Manifesta Journal 1
Manifesta Journal 1
Manifesta Journal 1
MJ - Manifesta Journal
journal of contemporary curatorship
SilvanaEditoriale
MJ - Manifesta Journal
journal of contemporary curatorship
MJ Manifesta Journal is the international journal of contemporary curatorship,
N1, Spring / Summer 2003
based on the ideas and aims developed over the course of the consecutive
The Revenge of the White Cube?
Manifesta biennials and all related activities. The main scope of MJ focuses on
issues of curatorial work - its strategies, conditions, dilemmas, and contexts. MJ
aims for curatorial self-reflection and self-examination. From 2003 to 2005, MJ
was produced as a series of six issues, which were titled The Revenge of the White
Cube?; Biennials; Exhibition as a Dream; Teaching Curatorship; Artist & Curator
and Archive: Memory of the Show.
The International Foundation Manifesta and Moderna Galerija would like to thank
the authors, designers and editors, who kindly and generously contributed to MJ
Manifesta Journal. We are also grateful to Silvana Editoriale, who has made it
possible to launch the reprint of MJ as two books on the occasion of Manifesta 7,
the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, which takes place in the North-Italian
region of Trentino Alto Adige from July 19 until November 2, 2008.
Hedwig Fijen
International Foundation Manifesta
Zdenka Badovinac
Moderna Galerija, Ljubjana
The Revenge of
the White Cube?
MJ - Manifesta Journal
journal of contemporary curatorship
The almost-completely-
white cube
Roza El-Hassan
Exhibition at the Mala
Galerija, Ljubljana, 1997
The artist left the space
Contents
almost empty, apart
from her subtle drawings
on the walls in one corner
of the gallery and a space
drawing (a steel wire
coming out of the wall).
Beti erovc
no. 1 28 Making Things Possible:
A conversation with Harald Szeemann
Boris Groys
no. 1 38 The Museum in the Age of Mass Media
Beti erovc
no. 1 70 You have to Think Big: A conversation with Damien Hirst
WHW
no. 1 80 The Possibilities of the White Cube
no. 1 82 Contributors
FROM THE EDITORS
MJ Debuts The title itself Manifesta Journal, or more simply, MJ points to the present
magazines essential connection with Manifesta, not only the actual European
This is why Manifesta has always been thought of as something mobile, in constant
transformation, internally diverse and heterogeneous, as something essentially open
Biennial of Contemporary Art, but also the various connections and collaborations and ready to integrate different initiatives and to make connections with them. While
that have been continually developing around the exhibition and that now, with the the biennial exhibitions remain the most visible part of Manifesta, the gradual
establishment of the Manifesta Network, are receiving a clearer form and structure. development of various connections, exchanges, and initiatives into a network is,
MJ is based on the ideas and aims that have emerged over the past few years in perhaps, a slower and less obvious process, but one that is no less important.
connection with Manifestas activities. The idea for a magazine arose among a
group of people variously connected with Manifesta during a discussion about what In this open and heterogeneous structure, in the complex entanglements of
Manifesta actually is and what it could or should be. In a way a continuation of this particular initiatives and network responses, in the structure that is the emerging
discussion, MJ is, in itself, also a partial answer to the question about what Manifesta Network it is here that MJ seeks its place, as part of the Network and
Manifesta is, even as it contributes to shaping its identity. as a collaborative project between the International Foundation Manifesta,
Amsterdam, and the Moderna Galerija (Museum of Modern Art), Ljubljana. While
Why do we find it important to place our efforts in such a context? Probably because maintaining editorial independence, it is tightly connected to the other activities of
the basic ideas of Manifesta are so important, the dilemmas it deals with are so the Foundation and the Network. It is open to ideas and suggestions from all
urgent, and the forms it develops are often so innovative and full of possibility. Network participants artists, curators, critics and anyone else who is or has been
involved with the activities of Manifesta. It welcomes their contributions, comments
Above all, the idea of Manifesta is based on a deep belief in the importance of and criticism. But of course, it does not limit itself to the Network. Instead, it strives
art. Art is not decoration; it is a crucial agent in contemporary culture and society, to expand the Network by seeking out not only new collaborators, but also new
with the potential for formulating essential insights into their structure and perspectives, ideas, and approaches. MJ seeks to collect and present materials and
mechanisms. At the same time, Manifesta demonstrates a belief in the particular information from various European and other sources, to encourage an exchange of
qualities and power of art. Manifesta seeks to open up a space devoted to opinion, and to initiate discussions about issues in contemporary art and culture
contemporary art, to explore new aspects of contemporary art practice, and to with art professionals from the various European regions, as well as with people
relate these to current issues of significance. It provides an opportunity for critical from other areas of the arts and social and cultural studies. In particular, it wants
reflection on the changing role of the artist in contemporary society, both in to present an opportunity for artists and writers from those countries that, for a
Europe and beyond. variety of reasons, have remained marginalized in the international art system.
Hedwig Fijen
Reinventing
Manifesta
The International
Foundation Manifesta
is the initiator of the
The history of Manifesta is known
Manifesta, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art was once the response to
Establishing Manifesta on a more permanent basis has meant that people have
begun to have much higher expectations of it. Is Manifesta willing to meet all these
Manifesta European the dramatic changes in Europes political and cultural landscape after the fall of expectations? Or, more appropriately, are we willing to re-address these
Biennial of
Contemporary Art and
the Berlin Wall. It did address at that time the inbalance in the representation of expectations by changing our strategy?
the New Network artistic and curatorial practices in Western, Southern, Central and Eastern
Programme. This European countries. Creating dialogues on different levels between East and Up to now, Manifesta and its curatorial teams have sought active involvement in the
Programme is supported
by the Culture 2000 West, North and South enabled Manifesta to present critical issues in a more contemporary art world, through creating opportunities for young artists, curators
Framework of the flexible and collective way, stimulating collaboration and research between and writers who are not yet fully established. Manifesta also pays attention to art
European Commission.
