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Re: Diffusion: Collaborative Practice in
Contemporary Art

Brian Holmes

Dec 08, 2003 00:10 PST

 Are we to understand, then, that the entire tradition of art
practice associated with Dadaism, Constructivism, Surrealism,
Situationism and Conceptualism is irrelvant to any further
discussion of collaboration because each of these movements were
populated by communist dupes?

Having had my own practices described as "Stalinist" or somehow
connected to same (!), I agree with Grant Kester that it's useful to
define what exactly that label might mean, and why exactly one might
not be able to reject out of hand any intersection of art and
politics - or any incursion of an artistic politics or a political
art into museums. Obviously there are problematic aspects in the
undertakings lumped together as "avantgarde", and just as obviously
there is much to be learned from some of them, as Greg Sholette
pointed out with a lot of verve about a week ago. But all of this, in
the spirit of free cooperation that seeks a new politics and a new
art, and not just in order to chew the bones of the past.

I'll take up this thread again soon, but am currently too enmeshed in
the "cooperation sociale" and the "general intellect" it takes to
finish an issue of Multitudes. So I just follow the arguments in the
meantimes.

best, Brian

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