IT’S THE POLITICAL ECONOMY

7/28/2019 ITS THE POLITICAL ECONOMY

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ITS THE POLITICAL ECONOMY, STUPIDThe Global Financial crisis in Art and Theory

Curating course essay

Gerardo Montes de Oca Valadez

Curating and curator

Curatorial work is a complex task immersed in a context created by art history and

tendencies, institutions within a wider context where this art world happens: the

social. A proper understanding of what an exhibition is today requires knowledge of

that complexity. An analysis of the exhibition Its the political economy, stupidis a

clear position and statement to counter fight capitalist and neo liberal discourses

and practices from a joint stand of art and theory. It is therefore important to

understand how come art and artists can create an exhibition on such topic today.

Before analyzing the exhibition I will briefly mention some basic contextual

elements. One of the most important legacies of avant-garde is that it brought art to

the everyday life not only to bring it closer to people in their routinely lives, but toquestion the foundations of the institution of art. Political art can be seen as a result

of the process where art opened up to areas out of this institution and out of itself in

certain way that questions the foundations of the social structure itself. It allowed

art to reach new contexts, so to say, new topics and processes, new ways of

production, exhibition and circulation of art.

The curator role appeared along this conceptual, practical and institutional change.

It is important to remember that it would not have been possible without the

political and economic changes that occurred alongside. Today it is a profession

that, as Acord (2010) states, became standardized together with the appearance of

the modern museum. Accord also points out how the first generation of curators

from the mid-19th century had strong academic education that defined in a great


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extent their way of doing exhibitions historical and linear. Durng the 60s and 70s a

new generation of curators emerged, one with a critical and experimental approach.

The experimentation touched the very core of the exhibition format. It was indeed,

as Acord affirms, an avant-garde movement in curating.

The curator became a key element in the mediation of the art creator, the artwork,

the institution and the audience. Furthermore,

curators have risen to prominence in the contemporary art world because of the

increased importance of mediating between institutional bureaucracy, market forces,

artistic representation and public taste. In particular, the curx of curatorial practice in

contemporary art is the construction of artistic meaning through the exhibition

(Acord, p. 447)

Today the role of the curator has gone as far as to proclaim authorship in exhibition

making. Unfortunately it has lead to some situations where unquestionable respect

and authority is given to curators, situation that, in my opinion, interferes with the

development of art practices and concepts, since curators trends and tastes can

constrain the own development of the artist. Good curators, I consider, keep a

reflective practice within a critical and democratic approach where open dialogue

and negotiation are constantly crafted.

In the project (resulted in a book and a internet based compilation of texts) The next

Documenta should be curated by an artist (2003) Daniel Buren questions the

manner in which curator execute their practice. He sees an excessive domination by

what he calls the author or artist-curator that sets the organizer as the author and

the artist as the interpreter. He makes it clear that he is not proposing to get rid ofthe organizer but to question their way of existing.

if exhibition organizers today defend the status of author it means that they consider

that the work resides in the exhibition produced (which becomes their work) and that,

as I wrote in 1972, the exhibited works, the fragments that make up the corpus of this


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exhibition, are not really artworks but have become, at best, accents, particular details

in the service of the work in question, the exhibition of our organizer-author(2003)

Buren goes on to argue that in some cases curators interests and exhibitions are

larger imitations of artistic movements or research, resulting in exhibitions where

artworks and artists discourses and positions are forced or even distorted or

forgotten. For Buren the question whether an exhibition formed by different artists

can become a work itself remains open. It is indeed a good question, especially

because it points out the complexities of art production, the institution of art,

mediation, exhibition and display and reception. It is a question we cannot take for

granted.

I consider the exhibition making a work of a different function than the art

production, even though these different works overlap. Curating practice frames the

works, it surely add another layer of meaning and, parallel to the works formulates

context. Curating and art production are part of a cloudy context where their

intention and function oscillate together or separately, becoming closer and distant,

overlapping or moving in counterpoint. Curating is a work that if, in my perspective,

it is adequately done, can share some of the artwork making process. Ricardo

Basbaum, who also participated in The next Documenta should, offers us a brilliant

categorization in his text I love Etc.-Artists. This differentiation points out to the fact

that there are neitherpure curators norpure artists, but a wide range of individuals

with particular backgrounds and, I would add, in particular situations. It is this

variety of individuals that inhabit that cloudy context where practices are constantly

negotiated.


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Its the political economy, stupid

This project is both a book and a series of exhibitions, organized by the two curators

(editors). The starting point of this project is the idea that ultra-deregulated

capitalism permeates toxically every detail of our lives, making capitalization the

meaning of existence (Sholette and Ressler, 2013). They resort to Zizeks theories

and his idea of how capitalist ideologies generates narratives that constrain

individuals and society to economic desire. In their words it aims to

countermand that particularnarrative through the auspices of visual art and critical

theory the artists and authors selected for this project do actively seek to disable

econospeak(Sholette and Ressler, 2013, p. 10)

Sholette and Ressler define themselves as artist-curators in the opening text of the

bookUnspeaking the grammar of finance. They argue that artistic practice from the

90s became more and more political project-based, process-oriented and self-

organized. All this resulted in a more theoretical art that at times resembling

curatorial work. I must say that the movement Occupy Wall Street and derivatives

in other countries has an important influence and inspiration in this project. It is

even expressed by the curators when, after mentioning how the barriers between

artist and curators blurred and blended, where the artistoccupies the position of the

curator. It seems that they naturally assume a rigid division between the artist and

the curator, but they do not really mention how they understand the emergence of

the curators figure so we could have a better understanding ofthe synergy and

impulse before this occupation. Still, they develop some more on this concept and

use it as a tactical approach:

institutionsbegan to resemble components of a system to be used and occupied, an

interpretation of cultural power admittedly quite different from many political art

precursors who confronted the art world as strictly enemy terrain


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IT’S THE POLITICAL ECONOMY