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imomusI want to take the thoughts in yesterday's entry somewhat further today, because I didn't really answer the question I set myself. Today's entry will become something of a defiant manifesto. The defiance will be directed to right-wing populists and the internet spooks who boost them, and to people who think that leftism -- along with bourgeois progressivism -- perished in 1989 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. I'll argue that the leftist agenda is still at the heart of the progressive intelligentsia all over the West, and that it survives not in little guerilla groups hiding in the forest, but in some of our most prestigious institutions: universities, the media, art institutes. Precisely the kind of art institutions, in fact, which would be most likely to celebrate the career of an artist like Liam Gillick.
Because this description of institutions with a progressivist bias can so easily mirror right wing paranoia, it might be instructive to start with exactly that. Have a look at What is the loneliest job in Britain? Being a Tory at the BBC, an article by Tory-at-the-BBC Robin Aitken which accuses the BBC of being hostile to Margaret Thatcher, of championing a progressive agenda, of lamenting the closure of shipyards and fretting about ailing steelworks, of deploring government spending cuts and declaring privatisation doomed, of devoting itself to the European ideal, of questioning the
rationale that led Tony Blair to commit British troops to the Iraq War, of sacking anti-Muslim chat show host Robert Kilroy-Silk when he attacked muslims, and of obsessing about the human rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. For Aitken, this makes the BBC a bad institution, one where "everything is seen through the distorting prism of the progressive agenda". My reaction -- as someone who thinks the BBC entirely justifies its existence when it makes one Adam Curtis possible -- is that I only wish this picture were more true, and that the BBC were more institutionally biased in the direction of the progressive.
The reason Aitken's "bias" argument rings so hollow is that the few progressive institutions that do exist are more than balanced by the enormous and constant pressure pushing society in the other direction -- pressure coming from turbocapitalism itself, from a political sector in which progressivist parties (like Britain's Labour Party) have rolled over submissively to turbocapitalism, and from a reactionary mainstream media controlled by the likes of Rupert Murdoch. There's also, of course, outright war and covert operations against leftism, from the Vietnam war to the covert operations Liam Gillick mentions in the lecture I linked yesterday: the CIA's manipulation of the 1948 Italian general election to prevent the communists from winning.
Anyone who wonders how something like a publicly-funded art institute could challenge this kind of activity should also wonder why the CIA channeled millions of dollars into cultural struggle in the post-war period, trying to establish American Abstract Expressionism as the dominant artform of the period rather than the work of leftist Europeans.
Where do we see this sort of progressivism in Liam Gillick's work? Freeze frame the Vernissage TV coverage of Gillick's show at the Kunsthalle Zurich and you'll see a big wall panel of gridded text relating the attempts of a factory to self-organize, and how, despite (or precisely because of) the success of this experiment into working non-capitalist modes of production, the workers were shut down. (Gillick talks more about this in the third video on the Palais de Tokyo's video page about his 2005 show there.)
But art also has formal ways of investigating this sort of thing: Gillick's work is fascinated, formally, by the way Apollonian and didactic structures (from the Ulm School to Mondrian) can be used by autonomous groups to discipline their own activity and make it productive. It's a politically progressivist version of Donald Judd's acres of anal shelfage, you might say ("an embracing of formalism
plus a critique or rejection of it at the same time" is Gillick's own description). Much of the stuff in the co-ordinated Gillick shows at Kunsthalle Zürich, Witte de With in Rotterdam, Kunstverein Munich and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago looks like empty bookshelves -- a reference not just to Judd but to an intellectual void, perhaps; a need for books and thought and ideas which is then partly answered by the tables of books Gillick supplies later in the show. In all four shows, he's "gifted" 50% of his allotted space back to the museums to fill as they please. And that, perhaps, is an acknowledgment of his common cause with these progressivist institutions.
We've seen before on Click Opera how a British Army brainstorming exercise predicted that rising levels of inequality and injustice would make the return of revolutionary communism likely later this century. "The middle classes could become a revolutionary class", predicted Rear Admiral Chris Parry of the Ministry of Defense's Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre. Again, I think right wing paranoia might contain a chunk of truth about the progressive bourgeois class. The place to look for glimmers of this future right now is in the whisperings of the art exhibited in progressive institutions, the Kunstvereins for whom art is more than a mere commodity on the market, and that sector of the educated bourgeois class for whom being bourgeois is about more than simply being comfortable and advantaged; it's about spearheading progress towards a more just and principled world.
