The Palestinian Situation

I've been hearing of conflicts between Israel and its neighbors my whole life, but the news media never explained enough for it to make sense, and I'm afraid I never took the time to fully inform myself.

I was of course horrified by the Holocaust; the images from the death camps were burned into my brain at an early age, and they and the history that goes with them should never be forgotten. And I read Exodus, which portrayed the founding of the modern Israel in thrilling terms; and I could certainly understand why Jewish people would feel the need for their own state, where they could never again be a persecuted minority.

But from the start, I had trouble understanding why it was fair to force the people already living in those lands to give them up in order to create the new state. If Westerners were so keen to support the project, whey didn't they donate their own lands, instead of taking from others?

The history of this situation is long, with many twists and turns, and I remain embarrassingly ignorant about most of it; but during the last few years, I've come across a couple of items that seemed helpful enough to share.

The first was a video by artist Ursula Biemann, X-Mission (2008) (viewable at the foregoing link), which explores among other things the effects of the division of the Palestinian people among geographically dispersed locations and their partial re-connection via new communications technologies.

The second is the image at left, from Michal Vexler at +972 (click on it for a more legible version), which shows how Palestinians have been divided into five categories of citizenship with different rights and subject to different restrictions.

e-flux Bidding for .art Domain

Per Art Fag City,

Should e-flux win this Top Level Domain bid, they not only promise a company that will be run under the supervision of a committee of experts comprising . . . art historians, artists and curators, but pledge to return 10% of revenues generated by the service in the form of grants and funding for underfunded art institutions, organizations, and projects.

That’s a big deal. e-flux is asking that we all show our support by leaving a recommendationon ICANN’s site, and I recommend readers do this. . . . Many others seem to think the same . . . .

That’s a good sign, because some of .art applicants make me very nervous. From a list of 10 applicants, Aremi Group S.A., a company located in Luxembourg, has already applied for .ART and DOT ART trademarks within the European Union. They have also set up a website that gives the impression they already manage the domain. .Art Registry, Inc., another contender, is an anonymous company registered in the Cayman Islands. Merchant Law Group LLP is a law firm that says it’s “able to respond to the needs of individuals and large corporations alike by focusing creativity, lateral thinking, and finding solutions.” It’s unclear what their experience in art or managing domains is, beyond having the $185,000 application fee.

As e-flux founder Anton Vidokle explained in a comment,

[W]e are not planning to curate the art domain, should we get to develop it. Not sure why people assume we would do that. What is important is not to sell name space indiscriminately only to maximize profits, and to prevent speculators from registering names that belong to other organizations and individuals. Applications for name spaces will indeed be reviewed, primarily to make sure that only Paddy Johnson will be able to register PaddyJohnson.art or only the Brooklyn Museum can get BrooklynMuseum.art. People who work at e-flux are artists and writers . . . . We are not politicians or businessmen, and do not employ deceptive logic. Its very important that there is some solidarity in the artistic community, and that we trust our fellow practitioners. If we can’t manage that, our community will always be prey to the rich and powerful of this world, who will just continue milking it for money, creativity, gentrification, social prestige or whatever it is they want to get from artists. Lastly, the gold rush is not guaranteed: most domains other than .com have failed to earn much money. However if the art domain becomes popular, this could create a significant source of independent funding for art at a time when such resources are rapidly disappearing world wide. We will do our best to realize this.

(Image adapted from ICANN; click on it for a more legible version.)

Shell Rig Malfunctions at Posh Party (the Yes Lab Strikes Again)

This was a send-off for Shell's arctic rigs at the Seattle Space Needle. The actual rigs were visible outside the window. Incredibly, there was a malfunction of the model rig that was supposed to pour drinks for guests.

Per HuffPo,

The device which sprayed Rainey's face was a model of Shell's drill rig, the Kulluk, which is set to soon depart Seattle for the Arctic. The Kulluk was built-in 1983 by Mitsui, the same company that, two decades later, built the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon. . . .

* * * * *
[T]he Yes Lab [also] sent out a press release on Shell's behalf, threatening [legal action against the activists and] attacking . . . the activists' brand-new ArcticReady.com website [, which looks like a Shell site, and] which includes a social media ad generator and a dangerously addictive children's video game called Angry Bergs. The fake Shell release generated additional media coverage.

Earlier this year, Shell obtained a legal injunction stopping any Greenpeace activist from coming within 1km of any Shell vessel. To thank the company, Greenpeace teamed up with the Yes Lab to plan a promotional advertising campaign for Shell's Arctic drilling efforts, which Shell prefers to keep quiet. Besides the ill-fated ceremony and the website, the campaign includes a number of other elements that will shadow Shell's summer Arctic destruction campaign.

(More at HuffPo and YouTube. For more Yes Men or Yes Lab actions, click on those labels below.)

