Resistance and Nihilism: The Contradiction in Postmodernism

The Right, The Wrong and the Postmodern ‘Opposition’ and ‘Nihilism’: two primary and contradicting

factors of Postmodern Art and Culture.

An analysis of Santiago Sierra’s artistic practice.

Maya Nogradi

UNDERGRADUATE DISSERTATION

Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of BA(Hons) Photography

University of Brighton

01.02.2014

word count ~ 8500

Maya Nogradi: The Right, the Wrong and the Postmodern 2


ABSTRACT This thesis investigates contemporary approaches of postmodernism both in art and

criticism, and the authenticity and possibility of voicing disagreement with a political

order through art. The thesis seeks answers to questions such as:

a. Is Santiago Sierra’s work efficient as a criticism of capitalism and are

postmodern artistic practices efficient in criticising postmodern culture?

b. Is ethical criticism relevant when evaluating politically concerned art?

c. What characteristics link Spanish political artist Santiago Sierra’s work to

capitalism and postmodern culture?

Theories of Claire Bishop, Grant Kester, Jacques Rancière and Gabriel Rockhill are

juxtaposed in order to investigate current debates around the overlap of politics and

aesthetics and the role of ethics in art-criticism.

Exploring the similarities between the patterns of lefty anti-capitalist artist Santiago

Sierra’s work and the political order he opposes, the thesis disputes the validity of

artistic practices that criticise an existing system by adopting end replicating its

mechanisms. Sierra’s aim is to transform the system into its own criticism through

displaying its coercive forces. The thesis proposes that the nihilistic character of

Sierra’s approach might result in the reversal of his original aim and transform his

work into propaganda for liberalism.


TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................... 5 I. SANTIAGO SIERRA’S REPLICATING PRACTICE ........................................................ 7 II. RESISTANCE AND NIHILISIM .................................................................................... 11 III. DISABLING ETHICAL CRITICISM ............................................................................. 18 IV. SANTIAGO SIERRA’S POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS ................................. 26 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................... 33 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................. 36


INTRODUCTION

The following thesis offers an analysis of Spanish artist Santiago Sierra (b.1966) as a

case study of the postmodern artist, drawing mostly on the recurring patterns of his

work which are reminiscent of those favoured and generated within today’s global

capitalism and neo-liberalism. Characteristics of Sierra’s art that are compatible or

closely connected with the context of postmodernism and late-capitalism will be

observed. Sierra’s tendency to criticise an existing system despite identifying with its

principles is the catalyst of a discourse about the efficacy of his message. The tension

deriving from the coexistence of an oppositional and a submissive manner will be

analysed in relation to the Foucauldian antinomy that resistance confirms power1.

Recent developments in the field of art criticism and philosophy investigating the

relationship between art, politics and ethics, such as the writings of Claire Bishop,

Grant Kester, Jacques Rancière and Gabriel Rockhill will be reviewed and

correlated.

The first chapter introduces Santiago Sierra’s practice and the theoretical debate it

triggers. The central element of Sierra’s art, the reproduction of work relations under

the capitalist regime, will be explained.

The second chapter discusses the possibility of resistance within the capitalist era.

Sierra’s ideology will be juxtaposed with alternative approaches to resistance both in

the theoretical and the artistic realm. Positioning Sierra in the context of the

Capitalist and Postmodern era, connections between the political and economic

system of Capitalism and the artistic movement of Modernism and Postmodernism

will be outlined.

The political and the participatory aspect of Sierra’s practice generate a discussion

regarding the role of ethics in art and art criticism and the overlapping features of

politics and art. The third chapter assesses the validity of criticism concerning

Sierra’s work and reflects on Claire Bishop’s claim that criticism built on ethical

1 The theory of Foucault will be explained in more detail in the third chapter. The original theory can be found in Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality Vol. 1: An Introduction, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), 95.


grounds is an erroneous approach, called forth by the curatorial modality of

contemporary critical practice. Although Sierra’s aesthetic decisions will be

considered, the chapter will direct its attention to the dispute of criticism based on

ethical rather than aesthetic requirements.

The final section will revisit the stages of the evolution that led to the current

position and character of artists in relation to their political and societal context.

Patterns of capitalism and postmodern culture that recur in Sierra’s oppositional

practice will be enumerated, and necessary conclusions drawn.


I.

SANTIAGO SIERRA’S REPLICATING PRACTICE

“Interest arranges all things like a host.” Attila József: Humans 1936

Spanish artist Santiago Sierra (b.1966) comments on the exploitative nature of

capitalism and the labour market. Marxist ideas about class struggle and consumer

culture pinpoint his claims. Carl Marx explains that a system in which Market is the

power that organizes people creates a society that equates individuals merely with

their market value.2 Sierra criticises the capitalist system described by Marx, where

the measure of value is purely financial, and where human life is degraded and

submitted to monetary interests.

Sierra expresses his criticism through minimalist installations that reproduce the

malevolent dynamics of the capitalist labour market, such as its hierarchical and

exploitative relationships, discrimination, marginalisation and social exclusion of the

working class and minorities. Sierra’s critical installations comprise elements of

performance and participation: he hires marginalised and poor workers to perform

humiliating, meaningless, physically enduring or painful tasks set by the artist in

exchange for a small amount of money.

2 See David Lyon, Postmodernity (Buckingham : Open University Press, 1999), 12.

Fig. 1: Santiago Sierra, Hooded woman seated facing wall, 2003.


Never stating more than the situation of the performance, the titles of his pieces

include an account of the person he paid and his task, and often the means of

remuneration for the work. The clear, descriptive titles correspond to the replicating

simplicity of Sierra’s artistic practice.

In the piece Hooded woman seated facing the wall (2003, Fig. 1) exhibited at the

50th Venice Biennial for example, Sierra pays an elderly woman to sit still for four

hours facing a wall. The piece held a clear mirror to reality: “a little further up the

hallway the guard spends eight hours a day on his feet.”3 By highlighting such

settings Sierra wants to “stick [his] finger in the wound and say that the work is

definitely torture, that it is indeed a punishment of biblical proportions.”4

Sierra’s reproductive manner thus asserts that criticism does not call for elaborate

exposition. But the presence of some sort of negativity is inherent to Sierra’s posed

situations. His performances always carry a sense of tension and generate discomfort

in the spectator. In his piece Workers who cannot be paid, remunerated to remain

inside cardboard boxes (2000, Fig. 2), workers sit under cardboard boxes and their

suppressed breath leaks through the cracks and thin walls of the rough boxes as

visitors walk by. The men’s concealed but obvious presence generates an

uncomfortable atmosphere in the gallery space. The critical modality is indicated by

3 Teresa Margolles, “Santiago Sierra”, BOMB 86 (Winter 2004), accessed February 01, 2014, http://bombsite.com/issues/86/articles/2606 4 lbid.

