these neo-politi-
THE ART BIENNIAL AS A GLOBAL cal times?
PHENOMENON The philosophers Chantal Mouffe,
Michael Hardt and Boris Groys and
Strategies in Neo-Political Times the curators Molly Nesbit, Charles
Esche and Maria Hlavajova talked
This extra issue of Open is pub- about the biennial as model, concept
lished in honour of the cahier’s and instrument, and about the geo-
fifth anniversary and has come about political, sociocultural and eco-
in close collaboration with guest nomic space in which it manifests
editor Pascal Gielen. At the time itself. Some of the lectures formed
of the first Brussels Biennial, the basis for this special edition
Gielen organized a programme of of Open which this time is appear-
lectures and debates in Brussels on ing without its regular features.
19 October 2008, focussing on the Supplemented with an introductory
art biennial as a global phenom- essay by Pascal Gielen, new essays
enon. The programme was put together by Brian Holmes, Irit Rogoff and
in cooperation with the Flemish- Simon Sheikh and with the republica-
Dutch House deBuren in Brussels, tion of an exemplary text by Thierry
the Flemish institute for visual, De Duve, a ‘reader’ has been cre-
audiovisual and media art (BAM) and ated in which the art biennial as a
Gielen’s own Lectorate in Arts in global phenomenon is analysed and
Society at the Fontys College for approached not only in terms of an
the Arts. The debates looked at the art theoretical discourse or curato-
boom in international art biennials rial practice, but also on the basis
– at the moment there are hundreds of more sociological and politi-
of biennials active all over the cal-philosophical discourses. Some
world. They also considered how the essays deal directly with the bien-
art biennial, which was originally nial, while other essays, such as
an instrument within a politics those of Hardt and Mouffe, reveal
of nation-states, is increasingly different conditions and relation-
deployed for developing and market- ships within the social and politi-
ing cities and regions. In order to cal reality that the biennial is
compensate for this, biennials often part of, putting forward proposals
put political issues onto their and posing questions that could be
artistic agenda. The recurring ques- addressed by art and its scene. The
tion is Brussels was: can bienni- result of the reflections and propo-
4 Open 2009/No.16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

sitions in Open 16 is by no means
unequivocal, but all the ‘strategies
in neo-political times’ that are
articulated express the urgency of
not taking the biennial as a glo-
bal phenomenon for granted. There
are also signs of a shared awareness
that it cannot be regarded sepa-
rately from the logic of neoliberal
markets.
In the context of Open as a series
of anthologies in which the changing
conditions of the public domain are
examined from a cultural perspec-
tive, the subject of the biennial
represents a possibility to look
at the way in which this phenomenon
and its legitimizing discourses
relate to ideas about the city and
urban politics, to new notions of
publicness and to the implications
of processes such as globalization
and mediatization. The editors of
Open are grateful to Pascal Gielen
for his generous commitment as
guest editor. Our great thanks are
also extended to the co-producers
of Open 16: Dorian van der Brempt,
director of deBuren; Dirk de Wit at
BAM; and Fontys College of Fine and
Performing Arts. Last but not least,
we are grateful to SKOR for allowing
us the editorial freedom to develop
Open as a series.
Editorial 5
Pascal Gielen hysteria, with all its
negatives charac-
The Biennial teristics. Neoliberal
city marketing as
A Post-Institution the bogeyman is too
for Immaterial facile an explana-
Labour tion.
By means of an
analysis, sociologist
Pascal Gielen at-
tempts to get a bet-
ter handle on the
problematic aspects
of the art biennial
as a global phenom-
enon. Only then
can new strategies
be developed for
escaping the world-
wide competition
8 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon
The art biennial – once born as the pro- art system. Because we are dealing with
moter of the nation-state and its secu- two emotionally charged – usually nega-
larized faith, nationalism – has acquired tively charged – concepts, a little expla-
a somewhat different guise today. The nation seems appropriate.
political agenda has been relegated
to the background and replaced by a The Joyful Rider
worldwide competition among cities
and other places-to-be, with a profusion Within common parlance, cynicism
of biennials as a result. This success and opportunism are surrounded by a
cannot be explained without the enthu- miasma of negative semantics. In addi-
siasm with which politicians, managers tion, these are usually qualities ascribed
and other sponsors have embraced the to an individual. This or that person is
event. And it is precisely this hetero- labelled ‘cynical’ or ‘opportunistic’, by
geneous interest that makes the bien- which a negative personality trait is
nial suspect. After all, it fits easily in a immediately implied. Here, however, in
neoliberal city marketing strategy of line with the Italian thinker Paolo Virno,
so-called creative cities. Anyone occa- cynicism and opportunism are not
sionally leafing through the catalogues used as part of an ethical assessment.1
of art events might be surprised by They can also be 1. Pablo Virno, Grammar
of the Multitude (Los
such self-observations. They show understood as Angeles: Colombia Univer-
that the biennial frequently regards amoral categories. sity, 2004).
itself as a problematic hybrid monster. Furthermore they define not so much
At the very least, it can be concluded the actions of an individual, but the
that some of the participating artists, general mood of a collective. Cynicism
curators and critics are not lacking in and opportunism are now a structural
the required self-reflection. Yet they component of our globalized society. Or,
continue to take part, cheerfully, full as Virno argues, they colour the ‘emo-
of ambition, but at times physically tional tonality of the multitude’ within
and mentally exhausted, in this amaz- a post-Fordian world economy. Applied
ing world. The motivations for this are to the contemporary art world, cynicism
probably as numerous as the number of and opportunism have become neces-
artistic actors currently travelling the sary modes of operation. This deserves
globe. The ambition of someday mak- a more detailed explanation.
ing it in the art world likely plays a part. Cynicism, Virno argues, comes from
But there is certainly as much genuine the realization that rules and the real-
interest and sincere idealism. There ity they supposedly regulate are miles
is no denying, however, that even the apart, even as people still operate
honest curator constantly comes up according to these rules. Those who
against an all-encompassing neoliberal- know the rules of the present-day art
ism. A certain amount of cynicism and world, for example, go in for themed
opportunism seems necessary in order exhibitions, which today prefer to
to continue operating within the global embrace social responsibility – witness
The Biennial 9
the boom of new engagement, social pleasures of capitalism (at least discur-
activism, political or ecological criti- sively), the former is instead a joyful
cism, etcetera. All of this is taking place rider who, with the required optimism,
against the backdrop of a neoliberal outlines escape routes in the heart of
reality of commercial telephone pro- the neoliberal hegemony with a nice
viders and airlines with an excess of glass of wine in hand. Stoicism in one
ecologically irresponsible flights, mass area does not preclude idealism in the
tourism and virtually inescapable glo- other. This last attitude does indeed
bal marketing strategies. If we observe require a healthy dose of cynicism,
the discourse presented by most glo- something that Bertolt Brecht under-
bally operating curators and artists on stood back in the 1960s. Which strategy
the one hand, and their actual actions is best, however, remains unclear. What
on the other, we repeatedly come up is clear is that the second approach, in
against a yawning gap between the two. all its ambivalence, is more complex
As a result, operating cynically turns than the first. And perhaps this com-
out to be functional within the global plexity provides a better answer, today,
network of the biennials. to an ever more complex world. It
This conclusion allows critics to remains, however, a particularly difficult
point out consequences with a certain balancing act as well.
amount of schadenfreude. Yet precisely The internationally operating cura-
because it ascribes the characteristic tor – but in fact every globally operating
to the individual, this criticism often artistic actor – thus benefits from the
neglects to examine the institutional pleasures afforded by today’s wide-
nature of the problem. It definitely spread neoliberal market economy.
denies the critical potential, at the very He or she grabs every opportunity, if
least the potentially manipulative or desired, to tell a critical, engaged or
subversive quality, of the cynical opera- unique story. The globally functioning
tion. Selecting and using the marvellous curator, in other words, is always a big
resources that the neoliberal market opportunist. Let us treat this observa-
economy puts at our disposal today tion with the necessary amoral circum-
also provides a chance to pervert them. spection, however. We must understand
All-encompassing neoliberalism already opportunism, says Virno, literally and
provides all the instruments with which neutrally, as ‘the ability to grab opportu-
to keep proclaiming ever-changing pos- nities’. It therefore includes the dexter-
sibilities – if only purely discursively. ity to allude in a non-routine fashion to
The curator hopping all round the world a constantly changing work context. It
perhaps shares the opinion of the critic is the art of living with chronic instabil-
we have just portrayed. The strategies ity, with unexpected turns and perma-
to achieve their respective objectives, nent innovation. There are constantly
however, are fundamentally differ- different possibilities and always new
ent. Whereas the latter, with a certain opportunities that present themselves.
puritanical ascetism, abstains from the Well, internationally operating curators

always finds themselves in different after all, primarily looking for a good
geographic, social and political con- and appropriate idea. Yet what is a good
texts, to which they must continually idea? A good idea, in today’s art world,
respond in a more or less meaning- should still be understood, according
ful way. They must make use of every to the adage of modernity, as a new or
opportunity that presents itself, convert innovative thought. Even the veteran
it into a win-win situation. This presup- curator, well-established in the world
poses, at the very least, a significant with his or her concept, can hardly
capacity for translation along with a afford to become repetitive. That might
generous dose of mental flexibility. have been permissible, to a certain
Every time, new circumstances and extent, for the ‘first crop’ of independ-
always different ideas have to be trans- ent curators whose names were fre-
formed into a preferably controversial quently linked to a monolithic concept
end product: the exhibition. Perhaps (although even here a certain malle-
the travelling Manifesta exhibition is the ability was desired). Today this rigid
best example of an organization that has attitude works far less effectively. This
incorporated this opportunistic tonal- is why the adjective ‘appropriate’ is of
ity down to the meso-level. Time and equal importance for the idea produced.
time again, after every move, after all, A good idea, after all, constantly renews
it feels out the local economic, political itself, and that can mean, among other
and social opportunities. The travel- things, that it responds to the geo-
ling curator is constantly confronted by graphic or social context, the client, the
different working conditions in local, artistic setting, etcetera. Simply copying
merely temporary stations that are an exhibition concept from New York to
often called biennials. Istanbul would miss the ball completely.
Just like the artist who repeats himself,
A Good Idea the recidivist curator would soon be
taken to task for his mouldy ideas.
Yet what does this curator have to offer It should therefore come as no sur-
the station at which he or she alights prise that young curators are frequently
for a while? Or conversely, why is this hired. There is a lesser likelihood, after
particular curator engaged to do his all, that sclerosis would have set in
or her ‘thing’ in this particular spot in among this category, but that is not the
the world? Is it to do with his or her point. The point is that today a good
organizational capacities? Or it is simply idea has to be primarily appropriate as
about fame and a name? These things well as innovative. The executed idea, in
probably play a role, but the core of the the context of the preceding argument,
transaction is even more ephemeral and takes into account the local artistic,
yet more risky than that. Those who economic and/or political circumstances
shop in the curator market and do so that present themselves. A good idea,
with integrity, therefore without ulte- in other words, is an opportunistic idea,
rior economic or political motives, are, whereby ‘opportunistic’ should thus be
The Biennial 11
interpreted in the neutral sense of the finished product, but on a potential or
word, and therefore without moralistic a promise. This, says Virno, is precisely
connotations. The smart curator, in the core of the post-Fordian work envi-
other words, delivers his or her idea ronment, or – to paraphrase – the crux
with the necessary adaptability and of immaterial labour.
flexibility. It should therefore come as According to many labour sociolo-
no surprise either that the interview, gists and political philosophers, this
or at least the dialogue, has cropped post-Fordism – with its individualiza-
up multiple times over the last decade tion, de-routinization, flexible work-
as the favourite working method of the ing hours, mental labour, and so forth
exhibition organizer. It is precisely this – underwent a general expansion with
format, after all, that offers the oppor- the student revolts of 1968 and the Fiat
tunity to test the potential exhibition strikes of the 1970s. Antonio Negri and
concept against the new context. Michael Hardt even argue that imma-
But how does one know that the terial labour began to constitute the
engaged curator will deliver a good hegemony for all forms of production,
idea? Well, the answer is as simple as it even for material labour and agricul-
is disturbing. It simply cannot be pre- tural labour.3 This does not mean, of
dicted. Investing in a hoped-for good course, that mate- 3. Michael Hardt and Anto-
nio Negri, Multitude: War
idea, a show that works or an exhibition rial labour or rou- and Democracy in the
concept that functions within the given tine factory labour Age of Empire (London:
Penguin Books, 2004).
context, is always a risky undertaking. simply vanished.
When the curator is engaged, the good It usually moved, after all, to low-wage
idea or the interesting, appropriate countries. Even this labour, however,
concept is only potentially present. It became coded within the social logic
still belongs to the unreal world of the of post-Fordism. The 1970s are often
promise. Of course there are means of identified as the period in which this
assessing the risk of the investment as process of immaterialization took place.
well as possible. As in the oeuvre of an It is probably not a coincidence that it
artist, the ‘retro-prospective principle’ is also the period in which one of the
also applies to the exhibition career of first internationally operating curators
the curator.2 Previously produced work began to attract attention. Harald Szee-
is used as a touch- 2. Pascal Gielen, ‘Art and mann, after all, escaped the museum in
Social Value Regimes’,
stone to gauge the Current Sociology, the same period with his material arte-
quality of work yet 53 (5) (2005), 789- facts. An object history was replaced
806; and Pascal Gielen,
to be produced. Kunst in netwerken. by a conceptual approach. Or, with
Artistieke selecties in de
Yet this hoped-for hedendaagse dans en de the preceding in mind, the emphasis
realization remains beeldende kunst (Leuven: on displaying material works shifted
LannooCampus, 2004).
largely speculative. towards immaterial labour. As in other
The organizer of a biennial, in the con- work environments, this does not mean
tract or the agreement with the cura- that the material – in this case the work
tor, therefore, is not capitalizing on a of art – simply vanished, but it became

staged within a performance of ideas. tion from the context’. The white cube
Even the ins and outs of the art world, cherished by biennials and curators
in other words, cannot escape the new thus cuts itself off from the variable
machinery of post-Fordism. environment in which it finds itself. This
sometimes results in rather hallucinat-
Intermezzo: The White Cube or ing displays, as Filipovic writes, among
Neoliberal Denial other things, about Okwui Enwezor’s
Documenta 11: ‘The exhibition brought,
We have just briefly reflected on the as one critic noted, “issues of geno-
ambivalent operation of the curator cide, poverty, political incarceration,
within an omnipresent post-Fordism. industrial pollution, earthquake wreck-
This requires, among other things, an age, strip-mine devastation, and news
opportunistic attitude, which succeeds of fresh disasters into the inviolable
in responding to ever-changing artistic, white cube”.’5 5. Ibid.
economic and political working condi- The white cube is so widespread
tions. At the same time, art historian as an institution around the world
and curator Elena Filipovic points out because its staging of autonomy denies
that the majority of biennials, paradoxi- any political, economic or religious
cally, still make use of their historical entanglement. The integration of these
antipode, namely the museum.4 This spheres in the museum also threatens
is even true of the 4. Elena Filipovic, ‘The to neutralize any problem or social
Global White Cube’, in:
previously men- Barbara Vanderlinden and conflict within the safe zone of fiction.
tioned nomadic Elena Filipovic (eds.), Perhaps that is what makes the white
The Manifesta Decade:
Manifesta. This Debates on Contempo- cube so beloved, and very exception-
rary Art Exhibitions and
mainly involves Biennials in Post-Wall ally even by totalitarian regimes. Within
the repeated use Europe (Cambridge, MA: an all-encompassing neoliberalism, the
MIT Press, 2005).
of the classic white ideological silence of the white space is
cube, which Alfred Baar turned into a godsend. Every dominant paradigm of
the hallmark of the MoMA back in the faith, after all, is served by the denial of
late 1920s. Filipovic acutely remarks its own ideological character. That way
that the Nazis opted for the same inte- it can easily masquerade as an insur-
rior, less than ten years later, for the mountable realism.
Haus der Kunst in Munich, whereupon
she openly wonders what makes this The Post-Institution and Flirting
white space appealing to these two with Deleuze
totally divergent ideological worlds. The
answer is somewhat predictable: ‘order’, ‘Rhizomes’, ‘networks’, ‘nomadism’,
‘rationality’, ‘universality’ and ‘(West- ‘escape routes’, ‘non-hierarchical forms
ern) modernity’. Two other ascribed of organization’, etcetera – these are
qualities, however, deserve particular the words with which biennials have
attention within this narrative, namely increasingly presented their own
‘neutrality’ and particularly ‘disconnec- operations over the last ten years.
The Biennial 13
Documenta 12 may have represented cultural context. Yet in this context the
the saturation point of this Deleuzian institution of the ‘church’ is perhaps a
discourse. Who can say? The question, more relevant example. Within the soci-
however, is whether today’s biennials ology of religion, a distinction is made
genuinely incorporate these character- between the Church with a capital C
istics. The intermezzo above suggests and the church with a small c. The first
otherwise. The equivocal relationship refers to the whole system of norms
between biennial and white cube, event and values it installs and continues, the
and museum demonstrates at the very second to the ‘organizational infrastruc-
least a certain ambivalence. The classi- ture’ of people, buildings, relics, and
cal museum, in particular, is one of the so forth that materialize the institution
institutionalized entities that is facing and keep it alive. Well, the art institu-
increasing pressure. Yet the institution tion also represents this dual meaning.
has not yet vanished beyond the hori- On the one hand, after all, it consists of
zon. That is probably what frequently galleries, biennials, art centres, muse-
makes it the black sheep, certainly ums, and the people and artworks that
where large institutions are concerned.6 populate them; on the other hand it
But what is it about this institution that also represents the whole system of
supposedly hinders 6. See for instance Nina artistic and cultural values (for instance
Möntmann, ‘Playing the
the biennial or is Wild Child: Art Institutions authenticity, creativity, idiosyncrasy) it
such a problem in a New Public Sphere’, expresses within a society – in the past
Open 14 (Rotterdam/
for the nomadic Amsterdam: NAi Publish- usually the nation-state. In essence, all
ers/SKOR, 2008), 16-27.
curator? artistic organizations are part of the art
The institution is probably one of institution, but major institutions like
the most examined subjects in sociol- museums occupy a special place in this.
ogy.7 What is relevant to this argument More than the others, after all, they
is that this sci- 7. Pascal Gielen, De Kun- are expected to be well-oiled organiza-
stinstitutie. De Artistieke
ence interprets Identiteit en de Maat- tions and to simultaneously take on the
the notion in two schappelijke Positie van role of the ‘guardian’ and ‘facilitator’ of
de Instellingen van de
ways. On the one Vlaamse Gemeenschap specific artistic values and practices.
(Antwerp: OIV, 2007).
hand the institu- This might sound pompous, but it is an
tion refers to concrete organizations accepted idea in sociology that cultural
of people, buildings and things. On the practices keep in step with a powerful
other hand the concept of the institu- societal hierarchization of values and
tion is extended to the whole system of norms. The institution, according to
values, norms and customs considered classical sociology, features a number of
significant in a society. This is why essential characteristics, a few of which
they are institutionalized, set down in a are highlighted here as a reminder.
more or less rigid fashion, watched over Such an exercise, it is hoped, will help
and sanctioned. The most well-known to clarify what the problem is for bienni-
institution is probably the family, which als and for nomadic curators.
regulates procreation within a specific The institution is primarily experi-

enced as an external reality and objec- cal vacuum, but instead with a strong
tivity. This means that it stands above awareness of what used to be. At its
individual manufacturability, which is best, this produces an interesting ten-
moreover considered relatively evident. sion between innovation and conserva-
We therefore immediately come up tion. Ideally, as crucial platforms of the
against an important point of criticism art institution, institutions represent
in the art world. Within it, the indi- its historical conscience. In the process
vidual regime of values is after all the they also generate the necessary ‘iner-
central principle around which every- tia’ to which everything experimental or
thing revolves, at least according to the innovative should, or at least can, relate.
French art sociologist Nathalie Heinich.8 Museums, therefore, in part control the
It is a fact that both 8. Nathalie Heinich, La temporal logic or artistic conjuncture
Gloire de Van Gogh.
the artist and the Essai d’anthropologie de of the whole art institution. When they
curator jealously l’admiration (Paris: Édi- let in innovation, they immediately
tions de Minuit, 1991).
defends his or her proclaim a new era for the whole local,
individuality, his or her authenticity. He national or international art world.
or she probably shudders at the idea of Large institutions usually do this only
a supra-individual machine. sparsely. It is, after all, their societal
What is more significant within this task to constantly weigh the present
argument, however, is that the insti- against the past. This admittedly also
tution incorporates historicity. This entails the risk that they might become
characteristic alludes to two things. too sluggish and hold back innovation
First, the institution has its own his- for too long, losing their ‘grandeur’ in
tory and often relies on this history to the process. It is precisely biennials
preserve or even to legitimize its exist- and internationally operating curators
ence and activities within contemporary who have fought against this ‘grandeur’
society. But the institution also con- over the last 30 years (and certainly in
stantly, actively engages with the past, the initial phase), among other things
by selecting from it, by activating and because it was felt that the museum
perhaps re-articulating some historical hindered innovation. As previously
issues. Or, as American anthropologist stated, a good idea in today’s art world
Mary Douglas once put it, ‘institutions is still, according to modernist doctrine,
remember and forget’.9 We immediately a new idea. Such an ethos constantly
come up against the 9. Mary Douglas, How wrestles with the past and the cultural
Institutions Think (New
important heritage York: Syracuse University heritage. This is not only because of the
function of the art Press, 1986). braking effect of art traditions, but also
institution. It is, after all, responsible because history might well suggest that
for what is remembered and forgotten. a new idea is not so new after all.
In the case of museums, we can hardly The characteristics of the art institu-
ignore this conservation function. tion listed above, however, are aspects
Even their current artistic activities at a macrosociological level with which
take place, preferably, not in a histori- both the biennial and the nomadic cura-
The Biennial 15
tor struggle. It is his or her fight against nial as protagonist – significantly sup-
‘the institution’ as a societal phenom- presses the wealth of the classical art
enon. At the mesosociological level, but institution. Occasional visitors to bienni-
at the level of the organization as well, als are regularly confronted, for exam-
other factors come into play. The classi- ple, by structural amnesia, the negation
cally institutionalized organization, after of the local context and superficiality,
all, stands for a rigid hierarchy with usually with a lack of concentration.
fixed positions in a not very flexible The biennial, or to put it a better way,
work environment. This highly simpli- the excessive boom in biennials, offers
fied picture perhaps reflects an out- little room anymore for historicity;
dated cliché. In observing the majority even less does it generate the neces-
of art museums (certainly in Europe), sary time for thorough research, and
however, one still comes across ingredi- furthermore it often ignores the local-
ents that confirm this picture. To name ity – see the previously outlined story
only four: fixed working hours (and of the white cube. These are precisely
opening hours), fixed appointments, a the things that a museum, as a classi-
rigid differentiation between functional cal art institution, did stand for. That
units (artistic staff, educational depart- museum, however, has also been signifi-
ment, public relations, maintenance and cantly transformed in recent decades,
management) and a strong focus on with, among other things, an increase in
the material (the collection or at least temporary exhibitions and an inversely
artworks). The second characteristic proportional decrease in research into
certainly impedes the post-Fordian and attention to the collection. Even
requirement of flexibility within a glo- the museum – certainly if it is a contem-
bally operating art world. It is precisely porary art museum – has been infected
the biennial that partly fulfils these by the biennial virus. Even the museum
immaterial working conditions. On that is displaying post-institutional charac-
level the biennial certainly displays the teristics, for it too has become a post-
hallmarks of a post-institution. Its peri- Fordian enterprise.
odic and event-based character in itself
makes it easy to work with temporary Schizophrenic Longing
contracts. This is a basic observation
of labour sociology, which in today’s The structural amnesia mentioned
art world is rather romantically trans- above, the lack of concentration and
lated into an uncritical cultivation of a the development of a globally floating
nomadic existence within constantly art world are gradually eliciting ques-
moving networks. However, this Deleuz- tions about the direction in which the
ian flirting with the post-institution (not art biennial has evolved over the past
that Deleuze, incidentally, ever pointed decade. Indeed we are seeing early
in this direction; what is at issue here attempts toward rearticulation and even
is rather the way the art world uses the reorganization within the art world. The
jargon) – with the contemporary bien- curator, for example, is once again seek-

ing out the locality, or to put it a better authenticity can no 10. Luc Boltanski and Eve
way, tries to link international flows longer be formally Chiapello, The New Spirit
of Capitalism (London/
with local artistic and cultural practices posed.’10 New York: Verso, 2006).
at a ‘glocal’ level (witness for instance The internal tension of an authentic