The Yes Lab Strikes Again, in Dallas

Re- the Trans-Pacific Partnership "trade" agreement:



From the Yes Lab's press release:

DALLAS PARTY ENDS BADLY FOR U.S. TRADE REPS AND FEDERAL AGENTS
Dozens of rogue "delegates" disrupt Trans-Pacific Partnership gala with "award," "mic check," mass toilet paper replacement

* * * * *
Two dozen rogue "delegates" disrupted the corporate-sponsored welcome gala for the high-stakes Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations yesterday with a fake award ceremony and "mic check." Other activists, meanwhile, replaced hundreds of rolls of toilet paper (TP) throughout the conference venue with more informative versions, and projected a message on the venue's facade.

The first action began when a smartly-dressed man approached the podium immediately after the gala's keynote speech by Ron Kirk, U.S. Trade Representative and former mayor of Dallas. The man (local puppeteer David Goodwin) introduced himself as "Git Haversall," president of the "Texas Corporate Power Partnership," and announced he was giving Kirk and other U.S. trade negotiators the "2012 Corporate Power Tool Award," which "Haversall's" partner held aloft.

The crowd of negotiators and corporate representatives applauded, and "Haversall" continued: "I'd like to personally thank the negotiators for their relentless efforts. The TPP agreement is shaping up to be a fantastic way for us to maximize profits, regardless of what the public of this nation—or any other nation—thinks is right."

At that point, the host of the reception took the microphone back and announced that the evening's formal programming had concluded. But Mr. Haversall confidently re-took the microphone and warmly invited Kirk to accept the award.

Kirk moved towards the stage, but federal agents blocked his path to protect him from further embarrassment. At that point, a dozen well-dressed "delegates" (local activists, some from Occupy Dallas) broke into ecstatic dance and chanted "TPP! TPP! TPP!" for several minutes until Dallas police arrived.

Fifteen minutes later, another dozen interlopers from Occupy Dallas interrupted the reception with a spirited "mic-check." Outside, activists projected a message on the hotel, and throughout the night, delegates discovered that hundreds of rolls of custom toilet paper had been installed in the conference venue.

The activists disrupted the gala to protest the hijacking of trade negotiations by an extreme pro-corporate agenda. "The public and the media are locked out of these meetings," said Kristi Lara from Occupy Dallas, one of the infiltrators. "We can't let U.S. trade officials get away with secretly limiting Internet freedoms, restricting financial regulation, extending medicine patents, and giving corporations other a whole host of other powers allowing them to quash the rights of people and democracies, for example by offshoring jobs in ever new ways. Trade officials know the public won't stand for this, which is why they try to keep their work secret—and that's why we had to crash their party."

There is mounting criticism of the U.S. role in pushing the negotiations forward in secrecy, despite the public's overwhelming disagreement with TPP goals. ("Buy American" procurement preferences are supported by over 85% of Americans, but U.S. trade negotiators are preparing to accept a ban on such preferences. Two weeks ago, 69 members of Congress sent a letter to President Obama asking him not to accept that ban.)

Many are calling the Obama administration duplicitous: while the administration publicly hypes a plan to revitalize American manufacturing and create jobs in the U.S., U.S. trade officials push for new "investor rights" that would make it easier for American companies to lay off domestic workers and open plants overseas.

"The TPP has been branded as a trade 'negotiation' by its corporate proponents, but in reality it's a place for big business to get its way behind closed doors," said Pete Rokicki of Occupy Dallas. "This anti-democratic maneuver can be stopped if the public gets active—just look at the movement that killed the ill-advised SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) law a few months ago. That's why Obama's trade officials lock the public, the press and even members of Congress from the trade negotiation process."

"We're really happy to know that even in their most private moments, US trade reps are reminded that a vast majority of the public stands opposed to corporate-friendly, closed-door trade deals like the TPP," said Sean Dagohoy from the Yes Lab, who assisted in the actions.

Here's a summary of the provisions of the TPP; more at Public Citizen Global Trade Watch.

UPDATE: F.w.i.w., some people are starting to notice that maybe there's a problem with allowing 600 megacorps to write our treaties while everyone else including Congress is kept in the dark.

Spring/Break Art Show (NYC Armory Week)

Spring/Break Art Show was a new, curator-driven "this can be a fair," located in Old School, NoLIta and featuring projects by 23 curators; and it may have been my favorite of the shows I saw during Armory week. Among the curators were the fair's founders Andrew Gori and Ambre Kelly, Natalie Kovacs, Patrick Meagher, Eve Sussman, and Chen Tamir. The theme was "Apocalist: A Brief History of The End." The show also has a Facebook page with some photos here; Artinfo has an article with some good photos; Vernissage TV has a 6.5-min. video tour here; and my photos, such as they are, are here.