Because this description of institutions with a progressivist bias can so easily mirror right wing paranoia, it might be instructive to start with exactly that. Have a look at What is the loneliest job in Britain? Being a Tory at the BBC, an article by Tory-at-the-BBC Robin Aitken which accuses the BBC of being hostile to Margaret Thatcher, of championing a progressive agenda, of lamenting the closure of shipyards and fretting about ailing steelworks, of deploring government spending cuts and declaring privatisation doomed, of devoting itself to the European ideal, of questioning the
rationale that led Tony Blair to commit British troops to the Iraq War, of sacking anti-Muslim chat show host Robert Kilroy-Silk when he attacked muslims, and of obsessing about the human rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. For Aitken, this makes the BBC a bad institution, one where "everything is seen through the distorting prism of the progressive agenda". My reaction -- as someone who thinks the BBC entirely justifies its existence when it makes one Adam Curtis possible -- is that I only wish this picture were more true, and that the BBC were more institutionally biased in the direction of the progressive.The reason Aitken's "bias" argument rings so hollow is that the few progressive institutions that do exist are more than balanced by the enormous and constant pressure pushing society in the other direction -- pressure coming from turbocapitalism itself, from a political sector in which progressivist parties (like Britain's Labour Party) have rolled over submissively to turbocapitalism, and from a reactionary mainstream media controlled by the likes of Rupert Murdoch. There's also, of course, outright war and covert operations against leftism, from the Vietnam war to the covert operations Liam Gillick mentions in the lecture I linked yesterday: the CIA's manipulation of the 1948 Italian general election to prevent the communists from winning.
Anyone who wonders how something like a publicly-funded art institute could challenge this kind of activity should also wonder why the CIA channeled millions of dollars into cultural struggle in the post-war period, trying to establish American Abstract Expressionism as the dominant artform of the period rather than the work of leftist Europeans. Where do we see this sort of progressivism in Liam Gillick's work? Freeze frame the Vernissage TV coverage of Gillick's show at the Kunsthalle Zurich and you'll see a big wall panel of gridded text relating the attempts of a factory to self-organize, and how, despite (or precisely because of) the success of this experiment into working non-capitalist modes of production, the workers were shut down. (Gillick talks more about this in the third video on the Palais de Tokyo's video page about his 2005 show there.)
But art also has formal ways of investigating this sort of thing: Gillick's work is fascinated, formally, by the way Apollonian and didactic structures (from the Ulm School to Mondrian) can be used by autonomous groups to discipline their own activity and make it productive. It's a politically progressivist version of Donald Judd's acres of anal shelfage, you might say ("an embracing of formalism
plus a critique or rejection of it at the same time" is Gillick's own description). Much of the stuff in the co-ordinated Gillick shows at Kunsthalle Zürich, Witte de With in Rotterdam, Kunstverein Munich and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago looks like empty bookshelves -- a reference not just to Judd but to an intellectual void, perhaps; a need for books and thought and ideas which is then partly answered by the tables of books Gillick supplies later in the show. In all four shows, he's "gifted" 50% of his allotted space back to the museums to fill as they please. And that, perhaps, is an acknowledgment of his common cause with these progressivist institutions.We've seen before on Click Opera how a British Army brainstorming exercise predicted that rising levels of inequality and injustice would make the return of revolutionary communism likely later this century. "The middle classes could become a revolutionary class", predicted Rear Admiral Chris Parry of the Ministry of Defense's Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre. Again, I think right wing paranoia might contain a chunk of truth about the progressive bourgeois class. The place to look for glimmers of this future right now is in the whisperings of the art exhibited in progressive institutions, the Kunstvereins for whom art is more than a mere commodity on the market, and that sector of the educated bourgeois class for whom being bourgeois is about more than simply being comfortable and advantaged; it's about spearheading progress towards a more just and principled world.
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anon speak for the day
Date: 2008-02-10 11:04 am (UTC)Re: anon speak for the day
Date: 2008-02-10 11:15 am (UTC)it's about spearheading progress towards a more just and principled world.
Interesting that you say this, because when I was reading one of my guilty pleasures, CosmoGirl magazine, the editor said that there's a new trend in "giving back". So throughout the magazine's articles, the magazine was promoting giving back to the environment, and working against social injustices, etc. more than usual.
