Kunst oder Nichtkunst / Art or Non-Art

© Tasos Zembylas Extended Abstract of my Book “Art or Non-Art” (orig. in German: “Kunst oder Nichtkunst”, Vienna, 1997, ISBN 3-85114-315-9) The starting point of my inquiry is the following question: When, where and how can an object or action be considered a “work of art”? The same question can also be posed for related terms such as “artist” and “artistic value”. My aim is to create a pragmatic model that describes the process of the formation of the concept of art. However, the concept of art is an essentially contested concept. The question “what is art?” is not a theoretical or an empirical question but rather a matter of the cultural, political and economic praxis of a society. Since the beginning of the 20th century, artists have insisted that every individual object can be regarded as a work of art. This view is also shared by scholars such as Erwin Panofsky, who confirmed that it is impossible to determine when an artefact can be considered a work of art. Consequently the origin, or to be more precise, the process of generating aesthetic meaning and value can only be understood if we begin to observe and reconstruct the cultural practices of the individuals who participate in this specific cultural space, in which the process of creating meaning and evaluating artefacts occurs. “Art” as a property of some entities is often used in an evaluative sense but “art” is not only a metaphoric concept that expresses appreciation. It constitutes facts. To be an artwork, i.e. to be an object with an artistic value, has far-reaching consequences in the realm of ordinary life. We use the terms “art”, “work of art”, “artist” and so on in domains where these terms play a significant role. Another problem related to the definition of the concept of art arises when we consider the various practices and functions of this concept. The fact that the location and the context in which a work of art (an object, an action etc.) is displayed affect the way people perceive and decode it. The context-dependence of art indicates that art is a multifunctional phenomenon in contemporary society. Works of art fulfil various functions because they exist in a differential system of collective and individual needs and desires. Outlines of a model of the contemporary art world In order to describe the process of the formation of the concept of art, I had to develop a model of society and of its fields of cultural activities. In the wake of the establishment of a civil society in the 18th century, art (production and reception) became less controlled by the clerical institutions (i.e. inquisition) and increasingly administered, fitted and imbued with meaning and value by the spheres of market and politics. Since then there have been several social authorities and institutions which exercise an influence on the formation of the concept of art. Therefore  chapter 1 of the book refers to the legal system and the cultural policy  chapter 2 refers to the art market  chapter 3 refers to the training institution (academies) and the conditions of professionalism  chapter 4 refers to art criticism  and finally chapter 5 to refers museums. 1 The extent of the influence of each authority is variable. I can find neither a methodological nor an empirical reason to establish a hierarchical ranking between the various institutional authorities. None of the authorities can be adequately studied isolated from the others. All authorities and institutions are polymorphic bodies, in other words, they change their form, appearance and effects, so that it is impossible to reduce them to a fixed formula in order to describe them. This implies two things: Firstly, the formation of the concept of art is not a linear causal process and secondly the concept of art is contingent. Contingency implies the idea of something being accidental, fleeting and manoeuvrable. It is evident that philosophical theories intend to legitimise a certain point of view and a set of cultural practices. So one may interpret the aesthetic discourse as a substitute for the struggle between various social fractions for cultural hegemony – think for instance of Bourdieu. This might be right, but I do not think that my original question about the meaning of the concept of art can be reduced to an analysis of social power and cultural hegemony. Of course, the concept of art is always a normative concept and as far as people formulate claims of art and artistic quality within the frames of professionalism and try to legitimise their claims through a system of values, the work of art is explicitly related to the political and social institutions of the art world. But, apart from this aspect, a work of art is a form of cultural articulation that is essential to cultural practices. In a similar vein art is a cultural phenomenon linked to the terms of “Tätigkeit” (activity) and “Lebensform” (way of life), as used by Ludwig Wittgenstein. The book chapters Chapter 1: The first authority is the legal system. In the legal body we find some direct or indirect requirements of concepts linked to art, for instance of the concept of “artist”, “work of art”, “artistic freedom”, but also of notions that may concern art such as the legal notion of “originality”, “obscenity” and “public decency”. (Here I refer primarily to the continental legal system since the common law system prevalent in Anglo-American countries has a different structure and practical application.) In Civil Law we find several definitions of general personal rights of the artists, (for instance of the moral right to his/her name, his/her honour), and regulations governing their relations to other participants in the art world. Copyright makes a distinction between works of art, works of applied art and industrial products for those domains in which this distinction regulates the various economic interests. The administration and public law as well as the actual cultural policy regulate further economic issues like income taxes, social insurance and public funding of the arts. Since about the middle of the 19th century art in