“Art has absolutely nothing to do with communication, but in return, it has everything to do with resistance.”
Gilles Deleuze
It is a tremendous pleasure and honor for me to stand here today and exchange thoughts and ideas about borders organizing possible impossibilities as well as impossible possibilities. In this sense, I would like to refer to my working practice and theory, where I am exploring ways to get over these borders and make some impossibilities possible.
To start, I would like to briefly talk about a sculptural work that is a horizontal sculpture laid over the entire surface of a public square in Neukölln, a southern borough of Berlin.
Being invited to propose a permanent public artwork, I found myself confronted with a fundamental dilemma: most public artworks impose an object to the pedestrians who would have to see and go around it on a daily basis, but how long would it take that going around something would have turned into avoiding it. Did I want to occupy the space of the people of Neukölln with an object? And who was I to decide over their heads what kind of object that should be?
I couldn’t answer these questions, so I decided to involve the borough’s citizens. The outcome was a demographic pavement representing everyone living in this part of Neukölln in 2011. The stones were imported from the six regions of the world to reflect the immigration history of the population. I skipped the vertical dimension of 3D objects in favor of a horizontally laid out artwork that became indifferent to the place instead of occupying it. In the end, it was made not only for but also by the people of Neukölln.
Before and after this piece, I did other pieces that preferred horizontal against vertical lines. I also involved very different people and communities from Italy, the United Kingdom, and the USA in my work. However, what I kept in my mind was a horizontal and asymmetrical relationship to places, things, beings, and, most importantly, people. By no means – especially not within the field of art that addresses our minds and feelings, can I place myself in a superior position to tell others what to see and how to see or how to act, etc. In return, however, everything becomes possible due to the absence of hierarchies.
Hierarchies repress possibilities, while heterarchies are supposed to offer possibilities. I think this could be an essential difference between the nature of artistic practices and political discourses. Borders play a role in both fields, but the outcome or function is very different.
Working with participants is a very inspiring process. It is not easy, but always creative. We share experiences and come—at least in most cases—to unexpected results. Objects and situations coming out of this process are loaded with contingency and have the character of an open question. The artistic space, let it be organized by human beings, objects, media, or any kind of agency, is a symmetry where everything lies on the same level, where objects and even materials can tell a story. It somehow relates to the space of philosophy or poetry where nothing is excluded from being possible. This space is neither grounded in discourses (what can be said) nor in power structures (who is speaking) nor common understandings (what counts and what is being said). It is an open space where everything speaks to our physiology and psychology, a space expanding and multiplying in our perception, affection, empathy, and desire. And finally, it is an imperfect, unfinished, and unachieved space where everything changes at any time. The political space could never bear those conditions. A statement aiming to convince or persuade others of certain interests must repress many possible interpretations to emphasize a particular point of view. Pluralism and multi-perspectivism overkill the consent manufactory. Thus, it applies popular conventions, moral codes, red lines, and no-go zones and organizes every meaning and object within a certain range of acceptance. Ambiguities and misunderstandings would cripple the political effectiveness of any public discourse. This being said the fundamental difference between the territory of art and public discourse becomes obvious.
French philosopher Gilles Deleuze once said that art had nothing to do with communication; it would carry no information, no understandable message, and no foreseeable consent. Instead, it had everything to do with resistance. It resists the pressure of the art world, fashion, and trends. In a word, it is resistance against time. Persistence in time is still a rock-solid approval for any artwork. But how could it be timeless if it would adopt topics of the actual political agenda that may change from one day or scandal to the next? Or let’s turn the question around. Would the criteria of timelessness work for a political project? Of course not. I think again that the reason for this is the very nature of art. The reason for an artwork’s resistance against time is most likely radicality.
An artwork must be radical enough to push sense-making over time-specific limitations. But would the quality of radicality work for a political idea that aims to gain a broad agreement? No way – and speaking as someone living in Germany, I would have to add: hopefully never again.
However, I believe that art needs to provide radicality to our lives. It talks to the invisible and affective part of us, the very part that makes us full human beings and has made mankind produce something that, at least today, we would consider “art” ever since. We probably need this radicality of things that remain, and art is most likely the healthiest and socially acceptable way to propose radical positions, at least if compared to science, religion, economy, or politics. However, in this role, art should not bow to any guiding lines; it should not follow any of the historically changing trends of emancipation or propose pedagogical intentions for the simple reason that this would have the side-effect of historically and socially specific external control over the outcome. The final artwork should not be determined before it gets realized. Walter Benjamin said art died with the finished work. I would paraphrase that artists are responsible for ensuring art wasn’t already dead before it once got the chance to die.
Miami (FL), December 2018