Hi Irina and all
thanks for the lines of thought so far on the theme. Would like to
respond to two of Irina's points.
> Even more strategically, you have raised another question at the
> end -
> about an embodied experience of a curator and its role in curating
> art, new media included.
>
> In attempting to connect the two through a renewed interest in
> materiality (of thought and art), I am quoting here from a somewhat
> out-of-fashion text that deals with the question of materialism in
> ways that still resonate across the globe. It seems as fresh today as
> ever:
>
> "The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and
> upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed
> circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who
> change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated.
> Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of
> which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of
> circumstances and of human activity or self-change [Selbstveränderung]
> can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary
> practice." (Karl Marx, Thesis 3, from "1) ad Feuerbach", 1845).
>
> To read the full text, go to:
>
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm
>
I am quite interested in when Irina returns to the notions of change and
when in Marx' text the coincidence of 'different' changes - to say it
bold from both out (or macro change)/and inside (micro change) - are
predicated on revolutionary practice. Perhaps there is a collapse of
stability? I wonder if in this climate of current politics 'revolutions'
take place and what a revolutionary PRACTICE means. There is a beautiful
line in Jacques Rancière's text Problems and Transformations of Critical
Art where he interestingly describes a kind of displacement of the
political in relation to art, so uncertain of its politics: “It’s as if
the shrinking of public space [] gave a substitutive political function
to the mini-demonstrations of artists, [...] to their mechanisms of
interaction, to their provocations in situ or elsewhere”. I am
interested in how materiality is embedded here or, on the opposite,
denied or corrupted.
>
> The last note: When you mention that "other themes, such as
> minorities, more generally, have replaced the "gender" question", I
> would replace the word "replaced", as it seems to me that one way to
> materialize the "space of multiple interpretation" is through a
> conscious effort in and a commitment to sustaining heterogeneity
> conceptually and in curatorial practice.
This is interesting. There often seems to be a clash with the two - the
conceptual and practical heterogeneity. In relation to curating I often
think that certain "themes" drive the choice of what artists are invited
- and of course other economies (the market etc.). But the themes are
also 'produced'. In this current general consensus where 'minor'
communities and actions are fairly invisible (they might have always
been) how is heterogeneity realised and practised? maybe in the not-yet
established?
best
verina
>
> With best regards,
> Irina Aristarkhova
>
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