Bors Groys_Going Public

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The m ain top ic of the essays th a t are included in this book is art. In the period o f m od ern ity the period in wh ich we s till live any discou rse on art is

alm ost au tom at ically subsumed u nd er the general notion of ae sthe tics . Since K an ts Crit ique o f Judg-m e n t s 1790, it becam e e xtrem ely d ifficu lt for any-one w riting ab ou t art to escap e the great tradition of aes thet ic ref lect ion and escape being judged according to the criteria and ex pe ctation s form ed by

this trad ition . This is precisely th e ta sk th a t I pursue in th es e essays: to w rite on a rt in a n on -aes the tic way. This does not m ean th a t I w an t to develop som ething like an a n ti-ae sth e tic s, becau se every an ti-ae s th e tics is obviously m erely a m ore spe cific form of ae sth etics . Rather, my essays avoid the

ae sth etic a ttitu d e altogether, in all its variations . Instead, the y are w rit ten from an other perspective: th a t of poetics. But before trying to c ha racterize this other perspective in m ore de ta il, I would like to explain why I tend to avoid the tra d itio n al a es thetic at t i tude.

The aesthe t ic at t itud e is the sp ec tator s attitud e. As a p hilosophical tradition and university discipline, aes the tics relates to a rt and reflects on a rt from the pe rspective of the spec tator, of the consumer of a r t who dem ands from ar t the so -called aes thetic experience. At leas t since Kant,

we know th a t the a es thetic experienc e can be an experience o f beauty or of the sublim e. It can b ea n expe rience of sen sual pleasu re. But it can also be an an ti-ae s th e tic experience o f displeasu re, of frustration provoked by an artwo rk th a t lacks all the

qu alit ies th a t affirm ative ae sthe tics expects it to have. It can be an expe rience o f a utop ian vision th a t leads hu m ankind out of its p resen t condition to a new society in which beau ty reigns; or, in som ew hat d iffere n t term s, it can red istribu te the sens ible in a


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way that refigures the spectators f ield of vision byshowing cert ain things and giving access to certainvoices that were earlier concealed or obscured. Butit can also demonstrate the impossibili ty of provid-ing posit ive aesthetic experiences in the midst of asociety based on oppression and exploitationon atotal commercializat ion and commodif icat ion of artthat , from the beginning, undermines the possibil it y

of a utopian perspective. As we know, both of theseseemingly contradictory aesthet ic experiencescan provide equal aesthet ic enjoyment. However,in order to experience aesthetic enjoyment of anykind, the spectator must be aesthetically educated,and this educat ion necessari ly reflects the social

and cult ural milieus into which the spectator wasborn and in which he or she lives. In other words, theaesthet ic at t it ude presupposes the subordinationof art product ion to art consumption and thus thesubordination of art t heory to sociology.

Indeed, from an aesthetic point of view, theart ist is a supplier of aesthet ic experiences, includingt h o s e produced with the intent ion of f rustrat ingor modifying the viewers aesthetic sensibil ity. Thesubj ect of the aesthet ic att it ude is a master, whilethe ar t ist is a servant . Of course, as Hegel demon-

str ates, the servant can, and does, manipulate themaster, but the servant nonetheless remains theservant . And th is sit uation changed li t t le when theart ist came to serve the greater public rather thanthe regime of patronage represent ed by the churchor t radi t ional aut ocratic powers. At that t ime the

art ist was obliged to present the content s thesubjects, motives, narrat ives, and so for ththatwere dictated by religious fait h or the int erests ofthe polit ical power. Today, the art ist is required todeal with t opics of public interest . Todays demo-


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of the issues, top ics, p olitica l con troversies, and social as piration s th a t move this public in its every-day life. The po liticiza tion of art is often seen as the

an tido te to a purely aes thetic att i tu d e th a t allegedly requires a rt to be m erely be au tiful. But in fa c t, this po liticization of a rt can be easily com bined w ith its ae sth et icizat ion insofar as both are seen from the pe rspective of the spectator, of the consumer. C lem en t Greenberg rem arked th a t an a rtist is free and cap able of dem on strating his or her m astery and tas te precisely when the co nten t of the artwo rk is prescribed to th e a rtis t by an ex tern al authority. Being libe rated from the que stion of w h at to do, the a rtist can then co nc en trate on the purely form al side of art , on th e question of how to do it th a t is, how to do it in such a way th a t its con tents becom e a ttrac tive and ap pea ling (or un attractive and repulsive) to th e ae sth etic s en sibility o f the public. If the po liticiza tion of a rt is thus interpreted as m aking certain po lit ical att itud es attractive (or

un attractive) to th e public, as is usually the case, the po lit icization of a rt com es to be co m pletely subjected to the ae sth etic a ttitud e . And in the end the goal becom es to package po litica l co nten ts in an ae sth etica lly a ttractive form . But, of course, through an ac t of real po lit ical eng ag em en t the aes thetic

form loses its relevance and can be discarded in th e nam e of direc t po litica l practice. Here art func tion s as a polit ical adv ertise m en t th a t becom es sup erfluous when it achieves its goal.

This is only one of m any exam ples of how the a esthet ic a t t itud e becom es problem atic when app lied to th e a rts. And in fac t, the ae sthetic a ttitud e does not need a rt, and it function s much b e tter w itho u t it . It is often said th a t all the w onders of a rt pale in com parison to the w ond ers of nature.In term s of aes the tic expe rience , no work of a rt can


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stand com parison to even an average be au tiful sun -se t. And, of course, th e su blim e side o f na ture and po litics can be fully exp erienced only by w itne ssing a real na tural catastroph e, revolution, or w ar not by reading a novel or looking at a picture. In fa c t, this was the shared opinion o f Kan t and the Rom antic poets and art is ts th a t launched th e f irst influe ntial ae sth etic discourses: th e real world is the leg iti-

m ate object of the ae sthe tic at t i tu d e (as w ell as of scientif ic and ethical a t ti tu d e s ) not art . Accord-ing to Kan t, a rt can becom e a leg itim ate o bject of ae sth e tic con tem plation only if it is created by a genius understood as a human em bodim ent of n a tura l force. Profess iona l a rt can only serve as a m eans o f education in notions of tas te and ae sthetic ju dg m en t. After this educ ation is com -pleted , a rt can be, as W ittgen ste ins ladder, throw n away to con front the subject with the aes thet ic exp erien ce of life itself. Seen from th e ae sthetic perspective, art reveals i tse lf as so m ething th a t can, and should be, overcom e. All thing s can be seen from an ae sth etic persp ective; a ll things can serve as sources of ae sth etic exp erien ce and become objects of ae sth etic jud gm en t. From the perspec tive of ae sth etics, art has no privileged pos ition. Rather,

art comes between the su bject of the aes thetic attitud e and the w orld. A grown person has no need for a rts ae sth etic tu telage, and can s imp ly rely on ones own se nsib ility and tas te . A es the tic discourse, when used to leg itim ize a rt, effective ly serves to und erm ine it.