As usual, I'd have liked to have had more time here – everything I saw seemed to warrant it – but the evening ran out before I made it through the whole thing. Out of the works I saw, some faves were:

1. An installation featuring work by Eve Sussman – the labelling was a bit confusing to me, so I'll quote it: "Eve Sussman, Waiting for an Icon, 2012. Crazy Daisy, 2012, 3 channel site-specific video round with Patricia Thornley, Jeesu Kim, Leslie Thornton, Bat Or Kalo. Eve Sussman's site-specific work at Old School is inspired by a stained glass artwork she has brought back to life, animating it with the projections of several singers attempting the title song from the film Pull My Daisy. The musical rendition of the Neal Cassidy [sic], Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac poem was featured in Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie's 1959 film." You can view the 26-min., classic Pull My Daisy at Ubuweb; the title song lyrics actually modify those of the poem; both are weird and suggestive; and the melody is wonderfully discombobulating and, I'd say, hard to sing. Sussman's projection onto stained glass was flanked on each side by projections of video'd windows through which you sometimes spied a young woman, apparently washing dishes or the like – the "glass" was frosted, except for a circle framing the young woman's head (see here for the layout).

2. Sp33dGuided Art Tour by Dora Budor + Maja Cule was a charming, thoughtfully goofy, iPhone-narrated tour with guide and guidee cuddled awkwardly on one Segway, purportedly touring the art in the show but in fact limited to the courtyard and an attempted trip around the block, although in my case we turned back after a close call involving a tree root and a fence. The artists explained they'd always wanted to try a Segway; me, too! The tour launched from a room featuring twin projections of Earth, positioned like views through a pair of binocs, except the planet spun differently in the two views; but I think this was a separate work.

3. In Sea of Fire by Fall on Your Sword (2012), an antique piano had been hooked up to video equipment in such a way that, in its default mode, the video showed one of those fake statue guys dressed up like the Statue of Liberty; but when you pressed one of the organ keys, this was interrupted by a clip from a disaster movie, with each key seemingly triggering the destruction of the Statue by a different, apocalyptic means – bombing, a tidal wave, alien invasion, etc. It was, simply, awesome. Trailer here; but it's nothing like being able to trigger a Liberty-annihilating tsunami with a key stroke.

I also saw a piece in which purported art objects were incorporated into an improvisational, audience-participatory art performance, which was a lots of fun; apologies that I can't say who deserves credit, except I think it may have been hosted by ArtLog? (I've requested more info and will update this if I get it.)

(Posts on other 2012 Armory week art shows here; three more to come.)

New Museum Triennial: "The Ungovernables"

Exhibition website here; a very helpful NYT review here, with a slide show with some beautiful photos; my own photos here; and Art Fag City has a good slide show here.

Among the pieces I found exciting was a video by Wu Tsang, The Shape of a Right Statement (2008; still, right, from Clifton Benevento gallery). In it, Tsang re-speaks a text I found fascinating, from the second part of a video manifesto by autisim rights activist Amanda Baggs, embedded below. Thoughout the 5 min. run of Tsang's piece, he does not blink, a feat which, for me, greatly heightened the intensity of the work.

I saw this piece before encountering Tsang's other work, including Wildness in the Whitney Biennial. Various commentators have expressed concern w.r.t. many contemporary works that one needs a lot of info extraneous to the work itself in order to begin to appreciate it. While Tsang's work draws heavily from its sources and context, for me, it's a great example of a piece that was sufficiently arresting in its own right to make me go look for that info; and I'm glad I did.

Another of my favorites was The Propeller Group's project, TVC Communism (2011), from which two pieces were shown. First was a video installation comprising synchronized video on 5 large screens arranged in an inward-facing circle. Each screen showed one individual in a meeting in which the Propeller team collaborated to develop p.r. to re-brand Communism. Unfortunately, viewers seemed to enjoy being the apparent center of the virtual attention of the Propeller team so much that, while I was there, the area within the 5-screen circle was full of chatting museum-goers, making it impossible to hear the the audio "conversation" among the characters in the videos. The second piece shown from the project was the resulting commercial ad.

It's hard to resist comparing the Triennial and the Whitney Biennial. Perhaps the main observation yielded for me so far is that there was more socially- or politically-engaged work at the New Museum. Given how much of the most exciting art made during recent years has had overtly political concerns, the relative paucity of the political at the Whitney seems striking.

Below is Amanda Baggs' manifesto:

NYC Art Fairs 2012, and "It's the Political Economy, Stupid"

Pulse may have decided, wisely, that the field's gotten too crowded; they've moved to May.

