Re: Donald Kuspit on DocumentaX as Swastica!

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: : Re: Kuspit review at http://www.artnet.com : : : : There are many sites and programs of the documenta. The exhibition : : spaces in Kassel are only one part. Kuspit misses this completely; he : : is too wedded to the days when exhibition spaces were the primary : : sites. And correspondingly, to the days when critics could stroll : : through them, write art reviews, and wield power. The dX is a symbol : : for him of something much larger, which has undermined that power, and : : so he attacks it, with all the vitriol of a critic being denied tenure. : : By seeing only the exhibition spaces, and not taking into account at : : least the other primary sites, including the book and the 100 days/100 : : guests program, Kuspit has written a review after having accessed only : : about a third of the event. : : Had he spent some time with the book (which is assuredly not a : : catalogue), or even accessed some of the 100d/100g lectures that are : : archived onsite and disseminated through various venues (or perhaps if : : he even *attended* one), he might have recognized that the inclusion of : : historical art is not based in "nostaglia," as he accuses (specifically, : : "nostalgia for '68"), but a need to give the present temporal depth and : : associative perspective. As Aldo van Eyck would say (pg. 532 of the : : book), "This is not historic indulgence in a limited sense; not a : : question of travelling back, but merely of being aware of what 'exists' : : in the present - what has travelled into it: the projection of the past : : into the future via the created present." Specifically, the dX aims to : : create a political context for the interpretation of artistic activity : : today through an informed viewing of artistic-political interventions of : : the postwar past. This "retroperspective" is very consciously : : structured to displace the western perspective, and to call attention to : : technological structures of mediation -- the historically-specific : : lenses through which images are seen. It establishes four emblematic : : dates -- 1945, 1967, 1978, and 1989 -- that mark out the frames of this : : study. We are to view this history in light of contemporary conditions : : of globalization, to understand globalization through "temporal depth" : : and the perspectives that accompany it, and, correspondingly, to situate : : current artistic and cultural practices within its dynamics. : : There are many venues for the creation of this contemporary context : : other than the artist's installations; in the 100days/100guests program : : alone, 100 speakers from architecture, urban planning, philosophy, : : cultural criticism, economics, film, theater, comparative literature, : : political science, journalism, anthropology, sociology, media theory, : : psychology. These are presented live, broadcast, archived, and : : disseminated on the internet. These invitees are on equal footing with : : every artist invited. There is the Hybrid Workspace, a revolving forum : : occupied by groups for various periods, whose works are disseminated : : online; there are online projects and forums, a film program with seven : : films produced and presented at dX and shown through other venues, a : : series of television broadcasts, radio broacasts, a theater program, a : : series of working papers in the form of a magazine, and, of course, the : : book, an enormous resource of material and historical contextualization : : in a montage technique that is very much a key to engaging the content : : of dX. All of this is meant to take time; to unfold; to provide ongoing : : context for discussion and study. : : As globalism opens state barriers out into the larger conditions of : : global trade, it also hopefully marks a bursting of the bubble of the : : "art world," in which Kuspit has been happily couched. For everyone, : : including the notoriously bunkered realm of institutional visual art, : : the horizon has burst open, the stakes have been drastically raised, the : : reformations by and through the transnationalization of the economy : : cannot be ignored as part and parcel of cultural practice. And in order : : to understand this world-reshaping - as *culture* -- the : : retroperspective is a valuable technique, not a nostalgia for a bygone : : era. It gives us tools, ways of informed seeing. : : Kuspit comments that "Information by itself is not concept and : : cognition. Lacking a larger psychosocial and historical : : conceptualization and contextŠthe information--'documents'--tend to fall : : short intellectually and fall flat emotionally." This is precisely why : : the curators have worked so tirelessly to create a historical context, : : and why contemporary practices must be seen in the context of : : globalization in order to have any life. So what is Kuspit saying? : : First he denounces what he sees as an overemphasis on historical : : perspective, and then he writes that "The information exhibited is even : : inadequate as the index to society it claims to be, for since it is : : given without any psychosocial and historical perspective it ends up : : referencing itself." He complains that there is there too much : : historical perspective, and then he complains that there is no : : historical perspective. : : After citing Bachelard, he then complains that "There are no absolute : : images in the exhibition, that is, images that seem self-accomplishing : : or ends in themselves". So, after arguing that there is too much : : historical contextualization in the dX, then that the work doesn't have : : enough of a historical context, he then complains that these works : : should require context at all - that they are not "absolute images," or : : "self-accomplishing" "ends in themselves." : : After this nostalgic summation, Kuspit himself becomes unhinged. He : : calls the curators "commissar-types" who are engaging in "leftist : : fascism," and, surely through narrowed, squinty eyes, he then remarks : : that the logo looks like a "hammer and sickle" or a "perverse swastika." : : This makes it painfully aware that he doesn't even know how to read a : : sign. : : JC

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