But then how do we explain the dom inan ce of ae sthe tic discourse throu gh ou t th e period of m odernity?Th e m ain reason for th a t is s ta tis ti-cal: as ae sth e tic reflection on a rt began and was later developed in the eighteen th and nineteen th


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sp ec tators w ere in th e m ajority. The qu estion of why one should m ake a rt seem ed irrelevan t, as artists simply m ade a rt to earn a living. And th is was a s u f-ficien t explanation for th e existence of art . The real ques tion concerned wh y other people should look at art . And th e a ns w er to this was: a rt would form the ir tas te and develop th eir aesthet ic sensibility art as a schooling of the gaze and th e oth er senses. The division betw een artists and sp ec tators seem ed clea r-cu t and so cially estab lish ed : spe ctators w ere the sub jects of aes thetic at t i tu d e, and artwo rks produced by artists w ere objects o f ae sth etic co ntem plation . But a t least since th e beginning of the tw en tieth century this s im ple dichotom y began

to co llapse. And th e essays th a t follow de scribe d if-fere n t asp ects o f this change. Among the se changes was the em ergence and rapid dev elop m en t of visual m edia th a t , throughout th e tw en t ie th century, t rans form ed a vast n um ber of people into objects of surveillance , atten tion , and co ntem plation to a degree th a t was unthinkab le at any othe r period of hum an history. At the sam e tim e, the se visua l m edia bec am e th e new agora for an intern ation al public, and , especially, for po litica l discussions.

The po litica l discussions th a t took place in the an cient Greek agora presupposed th e im m ed i-a te living prese nc e and visib ility of the part icipan ts . Today, each person m us t es tab lish his or he r own im age in th e co n tex t of visua l m ed ia. And it is not only in th e po pu lar virtual world of Second Life th a t one c reates a virtua l a v a ta r as an art ific ial doub le

w ith wh ich to co m m un icate and a ct. The first l ife of contem po rary m edia fun ction s in th e sa m e way. Anyone who w an ts to go public, to begin to a ct in tod ay s interna tio na l po lit ica l agora m ust crea te an ind ividua lized public pe rson a and th is is not only

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easy access to digit al photo and video cam erascombined with the global distribut ion platform ofthe internet has alt ered the t radit ional st atistical

relat ionship between image producers and imageconsumers. Today, more people are interested inimage production than image contemplat ion.

Under these new condit ions, the aesthet icat t itude obviously looses it s form er relevance insociety. According to Kant , aesthetic contempla-

tion was a disinterested one, for its subj ect wasnot concerned with the ex istence of the object ofcontemplat ion. In fact , as has been mentioned,t heaesthet ic at t it ude not only accep ts the non exis-tence of it s object , but, if this object is an art work,it actually presupposes its eventual disappearance.However, the producer of ones own individual-ized public persona is obviously int erested in itsex istence and in its abili ty to furt her subst it utethis producers natural, biological body.Today, it isnot only professional art ists, but all of us who must

learn to live in a state of media exposure by produc-ing art if icial personas, doubles, or avatars witha double purposeto situate ourselves in visualmedia and conceal our biological bodies from themedias gaze. It is clear that such a public personacannot be the work of unconscious, quasi naturalforces in the human being like in the case of Kan-tian genius. Rather, it has to do wit h certain t echni-cal and polit ical decisions for which their subjectcan be made ethically and poli t ically responsible.The polit ical d imension of art t hus precedes its

production. The polit ics of art has to do less withits impact on the spectator than with t he decisionsthat lead to i ts emergence in the first place.

This means that contemporary art should beanalyzed not in terms of aesthetics, but rather in

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consu mer, bu t f rom t h at of th e ar t produ cer. In fac t ther e i s a much lon ger tradi tion of und ers tand ing ar t as po ies is or tech n than as a is thes is or in term s

of herm eneut ics . The sh i f t f rom a poet ic , tech n ical und ers t and ing o f a r t t o aes th e t ic o r h e rm eneu t i -c al analys is was relat ively r ecen t , and i t is now t im e to reverse th is ch ange in persp ect ive. In fac t , th is reversal w as a l ready s tar ted by th e h is tor ica l avan t g ard e by ar t i s ts such as Wassi ly Kandinsky, K azim ir Malevich , Hugo B all , or M arcel Duch amp , wh o created m edia narra t ives in which th ey acted as p ub lic person as using press ar t ic les , teachin g , w ri t in g, perform ance, and image prod uct ion a t th e sam e level o f relevance. Being seen and jud ged

f rom an aes th et ic p erspect ive , th e i r work was m ost ly in terpre ted as an ar t i s t ic react ion to th e In du s t r ia l Revolu t ion and th e po l it i ca l tu rm o i l o f th e t im e. Of course , th is in terp re ta tio n is leg i t im ate; how ever, i t seems even m ore leg i t im ate to s ee th eir ar t i s t ic p ract ice as a radical turn f rom aes th et ics

t o po e ti c s more spec if ica lly to au topoe t ic s , t o the pr od uc t ion of ones own pu blic self.