Within four days (Mar. 3 - 11), viewers were offered the Armory Show, Scope, VOLTA, the Moving Image Fair, the Independent Fair, the Dependent Fair, the Fountain Art Fair, the Spring Break fair, and the Brucennial; not to mention the Whitney Biennial, the New Museum Triennial and plenty of other shows, most of which could only be viewed Wed. thru Sun., i.e. mostly the same days the fairs were open, and mostly only during roughly the same hours. Given that most exhibitions include a lot more video and other time-based work than they used to, any hope of seeing and doing justice to all the work shown has become even more remote.

I saw (in no particular order): the Armory Show – just the contemporary Pier and some of the Armory Film programs; the Moving Image Fair; the Independent; the Dependent; Spring Break; the Brucennial; the It's the Political Economy, Stupid show at the Austrian Cultural Forum; the Whitney Biennial; and the New Museum Triennial.

I shot lots of photos, which I'm in the process of culling and putting online. The first up are from It's the Political Economy, Stupid, curated by Gregory Sholette and Oliver Ressler. The exhibition borrows its title from Slavoj Žižek's twist on Pres. Clinton's old campaign slogan. (Image above from The Bull Laid Bear (2012), video, 24 min., Zanny Begg & Oliver Ressler, from this show.)

As you may know, I've followed the economic situation for a while and am concerned that economic reform is essential but that few non-experts understand the problems well enough to know what should be done about them. But the problems aren't all that hard to understand; it's just that the perpetrators have done a terrific job obfuscating them. (My own grasp happens to be a little better than average, since I happened to write a paper on Glass-Steagall back when it was being repealed, and I've also had experience with commercial loans that were rolled into the kind of securitized mortgage pools blamed by some for the economic meltdown.)

The works in Political Economy were really brilliant, using various documentary and imaginative strategies to greatly further this discussion. More info at the Austrian Cultural Forum; and there's an excellent review of the show on the art:21 blog.

UPDATE: Posts on the other shows I saw will be available here.

Wikileaks to Reveal: Private Spy Network Paid Gov't Officials et Al. for Profitable Secrets, Etc.

Per a twitter source, Wikileaks will begin publication tomorrow of some 5 million emails from the files of an entity called Stratfor:

Government and diplomatic sources from around the world give Stratfor advance knowledge of global politics and events in exchange for money. The Global Intelligence Files expose how Stratfor has recruited a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world.

The material shows how a private intelligence agency works, and how they target individuals for their corporate and government clients. For example, Stratfor monitored and analysed the online activities of Bhopal activists, including the "Yes Men", for the US chemical giant Dow Chemical. The activists seek redress for the 1984 Dow Chemical/Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India. The disaster led to thousands of deaths, injuries in more than half a million people, and lasting environmental damage.

Per Gizmodo,

Wikileaks says that the emails also reveal the creation of a parallel organization called StratCap. Apparently, this organization would use Stratfor's network of informants to make money in financial markets. Wikileaks claims that the emails show how then-Goldman Sachs Managing Director Shea Morenz and Stratfor CEO George Friedman put StratCap in motion in 2009.

* * * * *
Stratfor CEO has resigned following this clusterfuck. It seems the company's security hasn't been fixed yet, because Anonymous has captured and published his resignation email.

[Emphasis above and below in this post is supplied.] More at the links above.

A press release from the Yes Men notes,

Many of the Bhopal-related emails . . . reveal concern that . . . the Bhopal issue might be expanded into an effective systemic critique of corporate rule, and speculate at length about why this hasn't yet happened – providing a fascinating window onto what at least some corporate types fear most from activists.

"[Bhopal activists] have made a slight nod toward expanded activity, but never followed through on it—the idea of 'other Bhopals' that were the fault of Dow or others," mused Joseph de Feo, who is listed in one online source as a "Briefer" for Stratfor.

"Maybe the Yes Men were the pinnacle. They made an argument in their way on their terms—that this is a corporate problem and a part of the a [sic] larger whole," wrote Kathleen Morson, Stratfor's Director of Policy Analysis.

"With less than a month to go [until the 25th anniversary], you'd think that the major players – especially Amnesty – would have branched out from Bhopal to make a broader set of issues. I don't see any evidence of it," wrote Bart Mongoven, Stratfor's Vice President, in November 2004. . . .

Mongoven even speculates on coordination between various activist campaigns that had nothing to do with each other. "The Chevron campaign [in Ecuador] is remarkably similar [to the Dow campaign] in its unrealistic demand. Is it a follow up or an admission that the first thrust failed? Am I missing a node of activity or a major campaign that is to come? Has the Dow campaign been more successful than I think?" It's almost as if Mongoven assumes the two campaigns were directed from the same central activist headquarters.