curators, artists and the audiences. This process slowly eroded borders which theory emanating from those areas of Europe, which have customary failed to attract
were formerly closed and gave space to new working methodologies within the the attention they deserve. Manifesta believes that art is of its time and that new
field of art. working practices and new forms of artistic responses will develop from an
engagement with the wider issues of the day. At the same time, though, we must
Manifesta consciously adopted a nomadic structure, by relocating itself in a different seek to ensure that Manifesta continues to inhabit a clearly defined in between
European Host city every two years (Rotterdam 1996, Luxembourg 1998, Ljubljana space, not only in the geographical sense, but also institutionally, politically,
2000, Frankfurt 2002, Donostia/San Sebastian 2004). It also established a firm artistically and commercially.
spirit of collaboration, in determining that the Manifesta curators should work
together as a team. Manifesta expects curators to work in complex internal and Thus we find ourselves here at this stage, at the start of the Manifesta 5 Biennium
external situations. Curators are requested to integrate artistic practices and to relate in quite an open and fluid situation, in which it seems only right that we should re-
them to an existing socio-political context. They are expected to commit themselves examine some of our basic assumptions and ask questions about Manifestas
wholeheartedly to the principles of collaboration and co-operation, without falling willingness to change its working strategies and create more crossovers between
into the trap of facile consensus. different fields and projects within and outside its immediate sphere, and about the
ability of Manifesta to relate toa wider social-cultural and public platform.
Over the next three years, through a series of programmes facilitated by the
Foundation and produced in conjunction with outside partners, we hope to be able
to redefine the context for Manifestas work, to create additional platforms for co-
Igor Zabel
The Return of
the White Cube
1
Brian ODoherty,
Inside the White Cube.
The ideology of the
We often hear about a return of the white cube, and indeed, it seems there is a
new interest in this type of exhibition space. A number of recent exhibitions,
and its atmosphere seem so well-known and omnipresent that it is almost strange
to consider that the white exhibition space is a relatively recent innovation and that
2
Bart De Baere, Joining
the Present to Now,
in Kunst &
gallery space. including the most recent Documenta, have employed the neutral, white exhibition when it was introduced, it was experienced as something radically new and Museumjournaal, Vol. 6,
Expanded edition. double new year issue,
University of California
space. How can we understand this interest? Is it a sign of some new conservatism immensely challenging:
1994-1995,
Press, Berkeley, in art after the adventurous experimental work of the 1990s art that precisely (p.p. 59-20), p. 62.
Los Angeles and London, strove to break out of the white gallery space and enter, as directly as possible, a When Sandberg had the walls painted white, it was a deed of activism, in
1999, p. 15
wide diversity of situations and contexts? Or have artists and curators discovered collaboration with artists wanting renewal. Before he painted them white, they were
new and challenging possibilities in this sort of exhibition environment? colored, as they had been since the museum existed. Walls were simply not left
white; thus neither were the walls upon which paintings were hung. The color of
But can we really speak about the white cubes return? Has it ever actually gone walls in a museum formed an interesting tangential problem. It was a possibility to
away? I would say, instead, that the white cube has represented the norm, the most create a new, art-historical context for the work. When Sandberg painted the
common type of exhibition space over the past decades. Even site-specific projects museum walls white, he brought the museum from the past into his present.2
and other works beyond the white cube have implicitly or explicitly implied it as
a sort of a generally valid reference point. The white walls of the Stedelijk Museum in the late 1930s were thus experienced
not as the general norm, but as a particular aesthetic statement that brought a new
We think we know this sort of space and its characteristics completely: perspective to the artwork. The white walls could be understood as an active
curatorial strategy toward the exhibited art. A few years later, white walls in
A gallery is constructed along laws as rigorous as those for building a medieval exhibition spaces had become the generally accepted norm.
church. The outside world must not come in, so windows are usually sealed off.
Walls are painted white. The ceiling becomes the source of light. The wooden One result of this development was that there appeared to be a general agreement
floor is polished so that you can click along clinically, or carpeted so that you pad about what the white cube was. This idea, in turn, was subjected to criticism and
soundlessly, resting the feet while the eyes have at the wall. The art is free, as dissent, in artists strategies, in curatorial practice, as well as in museological theory
the saying used to go, to take on its own life. The discreet desk may be the only and architectural concepts. The main target of the criticism has been the artificial,
piece of furniture. In this context a standing ashtray becomes almost a sacred neutral, aseptic, and isolated nature of the white cube. Such a space is so neutral
object, just as the firehose in a modern museum looks not like a firehose but an it almost seems to disappear. Anything that might interfere with the works is
esthetic conundrum. Modernisms transposition of perception from life to formal excluded. In a space defined by white walls, neutral floor and lit ceiling, we are
values is complete. This, of course, is one of modernisms fatal diseases.1 unaware of the season of the year or the time of the day, of the spaces location and
its natural, cultural, social, and historical context. Such spaces are transformed into
This precise and vivid description is taken from the text that actually established the separate, perennial entities, and we, the visitors, are given a sort of pure eyes
notion of the white cube, Brian ODohertys essay Notes on the Gallery Space, later as if we left our social, cultural, gender and other particularities outside the gallery
reprinted in his book Inside the White Cube. As described by ODoherty, this space door. As ODoherty observed:
3
ODoherty, p. 14. The ideal gallery subtracts from the artwork all cues that interfere with the fact that space had changed. (Such changes in understanding represent, of course, changes
4
Robert Smithson, it is art. The work is isolated from everything that would detract from its own in art and the fundamental ideas that determine works of art.) What was once
Cultural Confinement, evaluation of itself.3 considered the ideal space for observing, experiencing, and evaluating art the
in : Charles Harrison
and Paul Wood (Eds.),
only possible space in which works of art could disclose all their essential qualities
Art in Theory, It was, it seems, a frustrating sense of isolation from the world that made critical had now become an asylum and a prison.