Fig. 2: Santiago Sierra. Workers who cannot be paid, remunerated to remain inside cardboard boxes, 2000


the situation itself and there is no need to go into an elaborate articulation of his

message. According to him, it is enough to reproduce a clear image of the

detrimental apparatus of capitalism in order to turn the system into its own criticism.

Sierra’s reproductions of reality evoke the character of the photographic process. By

stating only the situation itself and trying to replicate existing situations, Sierra takes

on the attitude of a documentary photographer. Apart from the replicating

perspective of Sierra’s works however, there is another important element that

emulates a photographic quality.

Instead of hiring actors who represent the real subject of his work, Sierra persists on

the physical presence and participation of real people who are directly affected by the

ameliorating apparatus of capitalism. His performers thus do not merely substitute

the workers exploited by the labour relations, they are in fact identical to themselves,

representing their own circumstances. Without the presence and participation of the

subject matter Sierra’s installations could not be completed. Unlike the painter, the

photographer is unable to create a picture without his actual subject matter being

present at the time of the depiction. Similarly, the physical presence of the subject

matter is primordial in order for a photograph to emerge. Given that the participators

form part or the whole of the piece, it can be noted that indexicality is just as inherent

to participatory and performance art as it is to photography.

French philosopher Jacques Rancière acknowledges Sierra’s realistic representation,

and counterpoises it with vague and glamorising works that describe capitalism as

“immaterial”5, a world that is “nothing but screens” .6

When he [Santiago Sierra] pays immigrant workers minimum wage to dig their own graves or to get tattoos that signify their condition, he reminds us at least that the ‘equivalence‘ of an hour of work and its effect on the body is not the so-called equivalence of everything that slides across a screen.7

Rancière contrasts Sierra’s realistic approach to ambiguous theories describing

capitalism as a chaotic wasteland of spectacle. According to French philosopher Jean

5 Jacques Rancière, Fulvia Carnevale and John Kelsey. "Art of the possible: Fulvia Carnevale and John Kelsey in conversation with Jacques Rancière.", Artforum (March 2007) http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jacques-Rancière/articles/art-of-the-possible/ 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid.


Baudrillard (1929-2007) for instance, consumption is the main attendant of class

domination and it leads to the blurring of the borderline that separates objects from

their representations. Baudrillard revisits the phenomenon described by Karl Marx as

a process of alienation: the detachment of the consumed product from the coercive,

exploitative process that led to its appearance in shop-windows. But while Marx

concentrates on the exploitation and alienation of the working class by the

bourgeoisie, the subject and agent disappear in Baudrillard’s theory and all that

remains is consumerism, a machine without direction and without control.

Sierra does not believe that reality does not exist. On the contrary, he claims to

expose the reality of the terror that Capitalism imposes on the lives of the working

class, to spectators who might only conceive it through the distorting and

euphemising filters of social media. Sierra’s straightforward juxtaposition results in

the aggressive reversal of the capitalist process of alienation.

Instead of alienating the commodity product (result) from the exploitative process

that produced it (source), Sierra apposes the source and the result. The shock effect

of his work lies precisely in the dichotomy between the desperate workers and

homeless and the luxury of high profile fine art galleries.

The juxtaposition of conflicting elements recalls the method of collage. In The

Emancipated Spectator, Rancière discusses a photographic art piece made in a

similar manner of juxtaposition. Although Rancière refers to a different artist when

discussing the phenomenon, his words are also applicable to Sierra’s practice:

“[It is] not a collage in the technical sense of the term, but its effect exploits the

elements that account for the artistic and political success of collage and

photomontage: the clash on the same surface of heterogeneous, if not conflicting,

elements.”

When comparing Martha Rosler’s photomontages to Sierras collage-like

installations, one only has to switch the element of the luxurious American homes on

Rosler’s pictures with pristine gallery spaces, and the shocking images of soldiers

and terrified civilians with the poor and humiliated workers, immigrants, prostitutes

and the homeless. Just like a collage, Sierra’s work becomes a shortcut for meaning,


mounting together the two basic elements of an argument. In Martha Rosler’s case

the elements were the pretence of the glamorous American life, and the horror of

Vietnam War, while in Sierra’s it is the pretence of the glamorous and sophisticated

High Art scene and the horror of the labour market. Both depict the rotten reality

concealed under the glittering surface of well-being, freedom and liberalism.

In contrast with still images, Sierra’s performances involve movement, which

enables the artist to depict the interaction between the two opposing ends of

Capitalism (the oppressive power and the oppressed people). By involving a

command, the delivery of the task and the payment for it, Sierra highlights the

relationship between him and the workers. The conflicting elements are not simply

juxtaposed but also linked, and the submission of the people to the power is clearly

visible. This link is the basis of Sierra’s criticism. The determining and confining

disposition of labour market conquers, exploits and capitalises on everyone “we all

work for the machine”8 of Capitalism.

8 Teresa Margolles, “Santiago Sierra”, BOMB 86 (Winter 2004), accessed February 01, 2014 http://bombsite.com/issues/86/articles/2606


II. RESISTANCE AND NIHILISM

“At the top of our voices we all sing, Borne on the gusto wine and powders bring.”

Attila József: Humans (1936)

The harsh forms and edged lines, the minimalist structures and cheap materials, the

degrading and demanding commands, the plain titles and rigorous documentation

through black and white photographs all represent the authoritarian and imperative

order of capitalism. By generating an atmosphere reminiscent of dictatorial,

totalitarian regimes, Sierra complains about “the catalogue of promises of a

liberation that has been taken away from us”9 and declares, “The worst evil of

society is its broken promises.”10

The grim picture Sierra paints of the system severely contrasts with the declaration of

freedom and individual rights that the winning western powers of the second world

war propagated when American liberalism marched in and gained ground in Western

Europe.

