From: "emma donaldson" <dge-*at*hotmail.com>;
Developing a Post Autonomous practice
Text for a think tank for establishing a Post Autonomous practice version 3
By David Goldenberg
30th June 2003
I am going to read from an on-going text, which I first delivered at the
Museum of Modern art in Arnhem last year. The title for the text think tank
for establishing a Post autonomous practice looks at the crisis or emergency
in art, and a necessity for the reinvention of something equivalent to art
under the umbrella term of Post-Autonomous Practices Outline of basic
issues.
Before I start to read the main text I want to take a moment to outline what
I think are the basic issues I am going to discuss, and it is useful to keep
these in mind throughout the reading!
The talk as a think tank explores a range of techniques and strategies for
achieving the goal for establishing a Post Autonomous practice. For
arguments sake let us suppose that we are reinventing something equivalent
to a contemporary practice, and that this discussion is the first stage
towards its reinvention, and that this discussion can be seen as a forum
where we give ourselves permission to speculate on such matters.
The set of issues that I am going to look at are really quite
straightforward. Are the problems in art that we are to look at legitimate
problems - i.e. the crisis or emergency in art? Do they deserve to be taken
seriously? Are they real problems? What are these problems? And, what is the
room for maneuver to address or solve these problems?
Then we need to go onto examine whether the notion of Post Autonomy is a
legitimate solution that provides a route through the current problems with
the existing model of art onto new models?
1. What is Post Autonomy, where has the notion come from, and why should we
take it seriously?
Neither a coherent theory nor a practice that resembles a post Autonomous
practice exists except for a brief outline that traces a route towards
assembling a Post Autonomous practice. Yet by implication Post Autonomy
signals the end of the era of whatever it is we understand as Autonomy and a
new era that uses different principles.
So what are the clues that can lead towards understanding more clearly both
the thinking and practice called post Autonomy that allows us to establish
these principles? There are a number of recognizable characteristics that it
is possible to use as our point of departure - practices that address (1)
fundamental issues, (2) physical change, (3) an up-dated institutional
critique.
Post Autonomy surfaced as a term during the debate into the crisis in art
from the late 1980's, and springs from targeting the basic building blocks
that contributed towards the invention of the new system of art, before
going onto speculate how to change those building blocks - particularly the
fundamental role of the relationship of autonomy to the invention of art,
and exhibition art as the main framework in which art coheres and is
understood during this period of the formation of art.
The crisis in art debate
Unless we understand the issues worked through in the crisis in art debates
it is difficult to understand the necessity for a Post Autonomous practice.
The crisis in art, which comprises a wide range of practices and debates,
can be seen as the initial germ revealing a dissatisfaction or even
intolerance in continuing to replicate the very 19th century model of art
that shaped both our understanding and practice of art. Yet the purpose of
current practices have shifted fundamentally since arts inception yet it
appears to be tied to the same socio political goals vis a vis as a form of
imperialism and the exporting of Western culture into a global culture. Not
even the worthwhile project of institutional critical practices resolved
this dilemma, but instead collapsed into a sterile defeatist practice that
endlessly described the art institutions. The problem of interrogating,
understanding, and proposing different models to the existing model of art
has accelerated in recent times with the collapse of the very thinking that
legitimized critical positions in art vis a vis Habermasian philosophy,
which is in itself unsustainable anyway since it protected and privileged
the very position which required dismantling i.e. that of the position of
the artist, curator and art work.
Despite these considerable problems it is possible to recognize a series of
projects that have at least recognized the need for substantial structural
changes and revision into the manner a practice can be staged - last years
Documenta is good case in point.
What is the relevance for the continued existence of machines such as
Documenta and the Venice Biennial to promote and export Western models of
art into a Global context at a time when Globalization is complete! And what
role or right do citizens have in contributing towards this Global culture?
However interesting these projects are, in hind site they can be seen to
merely tinker around with the problem. There is an unwillingness to address
and go onto undertake actual structural changes. Yet whatever we think of
these debates, the very least they have accomplished is to render existing
orthodox stable terms into the mapping of the definition and role of the
artist and locations for displaying or staging art unusable.
What stands out from these debates and practices during this period is a
move away from the Modernist idea of art grounded in a tradition of
Minimalist spatial practices. This is significant since it has influenced
our understanding and use of non-gallery spaces for art - site specific
practices, installation art, context art practices, public art. On the one
hand this has rendered many non-gallery practices irrelevant, but also
signals a move away from a process that uses art to divide, occupy and
colonize space and territory, to a practice and process that is
non-hierarchical and concerned with negotiation.
2. Sketching out a notion of Post Autonomy
It is in this light that the German Conceptual artist Michael Lingner
proposed the notion of Post Autonomy. Whether we agree with Lingner's
overall analysis or not - Lingner suggests that not only is the current
state of art in crisis but it is in fact in a state of emergency. We cannot
continue in the direction art has followed up until now, art or whatever it
is we use to define such a practice, is in such a drastic condition that we
are in the equivalent historical position that art was in when it was first
invented, in other words, we are required to reinvent art anew. We are
indeed politically and intellectually in a condition of Post Autonomy.
