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"(...) The question of criteria for ’organisational art projects’ (hence 'management as art' and/or 'art as management') can be put in another way: If ‘something’ works – and this something works with alternative results than e.g. ‘traditional’ methods on the marked of (management) consultancy – does this then works because this ‘something’ is deploy as art?

If this is NOT the case – if such projects does not really is deployed as art - then the term ‘art’ here has no practical or theoretical bearing, unless we grant charlatanism (of art critique and/or or management critique) practical and theoretical bearing; Despite “If someone calls it art, it’s art” (paraphrasing Don Judd, in Duve: Kant after Duchamp), “Every human is an artist” (Beuys), or the fact that maybe everyone already has become an artist (due to Duchamps (articulation of) ‘readymade’; not as a consequence of ‘readymade’, but as a condition), you may first of all insist that, when project-makers (and evaluators) in their terminology wants to activate the term ‘art’, then such ‘organisational art projects’ need to be evaluated as ‘art’. Additionally, the concurrently 'project evaluation' need to be validated as art critique.

Hence, in the field of ‘art & organisation’, 'management as art', 'art as management' or however we want to frame the 'cross-area' of 'art' and 'management', projects need to be criticised on the backdrop of the practical/formal and theoretical criteria and conditions, that be in a contemporary culture relating to this or that art form(s) which a ('management as art'-)project deploys and articulates; just as such ‘organisational art project’ should be able to be criticized on the backdrop of practical/formal and theoretical criteria and conditions for ‘(project)management’ and ‘organizing’.

If not so - we have no possibilities what so ever to – initially – remain critical to such projects, as ‘the audience’ or ‘the customers’ are left in an abyss without any chances of (being guided in) making judgments of projects or of the ‘suppliers’ of such ‘artistic’ organisational projects, ‘evaluations’ and ‘consultations’. If aspiring to some kind of ‘best practice’ an assessment of ‘organisational art projects’ or 'management as art' have to as well ally with an assessment of ‘art’: Such assessment need to be a convergence of critical management study and art critique.

Notwithstanding ‘art’ and ‘management’ both deploys aspects in and of social contexts and practice based ‘communities’, I am without fear of contradiction when I state that art and management traditionally do not deploys the very same aspects in and of social contexts and communities. But, due to the course of the investigation of this paper, we need find a plausible ‘zone of convergence’ of critical management study and art critique. If such ‘zone of convergence’ can be developed, we then should examine if a view on (a specific) art (practice) can contribute with aspects in the development of a critique in the study of ‘management and ‘organizing’ that ’go beyond’ the management machine.

Much contemporary ‘discursive art practice’ seeks to redefine artistic practice through an exploration and/or critical interface with different disciplines and ‘communities’. The concept of a ‘dialogical aesthetic’ is established to outline some specific conditions for the analysis and criticism of discursive art practice that: “… include a spatial-temporal register, in which the work ‘means’ differently in different locations and times, as opposed to the immanence that is characteristic of modernist formalism” (Grant Kester), and as such: “requires a paradigm shift in our understanding of the work of art; a definition of aesthetic experience that is durational rather than immediate”.

One convincing paradigm shift in our understanding of the work of art towards a ‘time-based’ and ‘context depended’ art practice owes much to John Latham’s theory of ‘the event’ stemming from experience in and with art. A promising ‘utilisation’ of the Lathams theory in the context of this paper is promising as so much that Latham himself relates and further developed his theory in relation to ‘art in non-art contexts’, specifically art projects in organisational contexts (vis-à-vis the art initiative ‘O+I’ (Organisation and Imagination) formerly called ‘Artist Placement Group’.

From an other angle in the possible formation of a ’convergence-zone’ for art and management come the theory of ‘event’ as developed by Ole Fogh Kirkeby; This concept is as promising for our project here as Kirkby in his ‘philosophy of management’ addresses both ‘art’ and ‘management’ (as he in the context terms ‘leadership’) when it comes to ‘handling the event’: “(…) the capacity of analogy might be the starting point for a logical derivation of the common core between art and organising. We could name the capacity of making analogies as ‘the sensibility to events’, (…) i.e. ‘the right moment’”.

On place Kirkeby states: “the event as a genuine phenomenon can in relation to time and place be conceived as non-aliud [The “non aliud”/the ‘not other’: “The not other is nothing other that the Not-Other”], as that which is beyond Sameness, and hence, beyond both the concept of identity, and beyond its negation”.

Latham states: The ‘Least Event’ is “An occurrence of not-noting on nothing, for the least instant”. An ‘inclosing no-thing’ that relates to Least Event Latham terms ‘noit’, and he states that art – not science – is capable of grasping and communicating ‘noit’, and thus recognising the need to replace a space-based framework with a time-based one, and as such the need of transposing the language of objects-in-space – that is exclusive and dividing – into a language of time-and-event, which is inclusive and integrating.

Kirkeby states: “as [the boby is] the media through which the event of sense takes place, we cannot ‘get behind it’, neither through perception, nor through thought (..) we cannot get behind sense through sense. We are only able to approach sense in the capacity of a palpable substance through the word, and through the sentence. i.e., through ‘the sense of the event’ (..). But in this capacity we cannot ascribe material or physical character to the body; it is the invisible medium of experience”.

Relating to the ‘logic’ of language and money, Lathams states: “Well, the event-structured world is what the artist naturally works in. We work in it, deriding all the common sense objections and adulations and all the blah-blahs that come in from the outside and which are totally irrelevant to what goes on that’s exciting to do, say, on a wall. (…) They all seem to know what they ought to do next because they have a medium [language and money] for how to exchange value. And it’s flawed just the same as the verbal medium”.

Then – if to develop a ‘coinciding critique’ that should be able to converge both the artists and the managers handling aspects of social contexts and ‘communities of practice’, we might (among other things!) investigate those two ‘theories of event’ as to lay out a possible common matrix for criticizing the handling of event in both a artistic practice and an management practice.

The ‘handling-practice’ relating to ‘event’ as its matrix, I will, following OFK, term ‘leadership’. And as well call it ‘artist-ship’. The modification of the prefix to ‘-ship’ depends from were these (two) practices as subject of our discussion ‘inters’ the possible ’convergence-zone’ of ‘art’ & ‘management’.

Den 03/02/2007 kl. 11.47 skrev Daved Barry:

Hi Everyone,

Nancy Adler just came out with a lovely, uplifting piece on Art and Leadership in the Academy of Management Learning and Education (2006: 5/4: 486-499). Given David Atkinson’s and Mary Jo Hatch’s recent posts (leader as artist literature), I think the paper is quite relevant and well worth reading. I’m attaching it here (hope that’s okay Nancy!—and Ken, sorry, I know attachments screw up the digest format, but bear with me this time).

Thanks for writing this one Nancy—you’ve managed to pull a lot of important threads together. Very importantly, I think the paper legitimizes and mainstreams artistic perspectives much more (which is certainly a boon for those of us trying to bring these perspectives into MBA land). In some ways, I think the paper itself is a piece of art—you’ve taken the ethereal, esoteric perspective of art and upended it into a solid foundational platform, not just for the business world, but for the political and human-kindness world. It’s peppery prose reads as a kind of call-to-arms (arms that paint and play), and I for one feel quite inspired by it. Daved

<The Arts and Leadership.pdf>