art-e-conomy _ reader - marko stamenkovic

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Such a statement naturally calls for a corrective intervention with legal
expertise:
The art savvy lawyer is delighted that the unfolding events reflect a knowledge of
legal teachings on the nature of stock corporations. However, he immediately regrets
that the work will potentially be granted an early demise (this, though, he keeps to
himself in order not to spoil the art appreciation of fellow onlookers).[2]
This is followed by meticulous legalist elucidations on the judicial background of
the company’s establishment, including the information that all the stocks will be
pulled after three years if ninety percent of them have not been made public – which
will be the case since Eichhorn’s Inc. does not sell. The line of argument, given with
the blessing of professionals, is that we are dealing with “a work that will potentially
transform to the point of self destruction.” This, however, corresponds accurately with
the work’s explicit goal to imagine an “anticapitalist stock corporation.” To achieve this
end Eichhorn uses the free spaces offered by the art market as an experimental field
in which to unrestrictedly transpose actual political consequences into an exemplary
model of critical and subversive thought.
Eichhorn takes economy as a theme in that she adapts an economic undertaking
and stages the work based on an accepted stock market process. She thus employs the
business mechanisms of the economy to produce an artistic work. The thematic use
of the economy in art has become a common operating mode since the nineties – for
instance, one demonstrates the overlap of art and economy, or approaches art as an
economic factor. In comparison, Eichhorn’s critical perversion of economic legalities
is far more convincing than, for example, Eva Grubinger’s simple documentation of
the transfer of 30,000 DM to the Deutsche Bank – Wirtschaftsvisionen: Fischer,
Grubinger, Radomski (“Economic Visions: Fischer, Grubinger, Radomski, 2001/2002)
– only to receive the same sum back in Euros; or Plamen Dejanov’s use of his artistic
identity to provide advertising space for luxury goods. These are continuous and
affirmative strategies, which smack of a clever chess move in which one makes use of
the economy’s own methods to set it a trap, and to then make a profit (with peanuts).
Eichhorn on the contrary consciously pushes an economic principal ad absurdum
and takes responsibility for the mockery that her work is benevolently labeled as
primarily an “ars notarii.”[3] At the same time the work of art’s value is maintained
at an unprofitable level which underscores the recklessness of both pricing practices
in the art market and speculation on the stock market.
Another well-worn strategy to treat the economic in art is to have art deal with
economic relations. In this case the focus is usually a determined thematic field
in terms of a specific context, for instance, the national context. Such an explicit
tackling of economic issues was taken up in only one Documenta 11 work – Andreas
Siekmann’s comprehensive drawing series Aus Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung
(“Out of Incorporated Company,” 1996-2002). The “out” of the title refers to the fact
that this is a part of a work-in-progress. To date the work consists of approximately
230 drawings in DIN A 4-broadsheet, which are arranged as a series of picture
stories. The straightforward illustrations, executed in watercolours, felt-tip pen and
touch-up stick, bear a close resemblance to comic strips. They tell of the strategies
and consequences of employment policies with concrete references to the German