Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology - uncopy

and galleries became more and more important. All of a sudden in 1986you have a museum
by itself which finds a way to get money and prestige to put on the exhibition “Chambres
d’Amis.” And what is that exhibition? It isn’t one artist in the museum, or two. Seventy artists
show their work in the private houses of seventy people in the city of Ghent. In ’67–68, several
artists with no commitment say, “We cannot find a gallery, let’s show outside.” Twenty years
later, the director of a museum makes the ludicrous decision that to show in a private house is
more public than to show in a museum (I don’t know exactly what that means, but it was
stated in the catalogue), he persuades seventy artists, even those of my generation who more
or less invented the idea to show in these houses, and seven months later is given the biggest
award to a director for the concept of his exhibition!
D.D.: Twenty years ago, when people showed in those contexts, what was the relation
between the art they showed and the space they used, and was it the same as that which obtained
in Ghent?
D.B.: Each of the people in Ghent was, by force, obliged to do something in relation to
that situation, and in that, of course, I included the possibility that the relationship could be
antagonistic. But no one was doing any oil painting and using the bakery as a vitrine. Everything
they did was done for a coherent reason; it wasn’t interesting or chic.
S.S.: Another difference is that in this case it is the museum director who is, in effect,
the major figure, the artist if you like. Twenty years ago it wasn’t like that.
D.B.: Everything you did as an organizer was done more or less through a process of
osmosis, but don’t forget that you are a perfect example of what is now the cliché. Everyone
really has copied you in the worst way, which is to be the chief and the artist of the show.
S.S.: It was my lack of economic means and l’air du temps which created the relationship
that existed between the kind of shows I did and the artists with whom I was involved. It was
an attempt to get away from the gallery because my feeling at the time, as it is now in the case
of publishing, is that a space becomes sacralized. The economics of the situation is such that
you need to fill a space with eight or ten shows a year, and it is inconceivable that you can do
that and remain interested in all of the work you show. You didn’t run a gallery, the gallery ran
you; it was just another form of alienated work experience. The gallery came to determine the
art to the extent that painters would paint paintings to fit the walls of their dealer. I simply
took the responsibility of working with the artists whose work was around and bubbling up.
Osmosis is probably the best way of describing what went on.
D.D.: Do you three think, then, that there was such a thing as the Conceptual Art movement
or was it a fiction?
deke dusinberre � seth siegelaub � daniel buren � michel claura working with shadows, working with words 439