Tom Holert
The dualism of "the known" and "the unknown", as it is implied in the question, betrays a certain optimism about the possibility of getting to know the unknown simply by envisioning it. Thus, the question addresses not only the virtuality of the contemporary but also a certain voluntarism on which this epistemology of the unknown is based. I, like many others, cherish the idea of getting pushed towards a kind of science-fictional art criticism, of being lured into the position of a seer, equipped with the gift of actualizing the virtual. It flatters my image as critic-voyant. But what purpose does it have besides self-indulgent ego-caressing? Providing orientation and guidance for the misérables imprisoned in the always already deficient reality of a particular state-of-the-art? The desire to find lines of flight leading out of the "context of contemporary art" is understandable, though rather predictable and firmly rooted in the modernist tradition of the new. Who tells the difference between the innovation called for by the logic of the art market and that which reaches out for "a yet unknown art"? The links between the known and the unknown, the now and the new should be rewired in non-linear ways. It might turn out to be of much greater importance to effectively grasp the situation of the contemporary first, to carefully study the known, reading and X-raying the obvious, i.e. the facts and fictions at hand, before leaving this shifting, mostly unmapped territory for some phantasmatic "unknown". Such a position (if it should be one at all) would require a radical renunciation of privileges on the side of the "theorist", a retreat from the activity of (re)producing individual "visions", a move towards a certain empiricism, free of priests and promises of salvation. This empiricism would dissolve organizing notions of art which continue to be based on dichotomies like "theory" and "practice". It would get rid of the mysticism of a supposed transcendence of art and generate concepts which dramatically transform the frame of reference of any "dialogue" on the future of art. Insisting on re- and de-positioning oneself in relation to the alleged objects of study and criticism ("art") modifies the whole arrangement: the visionary becomes collaborator, the contemporary becomes historical past, the unknown becomes the known. Tom Holert Cologne |
