George Orwell: "all art is propaganda"
There are several curators who have been making the running in laying out the territory of arts’ response to environmental issues, from Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna of the excellent Latitudes to Maja and Reuben Fowkes of translocal.org. There’s a good wide-ranging interview with Maja and Ruben Fowkes in Antennae Magazine in which they discuss altermodernism, the macho nature of Land Art, and how in sustainable art, form becomes a matter of ethics. All great stuff. One thing in the interview pulled me up short though:
As curators, can you provide some idea as to how art has been influential or can be more effective in making people more environmentally aware? Should it ?
We do not envisage art to have utility. As soon as art is seen in this way it is connected to the art market and we’re back into the capitalist, market-driven, growth model of production. If the utility of art is understood as a vehicle for advocating social changes or raising environmental consciousness we come to the problem of art as propaganda, which can also be counterproductive, as it undermines the subversive potential of artistic autonomy.
It’s true this view represents an orthodoxy within art – that artists should not be looked to for their “utility” - but Maja and Ruben Fowkes present this orthodoxy in a way that shows up how questionable this notion is.
Utility isn’t the quality capitalism prizes in art, it’s its lack of utility. Capitalism, the market, call it what you will, drives art forward by seeing art as the ultimate surplus value – as an entity with no purpose.
Jake Chapman is always good on the notion of surplus value in art. This is him discussing George Battaille’s The Accursed Share:
The best argument for a work of art pertaining to that surplus value is that it’s an act of absolute pure capital, pure taste without purpose. I think you could assert that about high modernist art but it’s impossible to say that now, because contemporary art is anthropological, and it’s social.
[Read the full interview by Simon Baker in Papers of Surrealism [PDF 728KB]]
To resist the idea of art having no utility is to resist the market’s attempt to commodify it. I’m with Bob and Roberta Smith on this one; in Hijack Reality Patrick Brill writes about how artists should be happy with the leaden box ticking culture of public commissioning, because at least it is a tangible acknowledgement of a value in art that is non-monetary.
Maja and Reuben Fowkes say:
If the utility of art is understood as a vehicle for advocating social changes or raising environmental consciousness we come to the problem of art as propaganda, which can also be counterproductive, as it undermines the subversive potential of artistic autonomy.
Firstly, there is nothing less endearing about the world of art than art proclaiming its own autonomous subersive potential. Secondly, the idea that propaganda and “subversive potential” are mutually exclusive doesn’t bear close examination.
As George Orwell said, “all art is propaganda”. The importance, he went on, is to distinguish between “good” and “bad” propaganda.
Interestingly, Emma Ridgway’s excellent interview with Gustsv Metzger found him referencing Eric Gill as a major influence. I’ll leave the last word on this to Eric Gill:
Art which is not propaganda is simply aesthetics and is consequently entirely the affair of cultured connoisseurs. It is a studio affair, nothing to do with the common life of men and women, a means of ‘escape.’ Art in the studio becomes simply ‘self-expression,’ and that becomes simply self-worship. Charity, the love of God and your neighbour, which, here below, every work of man must exhibit, is lost. If you say art is nothing to do with propaganda, you are saying that it has nothing to do with religion – that it is simply a psychological dope, a sort of cultured drug traffic. I, at any rate, have no use for it. For me, all art is propaganda; and it is high time that modern art became propaganda for social justice instead of propaganda for the flatulent and decadent ideals of bourgeois Capitalism. (excerpt from a letter to The Catholic Herald, 28 October 1934)
The Fourth Plinth: a call to artists
This is my blatant call to artists to use the Fourth Plinth – particularly with respect to bringing fresh ways of exploring social issues in what you could argue is the country’s most central space of debate – Trafalgar Square. I’m not at all sure I want to see myself as the Linda Snell of the RSA but I have a similar yearning for public performance and spectacle – but by artists!
Go to www.oneandother.co.uk and press the “Register your interest” button.
It’s interesting to see that Antony Gormley’s Fourth Plinth project is rapidly becoming a lobbying prospect. The idea of using the plinth as a site for contemporary art was initiated by the RSA , no mean feat as it turned out and we learned a lot about the complexity and the ambiguities of the word “public” with respect to both public space and public art.
William Shaw will shortly be interviewing Bob & Roberta Smith for the website. His idea for the Plinth was shown at the National Gallery last year – very much referencing environmental issues, as does his current work at TATE’s Altermodern exhibition. I went round this yesterday. Bob is having a weekly conversation with the show’s curator Nicholas Bourriard and then makes a new work replacing the previous week’s piece. This latest work addresses climate change and as ever his work debunks – it puts the public into art with no affectation and no patronising – with a directness that is exhilarating.
7 ways of looking at Altermodernism
WILLIAM SHAW: Taking a jaunt around some of the discussions thrown up by Nicolas Bourriaud‘s Altermodern manifesto and exhibition at Tate Britain I found myself constructing a kind of Beaufort Scale of critical responses:
1/. The Thrilled. Kazys Varnelis, Director of the Network Architecture Lab at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture is positively inspired:
I’ve been immersed in writing lately, so this next exhibit slipped
under my radar, but Nicolas Bourriaud’s latest exhibit, the 2009 Tate
Triennial, is called Altermodern. Bourriaud’s manifesto can be seen here. Bourriaud’s one of the sharpest thinkers around today and this exhibit just cements my decision to explore network culture
in my next book. Bourriaud’s show marks a break with postmodernism
based on a new stage of globalization. As he writes in his Altermodern
manifesto: ”Multiculturalism and identity is being overtaken by
creolisation: Artists are now starting from a globalised state of
culture.”
