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What is Art? 1. In a conversation between you and the writer Bettina Funcke 2004 you explained to her that she wasn't an artist just because she exhibited her PhD thesis in a group exhibition, and that you yourself wasn't a gallerist because you organized exhibitions. What/who decides what one is? What makes you an artist? What differentiates an artist from a wrtier? What role does the role play? I set up the problem, it is not up to me to decide what anyone is. The person who is to be titulated, the sender, usually presents a proposal to the world about a fitting role, how the contributed gesture is to be read? After this it is up to the established art world, the various players on the court, to accept or reject the proposal. For example, if Bettina had exhibited it as an art piece in her name, then the object would have gotten play room. If this would have happened, obviously the significance of the gesture would have transferred from an academic thesis to a version of a ready-made, where the content of the text would have shrunk in significance and the gesture itself would have grown. Josh Smith who curated the exhibition, included the thesis since he had seen her walk around with her thesis for years, and he felt how much work was behind it. The title of the show was: "So few Opportunities, so Many Mistakes". In most cases art has a faster turn around than a doctoral thesis, for curators even faster. Usually the sender will determine the choice of title, but most important is that other persons accept the proposal, as in the case if a galerist invites you to do a show or curate one. It is about identity politics, the importance of having agency, to recuperate what are square descriptions of each and everyones working areas. The difference between various roles has to do with the job description. A curator has a completely different area of responsibility than an artist, another function which is about taking care of, to act caringly with the art, while an artist usually can destroy it, and its conditions of existence. It is important to separate the roles and keep the status of a specialist between the roles, so that the discussion can be kept specific and that historic passages can be discussed. It they are completely de-mounted without other proposals we arrive at a Baudrillardian dilemma, I don't think we want to go there... Everything can always be more than one thing, take on different positions. A writer and an artist can be the same person, as in my case, I am writing. In every text I write, I also communicate where I stand as an artist, from the choice of subject-matter throughout the entire process to where the text gets published. Sometimes text and piece is collapsed completely, in each individual case they are interconnected. The texts of a writer or a curator should be assessed against the background of this persons entire activity. The working area of a writer can overlap an artists, but does not coincide entirely. A writer opens up and puts sets a work to work. Sometimes a writer takes on the responsibility of judging, of a 'judge of taste'. I do not think this belongs to their job description, this distance lowers the risk taken by the writer, and goes for power play, but this is an entirely different discussion. The role is incredibly important for the viewer/reader's understanding of where the gesture comes from, how it is to be read. In the case of the Utopia station, which was set up by an artist, who also sees it as his one man piece, an art-historian, who was doing academic research and archival exercises within this platform, and a third, a curator, who sees it as an experimental exhibition. The Station, and all its materializations over the years has all of these functions, no function needs to override the other, it can be all in one. One can consciously play and slide in and out of different roles, but one can never do it innocently, it has significance. 2. You were also talking about how you parasite on the work of others when you curate. How do you see the relation between you as a curating artist and the pieces you bring on? I don't see myself as a curating artist, it sounds a little like the naked chef or the bold primadonna. A performative adjective, giving a kind of clown status. It is nonetheless better than 'creative curator' as someone just wrote, what is a curator then...? It all turns around a hierarchical value system between the different roles. I make pieces which simultaneously can be seen as shows in themselves, situation, ephemera, actions, talks etc. I often 'use' different pieces suitable for my purposes for the case in question. This relation is in a line with a heritage of the appropriation tactics of the 80s', but is not appropriation in the strict historical terminology. I do not necessarily view it as a collaboration, it might be closer to a case of Richard Prince's use of the Marlborough cowboy with a social dimension or a more in your face case of Louse Lawler's documentary stance. Back to the role of the artist, I don't have the responsibilities a curator has to show the work in a graspable way, nor to open it up. I can insert a piece into a situation where it has been chosen only for the reason that the artist who has made it is blonde, or because the artist who made it shows with a specific gallery whose group I would want to highlight. i don't set up that free space for an artist which is so important, which curators do set up. I am a "user" of art as material. I am absolutely not interested in erasing authorship from the pieces, I always mark the signature by using clear signs, and I communicate with artists involved what my intentions are. I don't try to sabotage or mock the pieces, I am interested in the bigger framework. It is important that the pieces have been shown before, so that they have an existing reading. I parasite on the reading of the piece, on their aura and presence. I am very interested in the in the aura of an artwork, and the artwork as celebrity. Contemporary art is a part of our reality, art is a mass-industry turning around millions of dollars, generating a significant tourist industry towards various art destinations. Artists are a part of socialite and celebrity social circles, and are often asked about their opinions on any topic in various media. Ideas as well as visual fragments of art are often used for marketing and advertising. Art is everywhere, there is no segregated division, or protected ivory tower from which we can stand and view as if we were on neutral ground. If life is art, art is also part of our every day life. Jerzy Kosinski's "Being There" would today include a kind of over stimulated art intake, rather than a TV watching maniac. I am interested in the signification process. Instead of trying to create something 'new' - an attempt towards a more or less private language - pieces by other's are extremely useful, since they already have a rolling process to work against, to enable a skating rink to slide in on so to speak, where the significators, the sense making elements, can slide around and out play each other. I am not trying to show "a" reading, as a curator with an "idea", I am glad to put readings out of the game, or set up a situation which is perverted enough to generate a short circuit. The idea of the parasite can be pulled from this consumption/intake metaphorics against more economical terms, such as exchange value, distribution and various markets, so that the idea of gaming gets forefronted. Once can also pull it towards a more collective idea, towards literary communism, a writing collective, where the various players have power to participate and enter the arena, writing and over-writing. 