The role of resistance and protest in liberal democracy necessitates the examination

of the differences between American liberalism and Soviet totalitarianism. These

differences crystallised during the Cold War in a competition between the two

winning superpowers of the Second World War, the Liberalist West and the

Communist Soviet Union.

British writer and journalist Frances Saunders wrote an article for The Independent in

1995 about the cultural aspect of the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet

Union.11 Later she expanded on the topic in her book The Cultural Cold War: The

CIA and the World of Arts and Letters.

As Saunders points out, the Central Intelligence Agency (founded in the beginning of

the Cold War in 1947) was responsible for the distribution and promotion of artistic

9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 Frances Saunders, “Modern art was a CIA ‘weapon’”, Guardian (1995), accessed February 01, 2014, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html


modernism in order to ease the way to proliferate American liberalism across

Western Europe.

The Congress for Cultural Freedom was established with CIA funds to promote

Abstract expressionism and American anarchist avant-garde.12 The fact that the

members of these avant-garde movements were mostly anti-capitalist lefty

intellectuals “who had very little respect for the government in particular, and

certainly none for the CIA”13, did not undermine the endeavour, rather reinforced it.

Committing “vast resources to a secret program of cultural propaganda in Western

Europe”14, the idea was to contrast the totalitarian culture of the Soviet Union and

promote the idea of freedom and creativity that Liberalism could foster. As Donald

Jameson, former CIA officer said: “Abstract Expressionism was the kind of art that

made Socialist Realism look even more stylised and more rigid and confined than it

was.”15 The money invested in the advance of modern art in Western Europe was

committed not merely for philanthropist reasons, but because “anything they [the

Soviet Union] criticised that much and that heavy-handedly was worth support one

way or another”16 because this way American Liberalism and the influence of the

USA could gain territory in the West. 17

Although the Cold War reached its end with the collapse of the Soviet Union in

1990, the competition is hardly considered to be finished. The tension has recently

escalated and, for example, the fight over Ukraine’s economic bond is a more and

more overt sign of malignancy. While in Ukraine anti-governmental protests are

repressed aggressively and with enactments that limit the rights of protestors, in the

west, protest is the most important emblem of the image of Freedom and Liberalism.

The imprisonment of the members of Pussy Riot also seems to signal the tension

between the agenda of the two powers. Pussy Riot, a lefty anarchist singer group

carries western values of liberty and free speech and could therefore be identified as

12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 For further information on the interference of the CIA see: Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (London: Harvard University Press, 2008), 100-101.; or Rudolf Frieding, ed., The Art of Participation 1950 to Now (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2008) 51.


representatives of the Western power striving to weaken the cultural hegemony of

Russia. The discrepancy between other aspects of social justice such as the

flourishing Gay Right movements of the West on one hand, and the Anti-gay laws of

Russia on the other, are further signs of cumulative disparity between the two world

powers.

Noticing the financial success of oppositional art in

the stock market it is not surprising that the language

of anarchist protests (controversy, vulgarity and

aggression) is embraced, glamorised and standardised

by fashion and pop culture. Che Guevara for example

has been the face of Smirnoff vodka advertisements,

Swatch watch designs, was featured in Madonna’s

CD cover, and has recently been seen on the T-shirt of English model Liz Hurley

while “clutching a $4,500 Louis Vuitton handbag”.18 Capitalising on lefty

opposition, The East German Sparkasse Bank released a credit card with Marx’s

portrait on it, after one third of all customers opted for the design. The originally

lefty protests such as the Gay Pride have been transformed into major commercial

events; the rainbow flag is now an emblem of popular culture. As Rancière put it,

“political radicalism is likewise a phenomenon of youth fashion.”19

Just like Che Guevara and Karl Marx, Sierra criticises capitalism. At the same time,

his anti-capitalist installations are celebrated on the art market (he appears both at the

Venice Biennale and Art Basel), and museums that represent him, such as the Tate

Modern, receive funds to exhibit from the very source of Sierra’s target of criticism:

investment banks, multinational corporations and brokers of fine art. Those who

benefit the most from his art, are those who generate the system he condemns.

If freedom of speech was a weapon used to display cultural power, it might be

possible that Santiago Sierra’s lefty criticism is successful in the Western art scene

for similar reasons as the American avant-garde was: Because it can be integrated

into the crowd-pleasing propaganda demonstrating the virtues of liberalism. Instead

18 Dennis Abrams, Ernesto Che Guevara (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2010), 13. 19 Jacques Rancière, The Emancipated Spectator (London: Verso, 2009), 28.


of fulfilling its aim to transform the system into its own criticism, Sierra’s

oppositional practice is at risk of being transformed into a satisfying component of

the system.

In their book History of Modern Art H.H. Arnason and Elizabeth C. Mansfield have

already located the introduction of fine art into the capitalist stock market in the

modernist era. In relation to the rise and proliferation of conceptual art they write:

“Many Conceptual artists felt that the qualities that had distinguished modern art –originality, novelty, rarity – were precisely the qualities that fuelled modern commerce. Their views were persistent: by the mid 1980s, artworks had replaced precious metals and other commodities among some investors as favoured vehicles for speculation (…) the practices of the art market as well as those of collectors and museums provided a source for a number of conceptual projects.” 20

Art critic and curator Rosa Martínez asserts that Baudrillard’s sentiment is reflected

in Sierra’s practice by pointing at “the impossibility of work escaping from the

political economy of the merchandise-sign.”21. Indeed, the “apocalyptic” mood

David Lyon comments on is apparent in Sierra’s concrete and harsh installations that

seem reminiscent of Baudrillard’s inescapable and inevitable announcements.

