Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship - autonomous ...
Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship - autonomous ...
Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship - autonomous ...
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artificial hells<br />
‘relational’ Europeans would come to perceive <strong>the</strong> critical mode as didactic,<br />
while <strong>the</strong> North Americans would denigrate <strong>the</strong> relational work as<br />
uncritically spectacular. Although <strong>the</strong>re is a grain <strong>of</strong> truth in both characterisations,<br />
<strong>the</strong>se positions can be ascribed to different intellectual <strong>and</strong><br />
pedagogic formations in <strong>the</strong> 1980s: <strong>the</strong> French artists were reared on post-<br />
structuralist authors (Lyotard, Deleuze <strong>and</strong> especially Baudrillard) for<br />
whom <strong>the</strong>re is no ‘outside’ position. The reception <strong>of</strong> critical <strong>the</strong>ory in <strong>the</strong><br />
US was largely centred on psychoanalysis <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> strong critical judgements<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Frankfurt School, along with critical ethnography, identity<br />
politics <strong>and</strong> post- colonialism, which gave rise to <strong>the</strong> idea <strong>of</strong> clearly oppositional<br />
modes <strong>of</strong> artistic ‘criticality’. The resulting difference is between<br />
forms that operate through fi ction <strong>and</strong> opacity, <strong>and</strong> those that are expressed<br />
unambiguously (through interviews, information, statistics, <strong>and</strong> so on).<br />
We can move more swiftly through <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r two exhibitions: one month<br />
after <strong>the</strong> opening <strong>of</strong> ‘Project Unité’, ‘Sonsbeek 93’ opened in Sonsbeek<br />
Park in <strong>the</strong> Dutch town <strong>of</strong> Arnhem. Unlike Firminy, which took place in a<br />
city without a tradition <strong>of</strong> public art, Arnhem had intermittently hosted an<br />
outdoor sculpture festival since 1949. For <strong>the</strong> 1993 edition, its North American<br />
curator Valerie Smith produced a diaristic catalogue that usefully<br />
allows us to trace <strong>the</strong> process <strong>of</strong> commissioning site- specifi c art at this<br />
moment, <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> curatorial expectations surrounding it. In this extraordinarily<br />
frank publication, Smith reproduces her correspondence with<br />
<strong>the</strong> artists, including failed <strong>and</strong> rejected proposals, <strong>and</strong> allows us to see her<br />
criteria for inclusion <strong>and</strong> exclusion. 21 She proposes to make an exhibition <strong>of</strong><br />
work about ‘context- oriented issues’ <strong>and</strong> ‘<strong>the</strong> individual’s relation to <strong>the</strong><br />
social environment’: ‘The art for “Sonsbeek 93” should be site- specifi c or<br />
situational work’, she wrote. ‘The work must create meaning from <strong>and</strong> for<br />
<strong>the</strong> place in which it exists.’ 22 As she goes about negotiating with artists in<br />
preparation for <strong>the</strong> show, she admits to her disappointment when <strong>the</strong>y<br />
arrive in Arnhem with a preconceived idea about what <strong>the</strong>y want to do<br />
(e.g. Marc Quinn) or when <strong>the</strong>y avoid a site visit altoge<strong>the</strong>r (e.g. Alighiero<br />
e Boetti). 23 Her assumption is that artists will spend at least twenty- four<br />
hours in Arnhem <strong>and</strong> develop a response to <strong>the</strong> city, which will give <strong>the</strong>m<br />
a clear idea for a project – by today’s st<strong>and</strong>ards, a very brief time indeed.<br />
What emerges from Smith’s c<strong>and</strong>id publication <strong>of</strong> correspondence is not<br />
just a case study in site- specifi c curating, but <strong>the</strong> clear impression that <strong>the</strong><br />
curator is no longer a mediator between artist <strong>and</strong> public (in <strong>the</strong> museum<br />
model), but someone with a clear desire to co- produce a socially relevant<br />
art for multiple audiences, <strong>and</strong> who views <strong>the</strong> exhibition itself as a total<br />
argument. 24<br />
Although most <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> work in ‘Sonsbeek 93’ was sculptural, <strong>the</strong>re were<br />
two projects key to <strong>the</strong> history I am tracing. Firstly, Mark Dion’s intervention<br />
in Bronbeek, a museum attached to <strong>the</strong> royal home for retired veterans,<br />
whose collection comprised objects that Dutch soldiers <strong>and</strong> sailors had<br />
200