the Gwangju Biennale of 2002, but also artistic idea or a new and appropriate
the effect of the MaCBA in Barcelona). exhibition concept, in other words, is
At the very least we can observe today in step with the fluctuating relationship
a schizophrenic longing, in which on the between the classical art institution and
one hand the mobility, horizontal open- the post-institution. Even the design of
ness, curiosity and innovative drive of the last Brussels biennial, for example,
the post-institution are endorsed, but in was marked by the same schizophrenic
which, on the other hand, a predilection longing. This can be deduced, among
is emerging for the local imbedding, for other things, by the endeavour to reart-
the collective memory and for the dura- iculate the locality of the biennial. The
bility once offered by the institution. focus is no longer on the nation-state;
This schizophrenia between the post- the worldwide promotion of the city
institution and the ‘classical’ modern art was at the very least parried with atten-
institution can now also be linked back tion paid to the ‘Eurocore’ – if only by
to the internal tension within a good allowing art organizations from Flan-
idea previously outlined. ders (and thus not just from Brussels),
We have said that a good idea, in Germany and the Netherlands to play a
the contemporary art world, is still a part in setting the programme. In addi-
new idea. That also means that it is tion, there was an attempt to counter
authentic and that it is defended and the historical deficit of the hectic global
established with the required resolve. flow by working closely with institutions
Furthermore, a new idea is only a good that should still have a memory, espe-
idea if it can be weighed against his- cially museums. Authenticity defended
tory, and the art institution, with the with rigidity can thus be balanced with
classic museum, used to provide an the infinite variability and diversity
answer for this. Within today’s network demanded by the global neoliberal
world embraced by the nomadic cura- network system. Such undertakings
tor, however, the emphasis is being are probably a sign of still early and
placed instead on the appropriate therefore fragile practice runs for new
idea. Loyalty to an originally authentic strategies with which well-intentioned
concept can quickly come to be inter- biennials and curators will experiment
preted as inflexibility and a lack of in the future. It is to be hoped that they
openness. The authentic idea, in other will someday generate the necessary
words, lacks the infinite variability and ‘inertia’ and ‘glocality’ as a counterpoint
adaptability required within networks to the all-encompassing global competi-
that are always unstable. Or as Luc tion hysteria in which today’s biennials
Boltanski and Eve Chiapello argue: increasingly find themselves.
‘In a network world, the question of
The Biennial 17
Michael Hardt economics, poli-
tics and aesthetics
Production and and analysing their
Distribution of relations, Hardt
the Common arrives at questions
concerning the role
A Few Questions of the artist and
for the Artist the meaning of his
or her work in the
According to distribution of the
Michael Hardt, common.
the production of
the common is the
most important
economic main-
spring in a time
in which imma-
terial and biopo-
litical production
are dominant.
By connecting
The relation between aesthetics and (le commun) is (London: Continuum,
2004), 12, translation
politics is most often conceived in a technical term modified.
terms of their intersection or, rather, for Rancière that
the intervention of one into the domain is foundational for his conception of
of the other: political action in art or both the political and the aesthetic,
aesthetic practices in politics. This rela- although this fact is unfortunately
tion poses no great conceptual diffi- somewhat obscured in the English
culty, although, of course, at least since translations of his work.2 It is relatively
Plato, such intersections have raised easy to recognize 2. Gabriel Rockhill offers a
helpful footnote to explain
for many serious practical concerns, in terms of the that since ‘the common’
about the stability of the political, for distribution of the issubstitutes
awkward in English he
for it various
example, or the integrity of aesthetic sensible a precise, noun phrases, such as
practices. Jacques Rancière poses the formalist definition ‘something in common’
and ‘what is common
relation between aesthetics and politics of aesthetics that to the community’, and
adjectives such as ‘shared’
instead as a conceptual problem. He is is very close to the and ‘communal’ (Ibid.,
not primarily concerned with political standard practices 102-103, note 5).
art or aestheticized politics, but rather of artistic production: artistic practices
the ways in which in parallel at an are ways of doing and making that
abstract level activity in the two sepa- both reveal what we share in common
rate domains operates a distribution and divide or distribute its elements in
or sharing of the common. Rancière’s the realm of the sensible. In the case
approach becomes even more powerful of the visual arts, for example, artistic
once we add to it a recognition that practices simultaneously disclose in
the production of the common is the visual fields what we share (such as
becoming increasingly central in our ways of seeing) and operate divi-
today’s biopolitical order. Exploring sions within the visual and partitions
these conceptual connections allow us between the visible and invisible. Note
to pose some challenging questions how the two meanings of partage –
for artists and perhaps open up new sharing and dividing – operate simul-
avenues for the politics of art. taneously here.
For Rancière the link between It may be less obvious how
aesthetics and politics resides specifi- Rancière’s definition applies equally
cally in what he calls ‘the distribution to politics. The distribution of the
of the sensible’ (le partage du sensible). sensible, he explains, reveals who has
‘I call the distribution of the sensible,’ a share or a part in the common.3 For
he explains, ‘the system of self-evident politics, in other 3. Ibid. See also Jacques
facts of sense perception that simul- words, the sharing Rancière, Disagreement,
translated by Julie Rose
taneously discloses the existence of and dividing refers (Minneapolis: Univer-
sity of Minnesota Press,
the common and the delimitations to a community’s 1999), 26-27, original: La
mésentente (Paris: Galilée,
that define the respective parts and common wealth, 1995), 48-49. Note that
positions within 1. Jacques Rancière, The goods, resources, Rose translates ‘partage du
sensible’ here as ‘partition
1 Politics of Aesthetics, trans-
it.’ The common lated by Gabriel Rockhill knowledges, as of the perceptible’.
Production and Distribution of the Common 21

well as its offices and powers. Politics, in order to analyse and challenge
we might say in more conventional economic doctrines of privatization.
terms, involves the decisions over our The historical analogy that such uses of
rights or entitlements to (and hence the commons generally draw on is the
the distribution of) what we potentially process of enclosure at the dawn of the
share in common. ‘Politics begins,’ capitalist era when first in England and
Rancière writes, ‘precisely when one then throughout Europe the common
stops balancing profits and losses and lands and the common woods, which
worries instead about dividing the were used for animal grazing and gath-
parts of the common, and evening out ering wood, were transformed into
according to a geometrical proportion private property and fenced off. The
the parts of the community and the defenders of the commons in sixteenth-
titles to obtain those parts, the axiaï and seventeenth-century England
that give one right to community.’4 often relied on Christian arguments
Rancière’s notion 4. Rancière, Disagreement, that God gave the earth and its bounty
op. cit. (note 3), 5, transla-
of politics resides tion modified, emphasis in to humans that they should use it in
in the relation the original (La mésentente,
24).
common. Nature should never cease
between ‘the part’ to be common, they insisted; its parts
and ‘the common,’ which is mediated may be distributed but must always
by the operation of partage, simul- remain shared. In some contexts today
taneously dividing and sharing. The the discourse on the common engages
common, of course, is not the realm of situations very consistent with those in
sameness or indifference. It is the scene the earlier period, when contesting, for
of encounter of social and political example, the privatization and sale of
differences, at times characterized by common or national resources such as
agreement and at others antagonism, at water, gas, diamonds, or oil. All must
times composing political bodies and have access, such arguments go, to
at others decomposing them. Rancière land, water, fuel and other necessary
thus establishes not an immediate link resources; and the profits from other
between politics and aesthetics, but a resources, such as oil or diamonds,
parallel operation they both enact on must be shared in common, most often
the common. through the authority of the nation-
state. The analogy is also used in the
The Production of the Common realm of cybertechnologies and imma-
terial property, bolstering arguments,
Before articulating some of the ques- for example, to preserve the ‘informa-
tions raised by Ranicère’s conception, tion commons’ or ‘cultural commons’.
I must focus briefly on the produc- The notion of the common functions
tion of the common. In recent years similarly in these cases as a critique
many theorists in different fields have of how assigning property rights to
revived notions of the common (often immaterial goods prevents them from
in English with an ‘s’ as ‘the commons’) being shared. The difference here is that

the common goods in question, such The Dominant Form of Production
as information, cultural products and
code, are not natural. Most of these Explaining the hypothesis that the
discourses, in any case, focus on not production of the common is becoming
their artificiality and the processes of central to the contemporary economy
their production, but rather access and requires taking a step back to recount
distribution, treating ‘the commons’, some well-known trends in economic
even when the 5. On the historical history.6 The hypothesis rests on a
historical analogy analogy, see Peter
Linebaugh, The Magna claim that we are 6. For more detailed explo-
ration of the hypothesis of
is not invoked, Carta Manifesto: Liber- in the midst of a a passage of the dominant
ties and Commons for All
as something (Berkeley: University of shift of the domi- economic form from
industrial to immaterial or
quasi-natural or at California Press, 2008). nant or hegemonic biopolitical production, see
least given.5 form of economic Michael Hardt and Anto-
nio Negri, Multitude (New
Rancière’s notion of the common, production from York: Penguin, 2004), 107-
115; and Michael Hardt
although he develops it primarily the industrial to and Antonio Negri, Com-
monwealth (Cambridge,
through ancient Greek political the immaterial or MA: Havard University
thought rather than via this English biopolitical. It is Press, forthcoming).
historical analogy, functions in a not controversial to say that for at least

very similar way. When politics and the last 150 years industrial production
aesthetics begin, according to his has been dominant over all other forms
notion, the common already exists of economic production. This domi-
and thus the central question is how nance was not expressed in quantitative
its parts are to be shared, divided and terms. When Marx proposed the domi-
distributed. No longer today, however, nance of industrial capital, for instance,
can we consider the common as in the mid-nineteenth century most
quasi-natural or given. The common workers, even in England, the most
is dynamic and artificial, produced developed capitalist nation, were not
through a wide variety of social circuits in the factories but in the fields. Indus-
and encounters. This recognition does trial production was dominant instead
not negate the importance of Rancière’s in qualitative terms, that is, insofar as
notion of partage and the common, its qualities were imposed over other
but rather extends it further to account forms of production. Mining and agri-
also for the production of the common. culture, for instance, had to industri-
In addition, this perspective allows us, alize by adopting industry’s methods
or forces us, to consider the economic of mechanization, its divisions of
realm along with the political and labour, its wage relations, its discipline,
the aesthetic. There we can recognize its time precision, its working day,
how the production of the common and so forth. All forms of production
is emerging today as the dominant throughout the world and social rela-
economic mode. tions themselves gradually were forced
to adopt the characteristic qualities of
industrial production.

It is not particularly controversial practices. Note too that the products
either to propose that, at least for the in question are most often not entirely
last few decades, industrial production immaterial. Information, ideas and
no longer plays this hegemonic role code, for instance, always have some
within the economy. Remember that material aspect. Instances of affec-
this is not a quantitative claim: there tive production too involve material
may be equal or even larger numbers products – healthcare workers stitch
of workers in the factories considered wounds and fast-food workers serve
worldwide, even though their location hamburgers – but they include also and
is shifting dramatically from the domi- even primarily a large affective compo-
nant to the subordinated parts of the nent, creating a sense of well-being,
world. The claim instead is quantita- being friendly, and the like.
tive: that the qualities of industry are Our hypothesis, then, is that we are
no longer imposed over other forms of living through a period of transition
production. in which these forms of immaterial
The potential controversial element production are becoming hegem-
of the hypothesis that Toni Negri and I onic in the economy, which means,
put forward is that industry is gradu- to repeat, not that they will become
ally being replaced in the dominant most numerous, but that their quali-
position by what we call immate- ties will be progressively imposed over
rial or biopolitical production. With other forms of production. Industry is
these terms we group together various becoming increasingly informational-
sectors of the economy in which are ized and image-oriented; information
produced goods that are in large in the form of the germplasm of seeds
portion immaterial, including infor- is becoming increasingly central in
mation, ideas, knowledge, languages, agriculture; and, in a general way, the
communication, images, codes and temporalities of industry, with the
affects. Immaterial production thus strict division posed by its working day,
includes not only a series of symbolic are being replaced by temporalities that
and analytical tasks at the high end characterize these forms of immate-
of the economy, such as software rial production, which increasingly
programmers and financial analysts, blur the division between work time
but also a variety of occupations at the and non-work time, undermining the
low end, such as healthcare workers, boundary between work and life often
flight attendants, legal secretaries, fast- through precarious forms of labour
food workers, and call centre workers. relations. These newly dominant forms
Note that the term immaterial here of production bring with them some-
refers primarily to the products rather times new and often severe modes of
than to the labour processes – labour suffering, alienation and exploitation,
in these as other cases is still charac- which all require fresh analyses and
terized by mixtures of manual and organized strategies of resistance.
intellectual, corporeal and cognitive

The Generating Effect of the Common forms of production are aimed at the
reproduction or generation of forms
For the purposes of my argument of life. Instead of thinking of the
here the central element of this endpoint of capitalist production in
hypothesis is that it posits as central terms of commodities, in other words,
to the economy the production of the and considering capital as a thing,
common. The immaterial products in this forces us to consider capital as
question, first of all, do not generally a social relation, as Marx suggested,
operate according to a logic of scar- and to recognize capitalist production
city as do material commodities. If I as the (re)production of social rela-
use an automobile or a house you are tions. Commodity production seen in
prevented from using it, but my using this light is really just a midpoint in
an idea or an image does not imply the production of social relations and
any such exclusion. In fact, sharing forms of life. It would be essential at
ideas and images is required for them this point to investigate how capital
to be productive so that we can create interacts with the common, finding
more ideas and more images in an ways to command the production of
expanding spiral. The production of the common and to expropriate the
scientific knowledge, for example, common wealth produced. For my
requires open access to a wide range of argument here, though, I simply want
scientific ideas and methods. Advances to emphasize the reason for calling
in scientific knowledge are produced this biopolitical production, since the
on that common basis and, in turn, the production of the common is immedi-
new knowledge must be made common ately the production of forms of life.
through conferences and journals.
That dual relation to the common Biopolitics
– as basis and result – also character-
izes the production of other forms of The reason for calling this biopolitical
knowledge as well as that of images production is that, in the context of
and various immaterial goods. The the production of the common, the
centrality of the common is perhaps characteristics that are conventionally
even more explicit in affective and thought to isolate economic produc-
linguistic production, which cannot tion from political action tend to break
take place without social relations. down. Hannah Arendt, for instance,
These are immediately and necessarily conceives of work or economic produc-
social forms of production, which tion as an instrumental activity typical
constantly rely on and generate the of the commodity production of the
common. In all of these cases, making factory. Work is thus exhausted in the
the products private, and thus taking utility of its product. Political action,
them out of the common, undermines in contrast, which for Arendt is typi-
their productivity. fied by speaking in the presence of
In the most general terms, these others, is not exhausted in its ends but

rather is a continually open sphere of economic production tend to be the
communication and cooperation. The same as those required for political
division for Arendt relies, in part, on action. This does not mean, of course,
the relation to the common: whereas that those engaged in biopolitical
political action and political speech production are immediately acting
animate the common world we share, politically but rather that they can act
economic production is excluded from politically, that they have the necessary
the common or, rather, only has access capacities. This claim has great signifi-
to a distorted version of the common cance for the possibilities of demo-
through the reified sphere of market cratic participation, which will have to
exchanges.7 Even if we are to accept be explored elsewhere.
Arendt’s division 7. Hannah Arendt, After this long detour to establish
The Human Condition
in the context of (Chicago: University of the centrality of the production of the
industrial produc- Chicago Press, 1958). common in economic terms, I am in
tion, clearly the terms shift in the case position to return to Rancière’s insights
of immaterial production, where the and add a further link to the connec-
economic takes on the qualities that tion he proposes, creating parallel rela-
she identifies with the political. Even tions among the aesthetic, the political
though capital continues to impose and the economic, all of which are
instrumentality, immaterial products oriented towards the common. When
are not exhausted in their use. The he poses the connection between
affects created in a service relationship, aesthetics and politics in the way they
for example, or the images and ideas both operate a partage of the sensible
created in an advertising campaign and thus a sharing and division or
always exceed the instrumental goal distribution of the common, Rancière
capital sets for them. Furthermore, treats the common as if it were a given
such production is characterized by or relatively fixed element. When we
language and speech, which Arendt emphasize the fact that the common
identifies as central to the political. is not natural but made and thus shift
Recognizing the biopolitical nature our focus to its production, these defi-
of contemporary economic production nitions shift slightly. Politics involves
does not imply that the economic and not only the distribution but also the
the political have merged but rather, production of the common, that is,
similar to the way Rancière poses the the production and reproduction of
relation between aesthetics and poli- social relations and forms of life, which
tics, the two domains are linked in the highlights its correspondence with
way they are both oriented towards the biopolitical production in the economic
production of the common, that is, the realm. This conception emphasizes
creation of social relations and forms the creative nature of not only artistic
of life. In addition, our brief analysis practice but also economic production
suggests that the talents and skills and political action, emphasizing the
generated and employed in biopolitical capacities, skills, and talents required

for creation.8 All 8. The characterization as symbols to attract the development
of art as not only the
three domains – distribution but also the of biopolitical production, but also
art, politics and production of the common
resonates Deleuze and
thought to function in that develop-
economics – are Guattari’s notion of art as ment, cultivating circuits of biopolitical
the creation of percepts and
thus linked via affects. See Gilles Deleuze production. Parallel to my claim that
the common and and Félix Guattari, What
is Philosophy?, translated
the talents and skills of biopolitical
oriented towards by Hugh Tomlinson and economic production are the same as
Graham Burchell (New
the production of York: Columbia University those required for political action, here
social relations and Press, 1994), 163-200. we can see that the capitalist planners
forms of life. recognize that the skills and talents
for artistic practice are increasingly
Questions for the Artist the same ones required for economic
production. This increasing economic
One consequence of posing the rela- centrality of art and artistic practice can
tion in this way is that it casts in a be beneficial to artists, of course, but
new light the role of art and artists in can also involve them in unintended
relation to economic production. City ways in capitalist development projects.
and regional governments throughout Some artists are developing this rela-
Europe, for example, and to a lesser tion to economic production in very
extent elsewhere, recognizing the different ways, based on the fact that
decline of their industrial base and they increasingly share labour condi-
the increasing dominance of biopo- tions with a wide range of workers in
litical production, are seeking to brand the biopolitical economy. In France,
themselves as ‘creative cities’ and court for example, the Coordinations of the
artists as key elements to constructing ‘intermittents du spectacle’ (organized
a ‘creative class.’9 Along the same line, workers in the entertainments indus-
art biennials, which 9. The writings of Richard tries, such as television, film, dance and
Florida have been a central
have proliferated inspiration for many of the theatre), who conducted widespread
in recent years, governmental efforts to
make creative cities. See,
protests from 2003 to 2007 to main-
serve as a mode for example, The Rise of the tain their right to a continuous income
Creative Class (New York:
of city branding Basic Books, 2002). even though they sporadically work
in the effort to on short contracts, recognized that an
capture some of the profits of the crea- increasing portion of the labour force
tive economy. Art promotion and in France works under similar precar-
patronage, of course, has long served as ious labour conditions. The Coordina-
an emblem of prestige for state power, tions thus expanded their demands and
but now artistic practice is gaining a called for a continuous, basic income
much stronger relation to economic for all French workers, linking their
production. The existence of artists in struggle with that of other precarious
a city or region and the demonstra- workers.10 This 10. See Antonella
Corsani and Maurizio
tion of social conditions that facilitate seems to me an Lazzarato, Intermittent et
artistic production are not only seen exciting avenue for précaires (Paris: Editions
Amsterdam, 2008).

developing the increasingly parallel
relation between artistic practice and
economic production.
These parallel analyses bring me
back once again to the relation between
art and politics and raise a series
of questions. What possibilities are
opened in the biopolitical context by
the recognition that artistic practice
and political action are both engaged in
the production and distribution of the
common? Does this relation provide
a means for artists to participate,
through their artistic practice, in the
many contemporary political strug-
gles around the world in defence of the
common, for an equitable distribution
of the common, and for autonomy in
the production of the common? If, as
I claimed earlier, the skills and talents
required for biopolitical economic
production also apply to political
action and the creative capacities of
artistic practice are the same needed for
economic production, then is it simi-
larly true, to complete my set of three
parallel relations, that increasingly
today abilities developed in artistic
practice are those required for political
action? How can such artistic skills and
talents be deployed in a democratic
project of the defence, production
and distribution of the common? My
brief analysis of the parallel relations
among the aesthetic, the political and
the economic allows me to pose these
questions but does not yet arrive at
any responses. I suspect that artists
are more qualified than I to respond
and I imagine that in their work they
are already discovering answers to
these questions.

Chantal Mouffe because they are
pre-eminently the
Democratic Politics terrain on which
in the Age of Post- new subjectivities
Fordism can be developed.
Political philoso-
pher Chantal
Mouffe shows how
the existing hege-
monic structures
in current political
systems can best
be opposed by
the development
of counter-hege-
monic practices.
Specifically, cultural
and artistic prac-
tices can play a
major role in this
In recent years we have witnessed an ditional democratic parties because
incredible acceleration in the process they privilege a ‘consensus at the
of commodification in the field of centre’, those passions tend to find
culture. With the development of the other outlets, in diverse fundamen-
culture industries, the worst night- talist movements, around particu-
mares of Horkeimer and Adorno seem laristic demands or non-negotiable
to have been realized. Indeed, some moral issues. When a society lacks a
theorists claim that, through our dynamic democratic life with a real
dependence on the entertainments confrontation among a diversity of
corporations, we have become totally real alternatives, the terrain is laid
subjugated to the control of capital for other forms of identifications of
and that we cannot even imagine an ethnic, religious or nationalist
modes of resistances. Aesthetics, nature and this leads to the emer-
they say, has been so completely har- gence of antagonisms that cannot be
nessed towards the development of managed by the democratic process.
a hedonistic culture that there is no In my recent work I have, for instance,
space left for a subversive experience tried to show how the post-political
– not even in art. consensus which characterizes most
Were this to be true, we would advanced liberal-democratic societies
have to conclude that there is no is at the origin of the growing success
alternative to the present post-polit- of rightwing populist parties. They
ical world. The current hegemonic are often the only ones who challenge
form of neoliberal globalization would the ‘there is no alternative’ dogma
constitute our only horizon and we proclaimed by the traditional parties
would have to abandon the hope of and attempt to mobilize passions
fostering the agonistic democracy against what they present as the
that I have been advocating in my uncaring ‘establishment’, composed
work. To be sure, they are those who of elitist bureaucrats who do not
would rejoice at such a prospect listen to the voice of the people and
because they see the present situ- ignore its real concerns.
ation as a cause for celebration. In Such an evolution clearly repre-
their view, the post-political consen- sents a threat for democracy and
sus indicates that, with the disap- a central aim of my reflection has
pearance of the adversarial model of been to bring to the fore the dangers
politics, democracy has become more of post-politics and the urgency of
mature and that antagonisms have revitalizing democracy thanks to the
been overcome. proliferation of a variety of agonistic
I disagree with such a view and public spaces. To visualize how an
I consider that a well-functioning agonistic democracy can be brought
democracy requires a confrontation about, it is necessary to grasp the
of democratic political positions. If challenge facing democratic politics
passions cannot be mobilized by tra- and this requires an adequate under-
Democratic Politics in the Age of Post-Fordism 33

standing of the terrain in which we culture industry has played in the
have to act. We need, for instance, to transformations of capitalism. It is
understand the nature of the transi- well known that Adorno and Horke-
tion that advanced industrial socie- imer saw the development of the
ties have undergone since the last culture industry as the moment when
decades of the twentieth century. the Fordist mode of production finally
This transition has had important managed to enter the field of culture.
consequences in the field of artistic They see this evolution as a further
and cultural practices, which is why I stage in the process of commodifica-
have decided to centre my intervention and subjugation of society to the
tion on this topic. requisites of capitalist production.
A great number of theorists coming For Paolo Virno and some other post-
from a variety of theoretical perspec- Operaist theorists, on the contrary,
tives agree that advanced industrial the culture industry played an impor-
societies have, at the end of the last tant role in the process of transition
century, witnessed a transition which between Fordism and post-Fordism
they present, either as move from because it is there that new practices
industrial to post-industrial society, of production emerged which led
from Fordism to post-Fordism, or to the overcoming of Fordism. The
from a disciplinary society to a space granted to the informal, the
society of control. I have chosen to unexpected and the unplanned, which
concentrate on the Fordism to post- for Horkeimer and Adorno were un-
Fordism approach because it is the influential remnants of the past, are
most influential one. However I would for Virno anticipatory omens. With
like to note that those approaches the development of immaterial labour
are not necessarily incompatible and they began to play an increasingly
might even be combined. Each is important role and that opened the
inscribed in a specific intellectual tra- way for new forms of social relations.
dition and it emphasizes a particular In advanced capitalism, says Virno,
aspect of the transition. the labour process has become per-
formative and it mobilizes the most
From Fordism to Post-Fordism universal requisites of the species:
perception, language, memory and
To apprehend what is at stake in feelings. Contemporary production is
the transition from Fordism to post- virtuosic and productive labour in its
Fordism, it is useful to examine the totality appropriates the special char-
differences between the approaches acteristics of the performing artist.
influenced by the critical theory of According to him the culture industry
Adorno and Horkeimer and those is in fact the matrix of post-Fordism.
who are influenced by the Italian Theorists influenced by the
autonomist tradition. Their main autonomist tradition concord on the
disagreement lies in the role that the fact that the transition from Fordism

to post-Fordism needs to be under- the growth of the multitude as an
stood, not as dictated by the logic of ambivalent phenomenon and he also
the development of capitalist forces acknowledges the new forms of sub-
of production, but as reaction to jection and precarization which are
the new practices of resistances of typical of the post-Fordist stage.1 It is
the workers. Disagreements exist, true that people 1. Paolo Virno, A Gram-
mar of the Multitude (New
however, among them concerning are not as passive York: Semiotex(e), 2004).
the political consequences of this as before, but it
transition. Although many of them is because they have now become
use the notion of ‘multitude’ to refer active actors of their own precari-
to the new type of political agent zation. So instead of seeing in the
characteristic of the current period, generalization of immaterial labour a
they do not envisage its future in the type of spontaneous communism like
same way. Some like Hardt and Negri Hardt and Negri, Virno tends to see
celebrate in the multitude the emer- post-Fordism as ‘a manifestation of
gence of a new revolutionary subject the communism of capital’.
which will necessarily bring down the Despite their differences, there is
new form of domination embodied in something, however, that all those
empire. Incorporating, although not thinkers have in common: their
always in a faithful way, some of the conviction that it is necessary to
analyses of Foucault and Deleuze, relinquish the conception of radical
they assert that the end of the dis- politics aimed at ‘taking power’ in
ciplinary regime that was exercised order to control the institutions of
over bodies in enclosed spaces like the state. They claim that one should
schools, factories and asylums, and ignore the existing power structures,
its replacement by the procedures and dedicate oneself to constructing
of control linked to the growth of alternative social forms outside the
networks, is leading to a new type of state power network as well as the
governance which opens the way to existing institutions. Virno asserts
more autonomous and independent that it is in the refusal to work and
forms of subjectivity. With the expan- the different forms of exodus and
sion of new forms of cooperative com- disobedience that one should locate
munication and the invention of new any possibility of emancipation. Any
communicative forms of life, those majoritarian model of society, organ-
subjectivities can express themselves ized around a state has to be rejected
freely and they will contribute to the and replaced by another model of
formation of a new set of social rela- organization of the multitude which
tions that will finally replace the capi- is deemed to be more universal. It
talist system. has the form of a unity provided by
Paolo Virno, while agreeing on the common places of the mind, cogni-
potential for new forms of life, is not tive- linguistic habits and the general
so sanguine about the future. He sees intellect.