3. In the same conversation, you also talk about Rirkrit Tiravanijas Utopia Station in the Venice Biennial 2003, and how Carsten Höller's piece erases the names on all participants but Tiravanija himself. What would have been the difference if he had removed Tiravanija's name? Here the idea of literary communism comes in fittingly. It is one player's comment to another, both well established. Carsten Höller would obviously never have been able to remove Rirkrit's name, which already was watermarked into the project, and naturally also into the discussion platform and canon of art history. This gesture would in that case have been known as Höller removing Tiravanija's name, hence Rirkrit's name would always have to be mentioned upon discussing the gesture, and therefore non-erasable. This sort of censorship attempts smells a bit of Stalin/Trotsky, but I doubt that Höller is this brutal. On the other hand, he pointed to the sensitive situation for those who just arrived at the discussion, or those with less exposure attraction, who easily can be erased. A situation which looked 'utopic', turned out not so open, rather extremely exclusive "after the fact". In the discussion whether the Utopia Station is an art piece or not, many other questions were pushed back. The parasitical situation looked less playful, and more resembles an exploitative colonial situation, an eradication of certain hieracichal strata. Power creates uneven relations, where an artist with an immense amount of power inviting an artist with a close to nothing amount of power can create a situation where the meta-situation sets these contributions aside, making it hard for them to function parallel. How does one enter the discussion, how can one rupture vertical thinking, how can one situation get less static and give temporary agency to all actors? 4. Is it possible to imagine an anonymous artist position, where the artist does not act under any name? Of course, doesn't it happen constantly, people working under the name of a group, but this may not be what you're getting at. Others work under the name of a corporation, like for example e-flux, Bernadette Corporation. Or a gallerist's or an artist's name such as Claire Fontaine or Reena Spauldings in New York, where the 'members' are anonymous and who is part is not altogether clear. Exhibitions are made by anonymous curators, where all artists are anonymous... In situations involving other sets of distribution channels, grey markets we would have to use either more purposefully corporate or more anonymous situations. This is true, obviously for the mimicrying activist gestures. As soon as the law gets involved, the name/sender is the important component. A corporation is not a physical person, and cannot be persecuted, it is not on the other hand an entire state... A problem with using your own name like Oprah Winfrey in 'Oprah' or Martha Stewart, they both have built their empires around their names. These empires get very sensitive to what happens to the person connected to it. Martha Steward for example got convicted for insider trading, her stock dropped deep down, the future of the company was uncertain. Contrary to these examples, both Bill Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple should be mentioned, where the company and the logo is stronger than the name of the private citizen. During the fall I made a longer piece around collective movements. I chose a commercial slogan as a sender: "Stay Connected", from Verizon, the telephone company. Brands give recognizability. If one wants to create a forum, it can be useful if people recognize the brand, or again if one wants to act more exclusively maybe not... The question also hovers around personal responsibility - intimacy against outreach. 5. Do you experience a pressure as an artist to produce art work, to be productive? Can you see other ways of being active as an artist? Examples? I decide the set up of my situation, and in what context I want to participate or if not. It can be difficult to chose sometimes what one wants to be part of. For a while I thought I would say yes to everything that came my way - the same as a big NO, contemporary punk. So that taste or other hierarchical fantasies would not determine the choices. But it seems to be way more complicated than this... Productive, what does this mean? It is a quantitative concept, I don't understand how to measure it. Kelley Walker has in theory only made one piece during the last year and a half, which he has exhibited ubiquitously in various combinations, 'rotations'. Quantitatively he has not been very productively, but he has created an icon, which now takes its last articulation in the Whitney Biennial. What is a piece? I have a problem, or rather others have a problem because I don't 'make' things. I often work with temporary situations, paper ephemera like posters, wall paper and pamphlets, with light, sound, info signs often involving pieces by others in my situations. No set or static constellations are generated, rather a flow looking different each time from necessity, which then is splintered back into galleries, collectors and artists' studios, next time it all has to be gathered again. I don't create 'pieces' in a traditional sense. They involve pieces by various persons, it is not a collaborative effort in any ordinary sense, but something else. It is hard to sell, not tangible. In a commercial climate it is both an attractive and vulnerable position. How can this climate handle such situations? Why make more stuff, when there already is so much out there to work with. Rather, the issue is about participating in a discussion, be 'productive' through contributing to this dialogue. 6. Give a concrete proposal which would improve the conditions for art. Art is unconditional, unconditionally it works without any conditions. A politics of improvement looks a bit like a synthetic 'million program'* or an attempt to remove weed from a meadow with only dandelions... so discuss more without distinction/order and take even bigger risks! As with love - let's get engaged! 7. How does art change the world? (how can art change the world?) What changes art/what is the mission of art? The World changes art, art changes art, but art does not change the world. It is not the mission of art to change or save the world, rather the opposite, maybe the world needs to be protected from art. Art is a form for thinking, often nostalgic, which has neither the power nor the force to change in a way that politics, especially grass root activity such as social work or activism has. The idea that some art would be more political than other is completely ludicrous. All art is political through its temporary canceling of society's rules of rationality, productivity or profit - by being just art. Artists work with language, visually/textually/audially, with reading, how meaning is generated. It is about interpreting and using the world, to play with and see the world. In "Through the Looking Glass" Alice protests Humpty Dumpty's simply put "anarchic" use of language. He replies that he sure can decide exactly what he wants something to mean or signify, what's at stake is rather who is to be the master. The artist is the master in his/her own domain, which does not coincide with the world. Here one plays with meaning but does not cement it. Art is a free space where signs for signification ambivalently slides around, meaning occurs and evaporates. A political act of exchange where senseless and pointless activity is executed with passion. 8. What would be a wild/radical question on art? "Does Art Make Sense?" * The million program was a utopic housing program in Sweden in the 60s' to build a million apartments over a few years. |