Obviously, th ese ar t is ts did not s eek to please the pub l ic , to s a t is fy i ts aes th et ic des ires . But n e ither did th e avan t g arde a r t i s t s w an t to shock th e pub l ic , to produ ce disp leas ing im ages of th e s ub l ime. In our cu l tur e, th e not ion o f shock is co nn ec ted pr im ari ly to images o f v io lence and sexu-ali ty. Bu t neith er Malevic h sBlack Square (1915), Hugo B alls sound po ems, or Du ch am ps An em/c Cinema (1926) presented violenc e or sexu al ity in

any exp lici t way. These av an t g ard e ar t is ts a lso did not br eak any taboo s , as th ere never was a tabo o forb idding squ ares or m onotonou s ly ro tat ing d isks. And th ey did not su rprise becaus e squ ares and disks are unsu rpr is ing. Ins tead , they dem o ns tra ted

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of visibility on an alm os t zero-leve l of form and m eaning. Their works are visible em bo dim en ts of nothingness, or, equally, of pure su bjec tivity. And in this sense the y are p urely au topo etic w orks, granting visible form to a su bjec tivity th a t has been em ptied ou t, pu rified of any spec ific con tent. The avan t-ga rde them atization of nothingness and negativity is the re fo re not a sign of its nih ilism ,

or a pro test aga inst th e n ullification o f life u nd er the co ndition s o f ind us trial cap italism . They are simply signs of a new s ta rt of an art is t ic m etanoia tha t leads the a rtis t from an interes t in th e e xterna l world to th e au top oe tic co nstruction of his or her own self.

Today, this au top oetic p rac tice can be easily interpreted as a kind o f com m ercial im age pro du c-tion, as brand de ve lop m en t or trend se ttin g. There is no do ub t th a t any pu blic persona is also a co m -modity, and th a t every ge sture tow ard s going public

serves th e interes ts o f num erous profiteurs and po tential sha reho lders. And it is also c lea r th a t the avant-garde ar tis ts them selves b ecame such co m -m ercial brands long ago. Fo llow ing this line o f argu-m ent, it becom es easy to perceive any autopo etic gesture as a gesture of se lf-co m m od if icat ion and

to then launch a critiqu e of au top oetic p ractice as n cover op eration designed to co nceal th e protago-nists social am bitions and lus t for p rofit. But w hile this critiqu e a pp ears persuasive a t first glance, nnother question arises. W ha t purpose does this critique its e lf serve?

There is no do ub t th a t in th e con text of a con temp orary civilization more or less co m pletely dom inated by the m ark et, everything can be in ter-preted as an e ffe c t of m arke t forces in one way or nnother For th is reason th e value of such an inte r-


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remains unable to explain anything in part icular.Whi le aut opoesis can be used and is used as a

means of self commodificat ion, the search for pri-vate int erests behind every public persona meansto project the actual reali t ies of capit alism and theart market beyond t heir historical borders. Art wasmade before the emergence of capit ali sm and t heart market , and wil l be made after they disappear.

Art was also made during the modern era in placesthat were not capit alist and had no art market, suchas the socialist countries. This is to say th at everyact of making art st ays in a t radit ion that is nottot ally defined by the art market and, accordingly,

cannot by explained exclusively in term s of a cr i-t ique of the market and of capit ali st ar t inst itut ionsHere, a further quest ion arises concerning

the value of sociological analysis in art t heoryin general. Sociological analysis considers anyconcrete art as emerging out of a cert ain concretepresent or past social contex t and as m anifest-ing this context . But this understanding of art hasnever t ruly accepted the modern turn from mimeticto non mimetic, construct ivist art . Sociologicalanalysis st il l sees art as the reflection of a cert ain

pre given reali ty namely, of the real socialmilieu in which th is art is produced and distr ibuted.However, art cannot be completely explained as amanifestat ion of real cultural and social milieus,because the mil ieus in which artworks emerge andcir culate are also art if icial. They consist of art ist i-cally created publ ic personas which, accordingly,are themselves art isti c creations.

Real societi es consist of real, l iving people.And, accordingly, the subject s of an aesthet ic at t i -tude must also be real, living people capable of hav-


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In the soc iological unders tand ing of a rt. But if one looks a t art from th e poetic, tec h n ical, au thorial position, th e situation changes drastically, b ecause, os we all know, th e au thor is alw ays a lread y d ea d or at lea st abse nt. As an im age producer, one ope ra

tes in a m ed ia space in which th e re is no c lea r difference betw een living and de ad because living a nd dead a like are represe nted by eq ually a rt ificial

personas. For exa m ple, artw orks produced by liv-ing artists and artw orks produced by dead a rtists routinely share the sam e museum spaces and the museum is histo rica lly the firs t artificially constructed con text for art. The s am e can be said bout the in tern et as a space th a t also does not clearly differe n tia te be twe en living and d ead. On the other hand, a rtis ts o ften rejec t the society of th e ir living con tem po raries, as w ell as th e acc ep tanc e of museum or me dia systems , preferring instead to project th e ir personas into the im aginary world

of the yet unborn. And it is in th is sense th a t the art milieu represen ts an ex panded notion of society, because it inc ludes no t only the living, bu t also th e dead as w ell as the unborn. And th a t is the a ctua l reason for all th e ina deq ua cies in th e sociological

unalysis of art: sociology is a sc ience of the livi ng, with an instinc tive prefe rence fo r th e living o v e rth e dead. On th e contrary, however, a rt co ns titu tes a modern w ay to overcome this preference by e sta b -lishing eq ua lity b etw een th e living and the dead.


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The Obligation to Self-Design


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Design, as we know it today, is a t went iet h-cent uryphenomenon. Admit t edly, concern f or t he appearance of t hings is not new. All cul t ures have been

concerned wit h making clot hes, everyday obj ect s,int eriors of var ious spaces, whet her sacred spacesspaces of power, or private spaces, beaut iful andimpressive.

The hist ory of t he appl ied art s is indeed long.Yet modern design emerged precisely f rom the

revolt against t he t radit ion of t he applied art s. Evermore so t han t he t ransi t ion f rom t radit ional art t omoderni st art, t he t ransit ion from t he t radit ionalapplied art s t o modern design marked a break wit ht radit ion, a radical paradigm shif t . This paradigmshif t is, however, usual ly overlooked. The funct ion odesign has of t en enough been described usingt heold met aphysical opposit ion bet ween appearanceand essence. Design, in t hi s view, is responsibl eonly f or t he appearance of t hings, and t hus it seem:predest ined t o conceal t he essence of things, to

deceive t he viewers underst anding of t he t ruenat ure of reality. Thus design has been repeat edlyint erpreted as an epiphany of t he omnipresentmarket , of exchange value, of f et ishi sm of t hecommodit y, of t he societ y of the spect acle as t hecreat ion of a seduct ive surf ace behind which t hing:t hemselves not only become invisible, but di sappear ent irely.