1900-1990, Blackwell, strategies against the white cube so urgent. It was felt that, in order to enter the
Oxford (UK) and
Cambridge (USA), peaceful enclave of the white cube and to experience and appreciate the exhibited The most direct critical reaction to the isolated white exhibition space has, of course,
1992, p. 946-948, works, one had to pay an exorbitant price. This price, of course, was essentially to been to abandon it and search for a different space for presenting art, very often with
quotation p. 947.
The text was first forget the world outside the gallery walls; taken metaphorically, this meant to forget the idea that art should somehow become a much more immediate part of life. Art has
published in the the world outside the art system. It also meant that art was banished from the world moved into a great variety of contexts and appropriated them for its own purposes.
catalogue of
Documenta 5,
into the isolated realm of the art system. Robert Smithson, in Cultural There have also been modifications within the traditional exhibition space. (One such
Kassel, 1972. Confinement, his critical textual contribution to Documenta 5 (1972), sharply modification was Rudi Fuchss decision to paint the walls in the Stedelijk Museum
attacked the white cube space and the art system for being an isolating force that light gray, thus reviving in a way Sandbergs active relationship to works of art and
separated art from the world outside of cultural confinement. (Smithson giving the exhibited pieces a more active, and also more appropriate, context.) But
understood this world primarily as the dialectic of nature, but this dialectic there has also been a strong tendency within artistic and curatorial practice to develop
includes, of course, also the huge transforming impact of human society.) new critical strategies with the white cube space. One essential strategy could be
described as the (re)localization of such a space and thus its (re)contextualization.
Artists themselves are not confined, but their output is. Museums like asylums and There have been ongoing efforts over the past few decades to reconnect the exhibition
jails have wards and cells in other words, neutral rooms called galleries. A work space with its context environmentally, historically, culturally and politically.
of art when placed in a gallery loses its charge, and becomes a portable object or Furthermore, there has been a recurring effort to deconstruct the apparently neutral
surface disengaged from the outside world. A vacant white room with lights is still and generic nature of such a space and to disclose the ideological background on
submission to the neutral. Works of art seen in such spaces seem to be going which it is constituted, as well as the function and role of such a space (and related
through a kind of esthetic convalescence. They are looked upon as so many curatorial approaches) within the actual power relations in society.
inanimate invalids, waiting for critics to pronounce them curable or incurable. The
function of the warden-curator is to separate art from the rest of society. Next comes This approach may also be seen in the work of architects who have considered
integration. Once the work of art is totally neutralized, ineffective, abstracted, safe, changing the traditional white exhibition space by permitting more subtle
and politically lobotomized it is ready to be consumed by society. All is reduced to connections to its natural and social context. In some cases, they even tried to make
visual fodder and transportable merchandise. Innovations are allowed only if they visitors critically aware of the nature and function of the exhibition space. In some
support this kind of confinement.4 cases, the modification of such elements as lighting have essentially changed the
nature of the space, as Kenneth Frampton proposed in his vision of a critical
Smithsons statement demonstrates how deeply the understanding of the white cube regionalism in architecture.
Making
Things Possible
The role of a
contemporary art curator
The curator of contemporary art, as we Kunsthalle in a way became my beloved put his grease on the walls, Heizer made When Attitudes Become Form was of compromise between
the traditional system
as we know it today understand the role today, became mistress and the exhibition my own a hole in the public sidewalk, sponsored by Phillip Morris; some and contemporary art
become established with its demands? The
during the general social
established at the end of the sixties or medium of expression. I never felt like a Artschwager distributed his blps in the writers, such as Mary Ann Staniszewsky, scope of a contemporary
crisis of the late 1960s. the beginning of the seventies. Could we critical person; I only show what I love city, Barry put the building under have already pointed out the strange art curator's activities
The strong critical is essentially different
movements in the society see the curator as an agent of this doesnt mean that nothing else is radiation, Weiner removed a square meter connection between the first big from that of a museum
not only condemned curator's, his immediate
consumerism and called
compromise between, on the one hand, good, but, acting as I do, it meant that I of wall, Ruthenbeck ruined the wooden exhibitions of conceptual art and the predecessor. Though
for social change, critical art and active institutional refused to criticize. Lyotard said once: floor with his wet ashes, Serra threw beginning of big corporate sponsorship both share a common
but also radically task and medium
questioned art and art critique, which were very strong at the non-judgment as a way of being. melted lead against the wall, etc., etc. for contemporary art. So do you have any the presentation of art at
institutions, demanding time, and, on the other, the traditional Everything your question evokes was, for This was no longer perceived as an art idea why it happened that way? And institutional exhibitions
profound and visible a curator does more than
changes. However, art establishment, not only such me, not about analyzing but acting with exhibition but as anarchic provocation could we see this simply as a way of just discreetly and
when such changes precisely record a given
finally did occur, institutions as museums, but also huge and within a beautiful instrument: the not by the artists, but by the curator who calming things down in the late sixties in situation. In the new
this happened in the recurring exhibitions like Documenta? Kunsthalle Bern. And if you look at the list allowed this. the field of art, in the sense of opening context he has the
traditional institutional opportunity to be much
framework, with the Im an existentialist. You are thrown in the of my exhibitions between 1961 and It was this show, and my eight and a half the borders up a little bit, but of course more actively involved
acceptance of institutions in the production of
as well as artists and the universe from somewhere and are, once 1969, you can easily feel that what I years of activity in Bern, which convinced with the aim of keeping the broader such presentations,
critical public. A curator's here, responsible for your acts. But its wanted to do through all these the organizers in Kassel to nominate me. hierarchy stable. to be a creator or co-
role such as it creator of new trends
developed in this always a privilege to fall into a well-made exhibitions, activities, events, avant-garde Documenta 4 had to a large extent lacked Calming things down? Keeping the in art, to promote his
specific context ideas and choose works
was acceptable to both bed. In this case, the Kunsthalle Bern in films and music, collaboration with the this new spirit and the artists that hierarchy stable? Certainly not. Actually of art according to them,
sides. For the most part, 1961. I had the privilege of two fantastic Living Theater, with new writers and embodied it. For Documenta 5, they when you read my foreword, it deals more to launch new stars in art,
curators came from etc. Could we perhaps
critical groups; they predecessors, Arnold Rdlinger, who young fashion designers, etc., etc., was to wanted to be sure they didnt make the with introspection and attack: to try to say that it is the
were strong supporters erotization of his work,
of contemporary art,
showed us the history of painting from the set up the institution as a laboratory, as a same mistake again and neglect what break up the power triangle of studio due to his contacts with
were particularly sensitive Nabis to Pollock and Sam Francis, and living organism, at the risk of possibly was most current. But maybe you dont gallerymuseum, to free the creative living artists and
to the innovative his position of an author,
production of their time, Franz Meyer, who paid homage to losing one audience but in the hope of know: although I was the sole person in process to create an attitude. Art = life = that most obviously
and often acted as artists' Matisse, Ernst, Giacometti, Schwitters, creating a new one. There was no such charge for Documenta 5, I refused the art was always a very strong motivation for separate a contemporary
producers. On the other art curator from a
hand, they kept art Malevich, Tinguely, etc., in the fifties. So, compromise as you suggest; it was a title artistic director but instead called what I did and how I did it. museum curator?
