The end of term at school has finally been tamed, my thesis has been handed in and all that stands between me and a summer break free from school is a big pile of final essays for the class I TA. Things are looking up and I am definitely looking forward to catching up on some reading, art going and blogging over the next few months.
One periodical I have managed to keep on top of throughout school is e-flux’s (sort of) new monthly journal which has featured some fantastically readable, pithy essays by the likes of Simon Sheikh, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Boris Groys and Liam Gillick. I’ve been following a series by Dieter Roelstraete, curator at the Antwerp museum of contemporary art at MuKHA, on “the historiographic turn” in contemporary art projects and his more recent essay on attempts to “excavate the future.”
Mark Dion, Tate Thames Dig, 1999Roelstraete’s first essay, “The Way of the Shovel: On the Archaeological Imaginary in Art,” addressed the sometimes problematic way that contemporary practices use archaeological strategies and references to unearth and revisit the past – artists like Mark Dion and Roy Arden were some of Roelstraete’s references, but one could easily add Gareth Moore or Kerri Reid in the Canadian context – without focusing enough attention on addressing the present or future. The earlier essay ends with a kind of admonition for contemporary art practices in this vein that are unable “to grasp or even look at the present, much less to excavate the future.”
Helen Levitt, New York, 1972
The subsequent, more recent essay, “After the Historiographic Turn: Current Findings,” therefore begins where the previous one left off by trying to establish what an art that addresses the present, and points toward the future, might look like. Though he never explicitly addresses them, the essay is illustrated with (mostly street) photographs by Helen Levitt and Zoe Leonard, largely based in New York. These are clearly artists who are documenting their current surrounds and contemporary contexts, which are at drastic odds with the archaeologically-influenced projects Roelstraete outlined in the previous essay, but they are equally influenced by art historical precedents, including social documentary and street photography as it was established by Henri Cartier-Bresson and even Eugene Atget, so I wasn’t entirely convinced they fit into his newer argument.
What I liked best about the newer Roelstraete essay was the author’s willingness to answer the “so what?” question that the earlier text raised. While it’s easy to mount an argument against a trend in contemporary art production, or to problematize it, it’s much harder to advocate for what should be happening in its place: to suggest an alternative–or several–that might address the problems one’s raising as an author.
Gerard Byrne, 1984 and Beyond, 2005–07So what are the alternatives and solutions Roelstraete offers? The two points I found the most refreshing and applicable to the work I’ve been seeing lately were the following:
1) That it is time to turn away from using the generic term “contemporary art” (as Roelstraete asks, “contemporary with what, precisely?”) and to begin to try to define new -isms, movements and schools within current art production; not as a way to clearly delineate or reduce a multiplicity of approaches to art into palatable genres, but as a way to think about what it means to live in the world and make art at this time. Given the current “crisis” in the economy and the political change being sought in American government, Roelstraete argues that it is time to start thinking about how the past decade will be remembered in the future.
2) That the strategy of “new historicism” that has driven so much of archaeologically inspired and reenactment based art is merely a euphemism for a reaction to a specific political and social context that we can no longer ignore and need to name as such outright. Roelstraete really says it best, so here’s a quote from him:
I couched this diagnosis in the critical terms of a “historiographic turn in art” apparent in the obsession with archiving, forgetfulness, memoirs and memorials, nostalgia, oblivion, re-enactment, remembrance, reminiscence, retrospection—in short, with the past—that seems to drive much of the work done by some of the best (and most highly regarded) artists active today…This “new historicism” (is that what we should call it?) is really nothing other—like it or not—than the art of the Bush era.
Given the exploding interest in reenactments and restagings in museums and galleries over the past few years, Roelstraete’s analysis is a helpful way to understand the motives behind these gestures. Not only do they represent a desire to call up a time in the past that was more politically active and perhaps more successfully resistant to dominant culture, but they are also a product of upheaval, confusion and the ideological climate of the past decade (in North America and Europe, anyways).
Roelstraete calls in the end for a new kind of “realism” from artists that addresses the present and future. It’s an interesting and provocative way to think about current art making practices and I’ll be interested to see who takes up his argument and in what ways.
OK So… I haven’t read the article, but I have been around when all the “Why are so many younger artists obsessed with the past?” debate has come up.
In a way, this point as a debate kind of maddens me.
First, I do think the educational institutions have to share some reponsibility. If you cram courses full of historical info, and talk tons about contemporary work in the pomo tradition that references past trends continuously, well, what the heck do you expect people will be encouraged to produce? You got it, artwork that recycles or leans heavily on past insights, artworks and tropes. Also, what other kind of art can you really write a thesis on, or feel secure in backing up in an academic context. Academic essays require footnotes, and a lot of this backward-looking art has those footnotes to “back up” its validity.
Second, I think demographics could play a part. Again, the media and educational institutions have long been dominated by a boomer contingent that does often hearken back to the good old days. (I can also recognize that even boomer media is always on the lookout for the next “hot young thing” and can overlook older artists, but I’m talking about general narratives here.) Younger artists working today are also children of boomers, and even on a familial level may have to deal with the legacies of the 60s and 70s, with the supposed fall from grace that that all represents. And if we’ve learned anything from that history it’s that grand ideas of the future don’t always work out… so why would a majority of artists feel they can look grandly forward?
Third, I would posit that many of these supposedly “backward looking” works are a response to the awareness of a very dire present — one threatened by climate change, erosion of social safety nets, warfare, terrorism, etc. It’s likely that many younger artists yearn for some positive future, but it seems impossible given past failures. Or it seems worthwhile looking back to see what might have caused some of those failures or losses of optimism, Euro-culturally-speaking, in the first place.
Finally, I’d say that those who are sick of this trend to the max go and find some artists and artwork that is not functioning in this vein. Like, “be part of the solution, dudes!”
Does any of this make sense? In any case, I appreciate you opening the topic.
Hey Leah,
That all definitely makes sense and I think that some of it is, in part, what the article is trying to address. Especially the double whammy of feeling like no social movements since the 60s have been all that potent/convincing/successful combined with the “holy shit, everything is going really badly right now” ethos that has emerged in tandem with global warming, the Bush administration and the current recession.
As for the educational institutions, I think they do play a role, but I generally lean towards thinking that knowing one’s history makes one a better artist/curator/critic rather than a more derivative one. The best studio visits I’ve done have been with artists who really know their (art) history and can articulate what it is they are working with and responding to. The worst work I’ve seen, especially in open submissions juries, has been from people who think they are creating something revolutionary and new, but who are in fact regurgitating a past work that was better executed 4 decades ago. I tend to think that knowing what came before you puts you in the best position to respond and crate something new.
But I definitely agree that more critics and art historians need to start identifying what they like and want to see more of rather than just damning all the stuff they don’t like. Saying that something sucks is easy, but going out on a limb and championing something is a whole other (riskier) story.