Modern design, as it emerged at t he beginnirof t he t went iet h century, int ernal ized t his cri t iqueaimed at t he t radit ional applied ar t s and set it selft he t ask of revealing t he hidden essence of t hingsrather t han designing t heir surf aces. Avant -gardedesign sought t o eliminat e and purif y all t hat hadaccumulat ed on t he surf ace of t hings t hrough t hepract ice of t he applied ar t s over cent uries in ordert o expose the t rue, undesigned nat ure of t hings.


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Modern design t hus did not see it s t ask as creat ingI he surface, but rat her as el iminat ing it as negative design, ant idesign. Genuine modern design isloduct ionist ; it does not add, it subt ract s. It i s nolonger about simpl y designing individual t hings toho offered to t he gaze of viewers and consum er s inorder to seduce them. Rather, design seeks t o shapeI he gaze of viewers in such a way t hat t hey becomecapable of discovering t hings t hemselves. A cent ralloature of t he paradigm shif t f rom t radit ionalnpplied ar t s to modern design w as j ust t his extension of t he will t o design f rom t he world of t hings tol hat of human beings t hemsel ves underst ood asone t hing among many. The r ise of modern designIn profoundly linked to t he proj ect of redesigning

the old man into t he New Man. This proj ect, whichmerged at t he beginning of t he t went iet h cent uryrind is oft en d i smissed t oday as utopian, has never(tally been abandoned de facto. In a modif ied,commercialized form, t hi s proj ect cont inues t o haveon effect , and i t s init ial utopian pot ent ial has beenupdat ed repeat edly. The design of t hings t hat pres-nnt t hemselves t o the gaze of t he viewing subj ect iscrit ical t o an underst anding of design. The ult imat elorm of design is, however, t he design of the subl et . The problems of design are only adequat ely

iddressed if t he subj ect is asked how it want s tomanif est it self , what form it want s to give it self ,nnd how it want s to present i t self t o t he gaze of t heOther.

This quest ion was f ir st raised wit h appropriate acuit y in t he early t went iet h cent ury aft er

Niet zsche diagnosed Gods deat h. As long as Godwas alive, t he design of t he soul was more import antlo people t han t he design of t he body. The humanbody, along wit h it s environment , was underst oodIrom t he perspect ive of fait h as an out er shell t hat


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conc eals the soul. God wa s tho ug ht to be the only view er of the soul. To him the e thically co rrect, righ-teous soul was supposed to look be au tiful th a t is, simp le, tran sp are n t, w ell co ns truc ted, propor-tion al, and not disfigured by any vices or m arked by any wo rldly passion. It is often overlooked th a t in the C hristian trad ition ethics has always been subordinated to aes the tics th a t is, to the design

of the soul. E thical rules, like the rules o f sp iritu al as ce ticism of sp ir itual exercises, sp ir itua l t rain in g serve above a l l the objective o f designingthe soul in such a way th a t it wou ld be ac ce p tab le inGods eyes, so th a t He would a llow it into parad ise. The design of ones own sou l under Gods gaze is a

pe rsistent th em e of theo log ical trea t ise s, and its rules can be visua lized w ith the help of m ed ieva l depictions o f the soul w aiting fo rth e Last Judg-m en t. The design of the soul, wh ich w as destined for Gods eyes, wa s c learly dis tin c t from th e wo rldly ap plied a rts: w he reas th e ap plied arts sought rich-ness of m aterials , com plex orn am en tation, and outw ard radianc e, th e design of th e soul focused onthe es se n tial , the plain, the na tural , the reduced, and even the asce tic. The revolution in design th a t took place a t the s tar t of the tw en t ie th century can

best be ch arac terized as the ap plica tion of the rulesfor the design of the soul to the design of worldly objects.

The d ea th o f God signified the disappearance!of the view er of the soul, for who m its design waspracticed for cen turies . Thus the site of the designof th e soul sh ifted. The soul bec am e the sum of th e relation sh ips into which the hum an body in th ewo rld en tered . Previously, the body wa s the prison of the soul; now the soul beca m e th e clothing of the)body its social , po lit ical , and a es thetic a p pe ar-


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(the soul becam e the look of th e clo the s in which human beings ap pe ared , the everyday things w ith which the y surrounded the m se lves, the spaces they

Inhabited. W ith th e d ea th o f God, design becam e t he medium of the soul, th e revelation of th e su bjec t hidden inside th e hum an body. Thus design took on an e th ica l dim en sion it had not had previously.In design, ethics beca m e a es thetics; it becam e form. W here religion o nce w as, design has em erged .The modern s ubject now has a new ob liga tion :the obligation to se lf-de sig n , an aes the tic p rese ntation of ethical subject. The ethically m otivated polemic ag a in s t design, laun ched rep ea tedly over the course of the tw e n tieth cen tury and form ulated in ethica l

and p olitica l term s, can only be und erstood on I he basis of th is new definition of design; such a polemic would be en tirely incongruou s if direc ted at the trad ition a l applied arts. Ado lf Loos fam ou s ess ay O rnam en t and C rim e is an ea rly exam ple of this turn .