Hmmm, I'm quite amused at the thought of you reading CosmoGirl and analyzing their use of diversity with choices of models. I can imagine you reading it with a monocle on and yelling "BLASPHEMY!" at every turn of the page.
Re: anon speak for the day
Date: 2008-02-10 11:32 am (UTC)Re: anon speak for the day
Date: 2008-02-10 10:29 pm (UTC)Re: anon speak for the day
Date: 2008-02-10 11:56 pm (UTC)Re: anon speak for the day
Date: 2008-02-11 12:06 am (UTC)LOL oh God there's no netspeak in there but w/e! Go ahead and make sexual passes at me, I don't mind!
Re: anon speak for the day
Date: 2008-02-10 11:57 pm (UTC)Re: anon speak for the day
Date: 2008-02-11 12:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 12:16 pm (UTC)I guess this sort of relates to your previous discussions on post-materialism.
But I hope you're right and art will save us all.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 12:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 02:06 pm (UTC)Bono being a prime example, his philosophy of 'mud huts for the Third World, multi-million euro, tax-free, off-shore business empires for us' needs to be skewered.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 02:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 02:40 pm (UTC)It is just so irksome that it had to be him!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 02:14 pm (UTC)Lindsay
I guess I'm more a fan of Fiona Rae than Gillick.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 02:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 02:21 pm (UTC)Do you really think however that such covert operations against leftism are really the concern of the spooks anymore.
It all now seems to be stuff from another age..
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 02:33 pm (UTC)I'm afraid I don't rate him very highly, a lot of his art would look good in the CEO's office - as long as the piece in consideration matched the hues in the furniture and the fabrics.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 02:48 pm (UTC)It all now seems to be stuff from another age..
As I said at the end of that CIA piece, "the CIA renounced its role as a patron of the arts only when the Vietnam war polarized politics, breaking up the middle ground and shattering the illusion that something as indirect as art could foment gentle, benign political swings".
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 03:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 03:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 05:57 pm (UTC)maybe your hatred of America stems from some unresolved oedipal issues? The little golden-haired "frank tiger" overjoyed at the attention (and quasi sexual tension), when he corrects his mother's fashion, and secretly jealous when she leaves with the "father" figure? Here is the genesis of your life long hatred of the patriarchy?
This is why you choose Japan and Germany as your home states -- countries with a long and glorious history of torturing and slaughtering american boys by the thousands.
Haven't you conveniently turned your blind eye to the failures and atrocities of the left? The re-education camps? The famines? The blood soaked despots?
What kind of art did the Stasi promote?
(that said... yay Obama!)
What is progressive? "Forward to basics"
Date: 2008-02-10 05:26 pm (UTC)“Just as the gears of society have been set to help smokers get free from cigarettes, so the BBC wishes to help the religious break from succour in beliefs that are fear-based, neurotic, domestic, hierarchical and, in this day and age, a little creepy. Are we anti-Islam? You betchya. Are we anti-Judaism? Bring it on. Are we anti-Christian? Mormon? Scientology and David Icke? All of the above and much much more!”
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 07:18 pm (UTC)It'd be nice to see more progressive art around here, but you have to be honest, a lot of it is tied to or made for the sake of this """turbocapitalism"""""". I don't think art can truly be progressive unless it completely severs itself from the machinery that's creating this inequality.
It's like somebody writing a tut-tut article in one of Murdoch's billion newspapers ... it's nominal rebellion. When it comes to law, working from within can produce effective results, but in art where you're supposed to push buttons and shift the debate, can that happen when the creative world is on the dole of the turbocapitalists?
Artists can't make statements when they belong to the market system--when they say they can, they aren't committed to change, honestly. It's like counter-insurgency... when you bring the opposition into the system, no matter what they say is automatically compromised. "You say you hate this gluttony of financial excess that's cerating inequality... yet who's paying your bills?" Bam, the artist's statement is reduced to dust.