Western European societies gradually shifted from the care of the church and the state to the private sphere of economics. In other words, art has become “privatised”. This process is indicated by the fact that in the first decades of the 20th century preventive censorship was prohibited in most European constitutions. But in spite of constitutional laws that protect artistic expression, censorship has not yet been completely eliminated. Direct censorship was imposed for instance in the USA during the McCarthy era and with less intensity throughout the whole Cold War period. In the European legal system there are several paragraphs of the penal code that can supersede the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of art and prohibit an art exhibition. This happens usually when there is a claim that a work of art is obscene or it offends the religious beliefs of a community. The demand for freedom 2 of artistic expression always entails a great moral and political challenge to every liberal and pluralistic society. The freedom of artistic expression cannot be without any limitations, because it is obvious that particular expressions may contravene and oppress the basic rights of other individuals or social groups (think about Neo-Nazis’’ artworks, or other forms of hate speech). Chapter 2: The second authority involved in the formation of the concept of art is the art market. The relationship between art production and the market can be investigated from two different perspectives. The first perspective is the view of the macroeconomics – for instance the question of what the art world is contributing to the economic growth of a region. The second perspective is the microeconomic one. It is quite evident that the present forms of the art market – the direct sale from the artist’s studio selling through an art dealer or selling through an auction house – have different impact with regards to the development of prices, public awareness and artistic reputation. The constitutive economic rules governing the treatment of works of art as commodities are: Firstly, the number of artistic objects having an economic significance is to be kept low in order to create exclusivity and scarcity. This implies that the works of art should have the status of “originals” in the legal sense of the word. Secondly, a work of art should be considered as the result of individual action and decision. In other words, it should be the “intellectual property” of an artist. This is necessary to establish claims to specific rights regarding copyright, the protection of the physical integrity of the work etc.1 Beyond creating an economic value the art market has to promote and support the aesthetic evaluation of an artwork. One of the most important functions of the market system is the stimulation of public awareness of the arts. In the art market there is fierce competition among thousands of young people trying to become professional artists. The main interest of the market is to steer and regulate access to the public’s attention. The process of aestheticising objects, making them “candidates for appreciation” begins mainly in the art market, because of the promotion and intensive broking done by art dealers (especially gallery owners). Nowadays we are confronted with a huge variety of artistic activities and works. The plurality of styles in modern art – let’s say since 1900 – is not immanent to modern aesthetic development, as some formalists once thought. Nor does the plurality of styles stem from “the post-modernist mind”, as Jean-François Lyotard argued. His theoretical interpretation shows how most art scholars and philosophers turn out to be very distant from real artistic practice. The plurality of style has sprung up together with the expansion and liberation of the art market. Pluralistic production correlates thus with pluralistic consumption. Chapter 3: The third sphere governing the formation of the concept of art is concerned with the conditions of artistic professionalism. By the term “professional artist” I refer to those persons who try to exhibit their works in order to achieve recognition, which is usually expressed as monetary reward and admiration, which means social prestige. All professional artists are involved in the art world, relating in a concrete economic and legal way to others. The general conditions of professional practice depend on the one hand on the structure of the art market and, on the other hand, on the expectations of the recipients. By investigating how artists deal in the 1 Some art dealers have sold paintings that were made by animals (chimpanzees, cats etc.). According to the contemporary legal state nobody (no person and no animal) can claim any author’s rights on these paintings. 3 institutions of the art world and by understanding the strategies of their behaviour we can make clear how professional aspects influence the creative process and the production of art. Social theorists have developed two different models of action theory: the model of the “homo sociologicus” and the model of the “homo oeconomicus”. Most artists react to some expectations of the recipients as a “homo sociologicus” – this means that artists follow established values. To cite an example: As long as the recipients as well as buyers of contemporary art expect that so-called “good” artists are those who break the established aesthetic standards, artists will endeavour to satisfy this expectation. This pattern of behaviour has been evident since Romanticism. Of course, in other situations, especially in the art market, artists react as a “homo oeconomicus”, which means that their behaviour tends to maximisation of their profits. So the classic distinction between those artists who tune their life and work to the expectations of the recipients and those who use no other rules than their own self-made principles is actually based on the mythical figure of the autonomous artist. Since the end of the 19th century the “autonomous artist” has been stylised as the cultural hero of liberal bourgeois society. In real life we usually meet a mixed