A Hegemonic Approach To clarify what I understand by hege-
monic struggle, let me introduce some
While agreeing on the necessity to basic tenets of my theoretical frame-
acknowledge the fundamental trans- work. According to the approach
formations in the mode of regulation that I am advocating and which has
of capitalism represented by the tran- been developed in Hegemony and
sition to post-Fordism, I think that Socialist Strategy written jointly with
we should envisage this transition Ernesto Laclau, two key concepts are
from the point of view of the theory of necessary to grasp the nature of the
hegemony. I recognize the importance political: ‘antagonism’ and ‘hegem-
of not seeing the transformations ony’.2 On one side it is necessary to
undergone by our societies as the acknowledge the 2. Ernesto Laclau and
Chantal Mouffe, Hegem-
mere consequence of technological dimension of the ony and Socialist Strategy:
progresses and on bringing to the fore political as the Towards a Radical Demo-
cratic Politics (London/
their political dimension. As social ever present pos- New York: Verso, 2001).
philosopher Andre Gorz, among sibility of antago-
others, has pointed out, they should nism and this requires, on the other
be understood as a move by capital side, coming to terms with the lack
to provide what was a fundamentally of a final ground and the indecisive-
political answer to the crisis of gov- ness that pervades every order. This
ernability of the 1970s. Many factors means recognizing the hegemonic
have contributed to this transition nature of every kind of social order
and it is important to grasp the com- and envisaging society as the product
plexity of its dynamics. of a series of practices whose aim
My problem with Operaist and is to establish order in a context of
post-Operaist views is that, by putting contingency. The practices of articu-
the emphasis on the workers’ strug- lation through which a given order
gles, they tend see this transition as is created and the meaning of social
if it was exclusively moved by one institutions fixed are what we call
single logic, the workers’ resistances ‘hegemonic practices’. Every order is
to the process of exploitation forcing the temporary and precarious articu-
the capitalists to reorganize the lation of contingent practices. Things
process of production, and to move could always have been otherwise
to the post-Fordist era of immaterial and every order is predicated on the
labour. According to them capitalism exclusion of other possibilities. It is
can only be reactive and, contrary always the expression of a particular
to Deleuze and Guattari, they refuse structure of power relations. What is
to accept the creative role played by at a given moment accepted as the
both capital and the working class. ‘natural order’, with the common
What they deny is in fact the role sense that accompanies it, is the
played in this transition by the hege- result of sedimented hegemonic
monic struggle. practices; it is never the manifesta-

tion of a deeper objectivity outside of interesting in this approach is that it
the practices that bring it into being. reveals that a crucial dimension of the
Every hegemonic order is susceptible transition was a process of discursive
to being challenged by counter-hege- rearticulation of existing elements.
monic practices which attempt to This is what makes it possible to
disarticulate it to install another form understand it in terms of a hegemonic
of hegemony. struggle. To be sure, Boltanski and
I would like to suggest that in Chiapello do not use this vocabulary
order to introduce the hegemonic but theirs is a clear example of what
dimension in the transition between Gramsci calls ‘hegemony through
Fordism and post-Fordism, we neutralization’ or ‘passive revolution’
can find interesting insights in the to refer to situations where demands
interpretation of this transition put which challenge an established hege-
forward by Luc Boltanski and Eve monic order are recuperated by the
Chiapello. In their book The New Spirit existing system, by satisfying them in
of Capitalism, they bring to light the a way that neutralizes their subver-
role played by what they call ‘artistic sive potential. To envisage the transi-
critique’ in the transformation under- tion from Fordism to post-Fordism in
gone by capitalism in the last decades such a mode helps us to understand
of the twentieth century.3 They show it as a hegemonic move by capital to
how the demands 3. Luc Boltanski and Eve re-establish its leading role and to
Chiapello, The New Spirit
of autonomy of the of Capitalism (London/ reassert its legitimacy.
new movements New York: Verso, 2006). By adding to the analysis offered
of the 1960s have been harnessed in by The New Spirit of Capitalism, the
the development of the post-Fordist undeniable role played in this tran-
networked economy and transformed sition by workers’ resistances, we
into new forms of control. The aes- can arrive at a more complex under-
thetic strategies of the countercul- standing of the forces at play in the
ture: the search for authenticity, the emergence of the current neoliberal
ideal of self-management, the anti- hegemony. This hegemony is the
hierarchical exigency, are now used to result of a set of political interven-
promote the conditions required by tions in a complex field of economic,
the current mode of capitalist regula- legal and ideological forces. It is a
tion, replacing the disciplinary frame- discursive construction that articu-
work characteristic of the Fordist lates in a very specific manner a
period. Today, artistic and cultural manifold of practices, discourses and
production play a central role in the languages-games of very different
process of capital valorisation and nature. Through a process of sedi-
artistic critique has become an impor- mentation the political origin of those
tant element of capitalist productivity contingent practices has been erased
through ‘neo-management’. and they have become naturalized.
From my point of view what is Neoliberal practices and institutions

appear as the outcome of natural nently mobilize people’s desires and
processes and the forms of identifica- shape their identities. This is why
tion that they have produced have the cultural terrain now occupies
crystallized into identities which are such a strategic place. To be sure, the
taken for granted. This is how the realm of culture has always played an
‘common sense’ which constitutes important role in hegemonic politics
the framework for what is considered but in the times of post-Fordist pro-
as possible and desirable has been duction this role has become abso-
established. lutely crucial. A counter-hegemonic
To challenge neoliberalism it politics should therefore engage with
is therefore vital to transform this this terrain, so as to foster other
framework and this requires the pro- forms of identification.
duction of new subjectivities capable
of subverting the existing hegemony. Counter-Hegemonic Struggle and
Today’s capitalism relies increasingly Agonistic Practices
on semiotic techniques in order to
create the modes of subjectivation Now that I have presented the main
which are necessary for its repro- lines of the hegemonic approach
duction. In modern production, the to the transition from Fordism to
control of the souls (Foucault) plays post-Fordism, I would like to make
a strategic role in governing affects some considerations concerning the
and passions. The forms of exploita- construction of counter-hegemonic
tion characteristic of the times when practices. It is clear that, once social
manual labour was dominant have reality is envisaged in terms of
been replaced by new ones which hegemonic practices, the process
require the constantly creation of of social critique characteristic of
new needs and an incessant desire radical politics cannot consist, as
for the acquisition of goods. Hence in the view advocated by the post-
the crucial role played by advertis- Operaist theorists to whom I referred
ing in our consumer societies. It is earlier, in withdrawing from the exist-
the construction of the very identity ing institutions but, on the contrary,
of the consumer which is at stake in must engage with them so as to dis-
the techniques of advertising. Those articulate the existing discourses and
techniques are not limited to pro- practices through which the current
moting specific products, but aim at hegemony is established and repro-
producing fantasy worlds with which duced. Such a counter-hegemonic
the consumers of goods will identify. struggle cannot merely consist of sep-
Indeed, nowadays to buy something arating the different elements whose
is to enter into a specific world, to discursive articulation is at the origin
become part of an imagined commu- of those practices and institutions.
nity. To maintain its hegemony, the The second moment, the moment
neoliberal system needs to perma- of re-articulation, is crucial. Other-

wise we would encounter a chaotic the subject, but of its insertion in
situation of pure dissemination, practices that will mobilize its affects
leaving the door open for attempts towards the disarticulation of the
of re-articulation by non-progressive framework in which the process of
forces. Indeed, we have many histori- identification is taking place, thereby
cal examples of situations in which opening the way for other forms of
the crisis of the dominant order led to identification.
rightwing solutions. I would like to stress that to
It is also important not to envis- construct oppositional identities
age this struggle as the displacement it is not enough to simply foster a
of a supposedly false consciousness process of ‘de-identification’ or ‘de-
that would reveal the true reality. individualization’. The second move,
Such a perspective is completely the moment of ‘re-identification’, of
at odds with the anti-essentialist ‘re-individualization’ is decisive. To
premises of the theory of hegemony insist only on the first move is in fact
which rejects the very idea of a ‘true to remain trapped in a problematic
consciousness’ and asserts that iden- which postulates that the negative
tities are always the result of proc- moment is sufficient, on its own, to
esses of identification. It is through bring about something positive, as if
insertion in a manifold of practices, new subjectivities were already there,
discourses and languages games ready to emerge when the weight of
that specific forms of individualities the dominant ideology is lifted. Such
are constructed. According to the a view, which unfortunately informs
hegemonic approach, social reality many forms of critical art, fails to
is discursively constructed and the come to terms with the nature of the
political has a primary structuring hegemonic struggle and the complex
role because social relations are process of construction of identities.
ultimately contingent; any prevailing That the critique and disarticula-
articulation results from an antago- tion of the existing hegemony needs
nistic confrontation whose outcome to be accompanied by a process of
is not decided in advance. What is re-articulation is something that is
therefore needed is a strategy whose missed by all approaches in terms of
objective is, through a set of counter- reification or false consciousness that
hegemonic interventions, to disar- think that the critique of ideology is
ticulate the existing hegemony and sufficient to bring about a new order,
to establish a more democratic one free from oppression and power. It
thanks to a process of re-articulation is also missed, albeit in a different
of new and old elements into differ- way, by the theorists of the multitude
ent configurations of power. This is who believe that its oppositional
why the transformation of political consciousness does not require politi-
identities cannot consist of a ration- cal articulation. This leads them to
alist appeal to the true interest of evacuate what I take to be the crucial

question for a radical democratic
politics: how to establish a ‘chain
of equivalence’ among the different
democratic struggles. Those strug-
gles do not automatically converge
and they might often conflict with
each other. The aim of a radical demo-
cratic politics should be to provide
surfaces of inscription where their
diverse demands can be articulated
around a ‘collective will’ (Gramsci).
I am convinced that cultural and
artistic practices could play an impor-
tant role in the agonistic struggle
because they are a privileged terrain
for the construction of new subjec-
tivities. Think, for instance, of the
success of feminist artistic practices
in undermining the hegemonic order
by revealing how the construction
of images contributed to construc-
tion and reproduction of oppressive
social norms and by offering alterna-
tive views. To revitalize democracy
in our post-political societies, what is
urgently needed is to foster the mul-
tiplication of agonistic public spaces
where everything that the dominant
consensus tends to obscure and
obliterate can be brought to light and
challenged. This can be done in a mul-
tiplicity of ways but the thought that I
want to share with you is that radical
politics can only be successful when
it is envisaged on the mode of a ‘war
of position’ aimed at transforming the
existing institutions and the creation
of a new hegemony.

Thierry de Duve again be part of art
criticism, a different
The Glocal and type of opposition
the Singuniversal against the hegem-
onic centres that are
Reflections on Art dominant in today’s
and Culture in the global culture
Global World becomes possible.
To achieve this, De
According to Duve lays claim to
Belgian philosopher the Kantian idea of
Thierry de Duve, sensus communis –
the criticism of the the human ability to
art biennial as a share feelings.
global phenomenon
from the perspec-
tive of economic and
amusement value
is too limited. By
allowing the aes-
thetic value of art to

In alphabetical order, so as to make tribution of cultural power among
nobody jealous: Athens, Berlin, established and ‘emergent’ regions
Brisbane, Bucharest, Buenos Aires, of the world, and the pessimistic rec-
Busan, Cairo, Dakar, Dhaka, Gote- ognition of a new form of cultural
borg, Gwangju, Havana, Istanbul, hegemony and re-colonization on
Johannesburg, Liverpool, Luanda, the part of the West. Either the phe-
Lyon, Montréal, Moscow, Perth, nomenon is hailed for substituting a
Prague, Quebec City, Santiago de horizontal network of dispersed local
Chili, São Paulo, Shanghai, Sharjah, art tribes for the vertical hierarchies
Sydney, Taipei, Tijuana, Tirana, dictated by those local art tribes that
Valencia, Venice, Vilnius, Yokohama, happen to live in the so-called cen-
Zagreb. This list of cities is a bit too tres; or it is demonized for generat-
long to figure beneath the name of a ing a new kind of nomadic art tribe
fashion designer on a shopping bag that still imposes its hierarchies the
or a perfume bottle, but it might as world over because it masters the art
well. Pardon my bad taste for add- of networking and can afford to jet
ing Bhopal to the list. My excuse is around the globe from one biennial
that chemical catastrophes are the to the next. As one critic expressing
flipside of the same global economy the optimistic view said: ‘A success
that sends perfume bottles to every of a biennial also has to do with the
airport duty-free store in the world. changing of the balance of power
I abstained at first, for fear of conjur- in the international art world by
ing up bad memories of the Union focusing critical attention away from
Carbide gas leak, but also because the dominant cultural centres and
I didn’t want to give it away too soon towards the periphery. . . . It is at the
and have you think of the Bharat biennials that an art marginalized
Bhavan Biennial of Contemporary from the hegemonic centres may
Indian Art in Bhopal. But you prob- appear.’ I lifted this excerpt from an
ably guessed already: the list refers article by Christine Wang found on
to some of the cities where biennials, a website appropriately called The
at times triennials, of contemporary Gathering of the Tribes. The pessimis-
art are being held these days. Their tic and critical view was expressed,
number is increasing at a crazy for example, by the French critic Paul
pace, and though Europe still houses Ardenne in Art Press, in June 2003:
the majority of them, the so-called ‘Doesn’t the West make an abusive
periphery, with Asia in the lead, is usage of art biennials as a mode of
quickly catching up; as of today, esti- externalization of its production or of
mates oscillate between 80 and 140 art its aesthetic options, the way it does
biennials scattered around the world. with its economic action, by delocal-
Interpretation of the phenomenon izing and exploiting for its own profit
also oscillates between the optimistic today’s globalization of the world?’ I
embracing of a democratic redis- myself have mixed feelings about this
The Glocal and the Singuniversal 45

state of affairs, no doubt. But the pur- sarily visual in the sense of painting
pose of my paper is not so much to and sculpture. It houses experiments
sort out their ambiguous motivations, of all sorts ranging from the perform-
as it is to raise a philosophical ques- ing arts to documentary cinema to
tion made urgent by the proliferation music and sound. It allows political
of art biennials everywhere. statements of all kinds, anti-social
behaviour, eccentric sexual prac-
Before we can broach this philo- tices and outrageous opinions to find
sophical question, we must pay the forms of expression that would not be
economy its due. There is no question tolerated elsewhere. It thrives on cul-
that the reasons for the proliferation tural differences and confrontations
of art biennials are mainly, if not and on individual and group idiosyn-
exclusively, economic. Culture sells, crasies to the point where dissent, not
attracts tourists, generates economic consensus, is the norm. Last but not
activity and is an integral part of the least, it still enjoys the highbrow aura
entertainment industry. Pace Adorno, it has inherited from the museum art
I see no reason why we should regret of the past, all the while having the
this. His critique of the culture indus- pungent flavour of the avant-garde
try is vain, now that nobody seriously and tapping into popular culture
entertains the hope any longer that for its inspiration, codes and styles.
capitalism will be superseded in the Even the opera (the proliferation of
foreseeable future. At best capitalism opera houses easily matches that of
can and must learn to behave more art biennials) cannot pretend to such
ethically and more equitably, which a catholic reunion of conflicting fea-
it does when it is in its own interest. tures and remains a bourgeois art, in
Militants of what is now currently comparison with the visual art scene.
called the glocal – a conflation of the So, rather than simply signalling
global and the local – are pressing either successful integration of the
for such ethical behaviour. Although local into the global (the optimist’s
most often agriculture rather than view) or hegemonic appropriation of
culture has priority on their agenda, the local by the global (the pessimist’s
we might be wise to observe the cur- view), I think that art biennials are,
rent transformations in the culture quite typically, cultural experiments
industry as a significant testing in the glocal economy. The list of
ground for the glocalization of the city names with which I began is a
economy. Placing this testing ground sign. Promoters of glocalization often
under the umbrella of art has enor- emphasize that the appropriate scale
mous advantages. For art, identified where the global economy can be
as contemporary visual art, is the one reconciled with the pursuit of local
sector within the culture industry interests is the city rather than the
that is the most dynamic and enjoys nation-state. On the scale of the city,
the greatest freedom. It is not neces- abstract capital and international

finance cannot so easily retreat into the conflation of global and local by
the ‘ice-cold waters of egotistic cal- the neologism glocal, a symptom that
culation’ and are bound to meet the suggests that the name of art may be
needs, desires and protests of a real more than an umbrella under which
and concrete community of people to conduct experimentation in glocal
marked as city-dwellers and citizens. ethics. The word glocal implies the
With the proliferation of art bien- bridging of a hiatus from the particu-
nials, all bearing the names of their lar to the general, a conceptual jump
hosting cities, the art community across a discontinuity formulated in
– by which I mean both the local art geopolitical terms: the city, the world.
tribes living in the said cities and the In its own way, classical political
sophisticated nomadic art tribe that theory registered this conflation, or
hops from one biennial to the next an eighteenth-century avatar of it,
– has seemingly turned glocal. As with the word cosmopolitanism (from
expressed by Christine Wang, already cosmos, world, and polis, city). The
quoted: ‘The biennials allow the cit- glocal ethos, we might argue, adapts
ies to enter into the global economy.’ cosmopolitanism to the needs of our
Now that all grand narratives, time: it acknowledges the ‘insocial
whether classical or avant-garde, sociability’ of which Kant spoke in
have lost their currency, the art com- the fourth proposition of his Idea of a
munity seems to have found a new Universal History from a Cosmopoli-
legitimation in glocal ethics, based tan Point of View. Economic competi-
on the free and fair trade of cultural tion under capitalism represents the
goods under the umbrella of art. natural tendency of humans to com-
pete with each other and egotistically
Art, so it seems, is now no more and pursue their own individual interests,
no less than the name of a certain while democracy and the hope that
category of cultural commodities it can be better implemented at the
capable of catering to an art commu- level of a network of cities engaged
nity defined in glocal terms. All you in commerce with each other than at
need is indeed to hop from one bien- the level of nation-states, makes an
nial to the next to see this amply con- appeal to what Kant called ‘a regular
firmed, taste-wise. My mixed feelings process of betterment of the civil con-
notwithstanding, I tend to see this stitution in our part of the world (as
state of affairs as a fact, no more to it is likely to give some day laws to all
be applauded than deplored. It is sim- the others)’. We read in this sentence
ply the empirical context from which an echo of both the optimist’s and the
my philosophical question arises, a pessimist’s views on the prolifera-
question first of all prompted from tion of biennials, as it is clear that
within political philosophy, where Kant’s optimism can all too easily be
its intellectual context is concerned. denounced as rampant imperialism.
There is an interesting symptom in In invoking Kant to discuss the glo-

cal, I am wearing my European biases things sheltering under the name
and prejudices on my sleeve. ‘There of art as if under an umbrella. This
is something Eurocentric about entails that it is our aesthetic judge-
assuming that imperialism began ment, expressed liminally by the
with Europe,’ Gayatri Spivak writes sentence ‘this is art’, that draws the
at the end of the section of a chapter line and makes the difference (I’m
devoted to Kant in her Critique of not saying accounts for the differ-
Postcolonial Reason. Can it not be ence) between works of art and mere
said, with a similarly ironic twist, cultural goods. Works of art are the
that there is something Eurocentric outcome of aesthetic judgements
in assuming that cosmopolitanism, – the artist’s, in the first place, then
indeed born in Europe, therefore ours, members of the art community
remains foreign to other cultures? – whereas cultural goods are not, or
Glocalization demonstrates that this not necessarily.
is not the case, though not without Granted that glocal citizenship
casting doubt on the validity of invok- can be construed as the present-day
ing Kant. version of cosmopolitanism, the
question, then, where the art com-
Although it arises from within politi- munity is concerned, is how to con-
cal theory, the philosophical ques- ceive of aesthetic cosmopolitanism.
tion raised by the glocalization of the The neologism glocal, as I said, is a
art world via the proliferation of art symptom, a sign. It bridges a certain
biennials is mainly aesthetic. It has geographical hiatus by jumping from
to do with the difference we make the particular to the general. When
between works of art and cultural transferred to the aesthetic realm,
goods produced and/or presented however, the word glocal will not do.
under the umbrella of art – I mean, For aesthetic judgements imply the
the difference we ought to make if bridging of a far greater hiatus; they
we attach a value to the word art conflate two extremes much further
other than its economic or its enter- apart: they are at once singular and
tainment value. We may, of course, universal. If you allow me to forge a
refuse to make this difference, and neologism of my own: they are sin-
conventionally use the word art as guniversal. By singular, I mean more
mere registration of cultural prod- – or less, if you prefer – than that
ucts called art for convenience’s sake. they are uttered by individuals before
The point of my paper is to claim that individual works of art in individual
we would lose something essential in circumstances. The same work of art
doing that – something essential not repeatedly experienced by the same
to art, but to the human condition. person renews rather than repeats
We have a responsibility in drawing the experience, and may yield quite
a line between the things we judge different aesthetic appreciations. We
as deserving the name of art and the need not suppose the work of art to

