Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship - autonomous ...
Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship - autonomous ...
Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship - autonomous ...
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
artificial hells<br />
came into confl ict with Lenin’s idea <strong>of</strong> revolutionary change, although this<br />
difference was as much political as it was artistic. Lenin, to <strong>the</strong> extent that he<br />
was even concerned with art <strong>and</strong> culture, wished <strong>the</strong>m to proceed on <strong>the</strong> basis<br />
<strong>of</strong> existing bourgeois st<strong>and</strong>ards, ra<strong>the</strong>r than wiping <strong>the</strong> slate clean for <strong>the</strong><br />
Proletkult vision <strong>of</strong> workers’ culture. This was motivated not solely by an<br />
attachment to traditional art, but by a political scepticism concerning <strong>the</strong> naive<br />
utopianism <strong>of</strong> Bogdanov’s schematic plans for a ‘new proletarian culture’<br />
when over 150 million Russians were not even literate <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> country needed<br />
basic modernisation; this, in his view, was <strong>the</strong> ‘real dirty work’ to be achieved<br />
by <strong>the</strong> party. 32 Lenin’s objection to <strong>the</strong> Proletkult was also based on a long-<br />
st<strong>and</strong>ing rivalry with Bogdanov, who for many years had been second to<br />
Lenin in his infl uence on <strong>the</strong> Bolsheviks. These differences led to Lenin writing<br />
a resolution against <strong>the</strong> Proletkult in 1920, in which he argued that Marxism<br />
was historically signifi cant precisely because it did not reject <strong>the</strong> cultural<br />
achievements <strong>of</strong> preceding ages, but instead ‘assimilated <strong>and</strong> refashioned<br />
everything <strong>of</strong> value in <strong>the</strong> more than 2000 years <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> development <strong>of</strong> human<br />
thought <strong>and</strong> culture’. 33 The Proletkult was henceforth turned into a subsection<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Commissariat <strong>of</strong> Enlightenment (Narkompros), with severely reduced<br />
funds <strong>and</strong> correspondingly decreased infl uence. In 1921 Bogdanov was<br />
removed from <strong>the</strong> Central Committee <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Proletkult altoge<strong>the</strong>r.<br />
One <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> main arguments for <strong>the</strong> rejection <strong>of</strong> previous culture was <strong>the</strong><br />
fact that it was produced <strong>and</strong> consumed by individuals, ra<strong>the</strong>r than exemplifying<br />
<strong>the</strong> new model <strong>of</strong> collective authorship. For Bogdanov, cultural<br />
production should be rationalised as if it were an industry, leading to a<br />
redefi nition <strong>of</strong> authorship in which originality was no longer understood to<br />
be an independent expression <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> artistic subject, but ra<strong>the</strong>r ‘<strong>the</strong> expression<br />
<strong>of</strong> his own active participation in <strong>the</strong> creation <strong>and</strong> development <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
collective’s life’. 34 Creativity was detached from its Romantic heritage <strong>of</strong><br />
individual seclusion <strong>and</strong> ‘indeterminate <strong>and</strong> unconscious methods (“inspiration”,<br />
etc.)’, <strong>and</strong> redirected towards rationally organised production. 35<br />
Bogdanov’s refusal <strong>of</strong> art’s autonomy led him to maintain <strong>the</strong> position that<br />
‘<strong>the</strong>re is not <strong>and</strong> cannot be a strict delineation between creation <strong>and</strong> ordinary<br />
labour’: art can <strong>and</strong> should be re- imagined as an organised,<br />
industrialised process like any o<strong>the</strong>r, since ‘(artistic) creation is <strong>the</strong> highest,<br />
most complex form <strong>of</strong> labour’ <strong>and</strong> ‘its methods derive from <strong>the</strong> methods <strong>of</strong><br />
labour’. 36 From now on, to be creative meant to surmount contradictions,<br />
to combine materials in new ways, <strong>and</strong> to generate systemic new solutions<br />
(such as <strong>the</strong> collective authorship <strong>of</strong> newspapers). <strong>Art</strong> as a category was to<br />
be subordinated to <strong>the</strong> instrumental ends <strong>of</strong> ‘socially directed artistic work’,<br />
as Alexei Gan, author <strong>of</strong> Constructivism (1922), argued:<br />
A time <strong>of</strong> social expediency has begun. An object <strong>of</strong> only utilitarian<br />
signifi cance will be introduced in a form acceptable to all . . . Let us tear<br />
ourselves away from our speculative activity [i.e. art] <strong>and</strong> fi nd <strong>the</strong> way to<br />
51