| “In present tense” – Exhibition of young Greek artists of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST): The fake criterions of fake innovations (ANTI 15/2/2008) |
Mihalis Papadakis, sculptor (ΑΝΤΙ 1/2/2008)
“In present tense” – Exhibition of new Greek artists of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST)
THE FAKE CRITERIA OF THE FAKE AVANT-GARDE
In the previous text on the exhibition In present tense (ΑΝΤΙ18/1/2008) I referred to the frame of the sociopolitical ideologistic concepts, through which fake avant-garde is created by Mrs. director of the EMST.
In this text I will refer to the “criteria”, with which Mrs. director equipped her group in order to do her research and “discover” this “avant-garde”.
On page 25 of the catalogue, the three-member “theoretical” group specifies the frame of Mrs. director as this: “The fundamental criterion was the critical stance of the artists towards vital contemporary issues and artistic concerns, such as the social role of architecture, the new conditions of communications in the art production, the re-negotiation of history of art through works that constitute new aesthetic and conceptual propositions”.
1) “The social role of architecture”. The role of architecture was such at least from the Neolithic age. Infinite theoretical texts have been written and the whole history of architecture is moving around this axis. The poor exhibits that the “theoretical” group “housed” under this sonorous title are of the type: “Virtual worlds, […] are the ideal opportunity for exploring the new role architecture is taking on the Internet as well as the new conditions prevailing in the design and inhabitance of a virtual building. […] While these buildings are operational and inhabitable in the virtual world, they are too small and dysfunctional in the real world”. (page 40). Or: “Albeit realizable from a technical angle, and desirable from a human standpoint, this environment nevertheless remains immaterial and unrealized. The work is thus also a comment upon the fake promises made by many companies for a “better life” (page 146)”. […] (page 40). Or: “ , (page 146)”.
In other words, the criterion of the “questions such as the social role of architecture” has been converted behind the scenes to “a new role that architecture assumes on the Internet”!! What a meaningless phrase.
As far as the aesthetic suggestions on this field are concerned, you will not find any. Proof that they do not exist is the fact that not even the “theoretical” group makes an effort to “research” them.
2) “The new conditions of communications in the art production”. With this obscure phrase it is obvious that the “theoretical” group is trying to give a “new” reading to something that has been happening for decades, that is the production of artistic works with the use of the new communicational media, which are used for their promotion at the same time. Half of the exhibits belong to this kind. These exhibits not only don’t offer anything new as far as the use of communication technology or communication itself is concerned, but not even offer something new regarding the aesthetics of the image that these means produce. So, the only thing that is left is that they are placed in the sociopolitical concept of the “theoretical” group. The phrase “the new conditions of communications in art production” is characteristic of the theoretical depth of the group. We are familiar with the classical phrase “the new social conditions of artistic work production”. How does the classical phrase become fresher? By simply changing one word and the “social” becomes “communicational”. This word expresses “the information society” as well, as they often uncritically write in the texts of the catalogue, without suspecting that this definition of our society works in contradistinction to the “society of knowledge” that it should be. For this reason, the usual declaration that “today we live in the information society” is related to the suggestion “to manage the information”. The declaration, that tends to be the valid one, that the inflation of information deconstructs today the historically known tools and like this the only thing to be done is the management of information, hides the fact that it belongs to the worn-out theory of knowledge of Hium (1711-1776).
The communicational conditions always consist a part of the social conditions of each time. Considering that the communicational conditions are the prerequisites for the production of art work, necessarily makes art work poorer, because it suppresses it to the prerequisites of technical applications, with which communication is conducted in each social phase – it considers it applied art. It is certain that Mrs. director and her group have “lost” (if they ever knew) the limits between Art and applied art.
3) “The re-negotiation of history of art through works that constitute new aesthetic and conceptual propositions”. If the visitor of the exhibition cannot find an exhibit that comprises “new aesthetic and conceptual propositions”, he should not rush to blame himself on ignorance. If he takes a look to the “theoretical” texts of the catalogue, he will see that even the “theoretical” group has not discovered any new aesthetic proposition in the works that it exhibits. He will find, though, an interesting point that shows how it apprehends “re-negotiation”. It says on the work of an artist that: “He first copies the original image and then “erases” it by stages, removing the initial narrative and the exaggeration that characterizes them […]. Scenes of violence unfold, presented as refined. Battles are bloodless and aggressiveness is shown as ambiguous since it is not clear who is the attacker and who is the victim, nor the cause of the clash”. (page 122). This reminded me of the kind of “retreatment of history”, which, based not on history science but on “political correctness” (of who? they never say), the Rebousi team evangelizes with the withdrawn book of the sixth grade (or the re-writing of the school books about the history of the relations between ”. If the visitor of the exhibition cannot find an exhibit that comprises “”, he should not rush to blame himself on ignorance. If he takes a look to the “theoretical” texts of the catalogue, he will see that even the “theoretical” group has not discovered any new aesthetic proposition in the works that it exhibits. He will find, though, an interesting point that shows how it apprehends “”. It says on the work of an artist that: “ […]. S. (page 122). This reminded me of the kind of “retreatment of history”, which, based not on history science but on “political correctness” (of who? they never say), the Rebousi team evangelizes with the withdrawn book of the sixth grade (or the re-writing of the school books about the history of the relations between France and Germany in the twentieth century).