be a stable entity, or the subject of What the phrase ‘this rose is beau-
the aesthetic experience to maintain tiful’ (or ugly) actually does is not
itself unchanged. We are dealing with ascribe objective beauty (or ugliness)
singularities: one-time events lived to the rose; rather, it imputes to the
through by one-time subjectivities. other – all others – the same feeling
Thus by singular, I mean something of pleasure (or pain) that one feels in
more unique and less extensive, more oneself. Similarly, what the phrase
local, if you want, than individuality. ‘this cultural product is art’ (or not
And by universal, I also mean more art) actually does is not ascribe the
– or less – than the extrapolation of objective status of art (or of non-art)
a generality from a particularity to to the cultural product in question;
the level of the global. I mean that rather, it imputes to the other – all
although aesthetic judgements are others – the same feeling of dealing
in no way actually shared by the glo- with art (or of not dealing with art)
bality of the world’s inhabitants, they that one feels in oneself. Whether it
claim to be valid for all. is A claiming that this rose is beauti-
In saying this, I am clearly wear- ful or this cultural product is art, or
ing my European biases, to wit, my B claiming that the rose is ugly or
Kantianism, on my sleeve again. It that the cultural product in question
is indeed my conviction that when it doesn’t deserve to be called art, their
comes to understanding what is at disagreement amounts to address-
stake for the human condition when ing each other thusly: you ought to
we utter aesthetic judgements, Kant feel the way I feel. You ought to agree
basically got it right. Whether aes- with me. Kant understood better than
thetic judgements express themselves anyone before or since that this call
by phrases such as ‘this rose is beau- on the other’s capacity for agree-
tiful’ (Kant’s favourite example) or ing by dint of feeling was legitimate.
‘this cultural product is art’, is irrel- What is ultimately at stake in an aes-
evant on that level. Kant restricted thetic judgement is neither the rose’s
what he called pure aesthetic judge- beauty nor the feeling it arouses; it is
ments to the realm of nature. For neither the cultural product’s art sta-
complex historical reasons (the tus nor the feeling that it is art; it is
‘death of God’ not the least among the agreement. The faculty of taste is
them), a transfer has occurred from not important in itself. It is important
the natural to the cultural and from inasmuch as it testifies to and identi-
beauty to art, so that ‘this is art’ has fies with a universally shared faculty
become the paradigmatic formula for of agreeing, which Kant called sensus
the liminal modern aesthetic judge- communis.
ment. But Kant’s lesson remains
unaltered when you read the Critique Kant’s sensus communis is not ordi-
of Judgement mentally replacing nary common sense; it is common
the word beauty with the word art. sentiment. Shared or shareable

feeling, and the faculty thereof. A love are the exception. But Kant felt
common ability for having feelings it was his duty as a philosopher to
in common. A communality or com- grant all humans the faculty of agree-
municability of sentiment, implying, whose Kantian names are taste
ing a definition of humankind as a and sensus communis. Regardless of
community united by a universally whether sensus communis exists as a
shared ability for sharing feelings. A fact, we ought to suppose that it does.
cosmopolitanism that is not founded Regardless of whether taste is a natu-
politically, but aesthetically, and on ral endowment of the human species
which it would be illegitimate to actu- – say, an instinct – or whether it is
ally found the cosmopolitan state, merely an idea, a mere idea, it is an
because an actual aesthetic commu- idea we cannot do without. In Kant’s
nity extending to all would be a mon- vocabulary, a mere idea we cannot
ster. For there is no proof that sensus do without is called a transcendental
communis exists as a fact, no proof at idea. From what he said in his Idea of
all. We cannot rely on the faculty of a Universal History from a Cosmopoli-
agreeing in order to construct civil tan Point of View, we gather that for
society. What exists as a fact is that him sensus communis was no more
we say such things as ‘this rose is than a transcendental idea, indeed.
beautiful’, or ‘this cultural product is Where instincts are concerned,
art’; that we say such things by dint we’d better assume that humans are
of feeling; and that we claim univer- wolves to each other: their wars are
sal assent for these feelings, whether waged on every terrain, the aesthetic
we know it or not. included. For it is clear that even on
Of course, humanity as a whole this terrain we don’t agree, neither
will never agree on such judge- on the beauty of roses nor on the art
ments. But that’s not required for status of cultural goods. Kant has
the phrase ‘this is beautiful’ or ‘this once and for all fathomed the depth
is art’ to be legitimate (I’m not say- of aesthetic disagreements among
ing true, I’m saying legitimate). All humans: they amount to nothing less
I need is to make the supposition than denying the other his or her
that my feeling is shareable by all. humanity, all the while appealing to
And that’s what I do suppose. That’s it. Hence his scepticism about sensus
what we all suppose, you and me, communis, and his conviction that it
everyone, when we make aesthetic nevertheless ought to be postulated,
judgements. The implied ‘you ought even in the absence of theoreti-
to feel the way I feel’ is what justifies cally demonstrable empathy in the
me in my claim, you in yours, and all human species.
our fellow human beings in theirs, The Kantian idea of sensus com-
even though there is not a hope in munis offers a transcendental – by
the world for universal agreement all means not an empirical – solution
among us. War is the rule, peace and to the antinomy of man’s ‘insociable

sociability’ in postulating that what take for granted that the exhibitions
constitutes humans in their com- we visit contain art simply because
mon humanity is the idea that they they are announced as exhibitions of
are able to live in peace with each art. What we would lose is a certain
other. The amazing thing is that he idea of universality that defines the
grasped that an issue of such magni- human condition by the supposition,
tude as peace on earth was at stake the mere supposition, that all human
in a statement as anodyne as ‘this beings are endowed with the faculty
rose is beautiful’. When replaced by of living in peace. We have a respon-
‘this cultural product is art’, the real sibility in drawing a line between
depth of his thinking on aesthetics the things we judge as deserving the
comes to the fore. name of art and the things sheltering
under the name of art as if under an
The philosophical question raised by umbrella. Admittedly, this respon-
the glocalization of the art world via sibility is mostly symbolic: it won’t
the proliferation of art biennials, as change your life much if you are an
I said before, has to do with the dif- occasional visitor to one or the other
ference we ought to make between biennial of contemporary art. It may
works of art and cultural goods pre- mean a lot, however, if you are among
sented under the umbrella of art, the organizers, if you are a critic
if we attach a value to the word art writing reviews, and more, still, if
other than its economic or its enter- you are a curator or an artist.
tainment value. Kant teaches us The mixed feelings I have about
that we ought to attach such a value the proliferation of art biennials
to the word art. This ought is the have little to do with the phenom-
quasi-moral obligation that makes enon as such, they have to do with
us ‘require from everyone as a duty, the way some of the works shown at
as it were, the feeling contained in art biennials confuse the aesthetic
a judgement of taste’ (Critique of cosmopolitanism art stands for with
Judgement, § 40). It is a very strange some cultural glocalism or other, and
ought, for we do make aesthetic deliberately use art as an umbrella
judgements all the time. We cannot under which to advance well inten-
help it: feelings of beauty or ugliness, tioned critical or political agendas
etcetera, are involuntary, automatic with, however, sometimes poor aes-
and, one might say, irresponsible. thetic results. I need not draw you
But what we are dealing with, here, the whole picture. You know that this
is not feelings of beauty or ugliness, is the trend in today’s art world, and
although they may intervene; it is the that it has many supporters in the art
resulting feeling that a given cultural establishment as well as in academia.
product deserves to be called art. The re-baptizing of art schools as
We would lose something essential visual culture departments, and the
to the human condition were we to erasure of the word art from their

curriculum in favour of cultural The singuniversal of the aesthetic
practice are symptoms. But there are judgment is a different kind of resist-
also symptoms or signs of resistance ance, which supposes two things: an
to this trend, sometimes even in the actual, committed practice of the fac-
head and in the actual practice of ulty of aesthetic judgement in pursuit
their best proponents. It is the arche- of the best quality in art, and some
typical double bind of today’s artists, sceptical, definitely non-utopian but
art teachers and theorists alike, to be nevertheless firm attachment to the
torn between the wilful denial of the realm of ideas. The singuniversal-
aesthetic and its return through the ity of our aesthetic judgements not
back door as uneasy feelings – most only jumps from the singular to the
often, alas, of guilt. The discourse of universal, it also bridges the hiatus
the anti-aesthetic has been dominant between the empirical and the tran-
for 30 years now, at least in the West. scendental – something the glocal
It has never succeeded in suppress- does not do. The glocal is entirely an
ing aesthetic feelings, but it has gone empirical concept. Struggles done
a long way to forbid their expression. in its name are important because
Kant-bashing is its favourite strategy as citizens we live in the empirical
(along with Greenberg-bashing, anti- world and must learn to manage the
formalism, and so on). ‘insociable sociability’ of our fellow
I am nevertheless convinced that human beings and ourselves. Without
anybody seriously interested in art the singuniversal, however, the glo-
has a sense that whereas all works of cal remains devoid of purposiveness.
art are definitely cultural goods, some Beyond freedom and justice, peace
are not reducible to cultural goods, on earth is the ultimate purpose of
and that these are the ones that mat- political action. Violence and aggres-
ter, the ones I would call, with an old- siveness are among the instincts
fashioned word, authentic works of our nature has equipped us with
art. Art and culture are not the same to achieve the purpose of peace via
thing. The line is drawn case by case devious ways. This is Kant’s thesis
by the singular aesthetic judgement in Idea of a Universal History from
in its claim to universality. Cultures, a Cosmopolitan Point of View. I find
in their variety, are a subject of com- it realistic, politically. Art is ridicu-
parative analysis for the anthropolo- lously powerless on the political
gist, but our global world has turned level. Its domain is the purposiveness
us all into amateur anthropologists without the purpose. It places its bets
of our own culture, in its global union sensus communis, the faculty of
formity. Glocalism is in that respect agreeing by dint of feeling, as if it
a manner of resistance to the hegem- were an instinct, knowing well that
onic world culture, which is of course the chances are great that it is merely
controlled by and exported from the an idea. My talk, I realize, is a plea for
hegemonic centres. empirical pessimism combined with

transcendental optimism, which is
why I embraced neither the optimis-
tic nor the pessimistic view of today’s
glocal art world. I am the observer
who reflects on the situation. But I
am a militant when I claim that there
is a difference between the expand-
ing glocal communities involved by
the various art biennials and the
singuniversal community demanded
by the aesthetic judgement when it is
uttered as ‘this is art’. The latter com-
munity is humanity itself, all of us.
This is the text of a talk

presented at the Via
Mumbai; Multiple Cultu-
res in a Globalizing World
international conference
that was held in February
2006 at the Mohile Parikh
Center for the Visual
Arts, Mumbai, India.
This text was previously
published in English in:
Third Text, vol. 21:6 (2007),
681-682 (with the permis-
sion of Taylor & Francis
Ltd, http://www.informa-
world.com).

Boris Groys This can be exposed
by examining it and
From Medium
analysing the role of
to Message
the artist and the
The Art Exhibition curator. The public
as Model of a space created by the
New World Order installation, and by
the biennial, is the
Art philosopher model for a new
Boris Groys sees the political world
art installation as a order.
way of making hid-
den reality visible.
The ambiguous
meaning of the
notion of freedom
that Groys observes
in our democratic
order is also present
in the contempo-
rary art installation.
 Open /No. /The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon
Today, art is frequently equated with among many other things, that it is
the art market, and the artwork is becoming increasingly difficult today
primarily identified as a commodity. to differentiate between the two main
That art functions in the context of figures of the contemporary art world
the art market and that every work of – the artist and the curator.
art is a commodity is beyond doubt. The traditional division of labour
But art is also made and exhibited for inside the art system was clear
those who do not want to be art col- enough. The artworks were produced
lectors – and they are the majority of by artists and then selected and exhib-
the art public. The typical exhibition ited by curators. But at least since
visitor rarely sees the exhibited art as Duchamp this division of labour has
a commodity. At the same time the collapsed. Today there is no longer
number of large-scale exhibitions, of an ‘ontological’ difference between
biennials and triennials, documentas making art and displaying art. In the
and manifestas, is constantly growing. context of contemporary art, to make
All these big exhibitions, in which so art means to show things as art. So
much money and energy is invested, the question arises: is it possible and,
are not made primarily for art buyers, if yes, how is it possible to differenti-
but for the large mass, for the anony- ate between the roles of artist and
mous visitor who will perhaps never curator when there is no difference
buy an artwork. Also, art fairs which, between art production and art exhi-
on the face of it, are meant to serve bition? Now I would argue that such
the art buyers are now being increas- a differentiation is still possible. And
ingly transformed into events in I would like to do so by analysing the
public space which also attract people difference between the standard exhi-
who have no interest or not enough bition and the art installation. A con-
money to buy art. The art system ventional exhibition is conceived as
thus is on the way to becoming part an accumulation of art objects which
of that mass culture that art has long are placed next to one another in the
been out to watch and analyse from a exhibition space to be viewed one
distance. It is becoming a part of mass after the other. The exhibition space
culture not as a production of indi- works in this case as an extension of
vidual pieces traded on the art mar- the neutral, public urban space – like
ket, but as an exhibition practice that a side alley, in fact, that the passer-by
combines with architecture, design may turn into if he or she has paid the
and fashion – as it was envisaged by admission fee. The movement of the
the pioneering minds of the avant- visitors through the exhibition space
garde, by the artists of the Bauhaus, remains similar to that of a passer-by
the Vkhutemas, and others as early walking down a street and watching
as in the s. Thus, contemporary the architecture of the houses left and
art can be understood primarily as right. It is by no means accidental that
an exhibition practice. That means, Walter Benjamin should construct
From Medium to Message 

his ‘Arcades Project’ around the anal- the object of the public’s judgment.
ogy between an urban stroller and However, one can say that curating
an exhibition visitor. The body of the works like a supplement, like a phar-
viewer in this case remains outside art: makon in the sense of Derrida in that
art takes place in front of the viewer’s it both cures the image and further
eyes – as an art object, a performance, contributes to its illness. This icono-
or a film. Accordingly, in this case clastic potential . Jacques Derrida Force de
loi (Paris: Editions Galilée,
the exhibition space is understood of curating was  [])
as being an empty, neutral, public initially directed
space. The exhibition space is here a against the sacral objects of the past
symbolic property of the public. The by presenting them as mere art objects
only function of such an exhibition in the neutral, empty exhibition
space is to make the art objects that spaces of the modern art museum
are placed in it easily accessible to the or Kunsthalle. In fact, it is curators,
gaze of the visitors. including museum curators, who
The curator administers this space originally produced art in the mod-
in the name of the public – and as a ern sense of this word. For the first
representative of the public. Accord- art museums – founded in the late
ingly, the curator’s role is to safeguard eighteenth and early nineteenth cen-
the public character of the exhibition turies and expanded in the course of
space – and at the same time to bring the nineteenth century due to impe-
the individual artworks into this pub- rial conquests and the pillaging of
lic space, to make them accessible to non-European cultures – collected all
the public, to publicize them. It is sorts of ‘beautiful’ functional objects
obvious that an individual artwork that were previously used for religious
cannot assert its presence by itself, rites, interior decoration, or the mani-
forcing the viewer to take a look at it. festation of personal wealth, exhibit-
It lacks the vitality, energy, and health ing them as works of art, that is, as
to do so. The work of art, it seems, defunctionalized autonomous objects
is originally sick, helpless – in order put up for the mere purpose of being
to see it, viewers have to be taken to viewed. All art originally is design
it just like hospital staff takes visitors – be it religious design or design of
to see a bed-ridden patient. It is no power. In the modern period, too,
coincidence that the word ‘curator’ design precedes art. Looking for mod-
is etymologically related to ‘cure’. To ern art in today’s museums, we have
curate is to cure. Curating cures the to realize that what is to be seen there
powerlessness of the image, its inabil- as art is, above all, defunctionalized
ity to show itself by itself. Exhibition design fragments, be it mass-culture
practice thus is the cure that heals design – from Duchamp’s urinal to
the originally ailing image, that is, Warhol’s Brillo box – or utopian
gives it presence, visibility – brings it design which – from Jugendstil to
to the public view and turns it into Bauhaus and the Russian avant-garde,
 Open /No. /The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

and on to Donald Judd – sought to in the same public space can be seen
give shape to the ‘new life’ of the as a denigration of this artwork. That
future. Art is design that has become is why in the course of modernity the
dysfunctional because the society that curator was considered mostly to be
provided its basis suffered a histori- somebody who keeps pushing himself
cal collapse, like the Inca Empire or between the artwork and the viewer –
Soviet Russia. and disempowering the artist and the
viewer at the same time. Hence the
Autonomous Art art market appears more favourable
to modernist, autonomous art than
In the course of the modern era, the museum or Kunsthalle. On the art
however, artists began to assert the market, works of art circulate singu-
autonomy of their art – understood in larized, decontextualized, uncurated,
the first place as autonomy from the which apparently gives them a chance
public opinion, from the public taste. for an unmediated demonstration of
The artists have required the right to their sovereign origin. The art market
make sovereign decisions regarding functions according the rules of the
the content and form of their art – potlatch as it was described by Mar-
beyond any explanation and justifica- cel Mauss and Georges Bataille. The
tion vis-à-vis the public. And they sovereign decision of an artist to make
were given this right – but only to a an artwork beyond any justification is
certain degree. The freedom to create trumped by the sovereign decision of
art according to one’s own sovereign a private buyer to pay for this artwork
will does not automatically guarantee an amount of money beyond any
the artist that his or her art will be comprehension.
also exhibited in public space. The An art installation, however, does
inclusion of any artwork into a pub- not circulate. Rather, it installs eve-
licly accessible exhibition must be – at rything that usually circulates in our
least potentially – publicly explained civilization: objects, texts, films, etcet-
and justified. Of course, artist, cura- era. At the same time it changes in a
tor and art critic are free to argue for very radical way the role and func-
the inclusion of some artworks or tion of the exhibition space. This is
against such an inclusion. However, because the installation operates by
every such explanation and justifica- symbolic privatization of the public
tion undermines the autonomous, space of exhibition. It may look like a
sovereign character of artistic free- standard, curated exhibition, but its
dom that modernist art has aspired space is designed according the sover-
to win. Every discourse legitimizing eign will of an individual artist who is
an artwork can be seen as an insult not supposed to publicly justify his or
to this artwork. Every inclusion of an her selection of the included objects
artwork in a public exhibition as only or organization of the installation
one among other artworks displayed space as a whole. The installation is
From Medium to Message 

frequently denied the status of a spe- selection and the mode of representa-
cific art form, because the question tion is here a sovereign prerogative of
arises what the medium of an instal- the artist alone. It is based exclusively
lation is. The traditional art media on his or her personal sovereign deci-
are all defined by a specific material sion that is in no need of any further
support: canvas, stone, or film. Now, explanation or justification. The art
the material support of the medium installation is a way to expand the
of the installation is the space itself. domain of the sovereign rights of the
That does not mean, however, that artist from the individual art object to
the installation is somehow ‘immate- the exhibition space itself.
rial.’ On the contrary, the installation And that means: the art installa-
is material par excellence, since it is tion is a space in which the difference
spatial – and being in the space is between the sovereign freedom of
the most general definition of being the artist and the institutional free-
material. The installation transforms dom of the curator becomes visible,
the empty, neutral, public space into immediately able to be experienced.
an individual artwork – and invites The regime under which art operates
the visitor to experience this space in our contemporary Western culture
as a holistic, totalizing space of this is generally understood as freedom
artwork. Anything included in such a of art. But the freedom of art means
space becomes a part of the artwork different things to a curator and to
only because it is placed inside this an artist. As it was already said, the
space. The distinction between art curator – including the so-called
object and simple object becomes independent curator – makes his or
insignificant here. Instead, what her choices ultimately in the name of
becomes crucial is the distinction the democratic public. Actually, to be
between marked installation space, responsible towards the public a cura-
and unmarked, public space. When tor does not need to be part of any
Marcel Broodthaers presented his fixed institution: the curator is already
installation entitled Musée d’Art Mod- an institution by definition. Accord-
erne, Département des Aigles at the ingly, the curator has the obligation
Düsseldorf Kunsthalle in , he put to publicly justify his or her choices
up a sign next to each exhibit saying: – and it can happen that the curator
‘This is not a work of art.’ As a whole, fails to do so. Of course, the curator
however, his installation has been con- is supposed to have the freedom to
sidered to be a work of art, and not present his or her argument to the
without reason. The installation dem- public. But this freedom of the public
onstrates a certain selection, a certain discussion has nothing to do with the
chain of choices, a certain logic of freedom of art understood as freedom
inclusions and exclusions. Here one of private, individual, subjective, sov-
can see an analogy to a curated exhibi- ereign artistic decisions – beyond any
tion. But it is precisely the point: the argumentation, explanation and justi-
 Open /No. /The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

fication. The sovereign decision of an political). And on the other hand the
artist to make art in this or that way open political discussion is time and
is generally accepted by the Western again interrupted by private, sovereign
liberal society as a sufficient reason to decisions of the political actors and
perceive this artist’s practice as legiti- manipulated by the private interests
mate. Of course, an artwork can also (here, on the contrary, the political
be criticized and rejected. But an art- becomes privatized).
work can be rejected only as a whole. The artist and the curator embody
It makes no sense to criticize any these two different kinds of freedom
particular choices, inclusions or exclu- in a very conspicuous manner: the
sions made by an artist. In this sense sovereign, unconditional, publicly
the total space of an art installation irresponsible freedom of art making
can be also rejected only as a whole. and the institutional, conditional,
To use the same example: nobody publicly responsible freedom of cura-
would criticize Broodthaers for hav- torship. And that means that the art
ing overlooked this or that particular installation in which the act of art
image of this or that particular eagle production coincides with the act of
in his installation. art presentation becomes a perfect
experimental terrain to reveal and
The Installation as a Testing Ground explore the ambiguity of the Western
notion of freedom – the ambiguity
So one can say that in our Western that lies at the core of this notion.
society the notion of freedom is Accordingly, in the past decades we
deeply ambiguous – and, of course, have seen the emergence of the inno-
not only in the field of art but also in vative curatorial projects that seem
the political field. In many domains of to empower the curator to act in an
social practice – such as private con- authorial, sovereign way. And we also
sumption, investment of one’s own see the emergence of artistic practices
capital, or choice of one’s own religion that want to be collaborative, demo-
– freedom is understood in the West cratic, decentralized, de-authorized.
as freedom to take private, sovereign Indeed, the art installation is often
decisions. But in some other domains, viewed today as an art form that
especially in the political field, free- allows the artist to democratize his or
dom is understood primarily as the her art, to take public responsibility,
freedom of public discussion guaran- to begin to act in the name of a cer-
teed by law – and thus non-sovereign, tain community or even of society as
conditional, institutional freedom. a whole. In this sense the emergence
But, of course, the private, sovereign of the art installation seems to mark
decisions are controlled in our socie- the end of the modernist claim to
ties to a certain degree by public opin- autonomy and sovereignty. The deci-
ion and political institutions. (We all sion of an artist to let the multitude
know the famous slogan: private is of visitors enter the space of his or her
From Medium to Message 

artwork, and to allow them to move Politeia
freely inside it, is interpreted as open-
ing the closed space of an artwork One can say that the installation
to democracy. The closed artwork’s practice reveals the act of uncondi-
space seems to be transformed into tional, sovereign violence that initially
a platform for public discussion, installs any democratic order. We
democratic practice, communication, know that: The democratic order was
networking, education, and so forth. never brought about in a democratic
But this analysis of the art installation fashion. Democratic order always
practice tends to overlook the act of emerges as an effect of a violent revo-
symbolic privatization of the public lution. To install a law means to break
space by the artist that precedes the one. The first legislator can never act
act of the opening of the installation in a legitimate manner. The legisla-
space to a community of visitors. As tor installs the political order but he
it was already said, the space of the or she does not belong to this order,
traditional exhibition is a symbolic remains external to this order, even if
public property – and the curator who he or she decides later to submit him-
manages this space acts in the name or herself to this order. The author
of public opinion. The visitor of a of an art installation is also such a
standard exhibition remains on his legislator that gives to the commu-
or her own territory – the visitor is a nity of visitors the space to constitute
symbolic owner of the space where all itself and defines the rules to which
the individual artworks are exposed, this community has to submit – but
delivered to his gaze and judgment. does not belong to this commu-
The space of an art installation, on the nity, remains outside of it. And that
contrary, is the symbolic private prop- remains true even if the artist decides
erty of the artist. Entering the installa- to join the community that he or she
tion space, the visitor leaves the public has created. This second step should
territory of democratic legitimacy not cause us to overlook the first one
and enters the space of sovereign, – the sovereign one. And one should
authoritarian control. The visitor is also not forget: after initiating a cer-
here, so to say, on foreign territory, tain order, a certain politeia, a certain
in exile. The visitor of an installation community of visitors, the installation
space becomes the expatriate who has artist has to rely on the art institu-
to submit him- or herself to a foreign tions to maintain this order, to police
law – to a law that is given to him or the fluid politeia of the installation’s
her by the artist. Here the artist acts visitors. Jacques Derrida meditates in
as a legislator, as a sovereign of the Force de loi on the role of the police
installation space – even and maybe in a state. The . See note .
especially so if the law that is given by police force is supposed to supervise
the artist to a community of visitors is the functioning of certain laws but de
a democratic law. facto it partially creates the rules that
 Open /No. /The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

