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An exhibition at mumok just opened “expose, to show, to demonstrate, to inform, to offer“. It is about artistic strategies of the late 80s, early 90s. institutional critique, context art, self-organisation, critique of power structures, orders, value systems, critique of euro/us centrism. the most basic critique was „why should anybody be interested in my subjective feelings that i am expressing in art?“ "isn’t it more about figuring out what or who allows us to speak in public, what is being public, what languages are used to speak and how do they limit speaking?“
it was about the Rules - rules that govern our subjectivity and identity (like grammar), and to expose and deconstruct them (postmodern theory). so strategies included forming groups, self organized zines, clubs - overcoming the single piece of art - the product - produced by an author subject. instead the collective process became the central part of the artwork. (art and language, group material)
so the interesting question would be: today, at a time where capitalism is too fast and too complex, too un-human to even understand its rules, where it is even using a different language (the language of algorithms) how do these practices of deconstruction and resistance (that very often dealt with and worked with language) in art transform?
there is today a new movement or a desire to turn to magic, shamanism, irrationality, the un-understandable and the un-speakable. that is a new desire to let go of subjectivity, that corresponds with the movement of the 90s, but has to take a different shape, as the strategies of inclusion of marginalized groups, participation and activation, activism are passé. capitalism and rationality divides, separates and categorizes. strategies of the 90s worked against that by inclusion and exposing.
today capitalism went so far as to divide, separate and categorize the inside of the bodies and subjectivities of individuals (bio-politics). there is a new tendency to form groups, to close the divide of body and mind, to form communities, to invent common practices. but how does a new form of resistance (resistant art practice) look compared to the movement of the 90s? is there today a new withdraw into formalism to be felt? can that be a form of resistance, a negation of taking part in the system, a thinking and acting outside, a being „other“, a not speaking the language anymore? a turn to different „others“ - animals, objects, animism, nature? a turn to passivity? what kind of art practice comes out when we let go of our subjectivity, that is divided, separated and categorized to its very inside by hyper-capitalism? is it still cool to act as a collective or is it possible to lose subjectivity as an individual? is it necessary to have a product in the end, are there still common goals and ideas, is it ok to fail? what is it’s aesthetic, what is it’s method?