Boris Groys of fashion in contemporary art

[iside]

In my view, extremely important for the understanding of contemporary art in the interview, though again, not the first freshness (07/06/2012) I would appreciate if someone advise the materials to be read in the same vein.

Boris Groys: "In our time, unfashionable, uncomfortable and impractical to be dead»

[QUOTE] As fashion changes in contemporary art? Why is targeting only "today"? How the Internet has changed the art?

In a joint project of the Institute "Arrow" and Interview magazine about the problem of modern art talked art theorist, philosopher and author Boris Groys and artist Dmitry Gutov.

Dmitry Gutov: I have always wondered how you varishsya in the hell of the boiler of modern art, contemporary culture and philosophy? You fly around the planet several times over the last month, not that year. Here Osmolovsky Anatoly (Russian artist, theorist, curator and one of the brightest representatives of the Moscow actionism. - Interview), once having come to my show and asked, "Are you people are showing art six months ago?". This characterizes the current conditions - the art six months ago is not share with anyone. C On the other hand, may be, we are instead behind the times, and to show just what is infinitely outdated? What, in your opinion, the changes now taking place before our eyes?



Boris Groys: I think it's a romantic idea of ​​my life, because everything around me quite quietly and peacefully.

Gutov: Then let's case. In which cities you have visited in the last two weeks?

Groys: (Laughs) It's a long list, really. As for art, I can not say that it is radically transformed: the beginning of XX century the balance of power remains the same. Rather, we can notice a change not in the art, and that is discussed with regards to art. That's interesting. Changes now fixed the issue, discussions, conversations, even behind the scenes. Unmistakable element of politicization of art.

[SPOILER] Gutov: How long it can be fixed? We're talking about the last ten years, twenty years, or five days?
Groys: Percentage partisan art in general has always been relatively high. (Laughs.) But now become another form of politicization. I remember well that for a long time dominated the discourse of identity. Everybody was interested in gender identity in different ways, ethnic and cultural identity. Each artist chose for himself some identity and portrayed it. This went on for quite a long time. Parallel to it for a long time dominated the discourse trauma, especially children. I remember in the 1980's in the exams, especially graduate students, students always explained their deeds and actions through childhood trauma. For example, the fact that they have learned in childhood that their aunt hanged on the same day they were born. It was a discourse of trauma and cultural identity.

Then it somehow moved away: the people became less injured, dramatize it and discuss it. In Russia, let's say, "began Žižek" (Slovene cultural studies and social philosopher. - Interview). Became fashionable to study transcultural, transnational, transidentichnogo. This became evident at the penultimate exhibition Documenta, dedicated identity. There were people from Latin America and from many other countries, but it struck me that the way representations of their identity was almost the same. These were installed with text, video and photos, the location is absolutely the same. And it struck me that they were all made at about the same technical level. Then there was a crisis. Now, when you meet people from different countries, we are struck first of all the fact that they speak the same language, cite the same authors, reading the same text, interested by the same artists. Ten or fifteen years ago it was not accepted, and now normal.

Gutov: That is all one and the same?
Groys: It is difficult to say, because it's easy to interpret in terms of fashion and brands.

Gutov: I often go to exhibitions and notice how people can easily calculate each other. About how when you go to Moscow, and the guy goes: it Kazakh hat, cross, all in black and fake Order of St. George. It is evident that it is not left at all, and most likely represents the Union of Orthodox Banner Bearers. And you pretty quickly that his entourage is evaluated. And in the exhibition. Go guys: Negri in one hand and in the other - Agamben, it is not necessary that arafatka neck and Che Guevara t-shirt. And each other calculated identified by piles strayed. If I understand your point, there are now a mainstream. You can read more? You said, for example, that the same authors cite. This is what?
Groys: (Usmehaetsya.) So here, too, on a local level, there are differences.

Gutov: Now I remember exactly what, ten years ago, you needed to know Agamben (Italian philosopher. - Interview) - even die.

Groys: There is no longer necessary.

Gutov: Yeah?

Groys: Absolutely.

Gutov: Well, Negri (Italian statesman, theorist number of communist political groups. - Interview) date ten years ago, right?

Groys: But there were other Italians.

