hi Tobias,
I am sorry if i gave the impression that Haacke's critique rested on
merely one, somewhat ambiguous image or that it lacked careful
attention to historical detail. on the contrary, the presentation was
well researched and never took anything for granted. instead haacke
primarily used the work and writings of beuys as the means of
deconstruction...and if you know haacke's art it was quite similar in
method. nor at any point did haacke accuse beuys of being fascist as
your french colleague did with you. (are you sure he is a friend?)
anyway, you do raise a good point and of course where would deleuze
and derrida be today without the work of a brilliant german
philosopher who gave many lectures wearing a swastika on his arm?
that does not mean looking history, art and politics straight in the
eyes: bloodshot though they may be at times- ggs
At 8:35 PM -0500 12/10/03, tobias c. van Veen wrote:
| | | | several days ago hans haacke gave a powerful public presentation on
his fellow german artist at the dia foundation in nyc. haacke had
done his usual careful research and presented a picture of beuys in
the form of a dossier in which the late artist was unequivocally
either an actual fascist or at least unconsciously identified with
nazism, wagnerian myths, christlike self images and so forth. one
especially riveting example was a photograph haacke projected that
was taken of beuys holding a small crucifix in one hand, the other
hand raised in a heil hitler salute.
|
[snip]
I don't know enough about Beuys -- having only read of him and some of his
work and knowing generally of his legacy -- but it seems to me that if this
shot was used to condemn Beuys, it is being done so in quite an
authoritarian fashion, ie, the ways in which art has been condemned since
time immemorial by historians & state. [Here's a pic of this awful scene,
moral outrage! moral outrage!] What was the context of the performance, one
wonders? Did Haacke explain this? And what of Wagner? Proust liked Wagner
too -- was Proust a fascist? Since when did Wagner's ego equate to Fascism?
An artist friend of mine (to be left unnamed) was talking about his sound
event last night .. he said 'I'm a fascist' -- he's French so it sounded
like 'I'm a fasciiieesst'. He was talking about how no one could leave or
enter during the event. Art always has its fascisms.
My own work has consciously touched on fascism in the squat-techno scenes ..
see http://www.shrumtribe.com . Detroit techno mythology of the Underground
Resistance variety has a relation to 'giving oneself over' to sound and
speaker pounding, also in the events of Richie Hawtin throughout the 90s, a
kind of submission that created a kind of sonicult, that I think through its
masochism and also sadism could be seen as a fascism of some kind.
Perhaps in 20 years we'll see lectures on Genesis P-Orridge, looking at a
pic of the androgynous queenman wearing Nazi black jackets in the early
'80s, getting crowds of industrialheads chanting DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE --
and we'll say: ah, what a fascist he was.
Nothing could be further from the truth ..
Playing with power is the domain of the artist, is it not?
tV
tobias c. van Veen -----------
http://www.quadrantcrossing.org
http://www.thisistheonlyart.com
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There must be interference, crossing of borders and obstacles, a
determined attempt to generalize exactly at those points where
generalizations seem impossible to make---we need to think about
breaking out of the disciplinary ghettos in which as intellectuals we
have been confined, to reopen the blocked social processes ceding
objective representation (hence power) of the world to a small
coterie of experts and their clients, to consider that the audience
for literacy is not a closed circle of three thousand professional
critics but the community of human beings living in society, and to
regard social reality in a secular rather than a mystical mode,
despite all the protestations about realism and objectivity.
Edward Said
gregory g. sholette
gshol-*at*artic.edu
http://www.artic.edu/~gshole/
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