Alternating short and simplistic mottos such as “real is no longer possible”22 and

“truth does not exist”23 with long and sophisticated sentences, Baudrillard declares

that everything has become its own representation, (its own screen), and in this world

of simulacra “melancholy is the norm”24 Rancière terms the character of nihilism of

lefty opposition as “left-wing irony or melancholy”25, which “invites us to recognise

that there is no alternative to the power of the beast and to admit that we are satisfied

by it.”26 Baudrillard’s resigned but jovial acquiescence echoes that of Nietzsche, who

is considered one of the progenitors of postmodern thought. British sociologist David

Lyon (b.1948) sums up Nietzsche’s sentiment as the “Dionysian option of accepting 20 H.H. Arnason and Elizabeth C. Mansfield, History of Modern Art, (Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2009), 597. 21 Rosa Martínez, C. Medina and S. Sierra, Santiago Sierra (Madrid: Turner, 2003), 17. 22 Jean Baudrillard, “Simulacra and Simulations” in Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poser, (Stanford University Press, 1998), 166-184. 23 Jean Baudrillard, “Forgetting Baudrillard” in Social Text 15 (Fall 1986): 141. 24 Sean P. Hier, ed., Contemporary Sociological Thought: Themes and Theories (Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2005), 262. 25 Jacques Rancière, Emancipated Spectator (London: Verso, 2009), 33. 26 Ibid.


nihilism, of living with no illusions or pretence, but doing so enthusiastically and

joyfully”27.

Foucault, although “with the apocalyptic volume turned down several degrees”,28

explains his idea of the resistance as an anaesthetising project, after all resulting in

the reassurance of the power that “always wins”29. He disputes the real efficacy of

resistance claiming that “where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather

consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to the

power.”30

Foucault’s thought about resistance prompted several critics to voice their query on

the helpless tonality that prescribes an attitude similar to that of Baudrillard and

Nietzsche. According to Marshall Berman, it prepares an ideology of indifference,

encouraging people to remain passive. After all, “once we grasp the total futility of it

all, we can relax.”31

While stating that there can be no universal truth or master narrative, Baudrillard

creates a master narrative of his own. He passionately denounces universality and

objectivity, but by declaring that truth does not exist, he makes a universal statement.

Sierra repeats this contradiction by resisting against the Capitalism on one hand and

accepting its universal hegemony on the other. Sierra denounces capitalism, and at

the same time vests it with a teleological quality.

Unlike the inescapable natural processes of aging and death, power (capitalism,

exploitation, discrimination) is a phenomenon established by men, therefore it should

be possible to control and change it. But rendering the oppressive and exploitative

system of capitalism impalpable elevates it onto the level of Logos (the organising

principle of order). Sierra’s left-wing nihilism results in rendering capitalism a

teleological order. As Rockhill explains in his essay A Specter is Haunting

27 David Lyon, Postmodernity (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999), 12. 28 Ibid., 22. 29 Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality Vol. 1: An Introduction, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), 95. 30 Ibid. 31 David Lyon, Postmodernity (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999), 23.


Globalisation32, Market becomes a force that “imposes its laws in such a way that we

have to follow them whether we like it or not.”33 This could be a description of

Santiago Sierra’s situation if we follow his logic that there is no alternative to

exploitation if one lives and works under the capitalist system. Ruling out the

possibility of change resistance becomes pointless. Sierra blends into the system,

which, in Baudrillard’s terms “is itself also nihilistic, in the sense that it has the

power to pour everything, including what denies it, into indifference."1

The question arises: if power cannot be subdued, and resistance will only fuel it, why

resist at all? Sierra’s work has a critical and argumentative modality. These are the

premises that prepare a resistance. At the same time, his mind is made up: there is no

way out and any attempts to resist are pointless and naive. Thus, the provocative

dynamics of his work prove to be futile. The two main elements of Sierra’s work,

provocation and nihilism, contradict and anesthetise each other, and this tension is

the reason of Sierra’s inefficacy. Since provocation and nihilism are frequent and

institutionalised characteristics of postmodern art, and we have demonstrated that the

latter precludes the former, the question arises whether they provide a convenient

terrain for voicing disagreement.

32 Gabriel Rockhill, “A Specter is Haunting Globalisation” in Deborah Hauptmann and Warren Neidich, ed., Cognitive Architecture. From Bopolitics to Neopolitics. Architecture and Mind in the Age of Communication and Information (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2010) 476. 33 Ibid.


III. DISABLING ETHICAL CRITICISM

“A change of setting does not change the lines.”

Attila József: Humans (1936)

The contradiction of both supplying and opposing an oppressive system results in a

divergence in the critical reception of Sierra’s work. To the question of whether the

dichotomy between Sierra’s ethical message and personal example is a weakness or a

strength of his art, both Santiago Sierra and Clare Bishop would probably answer

that in fact, it is the very element that validates his art.

After all - especially in the era of post-structuralism and incredulity towards master

narratives - the task allocated to the artist is that of questioning axioms and generate

dilemmas rather then declaring some sort of objective truth and offering solutions. If

Sierra states that the exploitative nature of labour is applicable to every work

relation, it would be hypocritical to render himself immune.

London-based art historian Claire Bishop (b.1971) counterpoises Sierra’s practice to

more naïve approaches, which try to achieve reconciliation by collaborating with the

spectators in an uplifting project.34 New York-based artist Rirkrit Tiravanija for

example is renown for cooking dinners for visitors of the galleries he has been

invited to.35 Such an act contrasts the bitter pessimism of Sierra’s work, who “knows

that there’s no such thing as a free meal: everything and everyone has a price.” 36 In

contrast, Sierra’s art, described properly as participatory rather then collaborative,

paints a much more realistic and critical and less generous picture of the mechanisms

of capitalism. His performances do not involve optimism; he instead refutes any

possibility of reconciliation and rather focuses on the endless suffering of people

under an exploitative regime.

Sierra’s work illustrates Claire Bishop’s initiative to shift the criteria for

understanding politically charged participatory art in general. She argues that due to

the overlapping fields of curatorial and critical writing on art, theorists have confused

34 Claire Bishop, “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics” in October Magazine 110, (Fall 2004): 51–79. 35 Ibid: 55. 36 Ibid: 70.


aesthetic criticism with moralising judgements. In her view, criticism should

prioritise aspects of aesthetic quality of the finished art-object rather than analyse the

process of the work’s production. She attempts to correct this misconception by

shifting the focus from the ethical to the formal characteristics of artworks, and

reprehend criticism that focuses on artists’ ethical impurities. Claire Bishop insists

that critics generally resort to “ethical criteria” 37, and “compare artists’ projects with

other artists on the basis of ethical one-upmanship – the degree to which artists

supply a good or bad model of collaboration.”38

It could be argued that the mainstream aesthetics of any era has never been purified

and autonomous of its link to the political and the ethical. Forms carry symbolic

meanings and reflect the tendencies of the subsuming social order. However, it will

be helpful to thicken the borderline drawn by Claire Bishop and other critics between

the two points of view - the ethical and the aesthetic judgement - to understand

Bishop’s theory and her dismissal of the former in favour of the latter. Although it

would be worthwhile (following the path of Bishop) to analyse the aesthetic features

of political artworks, the argument of this thesis focuses on the debate over the moral

criticism of participatory artworks.