Lingner writes:-
"..art at the very peak of its aesthetic autonomy is socially dependent
again as to structure."
The series of interlinked articles in which Lingner works through his
analysis of the formation of art and proposals for solutions to existing
problems, fulfill several problems. By continuing conceptual arts tradition,
the juxtaposition of texts and images operates as a work of art. Through
extending appropriation methods Lingner pulls out of the context of art into
the framework of a text ideas for staging art at a time when there are
severe problems with the way art is staged - whether in the shape as
exhibition art or public art.
"The traditional concept of art produced according to its own rules is not
suitable for art in public spaces" - where there is no longer an outside or
inside, public space can read as everywhere even gallery space!
d.
"The actual goal of aesthetic autonomy was an aesthetic independence of the
work from everything social. However, art reproducing itself autopoetically
can no longer continue to establish the autonomy of the artwork (in Adorno's
sense) from this position counter to society. Since it would otherwise
destroy itself through self-negation, art is forced to develop a completely
new strategy for autonomy. It must start with the assumption that there is
now no other possibility for art than self-sufficiency in society."
e.
P. 39. Art's future requirements.
"Art, which despite (as well as because of) the system's constraints, does
not renounce the ideal of autonomy, is faced with the problem of how the
work, functioning at the heart of the aesthetical, can be realized outside
of art, i.e. through the medium of social communication, through personal,
psychic systems."
f.
"Hence, a trans-post-modern practice of art in that its aspirations is to
continue the enlightening process of autonomy, is confronted with the task
of finding forms which make the work at the heart of aesthetic experience as
independent as possible from the artist as producer."
g. P.37
"If art is not to be overcome by the social controls now within it and to
lose its own specific identity, it becomes just as imperative as ever for it
to stick to the concept of autonomy. Otherwise, the social and aesthetic
autonomy it has achieved in Modernism, even its perpetuation as a social
system would be imperiled."
h.
"But to prevent a negative end result, namely the dissolution of art in
society, the strategy of aesthetic autonomy followed up to now is useless,
for it was categorically directed against everything in society, even
against that which art considered traditional per se, i.e. socially
accepted."
This offers the opportunity of being involved in a contemporary practice,
without using the existing structure, form and language - (in other words he
describes something that doesn't yet exist!)
At the core of Lingner's work there is ultimately posed the question - "
where is the position to begin to comprehend and interrogate the structure
in which thinking and practices are embedded?" Is text an appropriate basis
to do this? Is it discussion? Is it a physical practice? If not what is?
3 Sources for the term Post Autonomy
a.
In the book Place, Position, presentation, public published in 1994 Lingner
sketched out the notion of Post-Autonomy, in an essay "art as a system
within society."
"What is to be done? Is there an alternative to Postmodernism's 'anything
goes' that is currently threatening to put art at the mercy of whatever is
fashionable? To answer in slogans - I think of further art developments not
in terms of postmodern but of post-autonomous for, which art need only give
up that moment of autonomy that allows it no final purpose. Because - if art
has come to the end of aesthetic autonomy, it seems to me unavoidable that
it will look to extra-aesthetic goals and functions in order to survive and
evolve."
b.
This notion is expanded in subsequent texts - "The future requirements of
art", and "About the end of the art exhibition and exhibition art."
"It would mean that art, having reached its stage of so-called basic
theoretical maturity, instead of only following its own inner logic, would
now be ready to react to external impulses. In order not to lose its own
autonomy, however, art must set its own extra-aesthetic or heteronymous
social ends in strict self-determination, that is autonomously."
Pt 4. What can we make from this collage of statements and what is Lingner
saying?
Lingner's intention is to confront head on what he sees as a series of major
problems that we have inherited with the existing model of art. These
problems are documented photographically by Anglo-Saxon Conceptual artists
during the 70's and 80's - Kosuth, Lawler, Clegg & Guttmann. But it is the
reduction of art to a single model during the 90's with the adoption of the
American market model of art making, along with the complete collapse of any
other model that compounds a sense of crisis.
Lingner's texts sets out to consciously map out a fundamentally different
model, and he does this by anticipating a practice diametrically opposite to
the existing model - through erasing each element that makes up the shape of
art that we use - the work of art, the artist, audience, gallery space, the
category of art - a continuous series of steps away from this congealed
orthodox position of art. This erasure doesn't lead into the disappearance
or destruction of art but a new territory that we need to construct under
the umbrella of Post Autonomy!
Lingner and Luhmann
This operation however only makes sense when we consolidate the link between
Lingner's thinking with the German Systems theorist Niklus Luhmanns, and for
our purpose his analysis of the sub-system of art.
