Art & the Public Sphere - Volume 1, Issue 3, 2011

The relationship between contemporary art in the tradition of the avant-garde, politics and the public domain is the subject of this article. By looking at critical social theory, especially the work of Chantal Mouffe, the relationship between politics and the public sphere will be explored. Via the work of Paulo Virno and Niklas Luhmann, I will get more grip on avant-garde art’s functioning in society and its relationship with politics and the public sphere. By discussing the insights of these theorists it will be argued that the contemporary art world – as a sphere of concrete museums, biennials, exhibitions, etc. form a public sphere of many different singularities, artistic styles and sometimes even conflicting paradigms and cultures. Contrary to the classic Habermasian view (1989) this public sphere is seen as an agonistic one in which a multitude of conflicting voices coexist. Contemporary art in the tradition of the avant-garde time and again posits a ‘dismeasure’ within a culture and will therefore take up a minority position within a society. This does however allow this art scene to become a model for a specific interpretation of democracy, especially a minority democracy, in which collective support for emerging singular voices has to be gained time and again. The argumentation needed to grow from the singular base to a somewhat or very much larger collective base is the core of a minority democracy within an agonistic public sphere. This view is at odds with the concept of public sphere mostly held nowadays according to the rules of the dominant liberal representative democracy, which, after all, found its legitimacy on anonymous numbers (the majority of votes) and the third way of compromise. But also hegemonic political regimes of today, such as neo-liberalism and the upcoming neo-nationalism, are concerned about agonistic spheres, because from their perspective they are still difficult to control. It is one of the reasons why such ideologies hardly know how to respond to contemporary avant-garde art.

This article explores the roles of ‘collaborator’ and ‘participant’ in what might loosely be described as collective art practice. I propose that social roles, including those of artist, participant and collaborator, are altogether more flexible and permeable than conventionally thought. The article begins with Manuel DeLanda’s development of his ‘assemblage theory’ of society and the possibility of considering collaborations as assemblages. I then discuss Erving Goffman’s concept of ‘role adjustments’ in order to discuss the way participants change positions within a project as it is enacted; Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘Habitus’ highlights how participants and collaborators orientate themselves within the social; and finally, Gilles Deleuze’s ‘diagram’ outlines how a theory of collectivity can be multiple. The article argues for a synthesis of participation and collaboration, which allows for a reflexive and performative process of collective practice that produces a collective social space.

‘Iteration: Again’, Contemporary Art Spaces Tasmania, Hobart, Australia, 18 September–15 October 2011

Smadar Dreyfus’ School, Folkestone Triennial 2011, Folkestone, UK, 25 June–25 September 2011

Chance, flow and measurement: Reviewing the Conference ‘TIMING – on the Temporal Dimension of Exhibiting’, Cultures of the Curatorial and Studio International, Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig, 19–21 JANUARY 2012

The Culture of Curating and the Curating of Culture(s), Paul O’Neill (2012) Cambridge, MA and London, England: The MIT Press, 192 pp. ISBN: 9780262017725, h/bk, £19.95 (black and white illustrations)