it should merely supervise. Derrida as contradicting its democratic nature.
tries to show here that the violent, rev- Sovereign freedom is obviously non-
olutionary, sovereign act of the intro- democratic – and so it seems to be
duction of law and order can never be also anti-democratic. However, even
fully erased afterwards. To maintain a if it looks paradoxical at first glance,
law always also means to permanently sovereign freedom is a necessary pre-
reinvent and re-establish this law. This condition of the emergence of any
initial act of violence is recalled and democratic order. And again – the
remobilized again and again. And it is practice of art installation is a good
especially obvious in our times of vio- example confirming this rule. The
lent export, installation and securing standard art exhibition leaves an indi-
of democracy. One should not forget: vidual visitor alone – allowing him
the installation space is a movable or her to confront and contemplate
space. The art installation is not site- individually the exhibited art objects.
specific, it can be installed everywhere Such an individual visitor moves from
and at any time. And it should be no one object to another, but necessarily
illusion that there can be something overlooks the totality of the exhibi-
like a completely chaotic, Dadaistic, tion’s space, including his or her own
Fluxus-like installation space free of positioning inside this space. On the
any control. In his famous treatise contrary, an art installation builds a
‘Francais, encore un effort si vous community of spectators precisely
voulez etre republicain’, Marquis de because of the holistic, unifying
Sade presents a vision of a perfectly character of the installation space.
free society that has abolished all the The true visitor to the art installa-
repressive laws and installed only one tion is not an isolated individual but
law: everybody has to do what he a visitor collective. The art space as
or she likes, including committing such can only be perceived by a mass
crimes of any kind. Now it is espe- of visitors, a multitude, if you like,
cially interesting that De Sade states with this multitude becoming part
at the same time the necessity of the of the exhibition for each individual
law enforcement that has to prevent visitor – and vice versa. So one can
the reactionary attempts of tradition- say that the installation art practice
ally thinking citizens to return to the demonstrates the dependency of any
old repressive state in which family is democratic space on the private, sov-
secured and crime forbidden. So we ereign decisions of a legislator – or a
still need the police even if we want to group of legislators. It is something
defend the freedom of crime against that was very well known to the Greek
the reactionary nostalgia of the old thinkers of antiquity and also to the
repressive order. initiators of democratic revolutions
By the way, the violent act of con- – but somehow became suppressed
stituting a democratically organized by the dominant political discourse.
community should not be interpreted We tend – especially after Foucault –
From Medium to Message 

to detect the source of power in the we are immediately confronted with
impersonal agencies, structures, rules the ambiguous character of the con-
and protocols. However, this fixation temporary notion of freedom that
on the impersonal mechanisms of is understood in our democracies
power let us overlook the importance at the same time as sovereign and
of individual, sovereign decisions and institutional freedom. The art instal-
actions that taken place in private, lation is a space of unconcealment
heterotopic spaces – to use another (in the Heideggerian sense) of the
term introduced by Foucault. Mod- heterotopic, sovereign power that is
ern, democratic powers also have a concealed behind the obscure trans-
meta-social, meta-public, heterotopic parency of the democratic order.
origin. As it was already said, the art-
ist who has designed a certain installa- Biennials
tion space is an outsider to this space.
He or she is heterotopic to this space. Now the question arises how one can
The artist is an outsider in relation- interpret the aesthetic-political phe-
ship to the artwork. But the outsider nomenon of the biennial that can be
is not necessarily somebody who has seen as an arrangement of curated
to be included to be empowered. exhibitions and art installations. The
There is also empowerment by exclu- increasing success of the biennial as a
sion, and especially by self-exclusion. specific form of art presentation has
The outsider can be powerful precisely surely a lot to do with economical
because the outsider is not controlled motivations and considerations. The
by society, not limited in his sovereign biennial rhythm can be coordinated
actions by any public discussion, by with the rhythm of contemporary
any need of public self-justification. international tourism. The necessity
Accordingly, these reflections to come to a certain city annually
should not be misunderstood as a would be experienced by the visitors
critique of installation as an art form as a burden. On the other hand, after
by demonstrating its fundamentally three or four years one begins to forget
non-democratic, sovereign charac- why he or she found this or that city
ter. The goal of art is not to change so attractive. So the biennial rhythm
things – they are changing themselves reflects accurately enough the time
all the time anyway. Art’s function is, span between nostalgia and forgetting.
rather, to show, to make visible the But there is another, political reason
realities that are generally overlooked. for the biennial as an institution that
By taking aesthetic responsibility for is successful. It is common knowledge
the design of the installation space that the contemporary world is char-
the artist reveals the hidden sovereign acterized by the asymmetry between
dimension of the democratic order economic and political power: the
that politics mostly tries to conceal. capitalist market operates globally and
The installation is the space where the politics operates regionally. The
 Open /No. /The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

last global political project that oper-
ated on the same level as the global
market was communism. And it will
be awhile before the return of such a
global political project. At the same
time it is obvious that the asymme-
try between economy and politics is
damaging not only the possibilities
of emergence of a new global politi-
cal order but even the economical
order as it is. Capitalism is incapable
of establishing and securing its own
infrastructure, as the recent financial
crisis has shown yet again. Capitalism
needs a sovereign political power to be
able to function effectively. Earlier it
was an absolutist state – in the future
it could be a state of a new type. But
in any case, in the current situation
of transition to a new global political
order, the international art system is
a good terrain on which to envisage
and to install new projects of political
sovereignty – be they utopian, dysto-
pian or both. So every biennial can be
seen as a model of such a new world
order because every biennial tries to
negotiate between national and inter-
national, cultural identities and global
trends, the economically successful
and the politically relevant. Already,
the first biennial, the Venice Biennale,
tried to offer the public such a model
of a new global order. The results were
mostly embarrassing and in some
times – especially Fascist times – even
frightening. But at least there were
some results. And today, the biennials
are again the spaces where two closely
interconnected nostalgias are installed:
nostalgia of universal art and nostalgia
of universal political order.
From Medium to Message 

Simon Sheikh histories and connec-
tions are constantly
Marks of Distinction, produced. This
Vectors of Possibility condition of perma-
nent flux may mean
Questions for the that biennials can do
Biennial more than generate
capital.
In order to fathom
the real meaning
and opportunities of
biennials as a global
phenomenon, Scan-
dinavian critic and
curator Simon Sheikh
introduces the term
a politics of trans-
lation. Seen in this
light, the biennial is
a place where new
meanings, stories,
The collective symbolic capital versality that are 2. Judith Butler, Ernesto
Laclau and Slavoj Žižek,
which attaches to names and places wrought from the Contingency, Hegemony,
like Paris, Athens, New York, Rio de work of translation Universality (London: Verso,
2000), 178-179.
Janeiro, Berlin and Rome is of great itself.2
import and gives such places great
economic advantages relative to, say, In a dialogue on the notion of universal-
Baltimore, Liverpool, Essen, Lille and ity, American Philosopher Judith Butler
Glasgow. The problem for these lat- has suggested that we understand this
ter places is to raise their quotient concept in the plural and conflictual,
of symbolic capital and to increase and that the political task thus becomes
their marks of distinction to better to establish what she calls practices of
ground their claims to the unique- translation.3 This is 3. Ibid.
ness that yields monopoly rent. Given not, however, a matter of translating the
the general loss of other monopoly particular into the universal, in order to
powers through easier transport and make it politically salient or effective,
communications and the reduction of but rather that the universal is always
other barriers to trade, the struggle for a particular, competing universal. The
collective symbolic capital becomes universal is not anterior to the particu-
even more impor- 1. David Harvey, Spaces lar, and commonalities and overlaps can
tant as a basis for ofRoutledge,
Capital (New York:
2001), 405. be found within such competing notions
monopoly rents.1 of universality, and thus also among
various political movements and groups
If the spectrally human is to enter into through acts of translation without tran-
the hegemonic reformulation of univer- scendence. Movement here takes on a
sality, a language between languages double significance, partly in the sense
will have to be found. This will be no of concrete social movements with
metalanguage, nor will it be the condi- political aims, and 4. The notion of a ‘politics of
translation’ indicates a shift
tion from which all languages hail. It partly, and more from, as well as affinity with,
will be the labour of transaction and abstractly, as the what Michel Foucault termed
‘the politics of truth’. But
translation which belongs to no single movement between where the politics of truth
site, but is the movement between lan- moments and sites has to do with a questioning
of authority, and a wish for
guages, and has its final destination in of political contes- being governed in a different
way, politics of translation
this movement itself. Indeed, the task tation and articula- seems to confront different
will be not to assimilate the unspeak- tion, which can be regimes of truth, the ways in
which truth is produced.
able into the domain of speakability in named a politics of
order to house it there, within the exist- translation.4
ing norms of dominance, but to shatter Now, the question I would like to
the confidence of dominance, to show raise is whether the contemporary forms
how equivocal its claims to universality of the biennial can be considered one
are, and, from that equivocation, track such site, and what movements can be
the break-up of its regime, an opening traced through and around them? In
towards alternative versions of uni- other words, what is to be translated,
Marks of Distinction, Vectors of Possibility 69

and through which method of transla- and indeed most of them do not make
tion? Obviously, the theory and history claims for world art, but rather for a
of translation in conjunction with cul- regional, cultural particularism (with
ture is highly contested, and it is not my universalist elements), be it in Havana
aim to reiterate these intellectual debates or the Whitney Museum in NYC, or the
here, but only to point to one singular ever-shifting locale of the Manifesta in
dichotomy in translation, that of the Europe. While this might be the pre-
original and copy, and to suggest what it dominant alteration of Venice, there is
could mean in a geopolitical sense. The also the brief of bringing the world of
most widespread version of translation art to a particular place, in effect trans-
indicates a relation between an original lating the international to the local(s),
text in an original language, and a copy be it in Berlin, Istanbul or São Paulo,
that translates this text into a secondary or, specifically so, the poignantly named
language, leading to choices of fidelity, Peripheria biennial in Iasi. Finally,
to either the original and the transfer of there are the biennials that make claims
its meaning as accurately as possible, or for a specific kind of art, for a certain
to the new, secondary language and its medium as nation, one could say, such
specificity. In this theory, there is always as the Liverpool biennial and the Berlin
something that is untranslatable, and Transmediale, among a few others.
which requires literary skills of equiva- We are thus not exclusively deal-
lence on the part of the translator. It is ing with a culture of the copy, but
also a theory, and practice, of translation with deviation and hybridity as well as
that has colonialist implications in terms repetition and simulation, with differ-
of site, privileging the originality of ent notions of fidelity. Biennials find
European culture in opposition to all the themselves in an unregulated and infor-
colonial copies. mal system, that is, paradoxically, both
rhizomatic and hierarchical. Although
The ‘Originality’ of the Biennial they are directed towards several van-
tage points and spheres of interests,
In terms of biennials, the original to be their meaning and placement can only
copied and exported is the biennial in be seen from one place at a time. They
Venice, held 52 times since 1895, and may make up one place after another
based on the concept of national pavil- for an, again, loosely defined and organ-
ions, that is, with national (self)repre- ized group of art professionals, but for
sentation, with each nation sending their most regular visitors, their recurrence
best and brightest artist(s). The Venice is time based, if not timely. In this case,
Biennale exists as a sort of Olympic they are more likely to be read in terms
Games of the art world, complete with a of the previous versions of the specific
first prize. However, it should be imme- biennial and its scope, choice of artists,
diately noted that most of the biennials curators, venues and so on, rather than
that have emerged all around the world an international circuit and communi-
since then have not followed this model, cation of exhibitions and articulations.

While the exhibition format remains growth of new biennials, especially
the main vehicle for the presentation of in Southeast Asia, it is becoming an
contemporary art, this does not mean increasingly competitive environment in
that the exhibition is a singular format which to vie for international attention,
with a given public and circulation which affects designated centres and
of discourse. Rather, the notion of an peripheries as well.
exhibition is to be understood in the Take the aforementioned Docu-
plural, with different types of exhibi- menta, although not a biennial in the
tions speaking from different locations proper sense of the word, it has, since
and positions, with different audiences its inception in 1957, taken a different
and circulations indicated and impli- route than the Venice Biennale, rather
cated, from the self-organized student than the Olympic model of national
show in a small provincial town to the competition, Documenta tried to make
larger (inter)national biennials that are a statement about the state of art. That
the topic of this essay. What they share, is, a transnational survey of the most
and this is especially true of biennials, dominant trends within contemporary
is a double sense of public and public- art at the given moment. Movement was
ity: the local, physically present (if only understood as artistic movement, and
potentially) audience and the imaginary was originally dedicated to twentieth-
constituency and professional field of century avant-garde art in a re-education
the art world (if only potentially). There of the German people after the Second
is, in the landscapes of biennials, not World War, and as part of an assessment
only the original and the copy, the devi- of Western-German democratic ideals
ant and the hybrid, but also always a in opposition to its Eastern, commu-
here and an elsewhere. nist Other. Its brief has naturally then
Biennials are placed within an eco- changed since the fall of communism
system as well as an economic system in Europe, and indeed the last three ver-
of exhibitions (and exhibition venues) sions, Documenta 10 through 12, have
in geopolitical terms. They do not com- attempted to redefine the idea of a world
mand the same immediate attention exhibition of art and address the idea of
internationally, despite the number of a globalized world by showing art from
(local) visitors. More people visit the all corners of the world as opposed to
biennial in Mercosul in Porto Alegre focussing on Western Europe and the
than do the Documenta in Kassel, for USA. However, Documenta’s centrality
example, but historical importance in and discursiveness have simultaneously
the art world, geographical placement been challenged by the many new bien-
and media attention all play a role in the nials, both in its vicinity and around
significance of a biennial’s standing and the world, and it remains to be seen if it
influence as well. In short, a biennial can maintain its importance and place
builds up a brand, as well as an audi- at the top of the hierarchy in the future,
ence and a constituency, both locally both in terms of discourse, attention
and internationally. And with the recent and economy.

Biennials and Monopoly Rent only producer of a certain commodity
in a regional economy, or through the
More and more, a biennial has to cre- uniqueness of the brand in a more glo-
ate a niche market, a specific identity, bal economy. The example given is the
reputation and prestige that can place wine trade, where an exclusive vineyard
it on the map of the world and the art can both sell its wines as commodities,
world alike. And this placement may but also itself; the land, resource and
be vastly different, and might even location. Historically, a producer of
require speaking different languages wine or beer could gain monopoly rents
and in two tongues. On the one hand in its region or area by simply being the
there is the circulation of discourse of only brand available, but in a global and
the international art world, with its sys- globalized market, the product has to
tem of competing universalities, as well have some sort of local uniqueness in
as a competition for symbolic capital, order to be tradable outside its region
market shares and monopolies, and on and in order to compete over market
the other the local political and eco- shares with other brands being imported
nomic demands for cultural significance into its region. It has to achieve a sym-
and supremacy: the uniqueness of this bolic quality besides its actual taste in
culture, this country, this place. The order to generate revenues, therefore
uniqueness of a particular place and cul- the wine merchants in the Bourdeaux
ture is not only a question of national- region have copyrighted the use of the
ism and of nation building, though, but name ‘Chateau’ and only the producers
is also a means of establishing a niche of sparkling wine in the Champagne
market and attracting an international region can now legally call its products
audience, to generate cultural capital ‘champagne’. Here we are dealing with
as well as increased revenues through a culturalization of commodities as
(art) tourism. Biennials are, in this way, much as the commodification of culture.
part of the experience economy, with However, there are also other factors
the whole experience of the city and the involved in the wine market, specialist
exhibition being the commodity rather publications and international com-
than the singular works of art, as is, pre- petitions give value judgments based
sumably, the case with art fairs. merely on taste rather than origin, sud-
In his book Spaces of Capital, social denly bringing wine from, say, South
geographer David Harvey has analysed Africa, Chile or Australia to the fore,
the relationship between globalization, and then there is, naturally, a competi-
city marketing and the commodification in terms of price, which compared
tion of culture through the Marxian to the specialist judgments of taste
category of ‘monopoly rent’. Monopoly creates a consciousness of value for
rent occurs when a producer can gener- money among potential consumers in a
ate a steady increase of surplus and thus global market.
income over time through exclusivity. Hopefully, the parallels to the art
This is achieved either by being the world, and market, are obvious. Here,

we also have historical centres, in a and attributions, in this specific place,
biennial context places such as Venice city, region and country. The branding
and Kassel, but also new, emergent of the biennial is thus twofold: partly
players around the world, most lately the city as attraction and allure giving
and massively in Southeast Asia. Also, context and value to the biennial, and
we have the judges of taste in the form partly the glamour and prestige of the
of critics and magazines, as well as a biennial branding and upgrading the
competition on price and uniqueness in otherwise non-descript or even nega-
terms of locality. Venice obviously has tive image of the city, region or country.
the history, not only of its biennial, but In this scenario, it is only logical that
also of its city, giving it an incredibly most biennials today are taking on a – at
strong brand and attraction. Secondly, least – dual purpose, both highlighting
it has a centrality in terms of location, the uniqueness of the particular place or
certainly within the art world, but also, region and its culture, as a way of culti-
from a European perspective, in terms vating the national audience and attract-
of geography. All these factors clearly ing an international one, and bringing
outweigh the fact that the city is very international artists and positions to the
expensive for travellers. Other cit- local situation, cultivating the national
ies, like, say, São Paulo, are obviously citizens as international consumers and
cheaper to be in for the art tourist, but connoisseurs of culture: the lure of the
more expensive to travel to from most local meets the glamour of the global. In
places, both in Europe and the USA, not other words, biennials do not only situ-
to mention Asia. Indeed, the São Paulo ate a place, but they also always estab-
biennial was originally based on the lish a connection, and herein lies their
same principles of national pavilions as potentiality.
Venice, which also made each nation
participating financially responsible, but Interconnectedness
has recently abandoned this model, pre-
sumably due to its decreasing symbolic Indeed, one of the most widespread
value and credibility in the art world complaints about contemporary bien-
as such. Perhaps this format is a bit too nials is their lack of connection to the
crude within the global (art) economy? ‘local’ audience, but this often takes
Instead, biennials have to brand the form of a positivity of the social:
themselves differently and specifically that social relations and identities in a
in order to achieve not only cultural specific context are given and whole,
hegemony, but also to extract monopoly if not holy, that the local audience is a
rent, in terms of both symbolic and singular group with essential qualities
real capital. They must be, on the one and shared agencies. This is a residue
hand, recognizable as a certain for- of the myth-making of the nation state
mat, a festival of art, and, on the other and its production of citizenry through
hand be specific, this biennial, not that cultural means, such as exhibitions and
one. With these specific properties institutions, and hardly seems adequate

in the postmodern and post-public con- subjects with history and geography.
dition, where identities are, at least, Our places of dwelling and of action
hybrid and agencies multiple, and even are also always related to other places,
contradictory and schizoid. It is, rather, whether visible or invisible, present
a question of how a biennial produces, or absent. What goes on ‘here’ always
or attempts to produce, its public(s) that has effects ‘there’, and vice versa, even
must be analysed and criticized. One when we are not aware of these move-
must ask what assumptions of place ments. This is, of course, the current
and participation are at work, what global condition, and art today must
notions of subjectivity, territoriality and reflect this double sense of place, public
citizenship are invoked. And one must and non-public, presence and absence,
ask in what way participation is valued the visible and the invisible. Any sense
in terms of cultural consumption and of locality always involves a here and
legitimation. Additionally, the ‘lack of an elsewhere: a constant movement
local sedimentation’ argument tends to between centeredness and marginality,
overlook the potential biennials actually be it in aesthetic, geographical or eco-
offer for reflection on the above-men- nomic terms, and one of the character-
tioned double notion of publicness: the istics of advanced art is precisely that it
local audience and the international, and allows one to see more than one view-
the art world and the world. The poten- point: more than one story or situation,
tial to not only address presumed exist- and more than one way to look at them.
ing audiences, both locally and in terms Any locality, regardless of its self-
of art-world credibility and circulation, image, is connected to other places
but also to create new public formations in subtle and often unexpected ways:
that are not bound to the nation-state or what is produced here is consumed
the art world. By being recurrent events, there, what is seen there is invisible
both locally placed and part of a circuit, here and so on. This is also the situation
they have the potential to create a more for biennials: they find themselves in
transnational public sphere, with both an art-world system of exhibitions and
difference and repetition in the applied festivals (public formations), as well as
mode of address and implied notion of in an international economy of desire.
spectatorship and public participation. But how is this made visible to a local
Moreover, location is to be under- community, and how is it relevant to
stood in the sense of interconnected- the experiences of the audience, both
ness: this means that we do not only inside and outside the exhibition, as
connect through the public formation well as before and after the exhibition?
of the event of the biennial and the The question is what our relationship is
encounter with the artworks, but also to different spaces, and, moreover, how
that any place is always seen in rela- continuity is established and made pro-
tion to another place, or a series of ductive in a biennial setting. It is there-
possible places. We view other places fore not only a matter of what a biennial
through the prism of our own place, as can give, or give back, to its community

and constituency, but also what kinds of This has, then, not only to do with rep-
community and constituency it can pro- resentation in the form of artworks and
duce, put into play or suspension. The the (geopolitical) selection of artists,
relationship between the artworks and but also with public programming and
the audience created by the exhibition exhibition design. One can, for instance,
is one of positionality, and as such the try to imagine and implement ways of
position of the speaker is something that showing and seeing within an exhibition
must be made visible by the exhibition design that do not follow the histori-
and its ways of display. The biennial cal, apparently neutral museum display
is not only a container of artworks, but of the white cube – hiding its political
also a mass medium in itself, and must positioning of the works and the view-
as such establish a social space, that is, ers – and rather attempt spatializations
a place where meanings, narratives, his- that make such positions more visible
tories, conversations and encounters are and locational.
actively produced and set in motion. A One of the ways to achieve this is
place where connections are made and historization: interconnectedness in
unmade, subjectified and suspended. In time. Exhibition-making has certain
other words: politics of translation. historical forms of display, and a part of
biennial enterprise could be to focus on
Translation and Location historical forms of exhibition making,
an exhibition on exhibitions. Exhibi-
Translation is here to be understood in tions are, to paraphrase Walter Zanini,
multiple ways, not only between origi- ‘micro-cosmoses of the possible’,
nal and copy, primary and secondary and as such directly connected to our
culture, also not only geographically, political imaginary: what is possible
that is, between different places, but and impossible, visible and invisible,
also as locational, as taking place in- to be done and not to be done, and so
situ. However, it would also be too lim- on. Biennials are not only part of the
ited and limiting to merely understand present, but also always the past, in
translation as a pedagogical exercise of forms of the previous editions of the
explaining works and their contexts to particular biennial itself, art history in
different audiences and groups. Rather, general and, naturally, the history of the
translation must be understood within place, with its contestations of space,
the transposition of forms of language, cultural hegemonies, forgetting and
that is be understood in terms of exhi- remembrance of struggles past. And by
bition display, or what I have called immediately inscribing itself with art
modes of address, which is the institu- history and processes of marketability
ent practice of exhibition-making – its and canonization of the artists included
placing of objects and subjects within as well the institution of the biennial
a framing and a 5. Simon Sheikh (ed.), In the itself, it is always an investment in
Place of the Public Sphere?
horizon, a world (Berlin: b_books, 2005). the future: a statement about art (and
and a worldview.5 thus specific artists and practices) is an