type of these two ideal versions. The market as the central institution of contemporary societies has a great impact on artistic decisions. The expansion of the cultural markets in general over the past forty years has contributed to works of art becoming increasingly treated as commodities and objects of financial speculation. Artists have already changed their attitudes and have become more conscious of the power of the market. So it can generally be said that artists have given up their role of bohemians and have become more pragmatic. They have understood that they must make the necessary effort to cope with the demands of art dealers. These demands imply greater and more effective productivity, loyalty to agreements with clients, clever and sophisticated self-promotion and some rhetorical competence in aesthetic matters. These are some of the central soft qualifications that are necessary to professional artists. Chapter 4: The next authority is art criticism, which is mainly involved in the process of reception, conveying understanding and the formation of the public taste of the recipients. In the past art critics used to have quite a high opinion of their role. Charles Baudelaire, for instance, believed that art criticism can open up new horizons. Oscar Wilde and Walter Benjamin elevated critical judgements about art to genuine literary works of art. Pierre Restany finally considered the art critic to be the actual artist. For the past three decades art critics have been confronted with a new situation that devalues the significance of their writings. There are three main reasons for this: Firstly, the growth and diversification of artistic production is so advanced and at the same time so redundant that it is surely impossible to survey all artistic production and be able to compare the various artists. Secondly, most art dealers promote their own artists by publishing their exhibition catalogues. Art collectors are increasingly more oriented towards the market developments than towards the opinion of the art critics. Thirdly, most art magazines have to rely on advertisements from galleries and other exhibiting institutions in order to cover their budget requirements. This indirect financial dependence forces the magazines to maintain good relations with all these institutions. Therefore their articles and reports on contemporary exhibitions ought to be somehow affirmative. To summarise the conclusion of all these issues, art critics are now forced to cooperate with the galleries, art dealers and curators so that they take on the role of PR manager for artists. 4 Art critics do not just interpret and evaluate works of art. They are story tellers too, because their text must be convincing, emphatic and speculative in order to attract attention. By writing on the arts they create and perpetuate discourses and mythologies that are deeply rooted in the tradition of the artistic community as its cultural unconscious. The idea of genius, the myth of originality, of the prophetic mission of arts, the concept of the transcendental range of the work of art are some examples of these cultural narratives that are interwoven in the contemporary discourses of art. Chapter 5: The part of the book is concerned with the institutions that exhibit art, the most important of which are the museums of modern and contemporary art. Together with art criticism museums fulfil the function of mediation. During the 19th century museums successively took on the role of academies, which means that they began to determine artistic standards. Many aspects related to art museums – for example their cultural and political significance, the form in which works of art are presented, in other words the classification and hanging principles, pre-structure the way people look at artworks and how they form their aesthetic judgements. By this I want to emphasise that museums have some kind of gatekeeping role and indirectly exercise social control over the production and reception of works and aesthetic values. Especially during the Cold War Period Western museums were (mis-)used as ideological weapons against the Communist dictatorship because they represented identification with cultural progress and liberty. Nowadays museums and other non-profit exhibiting spaces still appear as neutral and open-minded organisations that are basically non-political and scientifically oriented. But the selective action and the values that museums reinforce are well hidden and opaque. Critique on the role of museums has already been expressed in the works of several artists such as Hans Haacke, Daniel Buren, Guerrilla Grills and others. Concluding Remarks The contemporary sociology of art is confronted with two problems: an epistemological one which questions the linkage of art and society and a methodological one that searches for an adequate way to describe complexity. Sociology is based on a fundamental assumption: art and society are interrelated. This implies that works of art are not isolated monads; on the contrary, they are part of a symbolic order and field of action. Anyway we have to be sceptical about this assumption because it is traditionally linked to metaphysics (see for instance the Reflecting Theory of Hegel, Marx and Lúkacs or the theory of homological relations in structuralistic thought of Lucien Goldmann and Pierre Bourdieu.) The concept of art is not just an essentially contested concept, it is also a very complex concept. Its complexity is due to the fact that “art” does not denote only objects, actions or concepts. It is rather the result of an interaction between the spheres of production, communication and reception. The main question arising from this insight is: how can we describe the complexity of the concept of art? I would like to propose that sociological investigations should generally try to avoid long-winded theorisation and make more effort to give a comprehensive view of the institutional embedding of art in society. Moreover, theorisation is less valuable if scholars neglect to investigate the practices of the contemporary cultural field. 5