contained within an Harald Szeemann
essentially traditional when I started, I could concentrate on the perpetual going forward without fear. This myself secretary general, like the head has been one of the
(albeit changed and present and the new sensibility. Before was the birth of the curator as we of the communist party or the United And to continue with previous question, key protagonists of
modernized) framework, these developments
maintaining also an directing the Kunsthalle, I was trying to do understand the role today. Nations. The new curator was nave, the new curator was just perfect for from the 1960s to
unchanged hierarchy this day. This is why
of the main protagonists my Gesamtkunstwerk as writer, painter, The historical moment, when the image provocative, and full of love, but not this, since everybody was dirty: the we approached him
and values. Could we, stage designer, musician, and actor in the of the creator/curator became conscious cynical or arrogant or domineering. critic, the dealer, the museum. So on to learn more about them.
therefore, assume that Unfortunatelly editing
curators were not only form of a one-man theater in 1956, and evident, happened in 1969, when I And what I was always looking for was to both sides, the institutional side and the of the (long) conversation
agents of change as they some interesting
are considered today, which to my surprise was very successful. organized When Attitudes Become Form get rid of style; thats why I invented artists side, to put it simply, the curator information and details
but at the same time But this also means that I have always and the artists arrived and installed their Individual Mythologies a human could be seen as part of the solution and had to be left out.
agents of neutralization, B. .
tried to personalize all my activities the works and TV reports publicized it. Beuys right. not as part of the problem.
Boris Groys
The question is, however, can one really learn from the media what is specifically
contemporary about the present? In my view the answer is no and for one simple
reason: the global media market lacks the historical memory which would enable it to
compare the past with the present and thereby determine what is really new and
genuinely contemporary about the present. The old product range in the media market
Roma Reason
Niklas Luhmann,
Art as a Social System,
trans. Eva M. Knodt,
Niklas Luhmann who died in 1998 is not widely discussed by social and cultural
theorists outside Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Scandinavia and Italy. Yet in
For ourselves, we can say that Luhmann writes from a world in which we do our
work or rather from within a world in which we can recognise ourselves as doing
Stanford University Germany at least his influence rivals and exceeds that of Habermas in certain our work. While his is a social theory, it will present difficulties to and bring
Press, Stanford, CA,
2000. All page
reaches of social theory extending also to philosophers and logicians. More disappointments to the confident professionals of the Social History of Art. It will be
references, unless surprisingly, perhaps, he is a pervasive presence in the writing and conversation of even more of an irritant to the academy of Cultural Studies. As we have suggested,
otherwise indicated, art theorists and artists. Surprisingly, because Luhmanns loci classici are to be Luhmanns sense of the social system - and certainly of art as a social system - is
refer to this book
found in cybernetics, communications theory and the calculus of the British explained at a high level of abstraction in sometimes relentlessly technical language.
mathematician George Spencer Brown. Luhmanns is a sociological systems theory. It uses very few of the building materials which are normally used to construct the
One might indeed think that he proposes a systems-theoretical approach to the themes and motifs of art and society, the social history of art and (a fortiori) the
entire range of geisteswissenschaftlichen products. And systems-theoretical app- art world. Art as he conceives it is an autopoietic system which knows a bit about
roaches have stirred up the humanities more or less since the former have borne the world which it must treat as its background. For him art is made of the
the name. Luhmanns argument, however, is that his critics are wrong: this theory communications within and presumably out of such a system. At the same time, art
is not another attempt at a nerdy Putsch by technocratic imperialists but an does not reduce to systems-theoretical formulae. Its the mystifying but
investigation of communication rather than agents and actions. And while he thinks unmystificatory remainder that interests him. Even if it (art) employs text as an
that communication (which he conceives operationally) is somewhat improbable, artistic medium its communications cannot be adequately rendered through words
he suggests that it is the very stuff that is transformed into social structures. (let alone concepts). The upshot of all this is that artistic practice can resist
meltdown into hopeless spectacle and manipulative barbarism insofar as it works
We have attended two conferences which share the title Art & Language and hard on its own indeterminacy, its endless project of self-description. This is art
Luhmann. The first was in Vienna in 1995 and was addressed by Luhmann without purification or police. It is art borne of the practice of bad citizenship in the
himself. The second was after his death and was held in Karlsruhe in 2000. These state controlled by the academy of cultural studies.