attempt to achieve hegemony, not just The option of getting a new citizenship
instantly, but even more so in the short obviously varies greatly depending on
and long run. the country. However, as we know from
This connection with history, or with the nationalist debates that have swept
the making and unmaking of history Europe for the last decade, citizenship
and its relation to our view of the world, in legal terms does not equate citizen-
our horizon of possibilities and impos- ship in cultural terms. And even though
sibilities, connects to an important nodal cultural terms of national identity are
point, the sense of place and the situa- arguably of a symbolic nature, they are
tion of exile. These terms may seem to perceived and discussed – culturalized
be strange bedfellows, especially within – as real. To have Danish citizenship,
the context of art and culture, and its for example, does not necessarily make
privileging of place, location, site and you a ‘real’ Dane, thus the distinction
specificity. Today, our sense of place has in media reports and debates between
as much to do with that place’s connec- ‘Dane’ and ‘Danish Citizen’, with the
tion to other places, be they possible or former being the real Dane. This can, of
impossible, permeable or incommensu- course, be even more fine-tuned when
rable, perceivable or invisible, as with talking about a specific region or city:
the originality of the place. Places exist there may be several different people,
through connections, within the global even of the same colour and creed,
flows of objects and subjects, rules and living in a place, but the ‘real’ _____
(de)regulations. We can thus only sense (insert your place/identity of choice
a place through other places, albeit only here) are the ones who were born here.
from one place at the time. But we also A sense of place known as roots, indi-
move from place to place, geographi- cating an organic relationship to the
cally and politically, within larger glo- place. However, as mentioned before,
bal flows of migration. So, how exactly we are, regardless of origin and cur-
does one belong to a place, a culture rent location, rarely in a position of full
and a language, both as a cultural pro- coherence and identity, but rather selves
ducer and consumer? Who can speak in the making, and on the move.
for a place, or even speak the place? Is
it the ‘local’ artist and/or community, Ways of Travelling, Ways of Seeing
for instance, or is it, conversely, the spe-
cialist cultural producer dealing in inter- To be on the move is, naturally, one
vention and/or site-specific strategies? of the characteristics of the much-
These questions have both concrete maligned star curators and artists of the
and abstract answers, but always in international biennial circuit. But exper-
terms of time rather than space. Politi- tise is also implied through method, and
cally, citizenship is either something through commitment over time: how
you are born with, or something that is long has a curator or artist spent in a
acquired after living legally in a given place? How deep is their work? Even
country for a certain number of years. though this can be measured in terms

of time, such a measure is ultimately why a major theme in contemporary
meaningless in terms of assessment and art production should be an uncertainty
judgment, obviously, but also in terms of place, not only geographically, but
of critique and potentiality. Rather, we also socially: who has access to which
should look at what connections are spaces, both generally and locally?
made and unmade: what sense of place Access should not only be understood
is analysed through the prism of which in terms of physicality, but also sym-
other places? Hence, the situation of bolically and culturally. When thinking
exile, both inside and outside of one’s about the politics of translation implied
given nation or society. Exile is not just in the contemporary biennials, one
a matter of leaving a nation geographi- must think in relations of difference and
cally, be it voluntarily or involuntarily, contextuality, and the fragmentation of
but also leaving it conceptually and the public sphere (including a fragmen-
politically, that is, an exodus from the tation of the art world), and what this
current state of affairs, from the state of means transnationally. One must look at
the state, as it were, again both voluntar- connections and lines of flight between
ily and involuntarily. It is no coincident, different points of departure and arrival.
I believe, that Giorgio Agamben titled Such theorizing could perhaps be
his Italian diary of 1992-1994 In This employed as a form of actualization;
Exile, writing as an Italian in Italy, but realizing, imagining, representing and
somehow outside of the current hegem- communicating that which is possible,
ony, both politically and culturally.6 but has not yet been implemented.
Everybody is, surely, involved in some This also applies to the discussion
sort of movement – 6. Giorgio Agamben, ‘In of a decentralization and/or globaliza-
even when staying This Exile (Italian Diary
1992-94)’, in: Means With- tion of the art world and its biennials.
still geographically, out Ends (Minneapolis: Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press,
Rather than viewing biennials and
one might be mov- 2000), 121-142. mega-exhibitions as essential categories
ing ahead, or up or down, socially and having fixed representations and impli-
economically. But we do not all travel cations, I would suggest this contextual
in the same class and according to the and relational view on them. They offer
same itinerary, nor even with similar a stage, surely, but one does not have to
destinations, or, for that matter, desti- follow the script. That is, we can look at
nies. Some are sidelined to the margins, their specific placement and relation to
others exiled on main street, but every- their surroundings, each other and the
body is in some sense displaced: where general circulation of discourse through
one comes from and where one is, or is the art world. What is, for instance,
going, is no longer the same place, nei- the relationship between site-specific
ther in terms of time nor geography, and art projects and the notion of the local,
one can never go home again. Our sense the relationship between site-specific
of belonging and place are, in this way, projects and tourism, and, finally,
becoming more and more conceptual between tourism and migration? Often
and relational. It is therefore obvious site-specific projects not only bring a

cultural value to remote areas, and inter- ing interchangeability of participating
act with the local in a displacement of artists without any shifts of significa-
art from the centres to the margins, but tion. Perhaps, then, interconnected-
they also bring financial rewards to the ness should be foregrounded over the
site in terms of increased tourism. And uniqueness of place? Perhaps we should
the same can of course be stated about think in what Sathya Rao, a network
international biennials and other recur- scientist from India, has called ‘Non-
rent mega-exhibitions. But the notion Colonial translation’, and its non-homo-
of tourism should not be separated geneous and even chaotic space without
from another form of travel that brings residues of the colonial original, and
about cultural exchange and interaction, without any unifying textual-ontological
that is, migration. The differentiation plane of reference?7 In this way art and
between these two kinds of travel not its institutions can 7. Sathya Rao, ‘From a Post-
only indicates the content of these forms become public plat- colonial to a Non-colonial
Theory of Translation’,
of travel, but also their contexts; tourism forms that relate not in: Naoki Sakai and Jon
Solomon (eds.), Transla-
indicates legalized travel and spending, only to a more or tion, Biopolitcs, Colonial
usually from richer countries to other less centralized art Difference (Hong Kong:
Hong Kong University Press,
rich countries and/or poor countries. world, but also to 2006), 73-94.
Tourism equals income and enlighten- other fields of knowledge and modes of
ment, consumption and information – production in a society that seems more
just like in a biennial. Migration, on the and more specialized and fragmented,
other hand, is nowadays mostly illegal, thus creating several public, semi-public
and usually viewed as unwelcome as it and even counter-public spheres within
is unprofitable and culturally alien. One the existing ones. From such formulated
only has to watch the literal fence on the platforms we can relate to other spaces
US side of the US-Mexican border, or the and spheres, indicating that bienni-
establishment of an internal open mar- als are not predominantly to be seen
ket in Europe while its external borders, as utopias, but rather as heterotopias,
especially against North Africa and the capable of maintaining several contra-
Middle East, are increasingly guarded dictory representations within a single
and closed, turning the European Union space. Obviously, biennials are part of
into a European Fortress. (inter)national cultural hegemonies as
Global flows are not only voluntary, well as city-branding and the creation
as art tourism supposedly is, but also of monopoly rents, but that does not
brought about by the same structures mean that they can only represent these
and strictures of global capitalism that features, or that they can only affirm
produce the demand for city-branding them. Indeed, they can question them by
and the surge towards monopoly rent. highlighting them, as well as by creat-
The art world, for instance, is not so ing other possible connections, other
much multicultural, as it is multicen- ways of concepts for stranger sociability
tred, hence the global spread of the and senses of place and placement. It
biennial phenomena, but also the seem- is improbable that a biennial can exist

without taking part in such processes
of capital accumulation (both sym-
bolic and real, of course), so the ques-
tion is rather, can they do something
else simultaneously? That is, can they
produce something other than merely
more symbolic-turned-real capital for
the involved cultural producers, cura-
tors and artists alike, something else in
terms of interconnected global political
transaction and translation? While bien-
nials remain spaces of capital, they are
also spaces of hope.

Brian Holmes presented there, he
discovers possibili-
The Interscale ties to imbue this
transcontinental
Art after exchange with new
Neoliberalism meaning on various
scale levels.
Now that neoliber-
alism seems to be in
decline, Brian
Holms wonders
what this will mean
for the emergence
of Asian biennials.
In reference to the
concept of the sixth
Taipei Biennial –
undeniably a
neoliberal strong-
hold – and a few of
the works of art
You enter a typical white cube, with four ter, to hedge against the risks of equally
evenly spaced rectangles on the wall in sophisticated mathematical models.
front of you. One is an ordinary window The Sixth Taipei Biennial, curated
looking at the world outside. Another by Manray Hsu and Vasif Kortun, was
is a video monitor with a recording of a show of political art from around the
the view. The two remaining screens world, including a core group of directly
oscillate between bright colours – pink, activist works. The exhibition focused on
blue, yellow – and scenes of a woman’s ‘a constellation of related issues arising
hands with polished red fingernails, from neo-liberal capitalist globalization
deliberately cutting out pieces of some as seen in Taipei and internationally’.
black plastic material. There is a sound- I arrived on 12 September, amid the first
track: ambient bustle, as though you gales of the typhoon. The following day
were waiting for an office worker to pick all the public buildings in the city were
up a dangling phone. Words appear on closed for the storm, and the panel on the
the screen: So, I just want to know about present situation of international bien-
uncertainty . . . and knowledge . . . and if nials was cancelled. The Internet was
everything can be calculated and known? full of stories about Lehman Brothers,
And now you begin to hear a voice, which collapsed that weekend, and AIG,
speaking about mathematical models which went into government receivership
and what insurance agents do for a liv- just a few days later. Our cancelled panel
ing. ‘The less we know, the higher the was held that evening in the lobby of the
risk. Risk always has a price, of course,’ hotel, with the artists and the curators,
explains a specialist. The work, Esti- plenty of free-flowing drink and gusts
mations (2008) by Katya Sander, is a of rain that kept blowing through the
series of disembodied conversations swinging glass door. ‘We came here for an
with anonymous 1. Documentation of this exhibition about neoliberalism,’ I said as
work, and of all those suc-
interlocutors, about cessively mentioned, can be an opener. ‘But that Utopia is over! Neo-
the calculability found along with complete liberalism is dead. Now we have to wake
information about the Sixth
of disaster and its Taipei Biennial at http:// up to the world of regions.’ Controversy
www.taipeibiennial.org.
uncertainties.1 ensued until late in the night, a fantas-
Outside the window, a typhoon lashes tic discussion in the eye of the storm.
the distant trees. The woman’s hands What I’d like to do here is to revisit that
assemble a black box with four rectangu- glimpse of the past and the future.
lar windows: a scale model of the room
you’re in. Halfway around the world, on Gilded Era
Wall Street, a financial maelstrom topples
a huge investment bank, then threatens What exactly was neoliberalism? Pro-
the insurance giant AIG. Its derivatives jected on an entire wall, Mieke Ger-
unit, located in the City of London, ritzen’s typographic film Beautiful World
had specialized in credit-default swaps: (2006) served as a manifesto for the
sophisticated mathematical models Taipei Biennial. It’s a hilarious piece of
assembled in the black box of a compu- graphic nihilism. One scene shows the
The Interscale 83
continents merging into a compact mass, with the latest communications devices
what the geographers call ‘Pangaea’. and able to determine the outcome of
For the Dutch designer, neoliberalism world affairs by decisions that always
is the Transcendent Blender that makes made them money. 2. David Westbrook, City
the world one. In another sequence the Westbrook calls this ofGlobal
Gold: An Apology for
Capitalism in a Time
theme of Jesus Christ, Superstar! rings transnational polity of Discontent (New York:
Routledge, 2004).
out against rows of famous faces, spin- the ‘City of Gold’.2
ning around like fruits in a slot machine: The constitution of the City acceler-
King Tut, John Wayne, George Bush, Bin ated in the 1970s, when post-war invest-
Laden, Hu Jintao, the Dalai Lama, Grace ment barriers were broken down and
Jones, the Mona Lisa . . . It all lines up floating exchange rates were introduced
on Mickey in the end. Elsewhere in the between major currencies. The deregu-
film, a block of text displays these shift- lation affected America itself, though it
ing statements: ‘Religion: In God We remained at the centre of the system.
Trust / Politics: In Formation We Trust Around this time two significant things
/ Economics: Information We Trust.’ occurred. One was that Western bankers
But that last holy dogma has finally come began to recycle excess capital – par-
into question. ticularly petrodollars – into Third World
Neoliberalism was a reformulation of loans for gigantic modernization projects
classical economic liberalism after the that very often failed. The International
Great Depression and the Second World Monetary Fund stepped in to impose
War. The keywords were global curren- its austerity plans, effectively taking
cies, free trade, direct foreign investment over governments in exchange for more
and financial markets. What it was not lending. Meanwhile in Latin America,
about was sovereign nations. In a bril- dictatorships arose to destroy socialist
liant study, David Westbrook shows how development programs, in order to open
the architects of the Bretton-Woods the borders for capital investment from
accords in 1944, then of the European the USA. When the governance of the
Economic Community in the 1950s, City emerged in broad daylight, it did not
set out to establish a system of purely appear as a glittering tower on a hill, but
financial governance that would make instead as poverty from the barrel of a
the peoples of the world interdependent, gun. Neoliberalism was first perceived as
thus rendering the national rivalries of a nightmare.
the two World Wars obsolete. It was sup- After 1989, the City of Gold provoked
posed to be the end of history. The tools some very different changes. The end of
of the transformation were complex the Communist system opened borders,
monetary treaties, deliberately impen- not just to money and goods but to vast
etrable to all but specialists. The result, flows of people. Free trade and foreign
after 30 years of work in the shadows, direct investment became the drivers
would be a far-flung community of of development, alleviating poverty for
bankers, brokers, corporations, regula- hundreds of millions. At the same time
tors and private investors, equipped the Internet emerged, extending to the

global middle classes the kind of com- promoters using art to put themselves
munications that had formerly been on the world map has brought serious
reserved for denizens of the City. Travel critique, accusing global biennials of
costs dropped, migrant workers were cultural imperialism. In a memorable
hired everywhere, tourism became com- text, Elena Filipovic claimed that despite
monplace and millions of people began their mandate to represent a specific
dreaming of a better life in a brand new place, and despite their inherent differ-
world. The violence of the early years – ences from museums in terms of funding,
which hadn’t necessarily ceased – merged organization and temporality, bienni-
together with its dreamlike opposite, als have not created a new context for
producing the postmodern paradoxes of artistic practice in the processual life of
Mieke Gerritzen’s film. Neoliberalism culturally specific urban environments, as
had become a kind of Utopia. Its happy the curator Carlos Basualdo had hoped.
isles were the global cities. And this is Instead, what they have done is to ‘show
where the biennials came in. artworks in specially constructed settings
that replicate the rigid geometries, white
Single Language partitions, and windowless spaces of clas-
sical museum exhibitions’. In short, the
The perfect image of the global bien- globalization of the Western white cube.4
nial was developed decades ago by the This is the kind of frankly polemical cri-
British group Archigram, in the comic- tique that makes you 4. Elena Filipovic, ‘The
Global White Cube’, in:
strip Instant City (1970).3 A link is made immediately want Filipovic and Barbera
between a sleepy 3. The work, not included to disagree. But first Vanderlinden (eds.), The
in the show, is reproduced Manifesta Decade: Debates on
Town Hall and the in most retrospective cata- let’s translate it into Contemporary Art Exhibitions
logues of Archigram. and Biennials in Post-Wall
local IC headquar- the grammar of Europe (Cambridge, MA:
ters. Together they call for a specially neoliberalism. Roomade/MIT Press, 2005).
outfitted airborne zeppelin. Equipment David Westbrook points out that across
and people pour out of the heavens, the the world, the inhabitants of the City of
central square becomes a theatre, the Gold speak a single language, which is
sky becomes an open-air cinema. The the language of money. Unlike Chinese,
event reaches its peak with the artistic English or Swahili it has only a few words,
and commercial saturation of the town. one for each asset you can invest in. And
When the zeppelin leaves and the hubbub unlike the vocabulary of a common
subsides, the town has been turned into a tongue, these asset-words are in neces-
permanent media spectacle and the Info- sarily short supply: you can’t just freely
Center sports an immense new antenna, exchange them with your neighbour.
connecting it to an urban network. Of What’s more, the only thing these words
course this same networking procedure can ‘say’ is that they are fractions or mul-
applies to a football championship, a tiples of each other. Yet their owner can
trade fair, an IMF summit or – as Archi- exchange them for anything that a market
gram would have it – a rodeo. can offer. Under the laws of the City, the
The naked opportunism of urban language of money is of strictly private
The Interscale 85
significance: it means nothing for society Cracks in Pangaea
at large, but for the individual it means
everything. Is there not some resemblance One way to understand the ambigui-
to the abstracted artwork, open to infi- ties of art in the global biennials is to
nite interpretations within the neutral consider an installation like We Are All
environment of the white cube? Has con- Errorists (2008) by the Internacional
temporary art not been the perfect vector Errorista. The work is composed of over
of accession to the neoliberal economic three dozen standing figures made from
system, precisely because of its undecid- photocopies of media images pasted onto
ability of meaning and its freedom from hinged black backings and held up by
traditional authority? thin wooden struts: you see artists, intel-
The condition of the work in the lectuals, journalists, politicians and above
global biennial should also be seen from all protesters, most of them with a flag
the viewpoint of the artist. It partakes or a word-balloon expressing a reflection,
of the scalar relationship between black joke or slogan. There is much self-satire
box and white cube, as in Estimations by in this artistic representation of a demon-
Katya Sander. This is a relation between stration in a museum: the original Span-
the global and the local, or more precisely, ish title, Gente Armada, refers not only to
between computerized abstraction and the arms that some figures carry, but also
the intimacy of experience. The work to their condition as fakes or set-ups. But
commissioned by the biennial is projected the real question is this: would any visi-
from elsewhere, beamed down from tor recognize these figures as references
worldwide circulation into the actual space to the Argentinian insurrection of 19-20
of exhibition. The location is a black box December 2001 – the first popular revolt
for the artist, whose real conditions she against neoliberal globalization?
must estimate: the only thing she knows is Of course, Taiwan also has its own
a set of measurements, an abstract model. political culture, marked in recent times
This void must be filled with a calculus of by massive protests. On opening night
possible meanings. As Westbrook points the president had to offer a humorous
out, to ease their anxieties about the remark about the need for revolt in a
possibility of future earnings, investors good exhibition – a touchy subject for an
require legal and institutional conditions incoming leader who has already seen so
as close as possible to their environments many people in the streets. One could
of origin. Thus, in art, the demand for the conclude that the image of protest, neu-
security of the white cube. But another tralized in a museum, is more comfort-
scalar relationship continually threatens ing to politicians than the real thing. In
this contract, which is the collapse of the an interview with Jacques Rancière, the
global into irremediable intimacy. What artist Fulvia Carnevale suggests exactly
if the situation proves incalculable? What that: ‘As soon as there are political sub-
if the model breaks down? What if the jects that disappear from the field of
risk of the real intrudes through an open actual politics, that become obsolete
window? through a number of historical processes,

they are recuper- 5. Fulvia Carnevale and nials, particularly from 1998 onwards
John Kelsey, ‘Art of the
ated in iconic form Possible’, interview with (but much earlier in some places) became
in contemporary Jacques Rancière, Artforum hybrid social vehicles, dominated by the
XLV, no. 7 (March 2007).
5
art.’ But one could standardized trappings of the world-class
also radicalize the interesting series of cultural event, but also traversed by art-
answers that Rancière gives to this line ists, curators, critics and visitors seeking
of questioning, by saying: these iconic some other reality than the City of Gold.
images condense memories of historical Each of these people – consciousness,
experiences, which are latent in socie- sensibility and expression – embodies a
ties and can always suddenly spring back break in the ‘one world network’ of the
into reality, as living inspirations for transcontinental financial order. Cracks in
new political forms. The question then Pangaea.
becomes: how can such latencies travel The particularity of the Sixth Taipei
over the immense cultural gaps separat- Biennial was to exemplify this ambiguous
ing Taiwan and Argentina? status of political desire within one of the
The Errorist figures are self-con- showcase institutions of the neoliberal
sciously two-dimensional representations city. Consider, for example, a perform-
of the popular response to an immense ance-based work on the borderline of
crisis which closed all the banks and activism such as Backpacks (2006-2008)
halted most economic activity in Argen- by Nasan Tur. These are portable kits
tina for a period of a year, in 2002. Simi- of materials for public speaking, dem-
lar crises have torn the fabric of daily life onstrating, cooking, sabotage and fan-
in countries scattered across the earth, worship, to be appropriated by interested
with increasing frequency since the glo- people in each place of exhibition. We
bal implementation of neoliberal policies know that such works are primarily per-
after 1989. The largest and most signifi- formance concepts, used at each site by
cant for the countries of Asia – but also artist-friends under relatively controlled
for Russia, the former Eastern Europe conditions for the production of the vid-
and Brazil – came in 1997-1998 in the eos that accompany the work. Yet these
form of a currency and stock-market pieces also express a subversive youth
crisis that devastated economies and and student culture, constructed around
led to a change of regime in Indonesia, casual mobility within a far-flung support
with ongoing consequences of poverty network and open to quick politicization,
and seething revolt. With each of these which has worried authorities since the
crises, the utopian image of neoliberal 1960s. What is the message: neutraliza-
globalization is shattered for millions of tion in the museum, or the continuing
people, and elements of the historical spread of a culture of disobedience?
past – the ‘nightmare’ to which I referred Consider Welfare State / Smashing the
earlier – filter back into waking aware- Ghetto (2006) by the group Democracia:
ness in the form of intense scepticism, a more spectacular and disturbing work
anger and desire for another life. It is of political art, which consists of a four-
under these conditions that global bien- screen video projection showing the real
The Interscale 87
destruction of a Roma settlement on the feeling that our movement passed its
edge of Madrid by men in bulldozers peak a few years ago. Yet even as these
backed up by the police, while cell-phone doubts were expressed, events in the
sporting yuppies stand applauding and financial markets were vindicating every
cheering on bleachers built specially for criticism that had ever been voiced in
the occasion. The piece can be read as the the chaos of the carnivalesque protests.
ultimate cynicism, since you, the specta- Outside the museum door, the City of
tor, are also invited to watch this event Gold seemed to be dissolving into its own
on specially built bleachers, where you empty equations.
can enjoy the thrill of other people’s pain
and gaze with fascination each time the Towards the World of Regions
camera zooms in on a glitter-trash graf-
fiti tag reading ‘Democracia’. What is the What happened in the weeks that fol-
message: the social insignificance of the lowed the bankruptcy of Lehman and
artistic signifier, or a forceful restatement the bailout of AIG? The keyword is panic:
of the critique of capitalist democracy by a sudden retreat to private self-interest,
a philosopher like Alain Badiou? when world-spanning networks of confi-
Open questions like those above typi- dence collapse to the scale of frightened
cally define the limits of acceptability for individuals. Rather than global institu-
political art in public exhibitions. This tions with a robust rationality and an
is why it was a relief, in Taipei, to see a embodied sense of history, banks, insur-
special section entitled ‘A World Where ance brokers and hedge-funds revealed
Many Worlds Fit’, curated by vide- their incapacity to admit basic realities,
omaker Oliver Ressler and including 14 such as precarious workers who cannot
artist-activists who formed part, in one pay their debts or housing markets that
way or the other, of the counter-globali- fall instead of rising. Apparently there
zation movement. They were able to help were no words for such events in their
create a very different kind of ‘Instant impoverished vocabularies.
City’: carnivalesque protests and critical No one knows what the geopoliti-
counter-summits at the sites of inter- cal consequences of this meltdown will
national meetings where global policy is be. But since the crisis was largely due
set. The shared experience of engaged to the overinvestment of Asian funds
cultural producers gave rise to a museum in corrupted American markets, the
presentation that did not pretend to be a global claims of US-centred capital net-
‘direct action kit’, but instead offered a works will undoubtedly decline, and
wealth of insights, techniques, images, humiliating retreats from both Iraq and
knowledge and reflection to any visitor Afghanistan could even trigger a new
involved in radical social activism, or period of American isolationism. Chinese
simply curious to know how it’s done. self-assertion and a stronger pattern of
There was an interesting atmosphere of regional exchanges is likely to emerge in
self-questioning among this group – to East Asia, following on the construction
which I belong, in reality – due to the of the Eurozone and the more recent