Just as Wall Street has at times let slip their fear of the Occupy Wall Street movement, these leaks seem to show that corporate power is most afraid of whatever reveals "the larger whole" and "broader issues," i.e. whatever brings systemic criminal behavior to light. "Systemic critique could lead to policy changes that would challenge corporate power and profits in a really major way," noted Joseph Huff-Hannon, recently-promoted Director of Policy Analysis for the Yes Lab.

(You can see a Yes Man impersonating a Dow Chemical spokesman in an interview with an unwitting BBC here, accepting full responsibility for the 1984 Bhopal disaster.)

NYPD Rendition of "Wikileaks Truck"

The “WikiLeaks Top Secret Mobile Information Collection Unit” has no actual affiliation with Wikileaks; its owner, artist/activist/prankster Clark Stoeckley, just wanted to raise awareness about WL. But the truck had become something of an OWS mascot, when on Nov. 17, police impounded it – except the truck never made it to the pound.

Stoeckley was arrested for "Obstructing Governmental Administration" after he declined to allow them to search the truck without a warrant. All charges against him have now been dropped; but the truck is missing, and police say they have no record of it. More at Gawker and Animal.

In a recent interview, Stoeckler discoursed:

[W]hen the Secret Service pulled me over and searched the truck, they asked what would be the first thing they saw when we opened the back. I told them “records”. Their eyes lit up and they and they asked “What kind of records?” My reply was “Mostly classic rock, some R&B and folk.” The door goes up, and the first thing they saw was boxes of 33 rpm vinyl records. . . .

[Asked whether he'd been hit on because of his attractive vehicle,] It is not a Ferrari or a Porsche. I attract a lot of conspiracy theorists, but they are usually older men who need a bath, and they want to talk my ear off. Some of them actually think I work for Wikileaks and they wish they had something to leak. No I have not gotten hit on by anyone because of the truck. It is a former U-Haul truck with 200,000 miles. Luckily my girlfriend has a car.

More at Wikileaks-Movie.com.

UPDATE: The Wikileaks Truck was recovered and is now for sale on e-bay – apparently Stoeckley needs funds (update via Gawker).

Trespass/Parade

Looks interesting:

Trespass: First a Parade, Then a Party

* * * * *
On Sunday, October 2, 2011 the streets of downtown Los Angeles will erupt in a parade of local artists and residents, complete with music, dancing and performance. The parade is the culmination of Trespass, a collaborative project between Arto Lindsay, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and West of Rome Public Art (WoR). They have commissioned 40 Los Angeles based artists, including John Baldessari, Barbara Kruger, Nancy Rubins and Sterling Ruby, to produce a statement—their call to action, pleasure and reciprocity. The statements have been printed on T-shirts in English and in Spanish, and will be worn as part of the parade and sold via the West of Rome website. . . . This project has been created to coincide with Pacific Standard Time, a collaboration of more than 60 cultural institutions across Southern California coming together for the first time to celebrate the birth of the L.A. art scene, which begins October 2011.

On Monday, October 3, 2011 Trespass will reach its climax with a blow out benefit party for WoR at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. Fantastic and transgressive Los Angeles iconic underground figure, Miss Vaginal Davis will shape our journey into the night. The rhythms of Trespass will permeate into the evening as musician Arto Lindsay will perform a unique piece composed for the occasion. Artist Rirkrit Tiravanija will engage the audience in a continuation of the collective experience of social awareness stemming from the parade.

More at www.trespassparade.org.

Dallas Art Fair, Suite Art Fair, Etc.

. . . in Dallas this weekend. (Left: Chris Sauter, Microscope (detail; 2011), sheetrock; photo courtesy Cueto Project.) A few highlights in brief:

Thur., 4/7:

10 AM-6 PM Jim Lambie exhibition at Goss Michael Foundation opens, with a beautiful, newly-acquired floor installation. At 1405 Turtle Creek Blvd.; open Tues.-Fri. 10 AM-6 PM, Sat. 11 AM-4 PM (see the next post for photos from the preview).

7-10 PM Dallas Art Fair Preview Gala
Fashion Industry Gallery (f.i.g.), 1807 Ross Ave.
Benefits Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts and Dallas Contemporary. Tix are $200 per person and can be purchased by calling Ellen Fryer at (214) 219-9191 or emailing daf@buzzellco.com.

8-11 PM Suite Art Fair Preview Party
Belmont Hotel, 901 Fort Worth Ave.
Tix are $60 and are good for the entire weekend; tix can be purchased here (free t-shirt to the first 100 purchasers).