Yes, working to make a difference puts you to eating ramen noodles. It's incompatible with living in a loft in Paris, just like doing public interest law is incompatible with owning an apartment on Central Park West. It's a sacrifice many people, including artists, are unwilling to make, and it's completely and utterly understandable that they do it ... just don't make excuses for it.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 07:28 pm (UTC)those bastards
Date: 2008-02-11 02:46 am (UTC)Bono doesn't follow this practice.If He was more like John Berger he wouldn't get a penny.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 08:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-11 04:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-10 10:52 pm (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limits_to_Growth
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-11 05:44 am (UTC)more than simply being comfortable and advantaged
Date: 2008-02-11 02:00 am (UTC)Just saw "Pie in the Sky" 2000 about Brigid Berlin a Andy Warhol factory girl. Check it out!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-11 02:02 am (UTC)In that archived journal entry you linked to, you say "We're all sick of postmodernism, yet we know that there are really only two ways out of it: fundamentalist Islam and communism."
This to me, sums up entirely the problem I have with your outlook.
You really don't seem to understand post-modernism. You seem to see it as this step on the progressive ladder, when in reality postmodern has separated itself from all linear systems. Where modernism says "This is the way forward!", postmodernism says "its all relative and subjective", which is all encompassing. For you to be sick of post-modernism means you want to go back to the old ways of modernism; the quest for "progress". Thats regressive.
As for Communism; you can condemn "hyper-capitalism", but Communism has been just as bad -- millions slaughtered, liberties eroded, democracy halted, utter political corruption, starvation, poverty. When we compare communism in practice to capitalism in practice, You have no reason to believe communism would be any better than capitalism. Not to mention europe isnt even "capitalist", it's more correct to define it as a mixed economy.
"but wait! Those communist states weren't run by real Communists! It wasn't true Communism!" I hear every pro-communist shout. Then I argue that all the problems of mixed economy capitalism can also be solved by tweaking the politics and changing people's perspectives. it works both ways.
There are many other reasons why I disagree with communism as a system and believe it will never work in practice, but that's digressing. The next point I wanna make regards your hypocrisy and your justifications for it. I'm talking about the fact you claim to be pro-communist whilst reveling in capitalism, indulging in expensive consumerism, enjoying capitalist capital cities.
You make the argument that "A little ethics is better than none at all", which is fine and dandy, except your own actions directly contradict your own supposed ethics which to my mind is slightly different. Bono might be a tax evader, but he's never stood there and said "tax evasion is utterly wrong and abhorant". You however, you still claim to be pro-communist even though you consume well over your minimal needs. like ive said, theres nothing stopping you from practicing communism on a personal level -- to each what he needs, from each what they can provide. Thats what you think is right, correct? Then Why aren't you practicing this? You don't need overpriced ipods and imacs. you dont need fashionable clothes. you dont need plane trips around the world to design conferences. you can't claim to be vegetarian whilst eating meat and buying burgers -- "I want the whole world to be vegetarian but in the meantime I'll eat meat til it happens" -- thats the problem I have with your perspective.
Make no mistake; this isnt a case of "a little is better than none" this is about you being thoroughly disingenuous.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-11 06:01 am (UTC)you talking about post-modernism makes it sound as fresh as if it was 1989 or something - havn't seen anyone this enthusiastic about post-modernism since ,, probably Momus cca 2 years ago when talking about japan.
"its all relative and subjective", - now that would be one of the better ways to define define 'modernism' , especially in the arts from Ulysses and late Mahler all the way to quite recently.
you seem to hold some mind-blowingly naive ideas when it comes to,, let me recall,, the english language, white people , western freedom etc
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-11 01:43 pm (UTC)"its all relative and subjective", - now that would be one of the better ways to define define 'modernism' , especially in the arts from Ulysses and late Mahler all the way to quite recently."
Relativism might be themes in the artwork of artists classed as modernist, but relativism isn't part of the Modernist view on progress:
"Modernism encouraged the re-examination of every aspect of existence, from commerce to philosophy, with the goal of finding that which was 'holding back' progress, and replacing it with new, progressive and therefore better, ways of reaching the same end."
Sounds remarkably like what Momus is arguing for.
"you seem to hold some mind-blowingly naive ideas when it comes to,, let me recall,, the english language, white people , western freedom etc"
I don't prescribe to the idea that the only reason models with "white features" are chosen is because of western fiscal dominance and neo-con fashion editors trying to promote genetically perfect examples of the aryan race.
I dont prescribe to the idea that the spread of English is purely an evil destroying lingual diversity.