Latin American convergence (UNASUR). militancy and aesthetic practice that exist
If the continents tended to merge in Europe and Latin America have not yet
together over the last 30 years, they may been recognized in the corporate boom-
now start drifting apart again. The ques- towns of Asia. How can critical artistic
tion in our circles is what will art – and production develop in a fragmented
‘global biennials’ – be able to achieve at region, still deeply in thrall to Anglo-
the regional scale? American models and now influenced
It was surprising to see such a small by the trends of authoritarian Chinese
number of Asian artists at the Taipei society, with all its subtle and explicit
Biennial (which in that respect was prohibitions? Yet there is a potential here
very much a ‘global’ exhibition). Yet for entirely original activist art forms, as
there was some striking work from the witnessed in the film Promised Paradise
region, for example a series of lightbox (2006) by Dutch-Indonesian director
photographs entitled Maid in Malaysia Leonard Retel Helmrich, which follows
(2008) by Wong Hoy-Cheong, installed the shadow-puppeteer Agus Nur Amal as
in a busy subway station. These staged he interpellates startled passers-by with
images evoke a social phenomenon that dalang-style chanted speech, asking them
is also common to Taiwan and Hong piercing questions about incidents of ter-
Kong, namely the massive presence of rorist bombing in the archipelago.6 These
Filipino and Indonesian women as in- kinds of produc- 6. The film was not
included in the show and
person servants, clean-up workers and tions require serious has not yet been distributed
‘massage girls’. ‘For US$200 a month,’ cultural translation. in English. It can be viewed
with Dutch subtitles at
reads the faux-advertisement introducing But only when peo- http://www.hollanddoc.nl/
dossiers/34452838.
the series, ‘you will never have to worry ple have intensely
about your family and home again.’ The local stakes to lay on the table can there
prejudices of Western and perhaps also be any real communication between the
Chinese viewers are overturned as dark- historical languages, which, unlike money
skinned, upper-class Malaysian children and its mathematical derivatives, convey
are shown in the company of fair-skinned a typically human excess of meaning.
Filipino maids, transformed into extrava- In addition to regional articulations,
gant superheros! At last the artworks had the question of transcontinental exchange
left the white cube, to directly engage outside neoliberal frameworks could take
with the urban territory. on a whole new importance in the future.
What was really missing in Taipei, When one recalls that the Bretton-
however, was a self-organized group of Woods construction was forged against
Asian activist-artists to dialogue with the dangers of bellicose nationalism as
the constellation of counter-globalists it had emerged in the crisis years of the
who had come together around the street 1930s, the cultural responsibility implied
demonstrations. The powerful social by this prospect becomes clear. What is
movements of Indonesia and Thailand needed, if we are to be precise and also
were invisible in the show, undoubtedly bold, is a keen artistic awareness of the
because the kinds of mediation between multiplicity of scales: from the intimate
The Interscale 89
to the global, by way of the urban, the of IRWIN offer the example of an intimate
national and the regional, each of which circle of long-term friends, maintain-
has its own codes and contradictions, yet ing a territorial inscription in the city
all of which continually intertwine under of Ljubljana while exploring national,
current conditions. Art can explore the regional and global destinies through the
relations between these scales, as a way languages of art and the careful practice
of learning to live with their intersections of cultural translation.
and clashes. The multipolar world that When the typhoon subsided, Manray
seems likely to emerge is surely prefer- Hsu and I went out to see the project
able to the neoliberal regime of continu- by Lara Almárcegui, Removing the Wall
ous crisis, and to the collapse of abstract of a Ruined House. Qidong Street. Tapei
globalism into panic and self-interest. 2008. The single-story Japanese colonial
But the retreat from the global order dwelling, forgotten behind its moulder-
could also lead to dangerous intra- and ing wall, had been exposed for a few days
inter-regional conflicts. If transcontinen- to the gaze of passing neighbours. By
tal biennials have any raison d’être in the the time we arrived, it had collapsed into
present, it may lie in a subtle apprentice- a chaotic jumble of stones and broken
ship of the interscale. planks, utterly destroyed by the storm.
Inspiration comes from the Slovenian The question that arises before such a
group IRWIN. Years ago, their East Art historical ruin is this: Do you rebuild it as
Map pointed beyond the non-places a monument to its own terminal decay –
of the City of Gold, by way of a large- or imagine something better?
scale, long-term participatory project
that aims to reveal the artistic latencies
of the phantom region of former East-
ern Europe.7 IRWIN is part of the Neue
Slowenische Kunst 7. IRWIN, East Art Map:
Contemporary Art and East-
movement and is ern Europe (Afterall Books,
the founder of a 2006), as well as http://
www.eastartmap.org.
transnational state,
the NSK State in Time. The exhibition in
Taipei provided an occasion to install an
NSK passport office and to ask Taiwanese
applicants what such a document could
mean to them. Their responses and simi-
lar interviews were exhibited in a video
archive about NSK state citizenship, with a
particular focus on the tremendous boom
in passport requests from Nigeria. Was it
a simple misunderstanding, or an aspira-
tion to a new state of transnationality in
the twenty-first century? The activities

Charles Esche and Nothing’1 they tried,
Maria Hlavajova from their posi-
tion of institutional
The Making of responsibility, to
‘Once is Nothing’ find an answer to
the fleeting char-
How to Say No acter of many bien-
while Still Saying nials and their
Yes? economically moti-
vated quest for
Charles Esche and modernization.
Maria Hlavajova
were invited, as
representatives of
Van Abbemuseum
in Eindhoven and
BAK in Utrecht
respectively, to
contribute to the 1. ‘Once is Nothing’ was
the joint contribution of
BAK , basis voor actuele
Brussels Biennial. kunst, Utrecht, NL and Van

Abbemuseum, Eindhoven,
NL to the Brussels Biennial
With ‘Once is 1, 19 October 2008-4 Janu-

ary 2009.

‘Just say yes . . .’ Isn’t this rubric the we thought possible. Amid the rapid
motto of our post-1989 age? The 1990s deflation of bank credit and overblown
generation grew up to say ‘yes’, or at management egos, we could suddenly
least ‘yes, but . . .’ because it seemed perceive with a new clarity the manoeu-
there was no alternative. With no pos- vring of our democratic representatives
sibility of an effective oppositional busy holding up a system they told us
movement, how could anyone know obeyed the laws of natural selection.
what, if anything, to refuse, and why? Just at this moment, purely coinciden-
If you were to say a defiant ‘no’, it tally, a new biennial opened in Brus-
would appear self-serving and fanati- sels. It was the umpteenth international
cal – an empty gesture or inexplicable contemporary art festival designed to
failure to try to make use of what might occupy our cultured leisure time to
always be a real opportunity. In the emerge in the non-historical years 1989-
past, refusal seems to have been easier. 2008. However, alongside the rather
At least when combined with a more pedestrian if still intelligent references
general resistance to submit to the to urbanism, modernity and the com-
forces of state or market that occupied plexity of twenty-first-century regional-
much of the political and economic ism, there was a twist to the Brussels
time before 1989, refusal appeared to Biennial’s construction. In addition to
have more justification and purpose – it inviting relatively high-profile individual
could even be heroic. After the neocon- curators to participate, the organ-
servative declaration of the end of his- izers of the Biennial invited public,
tory, the angry young dogs didn’t have state-funded art institutions to select
the same bite; it just seemed easier to and produce different chapters of the
agree and try to make the system work exhibition. Given the fact that half the
in the best way for those with whom world’s financial 2. Even one of the Biennial
sponsors, Fortis Bank, was
it engaged. Yet along with the myriad system is now in itself briefly nationalized
‘yes’s’ that punctuated the 1990s and public hands, this by what remains of the
Belgian state before 75
continue up to today, there were also a move could be per cent was resold to BNP
multitude of small-scale, modest resist- seen as remarkably Paribas with 25 per cent
remaining in public hands.
ances to specific exploitations and prescient.2
attempts to turn an empty invitation to At the time of the invitation, how-
participate into an agonistic expression ever, it already called upon us as insti-
of what might be (better). tutional curators from BAK, basis voor
Suddenly in autumn 2008, political actuele kunst and Van Abbemuseum to
economy burst back onto the world think about our contributions in very
stage as if it had never really been different ways from the traditional
away. The downturn had arrived, prov- roles of selecting, commissioning,
ing that the pattern of free market building and presenting that provide
boom and bust was not broken but the basic structure for most large-scale
just dormant for a while, only to return curatorial endeavours. Individuals and
with a more aggressive vengeance than institutions are different organisms
The Making of ‘Once is Nothing’ 95

with different priorities, and both of us a modern art museum – both institu-
felt an overwhelming need to recognize tions share an interest in exploring
this in our actions. The project ‘Once art’s agency in our time and place. We
is Nothing’ – which we developed as a are also both concerned with the ques-
joint contribution to the Brussels Bien- tion of memory and the preservation
nial – was therefore conceived as a of what has existed, whether we refer
direct response to the challenging and to the objects in an art collection, the
original invitation that we had been archives, the discourse or the forms
given. It is, in a hopefully layered and of knowledge that we each seek to
not overly directed way, also a reac- produce. Without the survival of such
tion to what we saw around us. In early projects and products, our activities
2008, the globalized contemporary art make little more sense than every
context in which we were working other phenomenon of our transient
as institutions was one of a success- spectacular event culture, where each
ful art market and active commercial production tries to outdo or erase its
gallery scene that saw little value in predecessor. Beyond our own activi-
public institutional approval or support ties, these questions span further con-
beyond a few key global institutions. cerns about the value of exhibition
The commodification of art objects making in general – its rapidity, conti-
had reached an unprecedented level nuity and often pseudo-originality. The
of effectiveness, with biennials often way we allow projects of significance
being the test sites for developing new to be subscribed to memory, and the
market products. It was, however, also modes in which the discourse develops
a context in which the general public’s around exhibitions that we consider of
appreciation of modern and contempo- key consequence are also ongoing con-
rary art was at an all-time high. Criti- siderations. The publication of Bruce
cal discourse and social engagement Altshuler’s new book on the history of
had appeared as omnipresent tools exhibitions up to 1959 and the forth-
for understanding art’s role and made coming Afterall Exhibition Histories
people more sophisticated viewers series both point to the fact that there
of art, not to mention that these very is increasing agreement that the his-
tools had been developed together and tory of art itself is 3. Bruce Altshuler, Salon
to Biennial, Exhibi-
shared across both public and private to a large extent tions that Made Art His-
initiatives. written by exhibi- tory, Vol. 1, 1863-1959
(Londen: Phaidon 2008);
3
It was thus with this broad and tions. Yet what the series Exhibition His-
tories (Afterall Books, MIT
somewhat paradoxical situation on our survives of these Press), will be published
minds that we approached the task of exhibitions is often in late 2009. See also:
Walter Grasskamp, ‘For
making a project for the first Brussels little more than Example, Documenta, Or,
How is Art History Pro-
Biennial. Although BAK and Van Abbe- shards or trophies, duced?’ in: Reesa Green-
museum work in their own distinct to use archaeo- berg, Bruce W. Feruson,
and Sandy Nairne (eds.),
ways and with different mandates – logical or ethno- Thinking About Exhibi-
tions (Londen/New York:
that of a contemporary art centre and graphic terms. Routledge, 1996), 67-78.

The phenomenon of the exhibition is expression is restricted to the service
dissected by traditional art historians of those who write its first accounts.
who subscribe certain activities under In light of this, it is encouraging to see
the names of individual artists while that the oldest biennial of all, Venice, is
excluding others to the archive and the just waking up to the value of its own
margin – a process that is of enormous archive, but the fact that it has taken
aid to the varied agents of commodi- more than 100 years to do so points
fication that have consolidated power again to the gaps between the functions
over the last decades. As we already of fixed art institutions and the proto-
know, the majority of art museum col- cols of festivals.
lections consist largely of objects that Our joint response to our perception
have been through this process and of the current conditions and to the
are already detached from the circum- parameters of the Brussels Biennial had
stances in which they were realized and to be uncompromising. ‘Once is Noth-
contextualized. They are often removed ing’, an exhibition based upon another
from their own archival setting as well, exhibition from another biennial, was
which is housed elsewhere in the docu- the (logical) result. Early on in our
mentation centre of the museum or deliberations, the exhibition ‘Individual
sold independently as part of an artist’s Systems’ curated by Igor Zabel came to
estate, destined for organizations such our minds as one of the most precise
as the Getty Museum. curatorial statements on the issue of
Yet, in contrast to this at least partial modernity in recent years. It was articu-
inscribing of histories, global biennials lated from the perspective of the begin-
– exhibition machines, as it were – are ning of the twenty-first century and
by their very definition geared towards took into consideration the major shifts
the event logic, erasing their own past in the world’s global political (and
in order to frame the incomparable thus cultural) geography that 1989 had
newness of the next project in line. brought about. The show was also part
This state of affairs is even worse if of a Biennale4 project – the 2003 Venice
we remember that many biennials pro- Biennale – which 4. 50th International Art
Exhibition – La Biennale
vide one of the few access points for was conceived as di Venezia, 2003, entitled
contemporary visual culture to states a patchwork of ‘Dreams and Conflicts:
The Dictatorship of the
outside the former West. Here, the bien- relatively unrelated Viewer’, artistic director:
Francesco Bonami.
nial is largely confirmed as an event exhibitions put
spectacle pur sang in the expectations together by the multiple voices and
of its publics and this only serves to visions of a number of curators. In this
reinforce the transitory (and therefore innovative context, Zabel’s unpreten-
manipulable) nature of contemporary tious exhibition was somewhat lost in
culture in general. If you cannot access the cacophony of the spectacles that
the records of the past, you cannot surrounded it; those who visited Ven-
rewrite the fictions of a particular ice that year will likely remember the
self-interested history and cultural volume of works and the formal differ-

ences between the exhibition installa- From ‘Individual Systems’ to ‘Once
tions better than the works of art (or is Nothing’
exhibition narratives) themselves. In
contrast, ‘Individual Systems’ insisted ‘Individual Systems’ brought together
on an older set of exhibition-making fifteen artists and artists’ collectives
conventions that, in the name of the to reflect on the concept of modernity,
works of art it encompassed, required and that to which it is essentially con-
time, space and concentration of the nected – the idea of artistic and cultural
viewer. Our project, ‘Once is Nothing’, autonomy – today: Victor Alimpiev &
attempted to reconstruct the effect of Marian Zhunin, Paweł Althamer, Art &
the exhibition ‘Individual Systems’ by Language, Josef Dabernig, IRWIN (Dusan
reproducing aspects of its physical and Mandi, Miran Mohar, Andrej Savski,
informational structure. Or perhaps we Roman Uranjek, Borut Vogelnik), Luisa
rather tried to capture the very qualities Lambri, Yuri Leiderman, Andrei Monas-
of time, space, concentration and even tirsky, Pavel Mrkus, Roman Opalka,
dry wit that it represented. While based Marko Peljhan, Florian Pumhösl, Simon
upon the show’s embodiment in 2003, Starling, Mladen Stilinovi and Nahum
‘Individual Systems’ appeared in Brus- Tevet. Zabel wrote: ‘Actually, modernity
sels as an interpretation of the exhibi- in art is often understood as the confir-
tion’s architecture without the physical mation of its autonomy. And as it seems
works themselves, letting the voids that we have to ask ourselves again
on the walls speak for the art that is about the potentials of the autonomous
absent in a physical sense but hopefully art and art as an autonomous system,
very present in its absence. A reference it also seems that we have to return to
catalogue that visitors were free to take the idea of modernity and the variety
with them contained information about of concepts of which it is constructed.’5
both exhibitions and the individual We need to return to 5. Igor Zabel, ‘Individual
Systems’, in 50th Inter-
works, as well as a new project by Bel- these ideas in order national Art Exhibition,
gian artist Patrick Corillon, helped us to, if only fragmen- Dreams and Conflicts:
The Dictatorship of
to construct a space and time for reflec- tarily, address the the Viewer (ex. cat.),
ed. Francesco Bonami
tion, for the art and the audience alike, dilemma of how art and Maria Luisa Frisa
where one could pause to consider is still possible and (Venice: La Biennale di
Venezia, 2003), 152.
the questions of exhibition making, meaningful in rela-
institutional responsibility, continuity tion to the major social and political
and memory, and engage with the key conflicts we witness in the world today:
element of individual empowerment ‘What role or meaning can art have
that art has on offer: the subjective at all, compared to such events and
imagination. processes?’6 6. Ibid., 151.
With Adorno’s dictum that ‘politics
has migrated into autonomous art’
in mind, Zabel turned to the ‘ideas of
ordered systems – in technology, knowl-

edge, society and culture – [which] cisely to assign to art the task of conti-
make an essential part of modernity’.7 nuity, if not perseverance, in addressing
With the motif of 7. Ibid., 152. the urgencies in the tensions and con-
‘individual systems’ read through mul- flicts of today’s world. And this notwith-
tiple artistic positions in the exhibition, standing the palpable proofs that the
he presented artists who ‘have devel- possibility of a controlled, better future
oped their own, often strictly defined, has slipped out of our hands in the same
but nevertheless quite individual or way as did the option of reconstructing
personal systems, constructed new in full the optimism of the era in which
conceptual frameworks and para- these ideas were born.
digms, or used the existing systems in The architecture of the exhibition
an individual, uncommon way. Artistic ‘Individual Systems’, while respect-
autonomy is an essential determination fully accommodating the art works,
of their work. Even when [it] seems that can itself be seen as an ‘individual
they are dealing with social and other system’ of sorts, provoking a sensa-
‘external’ realities in a direct way, they tion of forced perspective in viewers
remain essentially distanced from them. as they walked in a corridor formed
External elements that enter the artists’ by five ‘cubes’ distributed at intervals
systems are transformed and adapted to between the columns of the Arsenale
a new, different context. But this makes in Venice. Developed by artist Josef
it possible for them to reflect upon the Dabernig, the structure consisted of:
issues of modernity, modernization, ‘Five more or less communicating
systematization, as well as dissent, exhibition spaces [that] are arranged
resistance, and search for freedom, longitudinally on both sides [of the
dialectically connecting the compul- corridor-like space]. The dimensions of
sory and freedom, the general and the these were conceived in proportion to
personal.’8 8. Ibid., 153. the linear arrangement of the windows,
With the understanding of autonomy pilasters and main pillars: on the side
not as an absolute disassociation of at the end of the area, the length of the
art from society, but rather the autono- spaces, made with plasterboard walls,
mous as political in art, we can think reduces progressively by half a unit in
of modernity as ‘not merely a utopia, synchrony with the gaps between the
project, and rational organization, it pillars, while the entrance side remains
is also tension, struggle and conflict’,9 constant. The height of the spaces,
and acknowledge 9. Ibid., 152. however, changes in both aisles as you
it as an unfinished project in the con- gradually proceed towards the main
text of the global reality in which we corridor. As you move through the
find ourselves. If Zabel suggested that area, the correspondence between the
it is useful to reoccupy the position of left and right sections of the exhibition
autonomy in this sense – or perhaps a area moves by one column, so that the
version of ‘engaged autonomy’ that we overall number of 10. Josef Dabernig, in:
10 ibid., 160.
have written about elsewhere – it is pre- spaces is uneven.’

The structure clearly borrowed some windows that are located near Corillon’s
modernist clarity in the way it envi- additional narrative of art’s failed ship-
sioned and enclosed its world, yet ment through space. This work was
the diminishing height and shifting commissioned by us in order to provide
coordinates of the architectural units an extra contemporary and yet histori-
introduced disturbance that suggested cally responsive artistic contribution
the need for reconsideration and even that would highlight anew the deliberate
reorientation. It is an adaptation of this absence of the other works. This turn
structure to the venue of the Brussels that we made from work to base was
Biennial 1 that we chose to present in already apparent in Zabel’s original inten-
‘Once is Nothing’. tions as he battled with the tolerated
‘Once is Nothing’ was therefore rela- autonomy of modernism. Rotating it fur-
tively blank at first sight. In this sense, it ther required a more overt foregrounding
confronted the expectation that visitors of the conventions of that toleration in
going to an exhibition require a form order to put them into the field of discus-
of site seeing. There was not so much sion, and not just as a theoretical game.
in the way of a visceral encounter with Instead, the building of these spaces was
material or, at least, that is how things an attempt to provide a lived, tangible
appeared. This superficial refusal – this experience of relative refusal, in order
‘saying no’ while still taking action – had to deliver something else than what is
a very clear intention. It was in part a awaited – a detour for the attention that
way to signal resistance to the demands lands on what literally supports and lies
of the spectacle, but it must be much behind the works of art themselves.
more than that if it is to be useful. For
what was placed in the space – walls, Einmal is Keinmal11
labels, texts as artworks, light – was the
infrastructure of exhibition-making that The questions that 11. The title of our exhi-
bition, ‘Once is Nothing’,
the work of art as commodity or visual Zabel posed with comes from a German
symbol often seeks to mask. Yet it is this ‘Individual Systems’, adage einmal ist kein-
mal, an expression that
very infrastructure and its conventions, and the way he asked describes an imagined
condition of life in which
drawing on the familiar spaces of art them together with any decision is of no
whether museum, art centre or biennial, the artists in the consequence because it
can never be repeated
that are crucial to any consideration of show, resonate pow- and therefore judgment
of its effectiveness or
the institutionalized status of art and the erfully with some otherwise is impossible.
beginning of an address to other forms of our key concerns This troubling unac-
countability was thema-
of production and presentation. ‘Once beyond the immedi- tized in Milan Kundera’s
seminal 1984 novel The
is Nothing’ should ideally be seen, at ate opportunity of Unbearable Lightness of
second glance no doubt, not as an empty the exhibition. As Being.
space but rather as a series of white institutions we seek to advocate con-

cubes inside a raw, unaltered indus- tinuously for the meaning of art in the
trial space looking out on a modernist public sphere, while at the same time we
cityscape of transportation through defend a meaningful autonomy for artis-

tic practice – meaningful in the sense any possible political project (or ‘neo-
that it is circulated, contested and disap- political’ project) that might be avail-
proved. Unlike in other fields of artistic able to the biennial as a form. Only by
expression – theatre, music, or even recognizing the need to repeat as some-
literature – the possibility of repetition thing other could a potential political
is not naturally built into the practice charge be effectively actualized. Yet
of exhibitions. The exhibition happens this fights against the economic impera-
once; its afterlife depends on related tive of innovation to which the funders
ephemera, on how well it is archived, and viewers of biennials generally
catalogued, written about or how it is respond. New commissions, new coun-
spread through the personal memories, tries, new venues, new audiences are
informal anecdotes, rumours and fan- the governing mantras and they have
tasies of those involved in one way or proved effective in delivering a broader
another. If we believe the adage einmal and more geographically distributed
is keinmal, thematized by the novelist discussion about contemporary cul-
Milan Kundera, that the lightness of the tural expressions than ever before. We
one off decision renders it meaningless do not want to lose the possibility of
in any wider scheme of values – that if an newness; indeed societies, especially in
exhibition happened only one time it is the former West, are in rather desper-
as if it never happened, to put it simply – ate need of new political imagination,
then repetition is crucial to any sense in especially given the economic events
which the autonomy of art can become of this autumn. How to resolve this
a agonistic sphere, a place where sym- paradox, or perhaps more usefully how
bols are fought over and not just fleet- to live within its tensions, is the field
ingly presented. This has to be true for on which the strategies for our times
all exhibitions and appearances of art, need to be built. ‘Once is Nothing’ was
and that is why we determined to try to our singular and context-determined
reconstruct an exhibition of inspirational attempt to provide a way of addressing
power; to make it happen another time. the issue. Neither affirming the values
Yet, we know from the work of Gilles of new exhibition production nor cyni-
Deleuze12 that time forms neither a cycle cally turning away to declare that we
nor a straight line, 12. See Gilles Deleuze, know better, the exhibition sought to
Difference and Repetition
two models that (New York: Columbia Uni- politicize the occasional visitor through
would arguably versity Press, 1995 [1968]). a mix of understandable frustration and
allow us to fulfil the ambition of bringing the sparking of curiosity. We are saying
back the identical, or a faithful copy, of no while still saying yes here, as prob-
what already was. In fact, in Deleuze’s ably we all have had to do since 1989,
view repetition is intimately bound to although the blankness and whiteness
difference, and thus only when an exhi- of this intervention is intended to bal-
bition is ‘repeated as something other’ ance the positive and negative and visu-
can its distinct qualities be revealed. alize them in the three dimensions of
Here is the dilemma at the heart of the exhibition space.

Instead of a Conclusion
As art institutions, both BAK and Van

Abbemuseum have in their own ways
adopted a position of criticality, ques-
tioning those occasions in the world
of art that lend themselves to specta-
cle, entertainment and the economic
demands of today’s capitalism. And
although this project is undeniably a
contribution to yet another biennial, the
Brussels Biennial 1’s own initiative to
rethink the basic conditions of its for-
mat, as well as the fact that we felt the
need to contribute to a critical explora-
tion of global modernity of this particu-
lar region in Europe, encouraged us to
lend our voices and speak along. As a
biennial exhibition, ‘Once is Nothing’
cannot be more than a modest attempt
to contribute to the discussion about
the responsibilities of curating in our
time. This not least because, to invoke
the words of Igor Zabel once more, ‘If
one is aware of this situation one can-
not simply go on producing, present-
ing, or describing art, as if nothing has
happened’,13 be it in 13. Zabel, in: 50th Inter-
national Art Exhibition,
the art world or the Dreams and Conflicts, op.
world at large. cit. (note 5), 151.
This project was realized

in memory of Igor Zabel.
This is a revised and

expanded version of the
text ‘Once is Nothing’,
published in an insert
to Artur mijewski: ‘The
Social Studio’ in Newslet-
ter 2008 #1, BAK, basis
voor actuele kunst, Octo-
ber 2008.