conferences were not organised by Art & Language. They were organised by
Christian Matthiessen of the Institt fur Soziale Gegenwartsfragen, and included Autopoietic systems
performances by its alter ego, The Jackson Pollock Bar. It all began as something Luhmann argues that systems of control and systems of power are intimately related
of a mystery to us, but Matthiessen wrote and explained that there were many and that cybernetics tells us that these can be deconstructed rather than merely
parallels between Luhmanns theory of autopoietic systems and the artistic practice opposed. The reasons of the parts of social systems are not the same as the reasons
(of reflection) of Art & Language. These were not conventionally academic of the whole. They therefore have to be explained differently, and, furthermore, the
conferences, in so far as they were both accompanied by exhibitions of Art & whole is much more stupid than the parts. He agrees with Vico, Marx and Gramsci
Language work. Indeed, the first conference took place in the same room as the that social practice has (or rather can find) no foundation outside itself.
exhibition. At the second, Luhmanns Zettelkasten was exhibited in juxtaposition to Communication in Luhmanns sense implies a great deal of modesty on the part of
Art & Languages Index 01 of 1972 file cabinets of Art & Language writings and enquirers after human causes and effects. He has an answer for his critics of the
fragments of writings indexed by a set of three relations. We left both occasions with left and elsewhere who argue (as C. Wright-Mills did of another of Luhmanns
a solid sense of working camaraderie, even though a good deal of the Luhmann influences Talcott Parsons) that all this Shannon and Weaver stuff is drunk on
talk was opaque to us. This is how we came to read some of his work. syntax and blind to semantics that it is a regime of technicalities which is of no
Luhmann reformulates the social as consisting of communications. In this sense is referred to and everything else and, on the other, what is within the operation of
there are no agents and interests, only communications. His is a challenge to the the system of distinguishing and what is outside it. Consider for example the
determinants of modernitys self-descriptions. In drawing a number of decentering (Brothers) Marx epigram Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. We can
and deconstructive conclusions he draws many Quinean or Derridean distinguish Time goes or proceeds quickly as an arrow (the correct reading) from
consequences. The unified autonomous subject goes out, along with the idea of the A certain species of flies, time flies, enjoy a banana (the incorrect reading), and
social as a product of intersubjectivity, and the idea of language as the A certain species of flies, fruit flies, enjoy a banana (the correct reading) from Fruit
representation of the content of consciousness - with a given communication as the goes or proceeds quickly as an arrow does (the incorrect reading). This
transmission of these contents. As with Derrida, these clearings-out begin with distinction/indication is not the same as indicating that time does indeed fly like an
phenomenology. Meaning for Luhmann however is an effect of differences that, arrow or that fruit flies really do enjoy a banana. In a system, according to
pace Bateson, make a difference. Luhmann uses systems theory to rethink Luhmann, the two distinctions occur at the same time, and they develop together
consciousness as a facing up to the implications of autopoietic closure. In even though they are distinct. The autopoietic is thus something that recognises an
Luhmanns unfamiliar usage, communication can observe consciousness but only outside, an environment, in which time goes as time goes and fruit flies do as fruit
from outside and from within the boundaries of what is marked by the observation. flies do, and is self-referential in distinguishing various possible readings of the two
The communication system and consciousness can operate simultaneously without sentences and resolving the ambiguities involved. Neither of these operations is the
necessarily interfering with each other, since they both function autopoietically. Of same as getting the joke, which is brought on by another distinction. It would be
course they can intersect and may indeed have developed in concert. hard to say if getting the joke would be a matter of external reference or self-
reference. Relations of this kind are, nevertheless, what form implies for Luhmann.
In trying to help British Railways with a timetable machine (a truth-table maker) It should be clear by now that Art as a Social System is not a book which charts the
George Spencer-Brown developed a calculus of indications. This is the lynchpin of transmission of soul contents as mediated by works of art. Here are some more
Luhmanns system. Here is, we are told, a calculus that welcomes and deals with things it is not: it is not a book of aesthetics seen or operated sociologically; it is not
opacity and ambiguity. The calculus involves an injunction: draw a distinction. a study of the stratified society in which art has its being. Luhmanns is a sociology
The agument is that we cant make or do anything without drawing a distinction which lays claim to being its own (anti) epistemology. He speaks of an ecology of
and indeed, we do this endlessly. A distinction according to Spencer-Brown is not knowledge, an ecology that, he argues, we have to learn to work if we are to deal
the same as the indication (pointing/marking/selecting) it makes, but it contains it. adequately with the growing complexities of social differentiation. He gets rid of the
It also contains all the rest of the world that is not indicated. Indeed, the distinction model of society based on stratification, not because he thinks there are no
is itself contained in this unmarked space. Luhmann argues that this calculus is disfigurements, but because he thinks that such models lead to disenfranchising
operational. It is supposed to refer to the concrete operations of real (opacity- or at least to confusing and misrepresenting reifications and purifications which
recognizing self-referential) systems. If we indicate, we indicate something, but the simply hide the colossal indeterminacies which all social thinkers confront.
operation is not terminated by what the indicated something is. Each operation of Causality, in social terms at least, is downgraded as a mediately operational
indication results in some sort of referring, but there is a difference generated distinction in a world that is massively underdetermined as well as overdetermined.
