art-e-conomy _ reader - marko stamenkovic

It was conspicuous that only occidental artists explicitly dealt with the economic
thematic at Documenta 11. Furthermore, only occidental artists had been invited to
treat this thematic. Siekmann and Eichhorn focused on the failure of new capitalism,
stock market speculation and the flexible labor market. McQueen showed work
exploitation as the lowest rung of global relations of production, and Hirschhorn created
an autonomous economic system. In fact, from the perspective of the marginalized
groups and individuals caught in the globalized world order, the opportunity to
take a part in the economy’s profits and lifestyle in this sense does not exist. The
postcapitalist economy calls itself global, but is in reality an elitist undertaking. The
popular definition of globalization therefore corresponds to the expansionist fantasies
of globally active companies. On the contrary, the globalization concepts put forward
at Documenta 11 had nothing to do with the politics of corporate expansionism;
rather they showed the other side of the coin: how the politics of these global players
are impacting on the existential living conditions of those who cannot take part in
the game, or those that are pushed into an exploitive conveyor belt function. The
strength of this Documenta resided in images hailing from developing countries,
something that also led to a re-politicization of the image in a predominantly Western
influenced artworld.
1. See .
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character, New York: Norton, 1998.
5. Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, Empire, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000, p. xv.
6. “ABM” is an abbreviation for the German word Arbeitsbeschaffungmassnahme, literally “work
procurement measure,” an official program in which the unemployed are required to take on low
paying community-service jobs. It can be roughly compared to workfare in the U.S. – Trans.
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