Let’s come now to the most powerful, supposedly, point of the exhibition, the “research”.
Supposedly the exhibition is the result of an insistent two-year research effort in order to discover the researchers-artists. In this point it will help a lot to stand in front of one of the exhibits, because it will help us also understand how Mrs. director and her “theoretical” group perceive “art research”, as well as the “art work” that arises from it. The exhibit is entitled 1981 (Allagi) and concerns six cartons, where photographs from the archive of the newspaper Eleftheros Kosmos are stuck. are stuck.
The artist writes: “When I bought the archive I did a kind of first re-archiving, discarding unrelated to the archive staff and classifying the material according to visual connotations or chronological and thematic links. The process took almost six months of systematic work.” (page 64). These are the only words in the text of the artist that in a way refer to the theory of the act of creating his exhibit.
On page 62 the “theoretical” group writes about the “framework of artistic research” of the artist: “the archive constitutes the basic tool for a non-linear exploration of recent political and social changes in Greece and the broader Balkan region…”. And further on: “… are presented [photographs of the period ’81-‘82] in an alignment and chronographical order, with no other criteria for their selection, depicting current events of political and social content, as well as images of daily life. By means of an arbitrary narrative composed of this material, the artist attempts an approach to the multifaceted notion of change (Allagi) […] The practice (of the artist) of dredging uptraces, splinters, remnants, with the objective of a hypothetical reconstruction of a period of time or of a wider social context, has affinities with the methodology of archaeology.” Here, of course, the naive would ask himself why the artist, that did a research in order to approach the “multifaceted notion of change” in 1981-82, when PASOK was rising to governance, “through an arbitrary narrative” didn’t use the rich (thank God) material of the period “with the objective of a hypothetical reconstruction of a period of time”, but only used the “splinters” of a newspaper archive, that was accidentally found at Monastiraki? And the text concludes: “this manner, 1981 (Allagi) proposes an active and dialectic dimension of our relation to the past and to history, querying the monolithic historical narrative and representation of history”. That means that the “arbitrary narrative” is the “active and dialectic dimension of our relation to history”!! Here is again the argument of “political correctness”.Here, of course, the naive would ask himself why the artist, that did a research in order to approach the “” in 1981-82, when PASOK was rising to governance, “ didn’t use the rich (thank God) material of the period “, but only used the “” of a newspaper archive, that was accidentally found at Monastiraki? And the text concludes: “That means that the “is the “active!! Here is again the argument of “”.
If the above are not charlatanry then what is? It is characteristic that the word “research” is not used anywhere in the text by the artist, and attention should be paid on this. Through this discrepancy between the presentation of the exhibit by the artist himself and the “theoretical” text, the extended practice of the two last decades is expressed, where the “theoreticals” ideologically manipulate the work of Art, instead of studying it. In the specific case, the artist resists up to a point, in order to save his dignity, without the object that he exhibits helping him, of course.
But let’s say that what the “theoretical” writes convinced us that they are not nonsense. The question remains: the artistic part of the research, where is it? For this there is not even one word in the whole catalogue.
Then, what is it, what do the exhibits represent, other than a demonstration of power by Mrs. director that she can enforce her ideological nonsense on artistic creation as a whole with the “stamp” of the EMST?
Apparently this is what Mr. Zenakos envied (ΒΗΜΑ 20/1/2008), when he eulogized the exhibition and among others the exhibit of my example. And he mentions, awarding the approach of Mrs. director: “… the museum exercises a legalizing role: these artists transit the border of distinction, even through the vehicle of “research”, which at this point functions smartly pretending”. I don’t know why, but reading this article the Greek saying came to my mind that “The gypsy among gypsies is where he finds comfort”. I don’t know why, but reading this article the Greek saying came to my mind that “The gypsy among gypsies is where he finds comfort”.
Really, how much devoid of responsibility does the Board of Directors of the EMST consider itself for all this and does not even comment it? Just in order to agree with Mrs. director.
Mihalis Papadakis
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- “In present tense” – Exhibition of young Greek artists of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST): The fake criterions of fake innovations (ANTI 15/2/2008)
- “In present tense” - Exhibition of young Greek artists of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) (ANTI 18/1/2008)
- Museum, money and the ideological franchise of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (ANTI, 6/10/2006)
- Is this really a National Museum of Contemporary Art? (ANTI, 20/9/2006)
- National-private, private-national institutions and their “theoreticals” (Newspaper, Newspaper of the Chamber of Fine Arts of Greece (EETE), May 2006) (To be translated soon)
- What the National Museum of Contemporary Art is and what it should be (ANTI, 5/5/2006)
- The exhibition of the National Museum of Contemporary Art for the decade of the 70ies and the historical falsifications (ANTI, 21/4/20006)
- A. Zenakos and the adventures of the mind…(Newspaper, EETE Newspaper, January 2006) (To be translated soon)
- EMST: Place of political trade (Newspaper, EETE Newspaper, November 2005) (To be translated soon)
- “Transcultures”. Theory and Practice of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) (Newspaper, EETE Newspaper, January 2005)
- Ideological devices and the reality of OUTLOOK (Newspaper, EETE Newspaper, January 2004) (To be translated soon)
- Open letter to the Minister of Culture, Mr. Venizelos: OUTLOOK in commercialized Art (Newspaper, EETE Newspaper, December 2003)(To be translated soon)
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