between that operation and what it marks, points to, selects or refers to. There is no In an article The Paradox of Form Luhmann offers an illustration: in Paradise Lost,
necessary correspondence between, on the one hand, the difference between what the angel Raphael explains history to Adam (i.e., the reader) as history goes on
other things to which we might, ought or should be attending. Form shows us that There are agents in the book, authors and so forth, but what they do qua social
what we imagine as a clear cultural identity must face up to contingencies which beings is not what agents do, but communications. These agents are the names
infringe, overlap and deny that identity. attached to Luhmanns copious and wide ranging references, but otherwise all the
real action is with observations, operations, events, structural couplings and so
A useful figure to keep in mind is one employed by Dirk Baecker in commenting on forth. While Art as a Social System may be about what the title suggests, Luhmann
the influence of Husserl on Luhmann. The latter abhorred Husserls idea of a spirit operates an astonishing range of reconstructive and interpretative observations.
of Europe (which admittedly he may have been speaking of in post-Freiburgian Some of them, given his refreshing and exemplary distance from the art-worldy, art-
desperation in Vienna in 1935). The spirit consists of rationality, worship of reason, historical (etc.) academy, are established critical insights made strange and thus
enlightenment and the socially responsive human being. This spirit excludes the interesting. Here, for instance is Luhmann on the problem of Realism though it
Roma. But according to Luhmann, the Roma people are the most sophisticated in takes a while to figure out that thats what his nice recasting is addressed to.
accounting for boundaries. They cross them, they de-construct them. Watching the
Roma will tell the observer more about the actual state of Europe than any digging Ascertaining a reality is based on an experience of a resistance in the system
for its spirit ever could. This support for Roma reason is presumably part of the against itself for example in perception against perception, or in language against
German experience but, according to Baecker, Luhmann (alluding to Schiller) language and not on a comprehensive impression of the world. The being-in-the-
thought that those who preferred reason to the multiplicity and individuality of world of the communication system emerges from a continual coupling of self-
appearances were barbarians. He preferred ironical reason. (See Dirk Baecker reference and hetero-reference. (pp.10-11)
Gypsy Reason: Niklas Luhmanns Sociological Enlightenment in Cybernetics and
Human Knowing 6, no. 3, 1999, page 5.) And Luhmann is far from regarding art as some sort of sociological adjunct. He is
aware of developments and complexities in modern art conceived as relatively
Art as a Social System sits alongside other books in Luhmanns series: The Economy autonomous, and he produces an informative reconstruction of the various
as a Social System, Science as a Social System, Law as a Social System. The conditions which made this autonomy both possible and necessary. He is never
sociological enlightenment of N. Luhmann is not the discovery or the establishment guilty of the typical philosophers error of treating works of art as merely
of a unified meaning of society. It is rather a kind of recursive systems theory the underdetermined cases, illustrations or exemplifications of ontological or
doubling of the world into the visible and the invisible. Again, according to Dirk hermeneutical puzzles. He, unlike one of his notable followers, does not simply rely
Baecker people can see what they see but they cannot see that they did not see on dear old Ren Magritte, the philosophers friend, to make the exemplary case
what they did not see. Luhmanns writing seeks to emancipate contingencies and with a game of unreflective but paradoxical pictoriality. While the genetic character
to emancipate with contingencies. This is something art can do. He is quite clear of Luhmanns systems-theoretical approach may replay the warning bells rung by
however that this will not continue to any purpose unless there is (soon) some sort Habermas or C. Wright-Mills, we have to remember that Barry Barnes (for example)
of development in artistic culture such that artworks achieve some sort of internal is not so prejudiced as to be unwilling to use Talcott Parsons for what he is good
complexity. He doesnt really say why. Heres why: if they dont achieve this, then for. Similarly, this social systems theorist makes sense of Conceptual Art not as a
all works of art will become no more than the instrumental adjuncts of Murdoch- historically purblind scandal of pickled sharks and unmade beds, nor as an
like curators. Art will simply be unable to put up a fight. occasion for post-modernists opportunism and spectacle, nor yet as the freeing of
Once art becomes autonomous the emphasis shifts from self-reference to hetero- is called intertextuality which is another way of saying the system must have a
reference which is not the same as self-isolationbut there is no such thing as memory. But does the citing, renewing, ironising etc. refer to productive
self-reference without hetero-reference. (p.149) requirements or to the indices of mere consumption? Art as celebrity motif, as the
ornament of management and distribution, is at no risk from its own redescription,
When Luhmann claims that paintings acquire representative functions that are not since this will be either trivial or external. Picasso, according to Luhmann, is
confused with ordinary social reality, even though they refer to reality in a manner considered the representative painter of this century and for good reason; the unity
that implies both proximity and distance it is as if he is referring reflexively to his of his work can no longer be comprehended in terms of form or style, but only in
own writing methods. The reader struggles to tell whether he is talking about the art terms of an irony which he probes in all conceivable forms and styles. Theres
system or his own system. In giving up the struggle and somehow conflating nothing new in saying that Picasso was the strenuously productive self of classical
resources with subject-matter we become enmeshed in the implications of proximity modernity. Today we confront the democracy of Fine Art Lite, and this is not simply
and distance on the boundaries of his or our own self-critical system. a dumbing-down reduction but a real condition replete with indeterminacies.
According to Luhmann, When a work of art is determined to call art as such into
According to Luhmann, When Hegel speaks of the end of art he can mean only question, when, inspired by Gdel, it tries to appear as a work of art outside of the
one thing: art has lost its immediate relation to society and worldly affairs and must system of art, or when it seeks to accomplish a re-entry of non art into art in the
henceforth acknowledge its own differentiation. He goes on to say that the sense of Spencer-Brown and, in so doing, generates an endless oscillation between
differentiation of the art systemallows the relation between system and inside and outside in an imaginary realm outside the calculus of forms when all
environment to be reintroduced into the system in the form of a relationship this makes up the intended meaning of the work and can be observed accordingly
between self-reference and hetero-reference. He summarizes the implications of then the art system has definitely arrived at a new level of self-description. (p.
