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tion, i.e. and elitization of culture (in the
narrower sense this time), but this only
worsens the situation. It is no surprise that
the democratization of culture originated
in the country of democracy. Of the three
political systems that fought for supremacy
in the 20th century, the only one that
preached the returning to nation
(although in a devious way) was defeated
in WW2 and strictly banished. Interdiction
remains a taboo in contemporary politics,
whose present relevance was demonstrated
by the recent events in Austria.
The representatives of the WW2 winning
systems chose an internationalist
approach to culture: the USA, for historical
reasons, and the USSR, for ideological
ones. It is sufficient to mention, as a
proof, the names of these statal entities:
the United States and the Soviet Union.
Moreover, the two states have never been
major cultural groundbreakers. The situation
at the beginning of the new century
looks even gloomier. While on the social
plane the collapse of communism was
long-awaited and auspicious, in culture,
the situation of the freed countries worsened
(excepting the cultural elites, for
which the freedom of expression is relevant).
In popular democracies, this field
was not democratic either and, as a consequence,
culture, although strictly controlled,
did not have the time to become
vulgar, compensating, to some extent, for
the evils of the initial communist internationalism
through the national communism
of the latest period. Thus, the beginning
of the century has only one cultural
winner – the American democratic internationalism,
whose declared altruism is,
in my opinion, not very sincere. The
weapons used in the battle have
improved and expanded their range of
action. There is a tendency towards cultural
homogenization, which means the
[14]
loss of identity, even if only cultural. I do
not mean to promote a deterministic picture
of the relationship between politics
and culture, in which one would strictly
follow the evolutions of the other, but one
cannot fail to note that the military winners
have imposed, in most cases, their cultural
model, too. The model was imposed
either intentionally or not and for selfish or
altruistic purposes. Preestablished plans
are inherently related to the historical
period opened by the French Revolution.
Two questions arise: is it worth fighting to
keep the identity? and, if yes, how? The
first question can only be answered from
an ideological standpoint. Therefore, all I
can do is state my belief: it should be
tried. The alternative to homogenization is
the national culture. The situation is sensitive,
for several reasons, either
European or specific to Romania.
National culture is very hard to define (if
anyone can see a point in attempting
such a definition). The pursuit for purity
cannot yield any result. The current state
of amalgamation of various cultures can
almost justify the positions that completely
deny the existence of any reality to fill in
the concept of national culture. I think,
however, that a certain specificity has
never ceased to exist. The theoretical
attempt to detect and date influences is
bound to fail by irrelevance, as it ignores
the mythological dimension of this specificity.
The most effective way to destroy a
myth is to try to grasp it using the instruments
of reason. A myth should be lived.
A myth should be taken as it is. From a
cultural point of view, it is a sure source of
inspiration, validated by the passing of
time. I cannot see a way out of the crisis
through interbellum-like cultural associations
or through government policies
(although they can play a certain role), but
through the creative action of individuals
who become aware of their cultural
responsibility.
Art and politics. The beginning of a
reasoning
In our current situation, when, on one
hand, we are amidst of some accelerated
attempts to direct the globalization movements
(e.g. the “war against terror”) and,
on the other hand, we see how difficult it
is to combine the artistic experiment with
political comment, it could be relevant to
take a look back to the previous attempts
to use art as a tool for approaching the
topic of social inequality and for continuous
controversy in the public debates.
Focusing on what was traditionally
described as one of the “golden ages” of
wild art, particularly the ‘60s, we note that
the difficulties related to the “crossbreeding”
between artistic experiment and political
commentary or between the art object
and the political subjects, which we are
currently facing, were equally present in
that early period, too. I will briefly overview
in the following paragraphs the
Situationist International (SI), the Artist
Placement Group and the Art Workers’
Coalition, which, back in the ‘60s, tried to
get involved in the formulation of political
topics and to break away from the institutional
structures of art, moving towards a
wider cultural or political practice.
Jacques Ranciere (2011) highlights the
relationship between art and politics, primarily
viewed as two separate entities,
without any clear connection between
them, excepting that both are forms of
disagreement. Politics is a process that
simultaneously denies each foundation
on which it is built. It is the dilution of the
boundaries between what is political and
what can be assigned to the sphere of the
social and of private life. What is unique in
Ranciere’s approach is the attempt to
introduce the equalitarian effects of art
and politics in theory – a thing never done
before. Ranciere introduces the politics in
the sphere of radicalism, just like Chantal
Mouffe (2000), criticizing the notion of
consensus, which tends to shrink the public
sphere, instead of giving it space to
manifest itself. By resorting to consensus
in politics, two aspects suffer an extreme
reduction: one refers to the citizens, who
become “population”, a subject with a
sole identity, while politics is managed by
professionalized persons - politicians or
government experts. The disagreement
concerning politics and art is based on the
contradictory logic according to which the
distribution for political participation and
artistic practices is made. The disagreement
in Ranciere's view is not based on
the difference between “friend” and “foe”,
used by Carl Smith, then by Chantal
Mouffe (1985), among others, but he sees
political action as a breakaway from the
social, hierarchic order, inventing new
manners of being, of seeing, of expression,
new subjectivities, new forms of collective
enunciation.
In “Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics”,
Ranciere focuses on art's power to
promote creative and transformative
action. His conceptualization of art and
politics emphasize the potential for
destruction of the forms of domination,
based on the tendency of seeing art as
the promise of a new world for individuals
and community. What Ranciere wants to
point out is that the freedom of art, seen
as the freedom of the aesthetic, is based
on the same principles of equality as political
demonstrations. He distinguishes
three regimes of art: the ethical one, in
which art does not have any autonomy
and the artistic images are used [15]