Fri., 4/8 - Sun., 4/10:

Dallas Art Fair
Fri. & Sat., 11 AM-7 PM; Sun. 11 AM-5 PM
Fashion Industry Gallery (f.i.g.), 1807 Ross Ave.
$20 per day or $40 weekend pass; tix can be purchased here or by calling (214) 220-1278.
Full schedule of events mentioned in this post and others relating to the Dallas Art Fair here. One highlight: at 5 PM on both Fri. & Sat. in the Becks Imaginarium (in the same building with the Art Fair), there will be a screening of Full Circle: Before They Were Famous, a new film inspired by stunning, recently-discovered photos taken by William John Kennedy of Andy Warhol and his milieu, with the photographer and Ultra Violet in attendance. Many of the photos can be seen in Colton & Farb Gallery's booth.

Suite Art Fair
11 AM-7 PM Fri., Sat., & Sun.
Belmont Hotel, 901 Fort Worth Ave. Organized by Brian Gibb of The Public Trust. $10 per day or $20 weekend pass; tix can be purchased here. (Right: Celia Eberle, Transbunny (2011), marble, jet, toys {photo courtesy Plush Gallery, an exhibitor at Suite Art}).

Sat., 4/9:

10 AM-4 PM, Symposium, THE FREEDOM OF THE CITY: Models of Urban Engagement & Creativity in the 21st Century
Bob Hope Theater, Owen Arts Center, SMU, 6101 Bishop. The symposium is a direct response to the research residency of New York-based public arts organization Creative Time, one of the 2009-10 Meadows Prize recipients. Through individual presentations and panel discussions, the conference will explore the relationship between artists, architects, activists and social justice struggles.

5-9 PM, Texas Biennial Party
CentralTrak, 800 Exposition. Works by Gabriel Dawe, Cassandra Emswiler, and Hillary Holsonback currently exhibited.

Re- Certain Aspects of the Creative Time Summit 2 (2010)


As you may know, the Summit is sort of a two-day Pecha Kucha nite for activist artists. Intros are brief, and most presentations are strictly limited to 8 min. in length.

The presentations related to the topics of Markets, Schools, Regional Reports, Food, Geographies, Governments, Institutions, and Plausible Art Worlds; plus there was the presentation to Rick Lowe of the Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change.

There's a great website for the Summit here, with videos of most if not all the presentations here and post-Summit discussion on FB here.

(More visuals I shot of the CT Summit here. For other art stuff seen while in NYC, including links to visuals from the Greater New York and Last Newspaper exhibitions, go here.)

I found the the Summit extremely interesting and enjoyable, and very probably helpful, at the minimum in helping to raise awareness of socially-engaged art practices. Some of my own favorite portions included the presentations by (in no particular order, and perhaps for my own idiosyncratic reasons) Nato Thompson, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Anton Vidokle, Bruce High Quality Foundation, Claire Pentecost, Agnes Denes, F.E.A.S.T., Trevor Paglen, Phil Collins, Aaron Levy, Andrea Fraser, W.A.G.E., Basekamp, Eating in Public, and the International Errorist (who invites everyone to join them; I find no I.E. website, but here's their YouTube Channel).

I also loved the exit-hook music and appreciated Gregory Sholette's manning of the online discussion both during and after the Summit.

The point of the Summit, presumably, was not necessarily to explore any particular topic in depth, but rather to survey recent developments. That said, the program seemed to me more or less haunted by some big, fundamental questions, any one of which could easily devour the whole conversation if not the known intellectual universe; these lurking queries included:

• What is art?*
• What is GOOD art?**
• What is art that's good aesthetically (as distinguished – at least temporarily, for the purposes of discussion – from the question of what is art that's good morally or for other purposes)?***
• What does it take to have a sustainable, healthy art economic system, i.e., a system that would fairly compensate art workers doing work that will, over the long haul, likely be considered "good" (the "why new forms" question being part of this subject, as well as, how the heck are some of these projects funded)?****
• What is a sustainable, healthy economic system generally? or governmental system (recognizing, at least temporarily for the purposes of discussion, a distinction between economic and governmental systems, with CT's question, "what is democracy," being part of the latter subject)?*****
• Etc.******

Each of these questions contains assumptions and/or could be broken down into many more fundamental questions.

I realize artists are relatively independent-minded and that it's hard to get us to agree on much. But I do still think we actually could come to agreement about some of these "background" questions, or at least reach a clearer understanding of where our differences about them lie. And I think the answers to all are interrelated; but at least for me, I feel I make much better progress with them if I break them down at least this far, at least temporarily.

Would our discussions be enhanced if more of us had more clarity about these big, background questions? Maybe. The way they're haunting us is distracting, at the minimum.

Or maybe we just need an explicit acknowledgment up front that all those big, background questions are out there, and they're really bugging us, but we're going to try not to talk about them?