this as follows: How can the self be indicated if it excludes nothing? Thats the 293)
point of our practice of describing and re-describing i.e. of attempting to generate
hetero-reference or, under another description, dialogic aura. Thats the way it Luhmann goes on to say that this is an attempt to press the system to the limit so
works. This is a way that art can be integrated into the everyday: by accepting, as to include the excluded. Moreover, how is this possible socially, if not on the
describing and re-describing its own differentiation as form. Attempts to deny this basis of autonomy even when autonomy is practised as the renunciation of
differentiation collapse art into the media space of journalism and render it the autonomy? Art of this kind no longer offers representations of oppositional utopias.
passive client to the barbarism of publicity. Art that has been asked no internal Instead, it offers novelty as a provocation of society, and it is required to come up
technical questions, that possesses no internal complexity, has no reflexive entity with ever newer provocations, until society becomes used to the tactic and fails to
and thus nothing to differentiate. As a result, it can be put to any use or none. This respond. This kind of art, Luhmann notes is no longer possible. Thats very like
almost always means that it is co-opted to the ideological interests which capitals what Greenberg and Fried thought in the 1960s. And they would all be right if it
various academies represent. were not for the invention of a new kind of creature - a new kind of
communication: the curator for whom representation holds no interest.
The character of modern art, according to Luhmann, require[s] that works of art Representation has been supplanted by the presentation of distributed spectacle.
converse with one another, that art cite, copy, reject, renew, ironise, arttoday this This is official culture under the hegemony of the law of novelty.
But if this isnt possible, what is possible? Luhmann sort-of knows. What counts is
a performative contradiction, a deconstruction that turns back upon itself.
(Memories of Paul de Man?) The self-negation of art is realised at the level of
autopoetic operations in the form of art, so that art can continue.The self-
description of a system is a paradoxical undertaking from its very beginning,
because such a descriptions operation includes both self-reference and hetero-
reference. In the end, the artist has to reflect these problems in objects that are
constructed made. In this connection, Luhmann reanimates (even though he
doesnt quote) Barnett Newmans smart-assed observation, Aesthetics is for artists
as ornithology is for birds. And the artist still has to face this possibility: If anything
is possible, then the criteria for selecting what is admissable must be tightened.
Luhmann says that Operative closure, the emancipation of contingency, self-
organisation, poly-contextuality, the hyper-complexity of self-descriptions or, simpler
and less accurately formulated, pluralism, relativism and historicism all of these
trends offer no more than different cross sections of the structural fate of modernity.
By suffering its own condition, art shows just how it is. The question still is, how
might the tightening be done?
Luhmann commends Art & Language a bit as redescribers. He ends his book with
the tag from Virgil: Hoc opus hic labor est. (Arts hard work) We conjoin our own,
also from Virgil: Quaeque ipse miserrima vidi. Et quorum pars magna fui. (and
the most miserable things which I myself saw and of which I was a major part.
Aeneid bk. 2, 1.5.)
The reasons we have for continuing are much the same as the reasons wed have
for giving up.
Changing the angle This meant that one group designed a system with what it wants. Nor is it
of the view
Exhibition IRWIN LIVE
Charles Esche record market, another a bar and seeking a purely retinal effect, though
Moderna Galerija information zone, another a mushroom the best work should do that too. The
Ljubljana, 2000
What could be, in your opinion, the tea production unit, etc. Yet all sought to significance lies in that it tries to discuss
potential of the white cube exhibition retain a strongly visual aspect in which its own compromised condition. It could
space today? the audience could choose to get not be described as autonomous from
Im not sure its potential is greater or involved or simply to look. Finally, we its surrounding physical, economic or
less than in the past. The white cube will turn the main gallery space into a political conditions, but nevertheless it is
was developed after the Second World film studio in May 2003, in which Mark able to pass comment and perhaps even
society that can be subverted or change them in some way, through the
War as an ideal location outside the Lewis will make a new work but also
misused by artists wanting to engage in constructed and limited autonomy that it
social in which the possibility of open the process of set-building, filming
the world. To break the white cube claims. Examples would include Dan
contemplation and reflection were and editing to an audience. None of
while staying in it, or to use its Peterman, Esra Ersen, Liam Gillick,
enhanced (see Brian ODoherty). It still these projects, necessarily, directly
retains that quality, and this remains its distinctive authority to talk about things Jens Haaning, Michael Blum, Surasi
contradict the white cubes potential for
potential. The question arises as to outside of itself, seems to offer it an Kusolwong, among others.
quiet contemplation, but they do extend
whether we want to see art as interesting future.
it into other areas of potential audience
essentially residing outside the social. involvement.
Clearly, for some contemporary artists What are your recent experiences and
that is something negative, but I sense strategies with such spaces? The idea of the white cube is strongly
that the interest in relational aesthetics The Rooseum in Malm is essentially a connected to the idea of the autonomy of
is on the wane and traditional white- white cube space but one to which we art. Do you see any relevance in this idea
cube displays are back in fashion. have tried to apply just this kind of today? If so, can you briefly explain
However, Im still most drawn to the operation. When working with where and how?
photographs of some of the early Superflex, we discussed among In other texts I have referred to the idea
modernist exhibitions in Europe ourselves how to make their relatively of engaged autonomy, a term I would
intense, crowded hangs, works placed non-visual practice function as an see as suitably contradictory. This term
high up in corners, or the awkward exhibition, and so we created a black, is intended to describe an artistic
edges of a room. They seem to have an orange and white cube. With a collective practice that works within the system of
energy and commitment that the white- show like Baltic Babel we brought the gallery space, free market
cube approach neutralizes. So maybe together groups from different Baltic capitalism, and democracy, but makes
the potential of the white cube is now in cities and asked them to present critical demands on it. Such work is not
the tension implied by a space outside themselves in the white cube gallery. affirmative or seeking to provide the
You Have
to Think Big The curator today is very often compared that, which a curator doesnt do. I think Damien Hirst
photo: Bojan Velikonja
to the artist. You have been successful in curating is more like a collage, because
both fields, so you probably dont have with painting you can change the
any bias or grudge against either. I would painting, but a curator cant change the
like to know how you see the main paintings. The curator is given
difference between the two? something that exists, which is the
I think that a good curator is the same artwork he is curating. So, there it
as a good artist. exists, you cant change it, whereas, as
a painter, you can change anything;
You do? theres no gravity to deal with.