Gutov: Announce, please the entire list.

Groys: Well, Berardi, for example. Of course, deleziantsy. Bruno Latour became fashionable - all of it is read. In general, brands and fashion is, but not the point. This is all due to the problem of consumption - we consume not only what seems appropriate and successful for us, but what makes us look good in the eyes of others. Known fact. And in art, I believe, is more interesting is not the scope of consumption, and scope. When an artist starts when the author begins to write and publish, publish, when people begin to organize exhibitions, starting projects - they are then transferred to the consumption of active work, declare themselves in the social space. But now they are increasingly starting to consider the experience of others in this area. That's how brilliant artists had worked? They differ in that they do not know why they are doing so, and not otherwise. It was believed them their genius simply dictating what to do. I think that this illusion is overcome and people starting to do something, interested in what others are doing - they learn some tricks, they are attentive. Artists have become more technically, realistically and strategically relate to what they are doing. The cult of creative genius, which eliminates the artist and author from having to think about tactics, strategy, technology, and politics that it does - it disappears.

Gutov: I ran into the same phenomenon - people engaged in fine art, nothing about him knowing. They did not hear about some very basic things. Awkward to say, but, for example, Duchamp they never heard of, but if someone is brought to Moscow, they know by heart the latest issue of some "ArtChronika." That is, they know the names that, to put it mildly, do not necessarily know. And do as beavers building a dam. And it goes on? People really absorb all of the air or is it a basic level of training required?

Groys: Zayd afar. Baudrillard, who is unjustly forgotten, wrote a pretty good book, "Symbolic Exchange and Death", in which the right to note that in our time, unfashionable, uncomfortable and impractical to be dead. The dead do not consume, the dead do not produce anything, they do not vote, and in general their role in life as something not clear. I think that this is the feeling that the dead do not play any role, gradually led to the fact that they simply forgot. History swept away, to be exact, as they say, tongue lick. And it should be known. But do not know what happened in the past and what is happening around you. One of my students wrote a paper «Pure Pressure» that the pressure comes from the people of your generation, because you live with them. You're with them went to school with them and learn to die around the same time. So all my life to you with them to deal with. And his or her generation people oriented. They watch what people are doing their generation, and try to have in his generation to find a specific place. Still, do not forget that modern art - it's about the present.

Gutov: Go and sort things out now, that is the present. It is, perhaps, only in Manhattan, and then only in some places ... The French say that in Paris, nothing happens. Berlin - also a "hole." And where there is no "hole"? London, New York, maybe even Beijing. So where is the quintessence of modernity?

Groys: This is not a specific place, but a kind of network structure, a sort of network of artistic life. You can live anywhere in the world - whether in London or New York - and connected to the structure. And you can not connect. Modernity itself is not that what you're doing, and the ability to relate what you do with what others are doing in the same period. Maybe this distinction seems a little bogus, but I, as a viewer with a more or less trained eye, I always see how the artist knows what he's doing or not. In a strange way it is always possible to read.

Gutov: That brings us to your last text «Installing Marxism». Are you talking about the work on the keyboard, like working on an assembly line. In general, how to translate the title?

Groys: «By installing Marxism."

Gutov: How relevant is this circle of ideas? Do you think that the problems of the forties and sixties XIX century back?
Groys: Of course, returns us covers the second wave of industrialization. In the XIX century was the industrialization of physical labor. Now what we call intellectual work, industrializing at a tremendous rate. This is, of course, the Internet. First, the practice of intellectual work to normalize. In the 1960-1970-ies was still a difference between the picture and the text, between the music and video. Those were different media. But now they are converted into a single Digital format, all the media blend together, and it turns out the same assembly line. Second, the Internet is controlled by large corporations. People sit all day on Facebook and Twitter, as a result of market income gets the same Facebook (or Google). That is, large corporations appropriated surplus value - is in XIX century. In addition, a system of control over the individual, which is in its efficiency is not comparable with any control system of physical work, Foucault described. I recently read that the people who use the Clouds ...

Gutov: What is it?