In Sierra’s case, criticism is generally levelled at the questionable ethics of his

practice. In her analysis of Sierra’s work, Spanish artist and art critic Pilar Villela

Mascaró claims “noone has engaged in a heated debate on how ethical his [Sierra’s]

use of Minimalism or Conceptualism is”.39 His problem is that critics concentrate on

the process that lead to the manifestation of Sierra’s projects instead of the aesthetic

quality of the finished product.

Mascaró categorises the elements of an artwork into two groups: the real and the

style. As R.G. Collingwood remarks in The Principles of Art, “the matter is what is

identical in the raw material and the finished product; the form is what is different,

what the exercise of the craft changes.”40 Hence, an art-object is borne out of an

37 Claire Bishop, Artificial Hell: Participatory art and the Politics of Spectatorship, (London: Verso, 2012), 19. 38 Ibid. 39 Pilar Villela Mascaró, “Not in my Name. Reality and ethics in the work of Santiago Sierra” in Santiago Sierra, 7 Works (London: Lisson Gallery, 2007), 13. 40 R.G. Collingwood, The Principles of Art (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1938), 16.


artist’s subjective take on an objective reality. According to Mascaró, relevant

criticism concentrates on that which is unique to the artist thanks to his individal

style.

Consequently, Mascaró dismisses criticism that targets Sierra’s questionable ethics,

because it criticises that what is part of the reality, independent of the artist’s

subjective decisions. The criticism about Sierra’s complicity (his exploitation of his

workers) has nothing to do with his use of minimalism or conceptualism, but with

another elementary component of his work, the participation and performance, in

other words, the process that leads to the execution of his installations. By dismissing

criticism that deals with this character of his work, Mascaró ignores the fact that

participatory art is just as valid a genre as minimalism or conceptualism.

Mascaró’s confusion could originate from Sierra’s claim that his performances are

exaggerated replicas of an existing reality. Generally speaking, Sierra’s message is

that capitalism is based on exploitation (a notion that constitutes the objective truth),

and he chooses to show his disagreement through a reproductive activity. But the

element of reality behind Sierra’s performances is not that low paid workers are often

used to perform degrading activities in gallery spaces within the oppressive regime

of capitalism. For example, Workers who cannot be paid, remunerated to remain

inside cardboard boxes (2000) does not say that immigrants are often kept sitting

under cardboard boxes in gallery spaces, but rather that immigrants are discriminated

and socially excluded. By restaging the work relations of capitalism, Sierra makes

his own decisions to voice this opinion.

In order to understand better why the process should be in the category of the style,

Sierra’s work can be once again related to photography. As it was discussed in the

first chapter, Sierra’s practice is similar to the replicating approach of documentary

photography. A documentary photographer, although photographing reality,

unavoidably makes subjective decisions when he takes his picture. His photograph is

merely a representation of reality rather than identical to it. As the Russian film

director Tarkovsy conveys it: “You can play a scene with documentary precision,

dress the characters correctly to the point of naturalism, have all the details exactly

like real life, and the picture that emerges in consequence will still be nowhere near

reality.”


The question remains whether process is a significant element of Sierra’s practice, or

should be dismissed in favour of examining the formal qualities of the finished

product. In his book Variable Capital (2008), David Campbell offers a selection of

postmodern art that deals with notions of capitalism. The choice of chapter titles is

itself interesting, indicating Campbell’s perception of capitalism. Chapters like

Branding, Vanitas, Gold, Standardisation, Sex, Dereliction, Hollywood or Excess

point at the consumerist and individualistic lifestyle characteristic of postmodern

culture. The chapter assigned to Sierra is titled Exploitation. Campbell dedicates the

chapter to develop an analysis of Sierra’s work that condemns and fosters

exploitation at the same time. Campbell stresses that Sierra’s innovation lies in that it

“draws our attention to the process by which labour power is tasked and expanded,

revealing the power relationship within the cultural act.”41 The process leading to the

execution of his minimalist sculptures is not only clearly exposed to the public, but

serves part of the actual visual product too.42 Following the logic of Campbell, the

process that leads to Sierra’s projects is indeed the prominent element of his practice

and ars poetica.

Apart from Minimalist, Santiago Sierra’s art can be assigned to genres such as

Conceptual art, Participatory art and Political art. Each of these genres bears its

central aspect within its name. Conceptual art focuses on content and idea rather than

form, Participation encompasses the process that leads to the manifestation of the

project, and Political art involves some kind of critical stance. It seems logical that

criticism of such genres must entail investigation of the process and investigate the

logic of the artwork.

Despite Claire Bishop’s claim that this results in misleading our attention from the

artwork itself towards the precursory of the work, it is important to notice that

participatory art is unique in its inherent quality to articulate its message through not

only its form, but also its process of production. In other words, the process makes

up a significant part of the content of the finished art-object, and he political quality

41 David Campbell and Mark Durden, Variable Capital (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press and the Bluecoat., 2007), 83.


of Sierra’s work underlines the importance of examining its relationship to its social

context.

In his lecture Critique of the ontological illusion, rethinking the relation between art

and politics (Giessen, November 12th 2010), American philosopher and cultural

critic Gabriell Rockhill negates what he terms the “talisman-complex”43, the illusion

of the inherent political force of art as capable of inducing political change. “By

reducing the politics of art to the (...) political power of artistic products, (…) the

talisman complex forecloses the social dimension of works of art.”44 Since art

“circulates in the social field”45, the artworks must be examined as “social objects,

rather then isolated atoms with a supposedly innate politicity”46.

