Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology - uncopy

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product of our labor, our ability to create is profoundly impaired . . . and this is also expressed
in my relation to you, and burgeons in the relation you can have to what I produce.
Often-heard remarks implying that it is not enough to be “just an artist” are merely
public admissions that, as a role in society, “artist” is a sterile one. More pointedly, this sheds
light on the prevailing concept of “artist”: it has become an integral part of the meaning of the
concept “artist” that it is politically conservative (or, at its more adventuristic, reactionary), and
that remains its sole possible political role—hence its continuing great value as propaganda for
an imperious culture. This is clearly reflected in the desperation of more and more artists to
escape their political impotence, in their attempts to reconcile the paradoxicality of their lives
wrought by being hopefully “radical” in politics but necessarily “conservative” in art. 9
The inside story of this is that there is no “radical theory” in the arts today, and there
can be none while the present state of affairs prevails. That also explains something about the
extreme poverty of “critical theory,” since a critical theory which sets itself the task of revealing
the various forms of conflict and exploitation needs to be informed by some (prospect of)
radical theory, something which denies the current ideology and economic class values embodied
in modern art. Current and recent art criticism has become at best a means of policing and
regulating, at worst a sheer celebration of the impotence of the status quo.
In this light, most of the chatter about “plurality” in the contemporary scene comes over
as so much liberal claptrap. What use is a sort of “freedom” which can have no other effect
than reinforcing the status quo? B. F. Skinner’s suggestion that freedom is just a feeling resulting
from doing what you have been conditioned to do has many echoes too close to home.
Furthermore, by ignoring its own realities, contemporary art criticism has collusively abetted
these alienating processes. On the other hand, as artists we have to add our own careerist
irresponsibility in allowing ourselves to become first inured and then dominated by our commitment
to hacks in the trade art journals, who blithely use the commodity language of formal
criticism to “compete” in discovering new marketable qualities.
The galleries also, of course, have an alienating function, having achieved social ascendancy
in this system and become more numerous and better organized. Belonging to a gallery
which “competes” for us in the market means accruing some economic benefits while further
reifying ourselves in an alienating role. Again, as artists we find ourselves forced into acting out
a role, one that anyone else might fill just as readily. Reliance on skills becomes less important
and the need for maintaining and fulfilling the requirements of the role function becomes
more and more “real” and time-consuming. This is the bureaucrat’s existential nightmare and,
make no mistake, we do have the artist-as-bureaucrat today.