Groys: This is a system of shared computers. That is, you use the program is not on your computer, and connects to the common system. This is much more effective than an individual computer. But while there is a way to control all moves of your thoughts, of all transactions, the efficiency of your thinking, and so on. That is, people can explore the course of your thoughts, your skills, your way of timing. We have entered the era of the second industrial evolution, much more rigid, where the gap between capital and labor is expressed more clearly than ever.

Gutov: Now that's interesting. Someone wrote about the second wave of industrialization? I have not read or heard about it - it's your point?

Groys: No, not mine, it's just something in the air. I do not think that there is some work on this topic. But someone wrote, and I among them. This is not completely embedded in the consciousness of people. It is important to understand the history of the problem. When I first started writing about the Internet (in the early 1990s), people had many illusions about this. People believed that the Internet - is an area of ​​freedom, that there exists communism seized private property, and so on. I had a very dark text on the subject, of which I was heavily criticized. I was called a product of Stalin's paranoia. Recently, some articles have been reprinted. I read a review in The Guardian: The only drawback is the lack of texts underscore character ekspluativnogo Internet. I was accused of softness!

Gutov: They just do not look at the year of publication.

Groys: Yes, it was the 1990s, when I could not say what I think - I was not just printed. Today, people are beginning to understand what is happening. Illusion vanished.

Gutov: And is there any direct link to the XIX century?
Groys: They are. Much of what is happening, even in everyday life, not that other, as a reaction to the sobering. The same was sobering to XIX century, who also started with an incredible faith in progress, humanism and other nonsense. Only from a Marxist critique of reality started to appear. Now, I think, begins to bleed through the reality of the second industrial revolution - methods of exploitation, manipulation of desire. The desire here - a key concept. Following him and trying to manipulate. For example, every time I write about Italy, the next day I get a list of Italian hotels where you can stay cheaply. That's such an obvious mechanism. As a reaction to the art world: more performances, more Actionism offline, more presence in the real space. As if I want to see a living person. My students in New York say they spend three or four hours a day on Facebook. But they talk only to those who know personally. This is of course due to the fragmentation of the public space. It is obvious that the modern public space was split society of the spectacle, as he is described, Guy Debord, was impossible. Each group has its own infrastructure, dedicated exclusively to itself.

Gutov: Let's go back to Marx. His works are interested in what he describes art primarily through context. If you want to understand, you have to know exactly the situation with the artist. Do I understand correctly that the actualization of context, that has not taken into account, and all the attendant circumstances for you is the master key to what Marx discovered?
Groys: Yes, because there is a shift of attention from the contemplation of the object to the terms of contemplation to the stage at which it is contemplating. Marx criticized because passive contemplation and the stage of passive contemplation. And from this we can draw two conclusions: one - a critical reflection on the scene. Another conclusion - is an active transformation, the transition from contemplation to action. In general, it's worth noting that the current popularity of Marxism in the West is due not to the fact that it is utopian, progressive, left and so on. It is primarily due to the fact that we are living today in conditions of capitalism. And besides Marxist model describing capitalism there is no other as good. All attempts to create some sort of a different model failed. So many people who like capitalism, are Marxists. They use the same tools for the description of capitalism that Marx developed.

Gutov: In the 1930s, the key was another phrase Marx - not reducing art to social background, and the famous phrase about antiquity: "The main question - why are these works of art continue to give us aesthetic pleasure." It is unclear why we, modern people, do we need these products?

Groys: so they do not need! Marx was merely the product of a German classic culture. If you are in Germany, show respect for Hellas, you simply will not be read.

Gutov: But Nietzsche indulged in such attacks.

Groys: With Nietzsche another story. He said that all this love, but for a different reason. No love of antiquity was only since Marinetti, who said that it would be nice to all the bomb. This was some sort of fresh perspective. Point of view, which still prevails. Not that everyone wanted to bomb it, but no it is not particularly interested in, except for the cheap tourism.

Gutov: And me.

Groys: For Marx, as for Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Deleuze, a major problem was the fact that he is a theorist. After all, his own philosophy forbade him to be a philosopher. And Wittgenstein said, "If you read what I wrote, you will realize what kind of crap all this philosophy, including myself." Deep shame for what he was a philosopher, permeates all the work of Marx. He had a desire to destroy its own analysis. He always says that being determines consciousness, but it would be better to consciousness determines being. It would be better to get out of the sphere according to the scope of freedom and so on ... So in Marxism has great potential anti-Marxism. I think you favorite authors shamelessly exploited this anti-Marxist shame.