Of course, the “propositions and strategies, their implicit political implications and

potentialities”47 of the finished art-object must also be considered. But the critic can

only understand the politics of any art piece if he examines “the complexity of their

production, their distribution in society and their reception by the public” instead of

“focusing solely on artistic product”.48

For example, the role of the production in an artwork’s politicity is illustrated by the

control that the Pentagon (US Department of Defence) has over major Hollywood

films that touch upon military issues, “by regularly bartering military expertise and

extremely expensive military equipment against the right to censorship.”49 David

Robb wrote in Operation Hollywood “millions of dollars can be shaved off a films

budget if the military agrees to lend its equipment and assistance” In exchange,

all the producer has to do is submit 5 copies of the script to the Pentagon for approval, make whatever script changes the Pentagon suggests, film the script exactly as approved by the Pentagon, and pre-screen the finished product to Pentagon officials before it’s shown to the public.50

43 Gabriel Rockhill, Critique of the Ontological Illusion. Rethinking the Relation between Art and Politics, Giessen, November 12th 2010, www.thinking-resistance.de 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 David Robb, Operation Hollywood (New York: Prometheus Books, 2004), 25.


Film director John Pilger has made the decision not to cooperate, and assuming that

the only disadvantage he will have was going to be the lack of financial aid, was

surprised when his film (War on Democracy) was not distributed across the US.

After several calls he learnt: his film will not be distributed unless he made some

changes in the content and message of the film.

In this disposition the Pentagon represents the police order through which the power

imposes its “distribution of the sensible” on society, prescribing what can be “visible

and audible within a particular aesthetico-political regime.”51 Resistance therefore

should be an emancipatory process that disturbs the distribution of the sensible and

generate a political dissensus “that opposes the logic of disagreement to the logic of

the police.”

The fact that capitalist corporations fund Sierra might mean that his work is not

simply tolerated by, but actually benefits the interests of the system. It is unlikely

that his work would be distributed in case it did not benefit the ones investing money

in his success. The relevance of production and distribution (two of the three

elements that make up the aesthetic dimension of an artwork) has been illustrated by

the analogy of the Pentagon.

In The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context,

Grant Kester reflects on the third element, the work’s reception by the audience.

In relation to Santiago Sierra’s work Kester asserts that given the popularity of

provocative works that aim to embarrass the spectator and generate discomfort, it is

possible that their actual experience

of these provocations (…) may include elements of pleasure or even self-affirmation. In fact, the work of Sierra and others is as likely to consolidate a particular sense of identity among art world viewers (as tolerant, enlightened, willing to accept risk and challenge) as it is to effect any lasting ontic dislocation. 52

51 Gabriel Rockhill, “Translator’s Introduction” in Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics (London: Continuum, 2006), 1. 52 Grant Kester, The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 63.


According to Claire Bishop Sierra is successful in generating tension that makes the

spectator aware of his own “anxieties”53 and thus become self-reflective of his own

“complicity in an oppressive specular economy”54. But self-reflexivity is pointless

when Sierra states: “self-criticism makes you feel morally superior”55. Indeed, Sierra

readily admits in his interview with Teresa Margolles: “I give high society and high

culture the mechanisms to unload their morality and their guilt.”56 The element of

“friction”57, forcing the spectator to recognise the impact of globalization, is annulled

by such a remark, and the “sensations of unease and discomfort58 Claire Bishop

credits his work with become questionable.

Iranian film director Jafar Panahi has also reflected on the impossibility of breaking

out of an oppressive system. His film The Circle talks about three women who

struggle through their lives in a society that is thoroughly misogynist and oppressive.

The film follows their strive to break out of an order that imposes its limitations on

their lives and keeps them in a condition of subservience and inertia. Their struggle is

condemned to be futile in a system whose entire structure is built in a way to disable

them. However, Jafar Panahi’s film still does not take on the air of nihilism or the

tone of vulgarity, which characterise Sierra’s works. The consciousness and restless

activity of the three women contrasts the resigned passivity of Sierra and his sitters.

Jafar Panahi, instead of adopting the principles of the organising order, opposes it by

depicting strong, intelligent and capable women paying careful attention to describe

the unique personality of each woman. Thus Panahi shows an issue that is normally

invisible, and renders those capable who are supposedly incapable. He achieves his

aim to destabilise the distribution of the sensible. The danger he poses to the

organising order is reflected in the fact that Panahi is not distributed legally in Iran.

His films are sold in secret and hide in the back of newspaper stands. Panahi’s

decision demonstrates the weakness of Sierra’s claim that the only way to be

published is to accept the terms of the market. Saying so, Sierra ignores the

possibility of deciding not to be distributed. In contrast with Sierra who excuses 53 Claire Bishop, “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics” in October Magazine 110, (Fall 2004): 79. 54 Grant Kester, The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 62. 55 Teresa Margolles, “Santiago Sierra”, BOMB 86 (Winter 2004), accessed February 01, 2014, http://bombsite.com/issues/86/articles/2606 56 Ibid. 57 Claire Bishop, “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics” in October Magazine 110, (Fall 2004): 79. 58 Ibid: 70.


himself from the responsibility of his principles in his worry for being appreciated,

Jafar Panahi adhered to his principles even if that meant that his art was not going to

be distributed.


IV. SANTIAGO SIERRA’S POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS

“While we are sure of our truth and hold it fast,

Our lives gloss over those with bad designs.” Attila József: Humans (1936)

In The Emancipated Spectator (2009), Rancière calls out for the artists to abandon

their roles as stultifying “schoolmasters”59, and render the spectator an active,

emancipated partner in the process of understanding art. Jacques Rancière decries the

conventional role of the artist as the schoolmaster who strives to activate the

spectator presuming his inherent passivity and ignorance. Rancière criticises the

Brechtian and the Artaudian theatre, which are both based on separating the spectator

and the artists, rendering the former inherently passive and the second inherently

active. Though with opposite methods (Brecht with distancing, Artaud by shocking

the spectator) both attempt to shake the viewer up from his supposed passivity.

Dismissing this approach, Rancière introduces a revolutionary idea: action is not

necessarily a physical, but rather a mental process. The spectator is active in so far as

he relates the art piece to his own thoughts and makes up his own interpretation of it.

Since participatory art is based on the immediate and direct involvement of the

spectator, it does not promise to deliver Rancière’s emancipating approach.

However, participatory art might be revalidated through Santiago Sierra’s method:

spectators are not required to physically participate in his performances. The

spectator’s only responsibility is the mental presence, and his thinking is enough for

Sierra to believe that they are active. But the fact that sierra renders spectator capable

of thinking does not mean that he also allows them to develop their individual

thoughts.

Grant Kester argues, that Sierra tends to assign a premeditated role to the spectator.

