Andreas Broeckmann on Thu, 12 Nov 1998 11:01:14 +0100 |
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Syndicate: Radek visits ... "Art Cologne", NGCC`s action |
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 18:01:32 +0200 From: Bastian Ruppik <ruppik@netcologne.de> NGCC¥s action at "Art Cologne" Art Fair in Cologne seems to be one of the largest world¥s enterprises which creates a separate zone of art and makes a sphere of privileged pleasures for the corrupted narrow-professional boheme of contemporary art. The art which was the most advanced and revolutionary regiment of the intellect all through the XX century became one of the specialized fields of capitalistic production. A new action of the NGCC took place on November, 10, at one of the central sites of the fair, an open discussion "Art as an avantgarde of economy" in KOMED-Saal, Mediapark Koeln, where the ideologists of market art took part. The action was called "Soap bubbles as an avantgarde of economy" and was organized by Koeln-based artist Igor Sacharow-Ross and art-historian Sylvia Sasse. Before the beginning of an open discussion the NGCC¥s members, Sylvia Sasse and an artist Sylvana Toneva gave the following press-releases to the public: "Non-Governmental Control Comission. Action "Soap bubbles as an avantgarde of economy". NGCC and "Radek" magazine make an action "Soap bubbles as an avantgarde of economy". It is our replics to today¥s discussion, to which we weren¥t invited but we decided to participate anyway. A few explanatory replics more: capital is an instrument of power, which is exercised, for example, by Western Europe over Eastern Europe; art is a variety of symbolic capital, the possession of which proves to be the dominating tool of the power¥s agents (that¥s why the mythology of the "art autonomy" circulated by the closed enterprises like, for example, Art Cologne, seems even more cynical); Non-Governmental Control Comission is a political-artistic project which was established in spring 1998 by the intellectual circle grouped around the Moscow-based "Radek" magazine which makes the political actions and campaigns working on creating the new sociopolitical technologies". The first of the speakers was Boris Groys, a bright example of the "new right" mentality, one of the creators of art market dealers` professional ideology (there was a parody text on Groys distributed with the press-release where "Groys" has been telling about his successful career in an extremely infantile language).Soon after the beginning of his speech ten NGCC's members present in the hall started to make the soap bubbles and kept this job during all the speech, invoking an evident panic of the speaker and a variable reaction of the audience (from the solidary laughing and support to the feared agression - for example, the Swiss art-collectioner Claudia Jolles was trying to tear the soap-bubbles-maker out of one participants` hands). Groys tried to finish the muddled reading of his text with the unsuccessful improvization that "the bubbles are the art too". Not waiting till the very end of his speech, the NGCC`s members got up and left the hall, and Sylvana gave the press-releases as an ultimatum to the presiding comittee (there was the Swiss curator Jean-Cristoph Amman between them who is known for his discriminatory statements about lack of the perspectives of the art outside Western Europe). Drawing the conclusions of the action, the NGCC`s members state that the tasks were realized, the action was a succesful media-provocation (the leading European art editions and the German TV on the action were present at the action) and a destructive invasion into the world of the corrupted art-establishment was effected. Surely, we don`t evaluate the self-satisfied snobs as the main complotters and makers of the capitalist exclusion/corruption policy - it's the other way round, they're the unconscious participators and even its victims. But every new "definition of this power's sources, the duty to draw the public's attention to them and to blame them for their deeds, seems to be important, because to speak about the subject, to make the institutionalized information networks listen to you, to call the names, to raise the showing finger is a first step towards demonstrating the subversion of power and the mobilisation of new forces to struggle against the existing forms of power" (M.Foucault).