Luhmann's project is to understand the formation of systems within the
hostile environment of capitalism. How do these systems survive, how are
they constructed, how do they develop over time? At the outset Luhmann
suggests that any intimate understanding of how a system is constructed can
be seen to be equivalent to constructing a critique of art, which allows us
to go on to dissolve away one system before redeveloping another system.
In thinking through the historical gap between the invention of capitalism
and the formation of a fully functioning technological society, along with
the configuration of the system of art we have adopted, Luhmann asks how
useful is it to continue to use the thinking we have adopted from that
period to comprehend the current complex society we find ourselves in? He is
of the opinion that we cannot. The thinking we are familiar with, which has
shaped our thinking and belief systems, belongs to a form of transitional
thinking that has lead to this point.
Where the baggage of thinking becomes redundant Luhmann then asks what is
the minimum that is required for the existing system to function? He
speculates that we need participation and communication for the system to
cohere and function. It is this scheme Lingner adopts for a system of art
that has lost its former shape and characteristics, and a terminology that
provides an option that allows us to avoid or by-pass the congealed orthodox
signs of art.
5. Developing and materializing the notion of Post-Autonomy.
Although Lingner imagines the development and reinvention of art, how is it
possible to construct an actual practice along the lines of Post Autonomy?
A clue towards establishing a Post Autonomous practice is implied in the
historical reading of art by Luhmann. Luhmann suggests that possibly in
hindsight the current phase of art can be seen as a research into the
principle of autonomy at the expense of anything else. In order to
understand more thoroughly the concept of art this research requires to be
broadened away from research into Autonomy, and It is the move away from
this phase towards an examination of other aspects of art that can be seen
to suggest a move into Post Autonomous practices!
Although subsequent texts by Lingner have sought to flesh out something
along the lines of Post-Autonomy, he has done so without naming these
developments as an actual development of Post-Autonomy as such! No clear
final text has been produced to date and neither has a project sought to
materialize the notion. Any attempt to construct a Post-Autonomous practice
is therefore purely speculative.
This state of affairs poses a number of clear issues and problems. How is it
possible to interpret and materialize the existing sketch of Lingner's
notion of Post-Autonomy? How is it possible to complete the notion? Is there
only one reading of Lingner's notion? What are the other possible readings?
Are there other readings and uses of Luhmann's reading of the system of art?
Are there any other sources we can refer to apart from this limited range?
There are no simple solutions to these issues, although there are sufficient
clues to begin mapping out the terrain defined by Post-Autonomy.
In seeking to both find a useable form of the notion of Post-Autonomy, and
the means to materialize it, we are thrown back onto the existing
limitations and restrictions. But to do so it is necessary to recognize and
resolve developing a new model within the existing art institutions?
The theoretical disappearance of the institution of art
A route towards realizing the notion within existing conditions has already
been proposed and realized by the American artists Clegg & Gutmann, whose
work Lingner has already highlighted as a possible route towards
establishing a model of Post-Autonomy.
But the significant importance in both Lingner and Clegg & Gutmann thinking
is their analysis for establishing new models within existing structural
conditions.
Clegg and Guttmann asked themselves how stable are the existing ideas and
institutions of art? At a time when so many galleries, museums, ideas of art
are changing or going under we need to look for completely different
principles. In their series of open-air libraries they staged an idea for
the theoretical disappearance of art institutions. If art or its
institutions disappeared and we are put in a situation for its reinvention
what aspects would we continue or allow
to disappear?
This is able to take place by reversing the Duchampian paradigm. Rather than
shifting something from the outside world into the institution art to be
legitimized as a work of art, they moved something, in this case signs of
the institution, from inside the institution out into the outside world. Who
or what defines something as a work of art and does it matter? In this
situation they relied on a mixture of audience's who are both familiar and
unfamiliar with art and who are prepared to find new rules and uses
So instead of looking at setting up alternative or different models, they
instead speculate on the evolution of existing structures. Which is
interesting given that what appears obviously absent in recent years is any
desire at speculating or pushing ahead with shifting the parameters of the
existing structure!
In seeking to find both a useable form of the notion of Post-Autonomy and
the means to materialize it realistically within the limitations of the
existing art institutions we are required to address the conditions and
problems of these institutions.
Post-Autonomy implies a logical movement from an examination of the
self-regulatory system that maintains the systems internal integrity, to
aspects outside its border or that threatens its existence.
If Post-Autonomy implies a movement from inside the system of art to an
examination of what is excluded, then the series of experiments undertaken
by Clegg & Guttmann are instructive - Where artists in a position of power
at the heart of the art institutions are in a position to hand over their
position of power to a range of audiences.
If the current understanding of art as defined by dominant culture
disappeared or is handed over to a range of other cultures and required
reinventing, or defined on their terms, what aspects of art that we are
familiar with would survive, what would change, what would disappear? What
rules for its management would be put in place?