Their agency might be acknowledged, but “the particular form of agency”60 is

59 Jacques Rancière, Emancipated Spectator (London: Verso, 2009), 8. 60 Grant Kester, The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 63.


prescribed by Sierra. Sierra secures the “essentially scripted nature of the viewers

presumed answer”.61

The participation in Sierra’s practice is not performed primarily by the audience, but

rather by subject matter. But the participation of the subject matter does not mean

that he is free to transform the art-object according to their thoughts and wishes.

Meanwhile the visitors move across the gallery space, the poor and the working class

sits in their assigned place, inert and passive, in order to trigger thoughts in the mind

of the spectators. “The disruption and “antagonism” produced by Sierra (...) involve

various attempts to force the privileged art world types to encounter the poor and the

working class as they slog through the galleries of their favourite biennial.”62

Rancière disputes the conventional belief that the flood of images of suffering and

terror in the media numbs people’s consciousness and puts them in a sedated state of

mind of which they have to be shook up.

If horror is banalised, it is not because we see too many images of it. We do not see too many suffering bodies on the screen. We see nameless bodies, bodies incapable of returning the gaze, bodies that are object of speech without themselves having chance to speak.63

61 Ibid. 62 Ibid., 61. 63 Jacques Rancière, Emancipated Spectator (London: Verso, 2009), 96.

Fig. 3: Alfredo Jaar, The Eyes of Guete Emerita, 1996.


The Eyes of Guete Emerita (1996, Fig. 3), an installation by Alfredo Jaar about the

1994 Rwandan genocide, features a photograph including only the eyes of a survivor.

But these eyes are different the ones that the social media offers, of hungry children

begging for help: they are not issued any role; they are not photographed solely to

display helplessness. “They are eyes of someone endowed with the same power as

those who view them, [and] that of speaking or remaining silent, of showing ones

feelings or hiding them.”64 Jaar does not put the words into the mouth of his sitters,

but instead enables them to form their own words. Therefore, Guete Emerita’s role is

not to represent the suffering masses, but to represent her own identity. Focusing on

the individuals rather then the masses contrasts with the circulating images of mass

media, depicting bodies rather then individuals.

The workers in Sierra’s project are not substituted or symbolised by actors or other

props. Representing themselves rather then being represented could generate the

same autonomy and identity that Guete Emerita is vested with. However, in Sierra’s

repetitive performances, characters could be replaced with one and other, and the

meaning would be retained. Since Sierra reflects on the recurring patterns of

capitalist exploitation rather then on a unique event that has only happened to the

people present at the time. Sierra’s protagonists therefore become metonyms of all

the mass of society enslaved to the capitalist system. The identity of his sitters is

therefore of secondary interest. They sit as nameless bodies, used as tools or particles

of a muted installation. They cannot decide to project a different image than the one

assigned to them, but are instead frozen into a subordinated, passive an incapable

condition. By being stuck in their humiliating situations, they represent the nihilistic

philosophy of Sierra’s art, and at the same time serve to set of feelings of discomfort

and complicity in the spectator.

As it was previously implied, the leading characteristic of Sierra’s art is the tension

between a provocative and a nihilistic approach. Sierra on the one hand wishes to

unveil the extreme exploitation allowed by capitalism, but on the other hand he

acknowledges his complicity in enjoying its consequences.

64 Rancière, Emancipated Spectator, 97-98.


The nihilism of postmodern art supposedly contrasted that of the modernist

positivity. According to the definitions given in The History of Modern Art, while

structuralism is built upon the solid belief that precise, distilled forms and categories

can be created by investigating the characters of the individual elements,

poststructuralist epistemology disputes the possibility of pure forms and unity of

language and objective truth.65

Every thinker mentioned in relation with the Postmodern shares the incredulity

towards master-narratives. Nietzsche was concerned with destroying the master

narrative of metaphysics (“God is dead.”)66, Baudrillard disputed reality (Reality

does not exist.)67 Foucault focused on social order (imposed and integrated norms).

Lyotard (1924-1998) concerned himself with Science loosing its status as master-

narrative.68 Referring to feminist artists, Craig Owens (1950-90) describes

postmodernism in terms of the loss of master narratives.69

Similarly to Foucault, Sierra points at the atrocities of the social order. He Sierra

stages “extreme labour relations”70 in order to unveil the principles of the capitalist

relation, and show “how the labour system actually works”71. Sierra’s unveiling

agency is provocative and vulgar. In 160 cm Line Tattooed On Four People (2000),

four drug-addicted prostitutes are paid with shot heroin to have a line tattooed on

their back. In 21 Anthropometric Modules Made from Human Faeces by People of

Sulabh International (2005-2006) he made people build minimalist blocks from

faeces they collected. In Los Penetrados (2008) he hired couples to have anal sex in

different combinations based on of skin colour and genres.

65 H.H. Arnason and Elizabeth C. Mansfield, History of Modern Art, (Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2009), 658. 66 Friedrich Nietzsche in Adrian Samuel, “Nietzsche and God (Part I)”, Richmond Journal of Philosophy 14 (Spring 2007): 2, accessed February 01, 2014, http://www.richmond-philosophy.net/rjp/back_issues/rjp14_samuel.pdf 67 “Violence of the Virtual and Integral Reality”, The Intenational Journal of Baudrillard Studies Vol.2, Number 2, July 2005, accessed on 01 February, 2014, http://www.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/vol2_2/baudrillard.htm#_edn1 Jean Baudrillard. 68 David Lyon, Postmodernity (Buckingham : Open University Press, 1999), 18. 69 Craig Owens, “The Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism” in The Anti-aesthetic: essays on postmodern culture, ed. Hal Foster, (New York: The New Press, 1998), 65-93. 70 Teresa Margolles, “Santiago Sierra”, BOMB 86 (Winter 2004), accessed February 01, 2014, http://bombsite.com/issues/86/articles/2606 71 Ibid.


Jacques Rancière disputes the clear break between modernism and postmodernism,

arguing that modernism has indeed left space for slippage between practices and art

forms. As late capitalism and neo-liberalism is the continuation of capitalism and

Liberalism, Kirsten Gram-Hanssen argues that “our society to day should not be

conceived of as something breaking with the principles of the modern society, but be

seen rather as a radicalisation of the modern conditions.”72

Provocation in art and culture for example has only escalated since modernity.

