Invited one year later by the curatorial team to construct such a list, we began by surveying the artists in the show and using their recommendations, many of which are included at the reading list at the back of this book, as a starting point for the selection of texts presented here. What follows is a synthesis of their nominations and our own research into significant recent writings both by American artists and about artistic practice and cultural politics in the United States today. Keeping with the theme of this exhibition, emphasis has been placed on identifying "young," "emerging" writers, though salient pieces by a comparatively older generation and by those who reside outside of America are also included.
We hope that the following selections introduce some new writing and writers and shine a fresh light on more familiar passages. Equally we hope that this book's reception reaches beyond those audiences who experience the exhibition first hand, and that it becomes a conduit of knowledge beyond the immediate exhibition-going public.
The present volume is not a "portrait of the exhibition's artists in text" (an early, and mightily optimistic, vision). Nor is it a top-down survey of all that is novel and noteworthy in today's art world. Cognizant of this exhibition's ambitious modus operandi, to represent "a 'new' vision in American contemporary art," we realize, of course, that some may view this publication as nothing but such a list, a currency-enhancing invocation of already-prevalent curatorial/critical interests. And we understand that such a publication indelibly sanctifies its content, that it operates as a value filter or, as Isabelle Graw observes in these pages, a "'sound bite' in order to underline claims for art historical importance or theoretical erudition." Yet it is our underlying hope that this Reader belies such a roll-call of erudite endorsements, and that its contents engage audiences in unanticipated and fundamentally informative manners.
It is commonplace to note that contemporary art is swaddled in a haze of words, and it is futile to attempt a synoptic overview of art discourse, so we drew simple boundaries beyond which our inquiry would not trespass, several of them congruent with those set by the "Uncertain States of America" exhibition. The two most binding examples: each piece of writing included here has been published since 2000, and each discusses contemporary art, aesthetics, politics or the amorphous and expansive zone where these three concerns overlap. Selecting texts thus became a game, albeit one burdened by methodological complications. How to accommodate writings both by artists in "Uncertain States of America" and others critical of their programmes, or, for that matter, the very presuppositions of such a traveling group show? What, we contemplated, could be an appropriate framework to muster comprehensiveness in the face of mind-boggling pluralism and attendant information overload? How to play the game? One artist's advice proved invaluable: "Don't be an authority. And don't apologize for not being an authority." So we aimed for an eclectic sampling of material by writers—art historians, journalists, critics, artists, philosophers and a graphic designer/lawyer—whose contributions, we felt, gained from their placement alongside one another and from being set in relief against the project as a whole.
In recent years, many have noted the fashionableness of art that addresses its broader social context. The translation of Nicolas Bourriaud's Relational Aesthetics into English in 2002 and the ongoing debate about this set of essays is one prominent example of this tendency. Others pertain to the intensification of discussion about the Internet's (virtual) social power and the agency of extra-gallery/museum practices, the latter of which inspired "The Interventionists," an exhibition curated by Nato Thompson and presented at MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, in the summer of 2004. What has perhaps changed since the re-election later that autumn of George W. Bush is the zeroing in of (primarily European) interest in American art and artists. One could cite "Uncertain States of America," "USA Today" at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, "This Is America: Visions of the American Dream" at the Centraal Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands, and even "Day for Night," the 2006 Whitney Biennial (curated by Chrissie Iles and Philippe Vergne, Europeans now ensconced in American institutions), as evidence of this trend.
This is undoubtedly a moment marked by a serious interest in the actions America is taking on the world stage—actions that have been described as cause for "grave concern." We do not attempt to authoritatively engage these concerns here, but we do think that this sampling of discourse by and about a country's visual artists leads to insights about its politics and society not gained elsewhere. Many of the artists in this exhibition, of course, would be quick to disavow explicitly political readings of their work, preferring, as Kori Newkirk recently stated during a panel discussion at Bard College's Center for Curatorial Studies, to "seduce first." He continued: "'Political' content can [simply] come in through the side door or window." The art world's definition of the term "political" remains fuzzy (as Pamela M. Lee rightly notes of its definition of "globalisation" as well), but, on occasion, this thinking-through-form counters the obfuscation that now stands for contemporary American political discourse. At the very least, it gives a sense of what it is like to live in the United States now, and it occasions some inspired debate. The present Reader, released on the occasion of the exhibition "Uncertain States of America" at the Serpentine Gallery, will be followed by an expanded selection of texts published by Sternberg Press this autumn. We hope that these books serve not only as valuable compendiums of recent writing about contemporary art, but also as inspiration to seek further understanding of these "Uncertain States."
We would like to thank Julia Peyton-Jones, Daniel Birnbaum, Gunnar B. Kvaran and Hans Ulrich Obrist for inviting us to undertake this project and for being instrumental in its realization; Caroline Schneider of Sternberg Press for ably seeing the book into print; the artists for their consistently trenchant criticisms of and honest responses to it; all of the authors and publications who granted reprint permission; and David Reinfurt and Stuart Bailey of Dexter Sinister for their grace under pressure. Likewise we wish to thank Greg Allen, Eric C. Banks, Christopher Bedford, Tom Eccles, Bettina Funcke, Liam Gillick, Rachel Harrison, Michael Ned Holte, Gareth James, Miriam Katz, Elizabeth Linden, Molly Nesbit, Lauren O'Neill-Butler, Amie Robinson, Scott Rothkopf and David Velasco for their thoughtful contributions to the dialogue that produced this book.
Noah Horowitz
Brian Sholis