Gutov: Your approach to Marx too traditional. It's like talking about Freud's basically what he discovered biological, unconscious and subconscious. Why go back to the very traditional view of Marx? After all, it is much more complex writer than it seems on the surface.
[B]



[B]

[Самвел]

Сообщение от iside; 2552871"

Groys, Come from afar. Baudrillard, who is unjustly forgotten, wrote a pretty good book, "Symbolic Exchange and Death", in which the right to note that in our time, unfashionable, uncomfortable and impractical to be dead. The dead do not consume, the dead do not produce anything, they do not vote, and in general their role in life as something not clear. I think that this is the feeling that the dead do not play any role, gradually led to the fact that they simply forgot. History swept away, to be exact, as they say, tongue lick. And it should be known. But do not know what happened in the past and what is happening around you. One of my students wrote a paper «Pure Pressure» that the pressure comes from the people of your generation, because you live with them. You're with them went to school with them and learn to die around the same time. So all my life to you with them to deal with. And his or her generation people oriented. They watch what people are doing their generation, and try to have in his generation to find a specific place. Still, do not forget that modern art - it's about the present.

Well, this is probably not talking about art, and just about the current situation in mire.s speed. The fact is that you can consume, produce, and even vote, and at the same time, their role in life is as incomprehensible. It is not necessary to die physically. You can be in action, but the action will be of a mechanical nature. Up in the morning, shaved, went to the factory, to some certain point pressed on what that button, or a store-bought foods, etc. etc.. You just made actions are the same actions that others do. You're out of life. Or businessman all the time at work, to call him, he says, is going through, I think that these experiences are important, but time goes by he realizes that these experiences are worthless and I had so much to worry about. (If he remembers them at all), etc. All proceeds beyond life. Those who are engaged in the work is essentially dead. No difference, you're dead, or just sleeping. But if the passive sleep less safe, the active can be very dangerous because of the committed unconsciously, mechanical. That would be something to actually do, we must first awaken. That is the real work that would have to be in life itself, and not outside it. This is a very difficult job. Work in the paper, I would have called it. On the other hand, very few people with capital who have long left the visible world, have a huge impact on today's world and play a huge role, this might just Groys sees. They are impossible to forget, every time they remind myself.

[K-Maler]

Сообщение от iside; 2552871"

material to be read in the same vein .

I do not know what edition you already know , but discussions like that regularly publishes the magazine Art Magazine . It involves all those names. On such topics can be accessed via the Internet, typing their names into a search engine .
Articles with the ideas of modern philosophers , and published in the "Dictionary of Modern Western Philosophy" and these articles are good and sensible to convey the subject (modern western philosophy dictionary, Moscow, izd.polit . Literature , 1991.
If you do not, and interest in the subject , you need to have at home.
HG also likely to be found on the Internet.

[zarajara]

Сообщение от iside

In my view, extremely important for the understanding of contemporary art in the interview , though again, not the first freshness ( 06/07/2012 ) I would appreciate if someone advise the materials to be read in the same vein .

iside, I do not know how much in the same vein , but I really like Vadim Rudnev , and his "Dictionary of the culture of the XX century" was at one time my reference book. Here, for example , can be read online, but it is not uncommon , and there is a different format.
http://www.lib.ru/CULTURE/RUDNEW/slowar.txt

[iside]

K-Maler, zarajara, thank you see.

Samvel, I think there is the argument in this way, that art is inseparable from the society in which it is produced, and it hurts society consumerism , trendizmom , fashion , etc. to all new, new, new . All that was yesterday, " forgotten and nobody cares ," but this does not mean that it argues Groys , he only sees nezatumanennym view the processes that occur in the community and to voice their thoughts on the matter , with no hint of that he supports or condemns.

[K-Maler]

Сообщение от iside

I would be grateful if someone advise the materials to be read in the same vein.

Here on the site, in a diary Gor Chahal, provides links to a good article about the exhibition Guelman ("Icons"), which is being held in St. Petersburg, in "The Weavers".
Opinions from the same circle.