September 15, 2006
A considered response to my talk
One attendee of my talk yesterday offered a lengthy consideration of what I said. Among other points was this, which I feel is worth sharing and which he kindly allowed me to post:
You suggested "one should live by the creed of verbs", and even that "doing so flattens out the implicit hierarchies lodged in the terms, even potentially opening up the opportunity for radical—and instructive—role switching." The problem with these statements is that they fail to account for the hierarchy implicit in their own articulation, a hierarchy made all the more acute when such statements arrive from the other side of a lectern. What one has said here is "i renounce my own authority", and yet one performs this renunciation from the very position of authority that one seeks to renounce, and all the while retains ones symbolic title. Here the success of a renunciation of authority depends in advance both on the listeners belief in your authority to make this renunciation, and their granting you the space in which to perform it. However instructive such a gesture might be, and indeed your efforts to be forthcoming were, i think, honest and instructive, it falls far short of being 'radical.' Rather, such a gesture is more or less in keeping with the ambivalent attitude necessary to "get by" (your own words) in an art world where "to develop small communities is about the best we can hope for." Doubtless, this regrettable state will persist, until we are truly prepared to "live by the creed of verbs" and unequivocally assume positions of social antagonism, inviting the risks that come with them, not only in the hope of someday achieving something better, but in the belief that, in acting now, we will have already done so.
And here is the part of my response that pertains to the above:
This too is well stated, and true. Knowledge of this is perhaps why I threw in a last-minute "take everything I say with a grain of salt." It's usually a point I try to make at the beginning of a talk, but, as I did mention at the outset, I was deliberately getting around my comfort zone yesterday. The only thing I can really say is that by "performing" my ambivalence I can show people who aren't necessarily as ensconced in art-world institutions just how difficult it can be to move among them. I don't claim ultimate radicality for this move, but I suspect, given how many lectures I've attended, that it is nonetheless rare. I really do wish that I had been warned (so to speak) about these things five or eight years ago, when I was just starting out or in school. The corollary to this is that I hope what it is I do outside the space of the lecture—the zine-making, the sharing of resources, even engaging in conversations like this one—will help the community in a way that could be perceived as "radical" when placed in the context of the art world at large. As you note, no doubt I'll have to continue playing the game. There are two reasons: It's only by doing so that I have the privilege of speaking to a group such as the one yesterday, and it's also the only way I know (right now, at least) of making a living. So I do a lot of work, and admit that that work holds up a number of institutions that I think should be reformed, and in the meantime create as much of what the writer Gregory Sholette calls "dark matter"—essentially noninstitutional creativity and production—as possible. Until I'm more able to commit to that "dark matter," which will take a combination of fiscal security and, for lack of a better word, chutzpah, this is the state I am in.