I'm not a reactionary far left supporter who's politics are defined by railing against whatever happens to be the status quo like some kind of rebellious teenager. I'm a left leaning centrist.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-11 02:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-11 02:55 pm (UTC)The English language has one of the largest vocabularies in the world; it contains about 500000 words and another 300000 technical terms. You can't argue with this, it's fact, not opinion.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-11 04:02 pm (UTC)no, seriously english does lack lots compared to any other language i know, mostly when it comes to nuance. it's great for getting to the point.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-11 06:01 am (UTC)You should also be able to apply the idea of a mixed economy to mixed motives -- in other words, what you're calling "hypocrisy". Mixed motives are, like a mixed economy, a virtue -- a sign that a needed dialogue is going on between principles which can interlock and correct each other's deficiencies. Talk of "hypocrisy" stops this dialogue dead in its tracks.
As for your asceticism point, I do live much more ascetically than the huge majority of people in the West -- I have a lower-than-average income, lower-than-average debt, and so on. But yes, it's mixed, because I probably travel more than I should from an eco-viewpoint.
The phrase "there's nothing stopping you from practicing communism on a personal level" is remarkably foolish, and gave me a good old chuckle. In fact, it would make a funny song or a Monty Python-type sketch, a bit like "Hitler in Gateshead".
Palin and Idle dressed up as women: (Gossiping over garden fence): Oh, look, there's that Mr Stalin again. He's been living alone since his wife died, you know. Does nothing but practice communism in his living room. Well, as long as he keeps it to the privacy of his own home, I say... He can be as equal as the day is long, as long as it's just to himself!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-11 02:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-11 04:11 pm (UTC)you should bike, even long and very long distances. if you keep a certain reasonable speed you'd most likely be going faster than a train or an automobile of the early modern era of progress. you would then become the living fusion of the purest modernist idea of progress and post-industrial/modern eco-awareness and all.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-12 02:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-11 02:51 pm (UTC)Post-modernism has no limits, it's all encompassing. Reality is infinitely complex, and our interpretations of it are dogged by subjectivity, which clouds truth.
"modernism" (in the sense that man will always strive to make "better") will always exist, but that doesnt change the fact "better" isn't a universally definable quality; "seriousness of purpose" isnt a definable quality, just a subjective opinion. Thus, the infallibility of pomo and the reason why it will always endure.
Post modernism isnt the end of cultural history, it's calling for a re-examination of values -- values that have long been questioned in ancient eastern philosophies to modern quantum mechanics. I don't believe you do understand what post-modernism actually stands for.
You should also be able to apply the idea of a mixed economy to mixed motives -- in other words, what you're calling "hypocrisy". Mixed motives are, like a mixed economy, a virtue -- a sign that a needed dialogue is going on between principles which can interlock and correct each other's deficiencies. Talk of "hypocrisy" stops this dialogue dead in its tracks.
your binary of communism = good, capitalism = bad (mixed motives conflicting) is over-simplfying the issue and showing your lack of understanding.
Mixed economies arent hypocritical, they're a co-dependant balancing act between personal freedom and communal sharing - when they're balanced effectively they benefit each other.
A basic example, the national health system -- it ensures that everyone in society can afford to be healthy. This is turn helps the economy. Reducing poverty also reduces crime which reduces policing costs. providing support for the vulnerable benefits the country as a whole, it's also a personal safety net. its not a selfless act of charity.
of course, the national healthcare system couldnt be afforded without capitalism to prop it up. It's all very complicated and I'm not a sociologist so I can't give you thoroughly indepth, complex examples of the mutually beneficial aspects of mixed economies off the top of my head, but there are lots of essays on the subject online.
"The phrase "there's nothing stopping you from practicing communism on a personal level" is remarkably foolish"
Only because you've deliberately chosen to take my suggestion literally and out of context, ducking and diving, so I present it to you like this: "you believe that wealth should be distributed evenly to meet everyone's needs, the very basis of communism. You have an excess of wealth, providing for you beyond your needs. so I put it to you, why do you not give away this excess if you believe in this principle? Why do you not practice what you preach?"
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-12 08:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-11 06:13 pm (UTC)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0unB04j_lw
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-12 02:28 am (UTC)http://republicart.net/disc/institution/sheikh01_en.htm
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article526222.ece
http://www.ojoatomico.com/textos/talk_medialab.html (spanish)