I suppose this is the kick in the pants I need…
2/. The Engaged: The commentators on this post at Moot Blog jump at the mere mention of something post-post-modern, jumping into a debate about Po-mo and A-mo.
Me thinks The Tate are being somewhat provocative.
Although you’re right, there’s some wonderful critiquing and
questioning of Post-modernism at the moment. There’s a big buzz around
‘speculative realism’, check out Graham Harman
(http://doctorzamalek.wordpress.com/).
Equally, probably one
of the most interesting engagements with modernism is the notion of
‘hauntology’— this might be what the Tate is tinkering with. Have a
look at this:
(http://splinteringboneashes.blogspot.com/2008/10/when-nothing-ever-happens.html)
But please, no more modernism.
Nicolas Bourriaud is an interesting one. Well worth going to see.
3/. The Thoughtful: Michael L. Radcliffe of Artbizness suggests Bourriaud’s heart may be in the right place, he fails to live up to his own rhetoric:
Like
all good shows (and it IS a good show) its one that I will need to
return to many times, and I may like completely different works for
completely different reasons.
But I guess the biggest obstacle of the altermodern idea for me is
that if you’re saying that you’ve learned from the postmodernist
critique, then why would you exhibit the majority of artists from OECD
countries? It’s not exactly a record of the marginalised and at worst
smacks of imperialism. And I suspect the “creolisation” that Bourriaud
talks of as a part of altermodernism leaves no room for the poor or
marginalised.
4/. The Uncertain: Dan Cull doesn’t know what to make of it but suspects it’s a Good Thing.
I am not sure whether this is a new theoretical current or not, and as
a fan of post-modernist thinking in a way I am not sure I really care.
What I do know is that the Tate have put together a show that I really
want to go and see… and this to my mind is a good thing.
5/. The Long Suffering: Laura Cummins in The Observer practically sighs out loud:
Altermodernism itself is not a very thrilling definition, or
redefinition, of where art may be heading.
It is by no means
certain, in any case, that any theory of art that can be made to
stretch all the way from Tacita Dean to Franz Ackermann is of much
ultimate value. Altermodernism does not work as an idea so much as a
web of observations, a web with a weaver at its centre. The real
hyperlink here is not the art, but Bourriaud himself.
6/. The Arch. Stewart Home. This one doesn’t boil down to a neat quote. Agitator/self-publicist Stewart uses quite a lot of space to say he thinks Bourriaud is a fop, a phoney and a figure of fun. He considers the whole Altermodern thing is a hilarious bit of trumpery; but then long ago Stewart championed Neoism, so for both conceptual and practical reasons you are advised to take everything he says as unreliable.
As a taster for their 2009 triennial ‘curated’ by Nicolas Bourriaud
(AKA Boring Ass), Tate Britain hosted a series of talks concluding with
one this weekend by the International Necronautical Society (INS)…. [it goes on for a fair bit...]
7/. The Very Tediously English Indulging in Ritual Sneering at Frenchmen Who Use Long Words. Coxsoft Artnews:
If you’re a pseudo-intellectual art snob who wants to irritate your gormless friends, tell them that Postmodernism is dead and the new in-thing is Altermodern, a word coined by Nicolas Bourriaud to categorize what Coxsoft Art calls Tripe. It’s also the name given to the fourth Tate Triennial,
which Nick curated and which will be inflicted on a gullible public at
Tate Britain from 3 February to 26 April. The Tate claims
the show will offer “the best new contemporary art in Britain”. Look at
this example! Expect the usual Tripe.
Never, ever trust anyone who uses the word “pseudo-intellectual”.
(I’d been aiming for 13 ways… but fell short.)
Photo: Giantbum Nathaniel Mellors at Altermodern courtesy of Régine Debatty
Altermodernism at Tate Britain
Off Voice Fly Tip by Bob and Roberta Smith 2009
Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery. Photo: Tate Photography
WILLIAM SHAW: I know, like a few people, I start to twitch a little when Tate Triennial curator Nicolas Bourriaud explains his neologism Altermodern as a “dreamcatcher” for ideas about what happens to art after post-modernism – (see the video below) – but I find myself liking it anyway.
The winning thing about his Altermodern concept is that it admits it’s an aspiration as much as a piece of rigid critical analysis. In the one corner you have the idea art dealers’ idea of “emerging art markets“, which is an unpleasantly post-colonial notion at best. In the other corner Bouriaud’s Altermodern at least aims for something better, something more equitable. On the Tate Altermodern site Bourriaud leaves the dreamcatcher aside and explains Altermodernism thusly: “Altermodern is the cultural answer to what alter-globalisation is, a cluster of singular and local answers to globalisation.”
Which is good, no? As such, as an attempt at ethical response to post-modernism, it’s bound to stir up the cynics.
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