______________________

*What is art? Humans invented the term and we can re-define it and all other terms any way we like. My interest is in defining them in ways that will be most useful; e.g., I personally would like to define art in a way that differentiates it from, e.g., such literal expressions as an article in a medical journal, or such objects as a cup made without any regard to appearance or ulterior meanings. Also, if you define art as the same as politics, as one commenter seemed on the brink of doing, then I'm not quite sure how you differentiate it from religion and a lot of other things. Which may be ok; I certainly agree that politics and religion involve art or have art-y aspects; but I think there's utility in having a definition of "art" that distinguishes it from other things.

(My own, current, working definition of "art" is, any expression that deploys non-literal means.)

**What is GOOD art? I think it's important to separate this from the question of what is art. (To me, "goodness" is basically a way of saying that, within a given context, one prefers x over y.)

***What is art that's good aesthetically (as distinguished from what is art that's good for other purposes)? E.g., art can be "good" in effectively altering perceptions and, ultimately, what is actually possible, and yet be highly morally questionable; e.g., Karl Rove produced little that wasn't art (certainly, it was mostly fictional), and it was, in terms of his goals, frighteningly successful; ditto Ayn Rand.

Some people think art is good if it creates knowledge; some think it's good if it's beautiful (using "beauty" broadly/creatively); some think it's good if it has a desired effect (among other theories of aesthetic "goodness"). I personally think the answers to questions about different kinds of goodness, e.g. aesthetic and moral, ultimately converge, because i.m.h.o., the best art involves more than one kind of "goodness"; but I think it helps to analyze the different aspects separately to get to a clearer understanding of it all.

Related is the question of art's "value," which seems to have become fraught. To my mind, however, valuation is not the problem; the problem is who makes the valuation, on what basis, and over what time-frame. I.e., is putting a price on everything in itself such a big problem, or is it that the prices are all being fixed by vultures? And based on the very little I've gathered re- Marxist thought, e.g., it seems to overlook that an art work's "true" value is often not realized until long after the work was created.

That said, again, we can re-define "value" any way we like; and in this connection, I agree it can be a useful, at least as a thought-experiment, to "disallow a monied reading of every interaction or creation," as one commenter put it.

****What does it take to have a sustainable, healthy art economic system? Among other things, what does it take to have a healthy system for funding art – including fair remuneration to individual artists, sustainable arts organizations that are not vulnerable to being hijacked by the impurely motivated, and even national economic systems that work for those at the bottom as well as they do for those at the top?

Many artists seem interested in alternatives to selling art works as "commodities." But charity from the rich and even government funding implicate concerns about artists' independence; while, these days, extracting funds from the non-rich implicates concerns about putting the squeeze on a struggling economic class. Might not a mix of sources be best, so that at least there's some diversity in choices favored by different funding constituencies?

(And I gather Marx proposed that art works don't have any value and/or don't have any use; but over the longer term, haven't many art works proved by almost any measure you want to use – bang-for-buck, pound-for-pound, ultimate impact – to be extremely valuable and useful [if they're not useful, why so much law concerning their use]?)

(And if creativity is artists' capital, should they perhaps simply make sure to invest it only in ways they can ensure will help sustain them and be used in ways they approve? E.g., to take Siegelaub's Artist's Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement to the next level, what if all artists always retained basic ownership of their creative works, and merely licensed them to collectors et al., subject to various conditions? And note that once you've exchanged ownership of your art work for paper money (or of your time in exchange for Time Bank paper), the value of the paper can be destroyed.)

Also, during the Summit, I kept feeling we needed to acknowledge that part of the reason there's so little money for art is that the middle class, much if not most of which might otherwise be happy to chip in the relatively small amounts required to fund a lot of great art, is too busy being brainwashed and looted.

Which implicates the why new forms question: what IS a sustainable art production/remuneration system, or economic OR governmental system, whether small- or large-scale. (Or as Nato/Creative Time asked in a book I bought at the Summit and have just barely cracked, what is democracy, a whole 'nother question. [What it's NOT, of course, is, an economic system.]) Is it really that nonprofits (or, say, democracy, or communism, or private ownership, commodification, or capitalism, in all their varieties) can't work? Or is it, e.g., as Greg Sholette suggested, at least partly also a question of scale? Is it that any organization or system, regardless of form, is more likely to cease to work fairly once it reaches a certain size (or as Plato suggests, once it reaches a certain age), because the many in the middle and along the bottom of the org tend to lose the access/ability to hold in check the few at the top, because of increased specialization and diminished transparency and accountability, and/or because people's memories or applications of the system's axiomatic principles become corrupted? (And, e.g., I agree with Greg that merely having an organization be owned by members is no guarantee that it can't be hijacked by vultures; because corporations are owned by their shareholders, and we've seen shareholders also, frequently be shafted by their own corporations, because the latter now mainly are controlled by and serve the interests of their senior executives [partly because corporations have grown so large]; h*ll, even charities like the American Red Cross have been hijacked. Basically, any org that generates or aggregates value will attract vultures; and I do think that, the larger the scale of the org, the more susceptible it is to hijacking.)