From the ou tse t, Loos pos tulated in his essay n unity be twee n the ae sth etic and the ethical.I.oos condem ned every deco ration , every orn a-ment, as a sign of depravity, of vices. Loos judged a persons ap pe ara nc e, to the exte n t it rep resen ted it consciously des igned exterior, to be an im m ed ia

te expression of his or her e th ica l stance . For exam ple, he believed he had dem on strated th a t only crim inals , prim itives, heathens, or degenerates

ornam ent them selves by ta t too ing th e ir skin. Ornament was thus an expression e ith e r of am ora li

ty or of crim e: The Papu an covers his skin w ith tattoos, his b oa t, his oars, in short everything he con lay his hands on. He is no crim inal. The modern person who ta ttoo s him se lf is e ithe r a crim inal o r a degenerate.1P articu larly striking in this qu otation I h f h L k di i i b


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tatto o ing ones own skin and deco rating a b oa t or an oar. Ju st as the modern h being is exp ected to presen t him or he rself to the gaze of the O ther

as an hon est, plain, un ornam ented, undesigned ob ject, so should all th e othe r thing s w ith which this person has to dea l be presented as hon est, plain, un ornam en ted, undesigned thing s. Only then do they de m on strate tha t the soul of th e person using the m is pure, virtuous, and un spoiled . According to Loos, th e function o f design is not to pack, decora te, and o rna m en t things d iffere n tly each t im e, th a t is, to co nstan tly design a sup plem en tary outside so th a t an inside, the true na ture of thing s, rem ains hidden. Rather, th e real function o f modern design

is to prevent people from w an ting to design thing s a t all. Thus Loos describes his atte m p ts to convince a sh oem ake r from whom he had ordered shoes not to o rna m en t th e m .2 For Loos, it was enough th a t the sho em aker use the best m aterials and work them w ith care. The q ua lity of the m aterial and th e hon-esty and precision of the work, and not th e ir ex ter-nal app earance, de term ine the q ua lity of the shoes. The cr im in al th ing about ornam ent ing shoes is th a t this orn am en t does not reveal the sh oe m ake r s honesty, th a t is, the eth ical d im ension of the shoes.

The ethically d issa tisfactory aspects of th e product are concealed by ornam en t and th e ethically im pe c-cab le are m ad e unrecog nizab le by it. For Loos, true design is the struggle aga inst design aga inst the crim ina l will to co nceal the eth ica l essence of things behind th e ir aes the tic surface. Yet paradoxically, only the c reation of ano ther, revelatory layer of orna m ent th a t is, of des ign guarantees the unity of the eth ical and the ae sth etic th a t Loos sought.

The m essianic, apocalyptic featu res of the struggle aga ins t app lied a rt th a t Loos was engaged


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not weep . Do you not see the g reatness of our age resides in our very ina bility to create new ornam en t? We have gone beyond o rnam en t, we have achieved plain, undeco rated simp licity. Beho ld, th e tim e is

at hand, fulfil lm e n t aw aits us. Soon the stree ts of the cities w ill shine like w h ite w alls! Like Zion, the Holy City, Heavens cap ital. Then fu lfillm e n t w ill be ours.3 The struggle a gainst the applied arts is the final strugg le b efore the arriva l of Gods Kingdom on Earth. Loos w an ted to bring heaven dow n to earth; he w an ted to see thing s as they are, w ith ou t ornam ent. Thus Loos w an ted to appro priate the divine gaze. But not only th a t, he w an ted to m ake everyone else cap ab le o f seeing the thing s as they are revealed in Gods gaze. Mod ern design w an ts the

apocalypse now, th e apocalypse th a t unveils things, str ips them of the ir orna m ent, and causes them to be seen as they truly are. W ithou t this claim th a t design m an ifes ts th e truth of thing s, it wo uld be im possible to und erstand m any of the discussions among designers, artists , and a rt theo rists over

the course of the tw en tieth century. Such artists and designers as D onald Judd o r arc h itec ts such as Herzog & de M eu ro n .to nam e only a few, do not argue ae sthe tica lly when they w an t to ju st ify th eir a rtistic prac tice s bu t rath er ethically, and in doing so they a pp ea l to th e tru th o f thing s as such. The modern designer does not w ait for the apoca lypse to rem ove th e e xtern al sh ell of thing s and show them to people as the y are. The designer w ants here and now th e ap oca lyptic vision th a t m akes everyone New M en. The body take s on the form of th e soul.

The soul becom es th e body. All things becom e heav-enly. Heaven becom es earthly, m ate rial. M odernism becom es abso lute.

Loos essay is, fam ously, not an isolated phe-nom enon. Rather, it reflects th e mood of the e ntire


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artist ic a va n t-g ard e o f the tw en tieth century, which sought a synthesis of a rt and life. This synthes is w as suppo sed to be achieved by removing the things th a t looked too arty both from a rt and from life. Both w ere supposed to reach th e zero p oint o f th e artistic in o rd e r to achieve a unity. The c on ven tion ally a rtis-t ic w as u nderstood to be the h um an, all too hum an th a t obs truc ted the gaze from p e rc e iv in g th e true inner form o f things. Hen ce trad ition a l pa inting

was seen as som ething th a t prevents th e g aze of a sp ec tator from recognizing it as a com bination of shapes and colors on canvas. And shoes m ad e in the trad ition al way were understood to be a thing th a t prevented th e gaze of a consu m er from recognizing th e essence, fun ction , and true com position of the shoe. The gaze of the New M an had to be freed of all such ob struction s by the force of (anti)design.

W hereas Loos sti ll form ulated his argum en t in rathe r bourgeois term s and w an ted to reveal th e value of certain m aterials, craftsm an sh ip, and individual honesty, th e w ill to ab so lute design reached its clim ax in Russian C on structivism , with its p ro letarian ideal of the co llec tive soul, which is m an ifes ted in industrially organized w ork. For the Russian C on structivists, the path to virtuou s,

genu inely pro letarian ob jects also passed through the elim ination of everything th a t was m erely artistic. Th e Russian C on structivists called for the ob jects of everyday com m un ist l ife to show the m selves as w h at the y are: as fu n ctio n al things whose form s serve only to m ake th e ir ethics visible. Ethics, as understood here, was given an ad d ition al p olitica l dim ension, since the co llective soul had to be organized po litica lly in o rd e r to ac t properly in acco rdance w ith eth ical term s. The co llective soul was m an ifested in the po lit ical organization th a t


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of proletarian design a t the t im e, ad m ittedly, people spoke rather of proletarian a rt m ust therefore be to m ake this tota l p olitica l organ ization

visible. The exp erience of th e O ctobe r R evolution of 1917 was c ru c ial fo r th e Russian Con structivists. They understood th e revolution to be a rad ical act of purifying s ociety of every form of ornam en t: the finest exam ple of m odern design, which elim inates all trad ition al social custom s, rituals, conventions, and form s of rep rese ntation in order for the ess ence of the political orga nization to em erge. Thus the Russian Con structivists called fo rt h e a bolition of all autonom ous a rt. A rt should rather be placed en tirely at the service of th e design of u tilitarian

objects. In essence, it was a ca ll to co m pletely su b-sume a rt to design.At the sam e tim e, the project of Russian