Well, I think it depends on what you
mean by an artist, because I always But in the sense of self-realization or
think of myself as more a kind of creativity a lot of curators try to
sculptor than a painter. I think Meyer persuade us how creative they are do
Vaisman said, The greatest idea of the you feel its the same?
twentieth century is collage. I think that Ive seen a lot of curators who are
everything is collage and I think thats a artists, really. And a lot of curators who
good way of looking at it. So, if you think kind of say they are curators and get
of yourself as an artist, like, Im an artist nothing out of it. And they dont do the
by kind of collaging things together I job very well. A great curator is
take this from there and that from there somebody like Nick Serota at the Tate,
and put it together to make one thing who was doing some really good things,
then I think thats also what curating is. like the re-hang. I think that sometimes
Its that you take an artists work, you when you put art together in a way that
put it next to another artists work; you it looks new and fresh and exciting, then
make connections. Its like arranging I think thats a good curator. Its just a
already existing objects. So I think in way of rearranging things to make you
that sense theres not a lot of difference see them again new.
between an artist and a curator, but I
think theres a big difference between a But when you curated your shows, did
painter and a curator. you have any role models, like a certain
dealer or curator, or maybe an exhibition
Why between a painter and a curator? you liked?
Because a painter doesnt do that. A No. I had worked with Anthony dOffay,
painter just creates with paint, images so Id kind of seen all that and got a lot
and illusions in space, and things like of influence from that.
WHW
The Possibilities
of the White Cube
The place in which art is presented, or in some other way happens, can never be The convention of the white cube may also be viewed from the perspective of the
completely neutral. It is impossible to view the white cube of the gallery the attempt to merge art practice and everyday life; the urban setting also plays an
archetypal place of modern art solely as a timeless, neutral frame intended for important role. The artwork almost obsessively competes with spectacle, by either
the production of autonomous art objects, a space unburdened by any invisible simulating it, appropriating its signs, or intervening in it. In addition, the innovative
external signifiers that might point toward the institutional and ideological character use of the white cube continually raises questions about mechanisms of
of the representational conception. Today, one can hardly be surprised that the art representation and the institutional framework as contextual background. In this
shown in a museum appears increasingly inconsequential, as an indifferent matter sense, the white cube is ambivalent: it may be understood as a synecdoche of social
of taste with nothing to contribute to notions of the desirable or the true, i.e., the institutions and contracts whose precisely established rules and restrictions present
norms on which institutions are founded, says Brian Holmes, who concludes that a field on which one may question and unmask the functioning of cultural
the ideal of individual judgment favored equally by the voting booth and its institutions and their broader conditions.
aesthetic variant, the white museum cube has become completely illusory.
The gallery space can serve as a temporary host for an array of different social
Why, then, given the continual affirmation of a variety of alternative exhibition spaces interactions and pseudo-institutions. No longer does the white cube merely offer
and numerous social, urban, and public art projects and phenomena such as net.art, masterpieces in quarantine; today, we are hardly surprised when the gallery
does contemporary art production still cling to the classical exhibition space? The takes on such functions as shop, office, beauty parlor, palm-readers salon, hotel,
answer lies not only in arts dependence on the representational mechanisms of the etc. Exhibitions, it seems, are bringing the life of the street into the gallery while
art system, but also in the notion that an exhibition can and should offer various at the same time establishing a context of engaged autonomy one that relies
kinds of temporary modulation in the social framework and its creative redefinition. on a certain distance, a necessary boundary, across which existential relations may
be viewed with sober eyes. The redefined space of the white cube may provide an
Generally speaking, and in contrast to previous attempts to eliminate the physical interstice that allows for direct participation and presence but also creates a
dimension, it is possible to detect recent shifts in the use of the white cube as a certain shift through which everyday and apparently well-known things reveal their
predestined, homogeneous space; namely, a reaffirmation of the white cube is flip side. But no matter how drastic such shifts may be, our perception of the space
taking place through different forms of eventness and other interactive processes cannot escape the white cubes original social function, which in a certain way
situated precisely within the gallery space. Such approaches are hardly rare, and by guarantees its symbolic authority. Just as money is paper, so the gallery is a
moving away from the presentation of the artwork as a finalized, unquestioned act room, the artist Mladen Stilinovi_observes, underscoring the paradox we
and toward various forms of temporary occupation, appropriation, and encounter whenever we try to reduce sublime social locations to their material
privatization of the space, artists and curators are attempting to redefine and level.
challenge the notion of the museum environment as a homogeneous, neutral
structure. What is more, this neutral structure is itself being used as a referential Ultimately, the question of whether we can fundamentally change the basic
framework that opens up perspectives in which new questions may be asked and conditions of art reception relates directly to arts political potential and its ability not
which reflect the social, historical, economic, and cultural relations within which the only to locate and articulate delicate social themes within a broader context but also
artwork is being created and interpreted. to indicate and offer new forms of resistance and collectivity.
Published by:
Moderna galerija (Museum of Modern Art) Ljubljana
Ljubljana, Slovenia
and
International Foundation Manifesta
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Editors:
Viktor Misiano
Igor Zabel
Managing editor:
Marieke van Hal
Editors:
Viktor Misiano, Igor Zabel
Coordinator:
Saskia van der Kroef
Design:
Arnold + Vuga design studio; Nataa Vuga SilvanaEditoriale