Untitled

Europe and Its Others
participated in terrorist activities. The fact that a few children and grandchildren
of immigrant families from Islamic countries who have grown up in
Europe profess a radical, fundamentalist variant of Islam is often interpreted
as a sign that these young people were not adequately integrated into European
culture. But the question arises whether it is not in fact a sign of the
reverse, that they have integrated themselves outstandingly well into European
culture—but precisely into the tradition within that culture that calls
for “living dangerously.” If the tradition of European culture and art is understood
in its full diversity and internal contradictoriness, the question of who
is integrated into this culture or not takes a completely different shape. Those
who are ready to see the cultural heritage of Europe in its entirety will notice
that it is enormously difficult and almost impossible to escape this legacy and
do something genuinely non-European, genuinely alien to European culture.
The power of European culture is precisely that it is constantly producing its
other. If there is anything at all that is unique in European culture, it is this
ability to produce and reproduce not only oneself but also all the possible
alternatives to oneself.
Of course, in recent times we have heard the lament that European art
has since lost the ability to violate cultural taboos, to transcend the boundaries
of European cultural identity, to influence political life and public awareness.
The underestimation in our time of the effect of art on the public consciousness
is related above all to the fact that art is identified first and foremost as
the art market and the work of art as a commodity. The fact that art functions
in the context of the art market and that every work of art is a commodity
is beyond doubt. The work of art is, however, not just a commodity but also
a statement in public space. Art is also made and exhibited for those who do
not wish to purchase it—indeed, they constitute the overwhelming majority
of the audience for art. Typical visitors to a public exhibition do not view the
art on display as commodities, or only rarely so. Rather, they react to the
tools by means of which individual artists position themselves in public space
as objects of observation, for today everyone is obliged, one way or the other,
to present him- or herself in public space. In the process the number of
exhibitions, biennials, triennials, and so on is growing constantly. These
numerous exhibitions, in which so much money and energy are invested, are
not created in the first place for those who purchase art but rather for the
masses, for anonymous visitors who will probably never purchase a painting.