Constructivism was a to ta l project: it w an ted to design life as a wh ole. Only for th a t rea son and only at th a t p rice was Russian Con structivism

prepared to exchange au tonom ou s a rt for u til itarian art: jus t as th e tradit ion al a r t is t designed the wh ole of the artw ork , so the C ons tructivist a rtist w anted to design th e w ho le o f society. In a ce rtain sense, the Soviet artists had no choice at the tim e o ther than to advanc e such a to ta l claim . The m ark et, including the a rt m arke t , was elim ina ted by the C om m unists . A rtists were no longer faced w ith private consum ers and th e ir private interes ts and aes the tic p refer-ences, bu t w ith th e sta te as a wh ole. Necessarily, it was all or no thing fo r artists. This situa tion is clea rly reflec ted in the m an ifes tos of Russian Con struc tiv-ism. For exa m ple, in his p rogram m atic tex t en titled Construc tivism , Alexei Gan wrote: No t to re flec t, not to rep rese nt and not to inte rp ret reality, bu t to really build and express the sy stem atic tas ks of the new class, th e p ro letar iat. .. Esp ecially now, when


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th e p ro letarian revolution has been victorious , and its destruc tive, crea tive m ovem ent is progressing along the iron rails into cu lture , which is organized acco rding to a grand plan o f social produc tion , everyone the m aster of color and line, the builder of spac e-volum e form s and the organizer of mass productions m ust al l becom e constructors in the general work of the arm ing and moving of the

m an y-m illione d hum an masses.4 For Gan, the goal of C on structivist design was not to im pose a new form on everyday life u nder so cialism , bu t rath er to rem ain loyal to rad ical, revolutionary reduction and to avoid m aking new orna m en ts for new things. Hence Nikolai Tarabukin asserted in his th e n -

fam ous essay From th e Easel to the M ach ine th a t the C on structivist a rtist could not play a form ative role in th e process o f ac tu a l social produ ction. His rote was rather th a t of a propa gan dist who d efends and praises th e be auty o f ind us trial production and opens th e pu blics eyes to th is beauty.5 The a rtist, as desc ribed by Tarab ukin, is som eone who looks a t th e en tirety of so cialist production as a read y-m ad e a kind of socialis t Ducham p who exhibits so cialist indu stry as a who le as som ething good and be au tiful.

The m odern designer, w h eth er bourgeois or pro letarian, ca lls for th e other, divine vision: for the m etanoia tha t enables people to see the true form of things. In the P latonic and C hristian trad ition s, undergoing a m etanoia m eans m ak ing the transi tion from a wo rldly perspe ctive to an o therw orldly per-

spective, from a perspe ctive of th e m ortal body to a perspective o f th e im m o rtal soul. Since the de ath of God, of course, we can no longer believe th a t there is som ething like th e soul th a t is distingu ished from j the body in the sense th a t it is m ade ind ep en de nt


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tha t frees the consum er from depen den ce on the taste of the professional designer. As the afo rem en -tioned exam ple of the shoes d em on strates , under

the regim e of ava n t-ga rde antides ign , consumers take respons ibil ity for the ir own a pp earan ce and for the design o f th e ir daily lives. Consumers do so by as se rting their own, modern tas te, which to ler-ates no ornam en t and hence no ad dition al art ist ic or c raft labor. By tak ing eth ica l and ae sthetic responsibil ity for the im age they o ffer th e outside world, however, consum ers beco m e p risoners of total design to a m uch larger deg ree tha n ever before, inasm uch as the y can no longer delega te the ir aes thetic decisions to others. M odern con-sumers p resent th e world the image of the ir own persona lity purified of all outside influen ce and ornam entation. But this p urificat ion o fth e irow n image is pote ntially jus t as infinite a process as the purification of the soul before God. In the w h ite city, in th e heavenly Zion , as Loos im agines it, design is

truly to tal for th e first tim e. Nothing can be changed there either: nothing colorful, no o rna m en t can be smuggled in. The d ifferen ce is simply th a t in the white city o f the fu ture , everyone is the au thor of his own corpse everyone becomes an ar t is t-de sign er who has eth ical, political, and aes the tic resp onsi-

bility for his or her env iron m en t.One can claim , of course, th a t the original

pathos of avan t-ga rde an tides ign has long since faded, th a t av an t-ga rde design has become a certain des igner style amo ng other pos sible styles. That is why many peop le view our en tire society

today the society of com m ercial design, of the sp ectacle as a gam e with s im ulacra behind which the re is only a void. That is indeed how this society pre sen ts itself, but only if one takes a pu rely contem plative position, sitting in the lodge and


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w atch ing the sp ec tacle of society. But this position overlooks th e fa c t th a t design tod ay has b ecom e to ta l and hence it no longer adm its of a co ntem -plative position from the pe rspective o f an outsider. The turn th a t Loos announced in his day has proven to be irreversible: every citizen of th e con tem porary world still has to tak e e thica l, ae sth etic, and p o liti-cal resp ons ibility for his or her self-de sig n . In a

so ciety in which design has tak en over th e fun ction of religion, se lf-des ign becom es a c reed. By design -ing ones s e lf and one s en vironm en t in a ce rta in way, one de clares ones faith in certain values, a ttitud es, program s, and ideologies. In accordance w ith this

creed , one is judged by society, and this jud g m en t can ce rtainly be negative and even th rea ten the life and w ell-be ing of the person concerned.

