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A future art may not be so different from a past art as we would like to imagine. It will still be dependent on individual inspiration and shameless, possibly naive, optimism. Art, since the Renaissance, aspires to be a free space in the social fabric, while constantly reconfirming its place in the culture of conspicious consumption. These tensions give it life, though now that the economic has (perhaps temporarily) superceded the political, art's near future may be more about radical exchange proposals than political alternatives. I'd also like it to be seen to have a simple, practical use in a society that thinks beyond its materialist desires – art as a proposal for the imagination to work on.
Change, such as it is, may be more about art's positioning in the hierarchy of information systems. It's current permissiveness, fought for in the 1960s, is one of its greatest strengths. A future art can continue to subvert distinctions between artforms and broader disciplines, wrapping itself in almost any knowledge system while still probing for its own particularities. It could, in my most optimistic moments, become the prime site where pleasure and puritanism find a way to co-exist – a state that seems to be urgently required.
As someone who has a responsibility for the institutional structure of art, I’m interested in what a term like ‘a fluid kunsthalle’ might mean in practice. It would have to be a beast of many projects, of course, but also a self-critical one and a site that might negate its own raison d’etre at some point. An idea of fluidity in institutional terms also points to a variable set of relationships with those who participate in its activities. Maybe this will undermine the firm distinctions between artist, organizer and viewer, though not eradicate them. I’d like to imagine this fluid institution in terms of these participants as an active stage for testing out certain roles. Art would trigger various responses or provide the opportunity for roles to be tried on, perhaps ultimately to effect the way a person’s social position is played out beyond the gallery doors.
A future art could provide these kinds of experiences, in an intimate way rather than as mass entertainment. The sites for art can be part playpen, part academy – a place that defines itself as a combination of desire and precision. These sites will not only be physical but virtual, as future art teaches us to use technology to indulge our need for togetherness and common experience, even as community becomes more and more a question of choice rather than inheritance.
Charles Esche |
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