Irit Rogoff interesting places.
They have evolved
Geo-Cultures into circuits of
research, exchange
Circuits of Arts and and dialogue that
Globalizations combine specific
local features with
‘Geo-Cultures’, a the illumination
research project of conditions else-
conducted by Irit where in the world.
Rogoff, a professor
at Goldsmiths
College in London,
investigates how the
contemporary prac-
tice of art informs
rather than reflects
globalization proc-
esses. Seen in the
framework of this
study, biennials are
The thoughts put forward in this article seminating art, and theorizing, and to
are concerned with how to think about understand how these are producing new
the expanded field of contemporary arts and unexpected realities within circuits of
practice in this time of globalization. It globalization. These unexpected depar-
is an attempt to address a particular di- tures are not simply new subject matter or
lemma; how can the political economies new forms, but also new and unexpected
and the affective regimes and the creative alliances on the exhibition circuit, the in-
practices, which together make up the novative mimicry of certain social and
field of contemporary arts, be brought political institutions as artistic practice,
into the same investigative paradigm?1 the production of artistic arenas which
If the arts are not 1. For a further discussion enact new political conjunctions and the
of affective regimes see
exclusively a field of Patricia Clough (ed.), The emergence of a conversation hosted by the
expressive creativity Affective Turn (Durham, art world and its infrastructures, which is
NC: Duke University
on the one hand or a Press, 2008). not taking place anywhere else at present.
set of productive economies on the other Such major international exhibitions as
– how then can we gage the very particu- Documenta 10 (1997) and Documenta
lar way in which they are generative, able 11 (2002) heralded substantial paradigm
to produce new modalities and new regis- shifts within our understanding of the
ters, within these unique new conditions? parameters of the art world. As a result
These questions also form the basis we came to inhabit a far more interna-
of the design of a new research centre tional, far more socially attenuated, more
currently under development at the Uni- formally adventurous and more intel-
versity of London’s Goldsmiths College. lectually grounded art world than ever
The centre will open in the autumn of before. Within this world the very concept
2009 under the name ‘Geo-Cultures’. The of what is an art practice has been able
‘Geo-Cultures’ project begins by focusing to expand from making objects to ex-
on how art reflects the contexts and con- perimenting with structures or enabling
ditions of its production, a question then gatherings or doing substantial research.
replaced by how cultural practices inform It is one of the contentions of this research
the processes of globalization. What is at project that the pressures of globalization
stake here is a recognition that politics have resulted in a greatly expanded world
cannot fully account for the conditions of artistic practices that is consequently
that we live in, so while these conditions able to play a far more substantive role in
are political in nature, they require a far furthering the general culture.
broader range of models that will allow
us to account for them and their effects, Reflection
at different registers.
The bulk of the work proposed by Conventionally, the arts are seen to rep-
‘Geo-Cultures’ is an attempt to bring to- resent the realities of globalization either
gether a large range of current practices as thematic subject matter or as increas-
in the arts including the creative process, ingly hyper-mobile processes. As such,
curating and organizing exhibitions, dis- many contemporary arts practices set
Geo-Cultures 107
up extensive analyses of the conditions central to the constitution of geography
and cultural effects of different aspects of as knowledge, that to be able to name
globalization. A case in point would be and to locate automatically leads to being
Raqs media Collective’s A (age)/ S (sex)/ able to know.
L (location) of 2003. In this installation, So that is one mode in which globali-
workers ‘living between an online and an zation is represented within contemporary
offline world in time zones on the outer artistic practice, as a direct engagement
reaches of cyberia’2 at a call centre in with some of the specific issues raised by
India are taught to 2. Ursula Biemann in: Geo- its processes. Equally, many social scien-
graphy and the Politics of
sound like and be Mobility, tentoonstellings- tists and empirical scholars see the im-
able to introduce catalogus (Wenen: Generali mense proliferation of artistic practices,
Foundation, 2003), p. 25.
references familiar events, institutions such as international
to the inhabitants of the culture they exhibitions, biennales, art fairs, or the
are making calls to on behalf of some ever-increasing mobility of travelling art-
multinational company employing data ists, works, curators, as well as the great
outsourcing which has produced a new rise in both buildings and funding struc-
digital proletariat. ‘A/S/L maps the time tures and categories that make up the art
geography of shifting identities in a new world as effects of globalization, albeit
economy, where call centre employees in a form that can be distinctly located
who are physically located in India an- within the art world, a world that is spati-
swer customers in Minneapolis in a Mid- ality distinctive from named geographical
western accent.’3 3. Ibid. entities. If mobility and proliferation are
A/S/L confronts us with a slippery location the hallmarks of globalization, then the
which can only be understood temporally. art world, it would seem, is an exception-
Located neither in India nor in the Ameri- ally good place in which to study these as
can Midwest, we find the production of leisure and entertainment economies.
a corporate location within a fibre-optics
network which redefines many elements; New Connections and Sources of
the location of the work, the location of Knowledge
the communication and in the process
confounds everyone’s certainty that it is In addition to these representational
possible to know who you are talking to. modes of artistic practice and empirical
This digital proletariat, which operates scholarship described above, there have
these call centres around the globe, em- also been emergent new conjunctions be-
bodies a new sensibility of situatedness, tween the arts and forms of organizing,
being simultaneously materially located activism, self education, gatherings, event
and virtually dislocated so as to produce staging and political protest. Quotidian
a performative alternative to the polarity activities such as urban walking become,
of such opposites in earlier discourses, in the hands of many such practices,
which often confused identifiable location a process of urban investigation or an
with understanding. And that of course embodied protest against the evacuation
is the point, the Enlightenment legacy, so of different kinds of inhabitation out of

zones of regeneration or urban develop- bear in mind though, that these mobili-
ment. Or the expression of solidarity with ties are not simply those from the ‘Global
indigenous populations being uprooted South’ or the ‘Global East’ towards the
or disenfranchised. (stalker, Rome). West, but also complex circulations with-
Equally the proliferation of education in each one of these entities itself.
based practices of late; projects which The relationship between stability
have turned museums into laboratories and circulation has grown strained. The
(‘Laboratorium’, 1999) or into investiga- stabilities of citizenship and emplacement
tive projects (‘Academy’, 2006), exhibi- and their related access to rights, protec-
tions into schools (‘Manifesta 6’, 2005), tions, inclusions, situated knowledge
art spaces into seminars (‘Unitednation- and legitimated cultural production are
splaza.com’, 2007), political demonstra- countered by an ever-increasing array of
tions into orchestrated performance categories of those who cannot automati-
pieces (‘Disobidienti’, 2003) and theatres cally assume such accesses; immigrants,
into study gatherings (‘Summit’, 2007). migrant labourers, refugees, asylum seek-
These have been seen by said scholars as ers, diasporic communities, displaced
the ever-expanding field of arts practices, cultural traditions, not to mention the
which in tandem with ever-greater mobil- numerous bodies on the move within the
ity, the information society and the grow- circuits of mobile capital, outsourcing
ing range of entertainment and leisure and franchising or those who are on the
activities, needs to be viewed as a new move for the gratification of various de-
political economy within globalization. sires such as education or tourism. Such
In addition to such strategies of a level of bodily circulation has impacted
representation, we need to think out at- on the very possibility of arguing ‘situated
tempts to reverse this understanding and knowledge’ simply as a series of direct
investigate how the arts are producing relations between subjects, places and
both unexpected cultural phenomena and epistemologies.
unexpected new knowledge within the
circuits of globalization. Relational Geographies and Relations
The Geo-Cultures inquiry is situated with Singularities
at the intersection of several vectors, both
historical and contemporary. It is located Having investigated the relations between
in the aftermath of colonialism, diffusion- location, positionality, subjectivity and
ism and post-colonial self-constitution on arts practices in several books and vari-
the one hand, and on the other hand their ous articles and exhibitions, I want to
concomitant, ever-growing diasporas. The now move my thinking in two directions;
impact of cultural cross influences and of in the first place towards the concept of
fusions born of mobility, new proximities ‘relational geographies’. The relational-
and new struggles for recognition and for ity of this model of geography lies in two
multivocal cultural self-perceptions are important transitions. The first is that
the ground on which the materials being it is no longer anchored in the cohering
worked with take place. It is important to imperative of the nation-state. Instead we
Geo-Cultures 109
have a map that is composed of aggre- cal cultural location; of the place from
gates of intensities, of national or ethnic which we speak, in which we ground our
loyalties, of insurgencies that link and positionality, from which we understand
empathize and spark off each other, of meaning and in which we might be able
generational loyalties to great moments to foresee an effect. Do the new cultural
that cross boundaries, histories and lan- effects of globalization produce com-
guages. This relational geography does munities which share, to paraphrase Jean
not operate, as does classical geography, Luc Nancy, a ‘being in common’ rather
from a single principle that maps every- that a ‘having in common’?4 He is doing
thing in an outward bound motion with so in the name of a 4. J.L.Nancy, Being Singu-
lar Plural (Palo Alto, CA:
itself at the centre. Instead it is cumula- complex and very Stanford University Press,
tive, it lurches sideways, it is constructed contemporary poli- 2000), xii-xx.
out of utopian moments of unreasonable tics of what he calls ‘the places, groups,
hopes, of chance meetings in cafés, of or authorities (. . . Bosnian Serbs, Tutsis,
shared reading groups at universities, of Hutus, Tamil Tigers, Casamnce, eta Mili-
childhood deprivations that could speak tia, Roma of Slovenia . . .) that constitute
to one another, of snatches of music on the theatre of bloody conflicts among
transistor radios, of intense rages, of glim- identities, as well as what is at stake in
mers of possibilities offered by ideas that these conflicts. These days it is not always
enable one to imagine a better world. possible to say with any assurance wheth-
Parallel to these mobilities and re- er these identities are intranational, infra-
lational geographies, we are also wit- national, or transnational; whether they
nessing a previously unimaginable set are ‘cultural’ , ‘religious’ , ‘ethnic’ , or
of circulations within the world of art ‘historical’: whether they are legitimate or
and creative practices. The number of not – not to mention the question about
new exhibition forums and the way they which law would provide such legitima-
have opened up unexplored regions to a tion: whether they are real, mythical, or
larger world of art, the direction of their imaginary; whether they are independent
mobility – which defies the traditional or ‘instrumentalized’ by other groups
paths from centre to periphery, have re- who wield political, economic, and ideo-
written the global map of art. logical power . . .5 5. Ibid.
The second concept that informs these The predominant informing question
thoughts concerns newly globalized forms then, is how we can read current artistic
of situatedness and their possible relations practices ranging from fine arts, architec-
with singularities, or in other words, with ture and spatial practices, Internet and
ontological rather than externally des- screened media, curating and organizing,
ignated, or identitarian communities. If music and sonic cultures, performance
location is by definition the site of perfor- and performativity, as manifestations of
mativity and of criticality rather than a set these mobilities and paradigm shifts in
of naturalized relations between subjects the relations of subjects, processes and
and places, how then within this shift can institutions to places. These unexpected
we address issues of a necessary and criti- departures are not simply new subject

matter or new forms, but also new al- coherence of either project or method. To
liances on the exhibition circuit, a pro- do that would involve us in the workings
liferation of biennials and international of metaphor with its mechanisms of like-
exhibitions, innovative mimicry of certain ness and of equation, which at this stage
social and political institutions as artistic of our activities we would probably wish
practice, the production of artistic arenas to avoid altogether.
which enact new political conjunctions, Instead, it is perhaps the conjunctions
the production of a vast dissemination, of simultaneously occupying a dual posi-
translation and publication project and tionality of being spatially located in an
the emergence of a conversation hosted inside and paradigmatically on the out-
by the art world and its infrastructures, side, or vice versa, that this deployment of
which is not taking place anywhere else ‘field work’ actually aims to capture. This
at present. Beyond questions of subjects, disjunction and this very necessary dual-
labour, commodities and capital invest- ity, offer us not the multi-inhabitation
ments on the move, this discussion aims of one space as in the discourse on space
to articulate how we can interrogate such offered up by Henri Lefevre and his fol-
a political economy of cultural circulation lowers such as Edward Soja, Rosalyn
at the level of artistic practices. Deutsche or Neil Smith, but the internal
split that demands that we perceive of
Field Work ourselves as both inside and outside of the
field of activity and of its perception.
A critical interrogation of the manifesta- In critical cultural anthropology,
tions of current mobilities and paradigm George Marcus put this very well when
shifts in the relations of subjects, process- he stated that the great turn in anthropo-
es and institutions to places could involve logical perception of ‘field work’ in the
a shift in vocabulary, one that would not late twentieth century was its move from
allow place to settle down into any form ‘being annals of rapport (between subjects
of hardened or coherent identity. I would of discourse and objects of knowledge) to
propose the replacement of ‘place’ with being replaced by annals of complicity –
two contingent terms; that of ‘site’ and as constructing the primary field work re-
that of ‘field and field work’, as well as lation’.6 ‘Rapport’ was fed by an illusion
the replacement of location by a set of re- of understanding, 6. George Marcus, Eth-
nography Through Thick
lational geographies. empathy and the and Thin (Princeton, NJ:
‘Field work’ is obviously a borrowed ability to seamlessly Princeton University Press,
1998).
term – borrowed from the reflexive de- translate between
bates that have been generated within knowledges while ‘complicity’ stands for
cultural anthropology over the past 20 the stoppages and blockages of self-con-
years, but it is not a borrowed term taken scious reflection which perceive us as the
up here in the form of a metaphor to be producers of the very knowledge we aim
dragged around across different arenas of to transmit through the languages, nar-
practice in order to somehow unify them rative structure and cultural tropes that
– to merge them with some semblance of constitute our consciousness. And the en-
Geo-Cultures 111
Prologue
A recent exhibition named ‘Di/visions – Voices from the Con-

temporary Arab World’ curated by Cathrine David at the House
of World Cultures in Berlin (2007), consisted of 16 vast
screen interviews with artists and thinkers from Egypt,
Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Suspended through the dark building
on luminous panels, they became a temporary inhabitation of
a Western sphere by a sophisticated, self-questioning, auda-
cious set of voices that refused the identitarian simplifica-
tion that Western political analysis imposes on them. Instead,
both formally and substantively, a winding, conversational
mode invoked other worlds in front of our eyes, without being
descriptive or oppositional.
This project came to represent, for me, the possibilities
inherent in arts practice for rethinking global relations and
moving around global knowledge. It also exemplified an emergent
mode which I am calling ‘practice-driven theory’ in which it
is practice that is setting agendas for how to work in cul-
tural theory. The project proposes a mode of framing around an
issue, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the political rad-
icalization within the Arab world, which are of shared impor-
tance to both the interviewees and the audience listening to
them in another location and in other circumstances.
It sets up several parallel discourses, produces an inter-
textual field of subjectivities, evolves a specific visual form
for its preoccupations, relies on extensive and painstaking
research and links location and knowledge production in mobile
forms. This project exemplifies what I am calling ‘Geo-Cul-
tures’ in this discussion.
tire enterprise of such complicitous ‘field and ‘complicity’ is equally applicable to
work’ is understood as a mis en scène, a various art practices and their relation to
conscious staging, obviously implying a location. One of the hopes in taking up
performance and several sets of audiences ‘field work’ was to be able to get away
at which this performance is directed. from the notion of ‘site specificity’, which
This, as Marcus states, is: ‘The very basic in art practice terms has assumed the
condition that defines the altered mis en establishment of a ‘rapport’ with a site
scène for which complicity, rather than through an immersed investigative knowl-
rapport, is a more appropriate figure for edge and the subsequent attempt to reveal
an awareness of existential doubleness and unmask some of the deep structures
on the part of both anthropologist and and unacknowledged interests and affili-
subject; this derives from having a sense ations that its surface might have glossed
of being here, where major transforma- over. In ‘field work’, as we might be able
tions are underway that are tied to things to see, location goes beyond digging to
happening simultaneously elsewhere, but expose what lies beneath the surface and
not having a certainty or an authoritative towards the invention of new sensibilities
representation of what those connections through which one might live out and ex-
are.’7 In part, Marcus’s distinction high- perience them.
lights a familiar an- 7. Ibid. We can compare some the excavative
thropological as well as artistic dilemma nature of a serious investigation of urban
between the raw materials of events and spaces such as the work of Martha Ros-
conditions and the means of representa- ler, for example, or that of Hans Haacke,
tions and the interpretative structures with Francis Alys lugging around a block
which allow us to transport them halfway of melting ice or dribbling some blue-tint-
across the world for the purposes of being ed water along the city streets he haphaz-
both informative and of making a point. ardly happens to be walking along – from
We have seen many instances of artistic exposing and making visible the hidden
practice that simply import the images structures of social and cultural exist-
of the camps in Palestine or the deaths in ence in the case of Rosler, Haacke and
Rwanda or the Homeless in Kiev and we others to inventing new and imaginative
have all felt the discomfort of having to modes of inhabiting space. This second
somehow plot for ourselves a positioned example is a relation which is far closer
response that would use these images to a notion of ‘complicity’ in the ways in
within the critical trajectories we inhabit which the inarticulacy of the phantasmic
as thinking, responsible viewers. To show is brought into play, a condition that can-
or to agree that something is ‘horrible’ is not be made subject to rational, analytical
simply not enough. discourse. I am thinking here also of such
projects as that of Waalid Raad under the
Complicity aegis of the Atlas Group, in which the
civil war in Lebanon is explored through
To some extent it might also be said tales of covert gambling at horse races by
that the distinction between ‘rapport’ respected university professors and tales
Geo-Cultures 113
of kidnap and political captivity which of linked peripheries – there are now 146
resonate with the unspoken sexual fris- (known) biennial exhibitions around the
sons of capture and domination as put world. These have become a circuit of
forward by a highly gendered, masculine investigation, exchange and conversa-
in this case, imagination. To ‘unframe’ tion that bypass the traditional centres of
the conflict in Lebanon from being purely art and culture such as New York, Paris,
the staging ground of political forces, of London, Moscow, Berlin, etcetera. In-
colonial legacies, of ethnic conflicts, of stead we have been witnessing an intrigu-
ideological battlegrounds, of hostile and ing mode of exchange and investigation
opportunistic neighbours to the south emerging from these combinations of de-
and to the east, of superpower interests tailed local specificity (site specific to the
that want to maintain the region in an exhibition) and the desire to illuminate
endless state of unresolved turmoil – to some similar set of conditions elsewhere.
allow it to speak at such oblique angles to Perhaps the most intriguing moment
the conflict itself, allows us to establish a came in the late 1990s when, in reading
whole set of alternative entry points and the various statements coming out of bi-
identifications, to inhabit it without being ennials on different continents and from
compelled to produce some highly mor- different cultural traditions, it became
alized set of positions by which we pass evident that there was little desire to emu-
declaratory judgement. late older Western models of international
spectacle, and that instead an attenuated
Linked Peripheries attention was being paid to producing a
location that was both specifically located
Site and site-specificity are important spa- and simultaneously diasporic. In this
tial and artistic designations. Beginning way a link to a variety of elsewheres and
in the 1960s when ‘site-specific’ artistic other traditions could be forged, but not
practices insisted on the physical condi- through the emulation of a bland inter-
tions of a particular location as integral nationalism but rather through the often
to its production, and culminating in our tough and tragic mobilities and their bat-
contemporary realization that site is not tles to insist on their hybrid status. (The
only a physical arena and that its stability Johannesburg Bienniale of 1997 and the
has been shaken by a nomadic dispersal. 7th Cairo Biennale 1998 come to mind
However, if ‘site’ is more than context, if here). Both intentionally and unintention-
it enables the production of knowledge as ally a set of links between empirically
the implementation and reciprocal influ- unconnected regions and arenas began to
ence of art and geography, how does the emerge; not new regions of broad iden-
specificity of a site produce knowledge tity, but platforms of shared concerns.
that is able to transcend its own condi-
tions and languages and that can circulate New Vocabulary
beyond its location?
One of the ways in which to imagine I would say that it is the ability to ad-
such local transcendence is via a concept dress issues not through the specificity

of a given location, but rather through a regional alliance that set them up as a
the generation of a new vocabulary, that grand tour – emulating the language of
would be more hospitable to unusual and the 2007 circuit of Documenta 12, Venice
sometimes hostile conjunctions. Such an Biennale, Munster Sculture Project and
instance was the ‘Territories’ exhibition Basle Art Fair. Equally Central-Asian and
that took place in KW Berlin, Kunstahlee Middle-Eastern arts initiatives have linked
Malmo and elsewhere in 2003 – and themselves in similar modes, combining
which brought together a shared set of exhibitions and arts fairs under one label
concerns about shifting territorial for- of activity. The conference and conver-
mations within the more conventionally sation programmes developed within
accepted geographical designations of these various projects again insisted on
nation-states; occupations, demilitarized an encounter between a certain meta-
zones, privatized spaces and gated com- language of theoretical concerns and the
munities. By thinking about ‘territory’ specificity of a set of local engagements
rather than naturalized place, the curators on the ground.
were able to link disparate places and Perhaps most intriguing have been
practices across the world as an emergent the emergence of a host of new regional
concept of a territoriality that required us imaginations – how do new regional for-
to reference an alternative political and mations come about and do creative prac-
analytical language than the one by which tices have a part in shaping them? For
we normally address our criticism of cur- example, the contemporary art world in
rent states of domination, disenfranchise- Turkey has set itself the task of becoming
ment or extra-territoriality. the hub of a Balkan, South-Eastern Eu-
This duality has resulted in new ‘rela- ropean artistic sphere, (Platform Garanti,
tional geographies’ we do not yet know Art Centre) while in the inhospitable
how to name. If the model of the past climates of the Eastern Mediterranean,
was for regional curators to travel to- practitioners from Palestine, Israel, Leba-
wards the traditional centres of the art non, Egypt and Jordan are quietly and
world such as New York, Paris, London, discretely forging joint projects that hint
etcetera, and find work there that they at a new Middle-Eastern cultural forma-
could bring back with them to exemplify tion but very often have to take place at
the latest shifts in the languages and pur- quite a distance from it. (‘Liminal Spaces’
suits of contemporary art, while curators in Israel and ‘Home Works’ in Lebanon
of major international projects used to are two examples of such regional initia-
roam the world in search of local prac- tives that reference the local outside of the
tices that would inform their audience of limits and boundaries set up by constrain-
some supposed culture ‘over there’ – this ing politics.) In the aftermath of hundreds
has now totally inversed itself. One of of years of colonial empires and super-
the most interesting recent developments power dichotomies, the arts are becoming
has been regional alliances; the recent the site of a new cultural-geographical
Shanghai Biennale, Gwangju biennale imagining.
and Guangzhou biennales have formed
Geo-Cultures 115

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Open 16: The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon.

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Open 16: The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon.

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This anniversary issue of 'Open' focuses on the art biennial as a global

On 19 October 2008, in connection with the first Brussels Biennial and in

Open 16 is a co -production by BAM, de Buren, the Foundation for Art and

By means of an analysis, sociologist Pascal Gielen attempts to get a better

According to Michael Hardt, the production of the common is the most

Political philosopher Chantal Mouffe shows how the existing hegemonic

According to Belgian philosopher Thierry de Duve, the criticism of the art

In order to fathom the real meaning and opportunities of biennials as a global

Chales Esche and Maria Hlavajova

Charles Esche and Maria Hlavajova were invited, as representatives of Van

‘Geo-Cultures’, a research project conducted by Irit Rogoff, a professor at

4 Open 2009/No.16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

10 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

12 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

14 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

16 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

at a ‘glocal’ level (witness for instance The internal tension of an authentic

Production and Distribution of the Common 21

22 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

historical analogy, functions in a not controversial to say that for at least

Production and Distribution of the Common 23

24 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

Production and Distribution of the Common 25

26 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

Production and Distribution of the Common 27

28 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

Democratic Politics in the Age of Post-Fordism 33

34 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

Democratic Politics in the Age of Post-Fordism 35

36 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

Democratic Politics in the Age of Post-Fordism 37

38 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

Democratic Politics in the Age of Post-Fordism 39

40 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

44 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

The Glocal and the Singuniversal 45

46 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

The Glocal and the Singuniversal 47

48 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

The Glocal and the Singuniversal 49

50 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

The Glocal and the Singuniversal 51

52 Open 2009/No. 16/The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

This is the text of a talk

The Glocal and the Singuniversal 53

From Medium to Message 

 Open /No. /The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

From Medium to Message 

 Open /No. /The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

From Medium to Message 

 Open /No. /The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

From Medium to Message 

 Open /No. /The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon

From Medium to Message 