Hence m odern design belongs not so m uch in an econom ic con text as in a p olitica l one. M odern design has tran sform ed the wh ole o f social space into an exh ibition sp ace fo r an a bsen t divine visitor, in wh ich individua ls appe ar both as artists and as self-prod uc ed wo rks of a rt. In the gaze of the modern viewer, however, the a es the tic com po si-tion of artwo rks inevitab ly betrays th e po litica l

convictions of th e ir autho rs and it is prim arily on th a t basis th a t the y are jud ged . The d eb ate over headscarves dem on strates th e po lit ica l force of design. In order to unde rstand th a t this is prim arily a deb ate a bo ut design, it suffices to im agine th a t Prada or Gucci has begun to design headscarves. In such a case, deciding b etwee n th e he ad sc arf as a sym bol of Islam ic convictions and th e he ad sca rf as a co m m ercial brand becom es an extrem ely d ifficu lt ae sth etic and p olit ical task . Design can no t th e re -f b l d l i l ithi th t t f


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suicide attac ks , wh ich are w ell known to be staged according to s trict ae s the tic rules. One can spe ak about the design of pow er b ut also a bo u t the design

of resistanc e or the design o f altern a tive politica l m ovem ents. In the se instances design is prac ticed as a production of differen ce s differences th a t often ta k e on p olitical se m an tics a t the s am e time. We often hea r lam en ts th a t po litics toda y is concerned only with a supe rficial im age and th a t so-ca lled c on ten t loses its relevance in th e process. This is tho ug ht to be th e fun da m e n tal m alaise of politics today. M ore and more, th e re are ca lls to turn away from po litica l design and im age m aking and return to co nten t. Such lam en ts ignore the fa c t th a t

under the regim e of m odern des ign , it is p recisely the visual p os ition ing of politicians in the field of the m ass m edia th a t m akes the crucial s ta tem en t concerning th e ir politics or even cons titutes their po litics. Con tent, by co n tras t, is com pletely irreleva nt, becaus e it changes constantly. Hen ce the g ene ral public is by no m ean s wrong to judge its polit icians according to the ir ap pe ara nc e th a t is, according to the ir basic ae s the tic and po litica l creed, and not ac co rding to a rbitrarily changing pro-grams and contents th a t they supp ort or form ulate.

Thus m odern design evades K an ts fam ous distinction between disinterested aesthetic con tem plation and th e use of thing s guided by interests. For a lon g tim e a f te r K an t , disinterested contem plation was considered su pe rio r to a prac ti-cal attitud e : a higher, if not the highe st, m an ifes ta-tion of th e hum an sp irit. But already by the end of the n inetee nth century, a rv aluation o f values had taken place: th e vita con tem plat iva wa s thoroughly discredited , and th e vita ac tiva w as elevated to the tru e tas k o f hum ankind. H ence tod ay design is


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activity, vitality, and e nergy of m aking them pas -sive cons um ers who lack w ill, who are m an ipu lated by om nipresent ad vertising and thus becom e vic-

tim s of ca p ital. The a p pa ren t cure for this lulling into sleep by the so ciety of the sp ec tacle is a sh oc k-like en co un ter w ith th e rea l th a t is supposed to rescue people from th e ir co ntem plative passivity and move the m to ac tion , which is the only thing th a t promises

an ex pe rience of tru th as living intensity. The d eb ate now is only over the ques tion w h eth er such an en co un ter w ith the real is still possible or w heth er the real has de finitive ly disap pe ared behind its designed su rface .

Now, however, we can no longer speak of disinterested co ntem plation w hen it is a m atte r of se lf-m an ifes tat ion , self-design, and s elf-p o sition ing in the ae s the tic field, since the su bject of such s elf-co nte m p lation clearly has a vital intere st in the im age he or she offers to the o uts ide world.

Once people had an interes t in how th e ir souls ap peared to God; today they have an inte rest in how th e ir bodies ap pe ar to the ir political surroundings. This intere st ce rtainly points to th e real. The real, however, em erges here not as a sho ck -like interru p -tion of th e designed surface bu t as a que stion of th e tech nique and practice of se lf-de sign a question no one can e sc ap e anym ore. In his day, Beuys said th a t everyone had th e right to see him - or he rse lf as an artist. W ha t was then understood as a right has now becom e an ob ligation. In th e m ea ntim e, we

have been co ndem ned to being the designers of our selves.


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Adolf Loos, "Ornament and Crime{1908), inOrnam ent and Crime: Selected Essays, ed. Adolf Opel, trans. Michael

Mitchell (Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press, 1998), 167.

2

Ibid., 174.

3Ibid., 168.

4Alexei Gan,From Constructivism,"

in A rt in Theory, 1900-1990: An An tho logy o f Changing tdeas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1993), 320 (translation modified).

5Nikolai Tarabukin,From the Easel

to the Machine, in Modern Art and M ode rnism: A Critica l Anthology, ed. Francis Frascinaand Charles Harrison (New York: Harper and Row, 1982), 135-42.

6

Adolf Loos, The Poor Little Rich Man," i nA ug ust S arnitz, A dol f Loos, 1870-1933: Arc hitect, Cu ltural Critic, Dondy, trans . Latido (Cologne: Taschen, 2003), 21.

7Hal Foster,Design and Crime in,

Design a nd Crime (ond O ther Diatribes)

(London: Verso, 2002), 17.

1


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These days, almost everyone seems to agreethat the t im es in which art t ried to establish itsautonomy successfu lly or unsuccessful ly areover. And yet this diagnosis is made wit h mixed

feelings. One tends to celebrate the readinessof contemporary art t o transcend the t radi t ionalconf ines of the art system, if such a move is dictatedby a will to change the dominant social and poli t icalcondit ions, to make the world a bett er p lace if themove, in other words, is ethically mot ivated. One

tends to deplore, on the other hand, that at tempts totranscend t he art system never seem to lead beyondthe aesthetic sphere: instead of changing the world,art only makes it look better. This causes a greatdeal of frustration within the art system, in whichthe predominant mood appears to alm ost perpetu-ally shif t back and forth between hopes to intervenein the world beyond art and disappoint ment (evendespair) due to the im possibil it y of achieving such agoal. While this failure is often interpreted as proofof art s incapacity to penetrate the polit ical sphereas such, I would argue instead that if the polit iciza-tion of art is seriously int ended and practiced, itmostly succeeds. Art can in fact enter the poli t icalsphere and, indeed, art already has entered it manyt imes in the twent ieth century. The problem isnotart s incapacit y to become truly poli tical. The

problem is that todays poli t ical sphere has alreadybecome aestheticized. When art becomes polit ical,It is forced to make the unpleasant di scovery thatpoli tics has already become art that poli t ics hasalready situated it self in the aesthetic field.

