positively counter-publics revisited by simon sheikh

8/7/2019 Positively Counter-Publics Revisited by Simon Sheikh

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/positively-counter-publics-revisited-by-simon-sheikh 1/11

Simon Sheikh

PositivelyCounter-

PublicsRevisited

The essay revisited in this monthÕs column comesfrom the early 1990s, an often overlooked andmisunderstood period of transition, nowregarded as merely what happened after the Wallfell and before the triumphalism of Brit Art, theaestheticization of relationality, and thesubsequent (re)introduction of art as lifestyleand market values. It was, however, a much moreambiguous and ambitious time, during which

artists and cultural producers from around theworld attempted to localize knowledge andpoliticize art in new ways. Published in Germanby a small, now defunct alternative press,Renate LorenzÕ ÒKunstpraxis und politische…ffentlichkeitÓ is consequently little knownoutside of its historical and linguistic context.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAppearing as the opening essay of the 1993volume Copyshop: Kunstpraxis und politische…ffentlichkeit (which Lorenz also edited as partof the collective BŸroBert), the text was informedby the discussions and discourses of the early

90s but also, in its turn, informed them.1

Thevolume and the essay alike testify to a specificattempt to place art within the political Ð not inopposition or subservient to it, but as fullyimmersed (hence the ÒandÓ of the title: ArtPractice and Political Publicness). It is not justart and publics with which the essay isconcerned, but art and political publics.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊSo it is only logical for Lorenz to begin andend the essay with the discussion of a protest,an example of direct action in the field of culturethat is not, nominally, a work of art. The occasionwas the inclusion of right-wing filmmaker Hans-JŸrgen Syberberg in the exhibition andsymposium ÒDeutschsein,Ó Òto be German,Ó atthe Kunsthalle DŸsseldorf on March 14, 1993,which led to widespread protests against theopening of the exhibition and a boycott of thesymposium. For Lorenz, such actions are asmuch artistic practice Ð performed by artworkers Ð as the speeches and the works in theexhibition. In other words, Lorenz understood thefield of cultural production to be a social reality,and thus a political space not only forrepresentation, but also for actions and inter-

actions. Although her text goes on to mentionexamples from the 1980s, this understanding infact marks a crucial shift in the perception of therelationship between art and politics. In a moveaway from the politics of representation (seen asthe articulation of the art objects themselves)towards a broader conception of the art world asa social reality, this shift anticipated discussionsthat would take place in the late 1990sdesignating artistic practice as a work field Ð associal avant-garde and a form of precariouslabor.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ

e-flux journal #5 Ñ april 2009 Ê Simon Sheikh

Positively Counte

r-Publics Revisited

01/11

08.20.10 / 17:11:44 UTC


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/positively-counter-publics-revisited-by-simon-sheikh 2/1108.20.10 / 17:11:44 UTC



03/11

08.20.10 / 17:11:44 UTC



04/11

08.20.10 / 17:11:44 UTC



05/11

08.20.10 / 17:11:44 UTC



06/11

08.20.10 / 17:11:44 UTC



07/11

08.20.10 / 17:11:44 UTC



08/11

08.20.10 / 17:11:44 UTC



09/11

08.20.10 / 17:11:44 UTC



ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe essay returns in its conclusion to theprotests against Syderberg, and cites theÒDeutschseinÓ curatorÕs comment that such adiscussion (as took place between the protestersand the museum) could not form the basis of anexhibition, to which Lorenz replies: ÒWhy not?ÓHer answer is not only polemical, but actuallysuggests a method of exhibition-making that