Indeed Kester originates provocation of art from romanticism. Goya’s portrait of

Charles IV with his Family (1798) served one of the examples of “thinly veiled

criticism of the monarchical power [that] would have been almost unthinkable a

generation before”.73 Kester continues by saying that in the nineteenth century,

“provocation and critique moved from being an occasional or incidental aspect of art

to its primary orientation, with the emergence of a series of avant-garde

movements.”74

The slippage between the ideologies of modernism and those of Postmodernism

reflect for example in Baudrillard’s nihilism. By accepting the universality of the

spectacle and claiming that it is now unstoppable, Baudrillard is hardly questioning

master-narratives. Just like Baudrillard, Sierra is far from opposing the system when

he admits to its universality, and his complicity with it. According to the criticism

that postmodern nihilism is comfortable and reassuring, let alone beneficial for the

system, it might paradoxically be considered as the postmodern version of the

modernist positivity.

Sierra’s tendency to comment on capitalism through replicating its tendencies

follows the tradition of Andy Warhol. Just like him, Sierra is celebrated both by lefty

intellectuals and capitalist bankers, and like Andy Warhol Sierra enjoys the

advantages of the specular economy.

72 Kirsten Gram-Hanssen, “Modern and late-modern concepts of lifestyle in relation to environmental behaviour” (Paper presented at ESA Conference, Murcia, Spain, 23–27 September 2003). 73 Grant Kester. The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 34. 74Ibid.


At the heart modern and postmodern conceptual art is the emphasis on the idea rather

then the craftsmanship. This shift from skills to creativity is rooted in the era of the

Renaissance. Before the fourteen hundreds, artists generally did not sign their pieces.

The appearance of signature and the presence of the artist are connected to the shift

from purely pictorial qualities towards the content of the image. In the religious art of

the medieval era the content of art pieces hardly varied at all, and the emphasis was

instead of technique and craftsmanship. Since the Renaissance however, art shifted

from tools of religious admiration towards becoming the product of economy, and

name becomes an indicator of success. In this evolution craftsmanship gradually

faded, and by the time economy and capitalism flourished, it became completely

marginalised. In contrast, name has become a more and more important factor for an

artist’s success. Today, if one walked in to a collector’s office to sell an empty paper

as a piece of art, he would hardly be received well. However, if he that it belonged to

Any Warhol and it proved to be true, he would be able walk out with a million

dollars cheque. Santiago Sierra’s name was enough for him to finish an artistic

product without any technical effort when he got a homeless person say “My

participation in this project could generate $72,000 profit. I am paid 5 pounds.”

(Person Saying a Phrase, 2002)

Fig. 4 Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936


This project recalls Martha Rosler’s criticism Dorothea Lang( 1895-1965), who in

commission by the Farm Security Administration, has created “the world’s most

reproduced photograph”75. Rosler quotes the woman who Lange photographed

“That’s my picture hanging all over the world, and I can’t get a penny out of it.”76

The discrepancy between the profit generated from the picture and the lack of

compensation echoes the disposition of Santiago Sierra’s Person Saying a Phrase.

However while the photographic Farm Security’s photograph of the poor woman

who meaningfully gazes into the air is at pains to conceal its injustice, the homeless

man in Sierra’s project had to recite his blank statement particularly in order to

highlight Sierra’s exploitation of him.

75 Martha Rosler, “In, around and afterthoughts (on documentary photography)” in The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography, ed. Richard Bolton (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), 316. 76 Ibid.


CONCLUSION Ethical criticism of Sierra’s work is considered problematic by Claire Bishop and

Máscaró because it focuses on the process that lead to the finished art-object and the

artist’s relationship to capitalism, rather then the innate political force and formal

qualities of the finished project. The validity of ethical criticism can be confined by

Gabriel Rockhill’s claim that the politicity of an artwork lies precisely its the social

dimension (the production, distribution, and reception of a work of art).

Sierra’s honesty about his complicity in fostering capitalism seemingly exonerates

him from the suspect of hypocrisy and propaganda. But what his honesty illustrates

is quite the contrary: it is simply the changing nature of propaganda in art.

In Lenin With Villagers (1959, Fig. 5) by Ukrainian Evdokiya Usikova depicts Lenin

while he is visiting the people of the conuntryside, hinting clearly at his devotion to

the well being of the working class. The idyll and the intimacy between the peasants

and Lenin is clear from the open and attentive gestures of the characters. The

painting is a typical example socialist realist painting, a clear propaganda praising the

communist order and projecting a positive image of the leader.

It has been previously demonstrated that American modernist art was supposed to

counterweigh soviet socialist realism, and the provocation and criticism in avant-

garde was exploited as a tool to propagate the cultural superiority of western

liberalism. Following this logic, it is not impossible the provocation and lefty

Fig. 5: Evdokiya Usikova, Lenin With Villagers, 1959


criticism can serve the ultimate counterexample of totalitarian propaganda, in so far

as it projects an image of liberalism as a self-reflective order. Criticism, especially if

it does not desire to achieve real change, comes in hand for such propaganda. Sierra

admits that his anti-capitalist art fosters the capitalist system because it pleases the

needs of collectors and investors in fine art. It seems plausible that the triumph of

capitalism is transforming anti-propaganda a form of propaganda for the its purposes.

Sierra’s honesty about his complicity in fostering the system does not capitulate

criticism. The basis of with Sierra’s work is not his ethical impurity, but the

inconsistency of both admitting to his ethical impurity and decrying the ethical

impurity of liberalism. All of Sierra’s characteristics, (provocation and nihilism,

complicity and dereliction, lefty criticism and liberalist behaviour) point at an

inconsistent, irrational and individualist character that links his art to the patterns of

the post-modern culture.


Attila József: Humans (1936) Translated by Vernon Watkins

In our family goodness is a guest. Interest arranges all things like a host Foolishly, but the rich were long aware Of this, and now it dawns on most of the poor. Every entanglement works loose at last. While we are sure of our truth and hold it fast, Our lives gloss over those with bad designs. A change of setting does not change the lines. Yet at the top of our voices we all sing, Borne on the gusto wine and powders bring. Mouth empty, our spirit sinks: we drain the vats. He is best who, bearing disillusion, pauses. We are as full of small and mordant causes As the murmuring willow grove is full of gnats.


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Documents

Resistance and Nihilism: The Contradiction in Postmodernism