*****What is a sustainable, healthy economic or governmental system generally? History seems to suggest that no organization of great size can function efficiently without some kind of hierarchy, and that efficiencies can also be achieved through some degree of specialization (not everyone is equally capable of financial accounting AND foundry work). And that leads to some kind of mechanism for exchange and valuation, whether it's a currency, barter, or time banking. And pls note that time banking makes time a proxy for value; and it may be a fine proxy, or at least a better one than letting the vultures fix all the values, but, e.g., it doesn't allow someone who's devoted years of unpaid effort developing a skill or expertise to charge any more for their time than someone who hasn't invested the same kind of unpaid time and effort; and the inequity in paying both individuals the same would be only partly remedied by making all education free.

And history also seems to suggest that for certain kinds of large-scale or long-term tasks (building a cathedral, sending a man to Mars), you need an org of adequate size as well as a degree of specialization. And as noted above, whether the org be a government, a corporation, a labor union, or whatever, it tends to become susceptible to being hijacked once it gets too big for those in the lower levels of the pyramid to exert meaningful control over those at the top. (Mind you, there are many factors in creating a sustainable system; another factor in the success of the U.S., such as it's been, has been due to the absolutely rockin' axiomatic principles in the form of the U.S. Constitution, among other things.)

(And maybe the question of optimally healthy, sustainable forms or systems can't just be answered once for all time; maybe there's a sort of arms race between those who wish the benefits of human endeavor to be shared fairly and those willing to exploit the chinks in the systems [and since no system is perfect, there will always be chinks] in order to benefit themselves at the expense of others [or said another way, maybe there's a race among competing definitions of what's "fair"], so that no matter how evolved your systems are, eventually the exploiters either will succeed in their exploitive goals or will force the rest of us to attend to the chinks . . . but even if that's true, that doesn't mean we should give up on making things as difficult as possible for the exploiters, any more than we should give up trying to keep the cookie jar out of the reach of clever children; it just means we can't afford to stop paying attention.)

(And maybe it's also a question of analyzing how capitalistic aspects may work better for certain purposes within a society and socialistic aspects may work better for other purposes within the same society – and I have some ideas re- guidelines re- which do which. In this connection, I wish more conversations about these subjects began with an analysis of the smaller-scale, democratic socialist governmental systems in Finland, Sweden, and Norway. I don't know that much about them but am curious, since they appear to be working well.)

(And yes, I totally agree with another commenter that you cannot have revolution in just one country. The export of U.S. jobs, e.g., is as big a problem as it is only because we're not also exporting labor and environmental protections, etc.)

******Etc. E.g., there's what I also think should be another separate question, which is, whether art CAN have political or social effectiveness. I personally have no doubt it can, but I've heard this disputed; and discussion of the point might help elicit useful info re- just how it is that it can have such effects. Among other things, e.g., is art most effective when it enters the legislature? Can it be as effective using more circuitous means? (And in this connection, our prior inquiry re- what art is may also be pertinent; for I think most of us agree, some kinds of political or social efforts might more usefully be called something other than art.)

(I.m.h.o., art can't NOT have political effectiveness, at least to some small degree; and others agree. Queen Elizabeth I censored Shakespeare's Richard II; the Guggenheim cancelled Haacke's Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings show; and the C.I.A.spent millions promoting ab ex. But note, if you make political effectiveness your main criterion for good art, Karl Rove's scores well.)

(And i.m.h.o., there can be no greater art project than that of re-shaping the world; and I see no reason artists should shrink from such a project more than Rove or others do.)

Then you get to the question of whether art should deliberately try to be politically or socially effective.

These questions are complex but not ineffable; but answering them requires real study and clear thinking/speaking. James Madison, in preparing for the brilliant job he did on the U.S. Constitution, carefully analyzed the governmental systems of many other then-past and -existing nations (by now, the vultures have successfully enlarged some serious chinks; but nothing lasts forever).

I don't believe artists have to consciously take on this kind of task either in lieu or as part of their art-making in order to make good art or even in order to have positive effects in the world (I believe art can have major, world-shaping effects outside of the legislature as well as, perhaps, within it); but I believe that the more the various factors are understood by artists, the more, better art works will likely result, whether they address the complexities directly or indirectly, deliberately or incidentally.

UPDATE: Rachel Cook has a very helpful review of the Summit on ...might be good.

I'm now wondering if, as a prelude to another program that might take these big questions on more directly, maybe someone should set up an online forum in which we can thrash them out a bit in advance. Again, I think the questions need to be broken down into sub-questions, and based on what I've seen elsewhere, a suggested word-limit might be advisable (say 600? with the option to link to longer treatises elsewhere).