Lorenz, among others, would by mid-decade goon to explore at length as a curator at Shedhallein ZŸrich. Here, the exhibition was conceived as apolitical project, as something alreadyembedded within the political; as such, itdemanded specific positioning. Exhibition-making was considered a medium forcontestation and articulation: a specific way ofproducing a public Ð or, rather, a counter-public.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊLorenzÕs essay places itself, as would hercuratorial work, within a certain history ofstruggle and dissent, referencing precedents

from the previous decade such as ACT UP, WAC,and Martha RoslerÕs groundbreaking If You LivedHere project, as well as discussions of the ÒnewÓand ÒoldÓ left in Germany, and various networksof production and distribution that could beconsidered Òcounter-public.Ó As defined by OskarNegt and Alexander Kluge, a Òcounter-publicÓdesignates another public sphere in oppositionto the normative, bourgeois public sphere, withits adjacent, imaginary life-world andorganization of experience.2 It is, in this theory,not a matter of simply criticizing the bourgeoispublic sphere (such as the museum) for itsexclusions, nor of introducing other experiencesinto this sphere (this form of politics), but ratherof offering other spaces altogether forrepresentation and dissemination Ð other waysof producing subjectivity and articulatingpolitical agency and action.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThus the metaphor of the ÒcopyshopÓ inBŸroBertÕs ÒsamplerÓ (their word for anthology)was used to suggest just one of these otherspaces. Citing Michel Foucault on the circulationand publicization of knowledge in ways thatcounter authoritiesÕ monopoly on knowledge (and

thus on power), Lorenz emphasizes a politics of information. The copyshop is a place whereknowledge is literally produced and distributedin one and the same movement, but also inunauthorized ways: copying in a copyshop is alsoa way of circumventing copyright, of establishingother relations to texts and images, as well as totheir uses.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTellingly, the essay has a subtitle in the formof a sentence, a comment: Òdieser Untitelmarkiert, da§ Kunst hier ÔhemmungslosrelationalÕ betrachtet werden soll,Ó which might

be translated as: this subtitle marks that arthere must be seen as Òunrestrainedly relational.Ó

This is, of course, a specific writerly move, anunauthorized use of language, but the statementitself points to something quite significant: thepositing of another relationality. It reminds usthat before a post-conceptual art of the 1990swas formalized and marketed as RelationalAesthetics, there was an earlier push to situateartistic practice within the political that was lessa means of safeguarding artÕs autonomy than an

aggressive assertion of the indivisibility ofrepresentation and action (or activism, for thatmatter).ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn response to LorenzÕ move, let me makeone of my own, and also conclude by returning tothe beginning and to the context of LorenzÕ text:the early 90s, just before Brit Art and relationalaesthetics partially buried other modes ofaddress and other histories of the decadeÕs art.In revisiting the histories of critical texts Ð of thepractice of critique Ð we must also revise historyand question the solidity of its narratives and the

placement of certain trajectories as central andhegemonic. We must look at historyÕs margins Ðnot only to find the delimitations of art historyand how it is written (by its victors, mainly), butalso because it is only from these margins thatwe can approach history as discourseproduction, and thus construction. It is from herethat we can posit counter-histories Ð otherrelationalities and practices, such as the onesproposed by Lorenz in ÒKunst und politische…ffentlichkeit.ÓÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ×


Positively Counte

r-Publics Revisited

10/11

08.20.10 / 17:11:44 UTC



Simon Sheikh is a curator and critic. He is currentlyassistant professor of art theory and coordinator ofthe Critical Studies program at the Malmš ArtAcademy in Sweden. He was the director of theOvergaden Institute for Contemporary Art inCopenhagen from 1999 to 2002 and a curator at NIFCA,Helsinki, from 2003 to 2004. He was editor of themagazine ¯jeblikket from 1996 to 2000 and a memberof the project group GLOBE from 1993 to 2000.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ1BŸroBert, ed., Copyshop:Kunstpraxis und politische…ffentlichkeit (Berlin: Edition ID-Archiv, 1993).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ2See Oskar Negt and AlexanderKluge, Public Sphere andExperience: Toward an Analysisof the Bourgeois and ProletarianPublic Sphere, trans. PeterLabanyi, Jamie Owen Daniel, andAssenka Oksiloff (Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press,1993).


Positively Counte

r-Publics Revisited

11/11

positively counter-publics revisited by simon sheikh

Documents