art-e-conomy _ reader - marko stamenkovic

210
exploitive and forced nature of the so-called social ABM job placements.
Zustand and Ausnahme (“Condition and Exception”) created specifically for
Documenta, covers the contemporary themes of internal security, exclusion and
expulsion with their fear producing effects on the population. Though Siekmann’s
viewpoint is primarily concerned with the German situation, something that is
underscored by his use of signs such as the logo of the German employment bureau,
it can be carried over to global capitalism at large. As Michael Moore’s film Bowling
for Columbine poignantly shows, this politics of fear is also, or rather, above all, a
concern for the US-American population.
Thomas Hirschhorn’s work can be viewed as a direct reaction to the reproduction
of economic relations presented at Documenta. His work, Bataille Monument (2002),
appears to have reversed the economy of art business, of which Documenta, that
gigantic and most popular exhibition of contemporary artworld, is the example par
excellence. Down in Kassel, Platform 5 (2002) was equipped with state of the art
display electronics. Entrance fees to the site were astronomical and merchandizing
abounded. In contrast, in the working class neighbourhood of the Friedrich-Wöhler-
Siedlung on top of the mountain in northern Kassel, Hirschhorn built a provisional
ensemble of wood shacks made up of a snack bar, a library, a Bataille exhibition with
explicit graphic material, a TV studio and a wooden sculpture in the likeness of a tree.
All parts of the work were functional and intended for use. The local inhabitants were
involved in the organization and use of the work. They frequented the installations,
made their own films, used the library and participated in a small and autonomous
economy: for example at the end of Documenta 11 the Turkish snack vendor emerged
from the Bataille Monument’s snackbar shack with a profit of several hundred euros.
The function and effect of Hirschhorn’s work thus calls attention to the shadow
economy that has developed in the interstices of capital-rich globalization, such as
the black markets in Eastern Europe. In this regard it also becomes clear that this
work has nothing to do with “workfare” or a communal entertainment event, but is
rather a situation in which people come together and interact. This is by no means
non-utilitarian, in fact it has thematic reference points that reach beyond the megaevent
to a context where what is individually doable is realized within a system that
is created and supported by its own means.
At Documenta, beyond the works mentioned here, references to (global) economies
were for the most part implicit; for example works that highlighted economies of
exploitation such as Steve McQueen’s film Western Deep (2002), whose subject is
work in a South African gold mine. Given the peculiar deafness that appears to reign
in the depths of the mine, McQueen concentrates the film on the visual. The film was
presented in a black box that shut out the immediate surroundings and facilitated
the journey into the distant underworld of the mine. The trip down the endless, dark
and hot mine shafts becomes a hell ride. In one of the deepest mines in the world
workers put their life and health on the line while multinational corporations reap
the profits. The film shows that the OECD guidelines have little legal weight. These
guidelines include among other things the respect of human rights in the regions
where a multinational operates, as well as forbidding discrimination based on race,
skin colour and gender. The workers in the gold mine are all black.