In our t ime, every poli t ician, spor ts hero,

terrorist , or movie star generates a large numberof images because the media autom atically cov-ers their act ivit ies. In the past, the division oflabor between poli t ics and art was quite clear:


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the polit ician w as responsible fo rth e polit ics and the a rtis t repres en ted tho se po litics through narration or depiction. The situa tion has changed d rastically since the n . The co ntem po rary po litician no longer needs an ar tis t to gain fam e or inscribe him self w ithin s tatis tica l archives. Every im po rtant po litical figure and ev en t is im m ed iately registered, represen ted, des cribe d, de picted , narrated, and interpreted by the m edia. The m achine of media coverage does not need any ind ividual artis tic intervention or artis tic d ecision in order to be put into m otion. Indeed, con tem porary m ass m edia has em erged as by far the largest and m ost pow er-ful m achine for producing im ages vastly more extensive and effective tha n th e co ntem porary art system . We are co ns tan tly fed images of war, terror, and ca tas trop he of all kinds a t a level of production and distribu tion w ith wh ich the a rtis ts artisa n al skills can not com pete.

Now, if an a rtis t does m anag e to go beyond the a rt system , this artis t begins to function in the sam e way th a t p oliticians, sports heroes, terrorists, movie stars, and oth er m inor or m ajor celeb rities already fun ction: through th e m edia. In oth er words, the art ist becom es th e artwork. W hile the transition from th e a rt system to th e po litica l field is possible, this trans itio n op erates prim arily as a change in the

posit ioning of the a rt ist vis-a-vis the production of the im age: the a rtist cease s to be an im age producer and becom es an im age him self.This trans form ation was a lread y registered in the late nineteen th c en -tury by Friedrich N ietzsche , who fam ou sly claim ed th a t it is b ette r to be an artw ork than to be an a rtist .1

Of course, becom ing an a rtw o rk not only provokes pleasure, but also the anx iety of being sub jected in a very radical way to th e gaze of th e othe r to the gaze of the m edia functioning as a s up er-art ist .


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I would characterize this anxiety as one of elf-design because it forces the art istas wellas almost anybody who comes to be covered by themediato confront the image of the self: to correct,to change, to adapt , to cont radict this image. Today,one often hears that the art of our time functionsIncreasingly in the same way as design, and to acertain extent this is true. But the ultimate problemof design concerns not how I design the world outside, but how I design myselfor, rather, how I dealwith the way in which the world designs me. Today,this has become a general, all-pervasive problemwith which everyoneand not just politicians,movie stars, and celebrities is confronted. Today,everyone is subjected to an aesthetic evaluationeveryone is required to take aesthetic responsibilityfor his or her appearance in the world, for his or herself-design. Where it was once a privilege and aburden for the chosen few, in our time self-designhas come to be the mass cultural practice par excellence. The virtual space of the internet is primarily

an arena in which my website on Facebook is permanently designed and redesigned to be presentedto YouTubeand vice versa. But likewise in thereal or, let s say, analog world, one is expected to beresponsible for the image that he or she presentsto the gaze of others. It could even be said that self-

design is a practice that unites art ist and audiencealike in the most radical way: though not everyoneproduces artworks, everyone is an artwork. At thesame time, everyone is expected to be his or her ownauthor.

Now, every kind of design including self

design is primarily regarded by the spectatornot as a way to reveal things, but as a way to hidethem. The aestheticization of polit ics is similarlyconsidered to be a way of substitut ing substance


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with ap pea rance, real issues with su pe rficial im age -m aking . However, while th e issues constantly change, th e image remains. Ju st as one can easily becom e a p risoner of his or her own image, ones po litical conv ictions can be ridiculed as being mere se lf-des ign. A es theticization is often iden tified with sedu ction and ce lebration . W alter Benjam in obviously had this use of the term ae s the ticiza -tion in mind when he opposed the politicization of aes thetics to th e a es the ticization of politics at the end of his fam ou s essay The W ork of Art in the Age of M echan ical R eproduction.2 But one can argue, on the contrary, th a t every ac t of ae stheticization is always already a cri tiqu e of the ob ject of ae sth eti-cization simp ly because this a ct calls a tten tio n to th e ob jects need for a sup p lem en t in order to look b e tter than it ac tua lly is. Such a su pp lem en t always func tion s as a Derridean pharmakon: while design m akes an object look be tter, it likew ise raises the suspicion th a t this o bject wou ld look espec ially ugly and rep ellen t were its designed s urfac e to be

removed.Indeed, design including s e lf -des ign is prim arily a m echanism fo r induc ing suspicion.The con tem porary world o f to tal design is often desc ribed as a world of to tal seduction from which the un pleasantness of reality has disapp eared.

But I would argue, rather, th a t the w orld of to tal design is a world of to ta l suspicion , a world of late n t danger lurking behind designed surfaces.The m ain goal of self-de sign then becom es one of neu tralizing the suspicion of a possible sp ectator, of creating th e sincerity effe ct th a t provokes tru st

in th e sp ec tato r s soul. In toda ys world, th e produc-tion of since rity and trus t has becom e everyones occu pa tion and yet it was, and s till is, the main occupation of art throu gho ut the w ho le h istory of


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modernity: th e m odern a rtist has always positioned him self or hers elf as th e only honest person in a world o f hypocrisy and co rrup tion . Let us briefly

investigate how the produ ction o f since rity and tru s t has function ed in the m odern period in o rd e r to charac terize the way it fun ction s today.

One m ight argue th a t the m od ernist produc-tion of sinc erity fun ction ed as a redu ction o f design, in which the goal wa s to cre ate a blank, void space

at the ce nte r of th e designed wo rld, to elim inate design, to p rac tice ze ro-de sign . In this way, the artis t ic av an t-ga rde wa nted to create de sign-free areas th a t would be perceived as areas of honesty, high m orality, sincerity, and tru s t. In obse rving the m edias m any designed su rfaces, one hopes th a t the da rk, obscured s pace benea th the m edia w ill som ehow be tray or expose itself. In othe r words, we are w aiting for a m om en t of sincerity, a m om en t in which the designed su rface cracks open to o ffer a view of its inside. Zero -des ign a ttem p ts to a rt ifi-cially p roduce this crack for the spe ctator, allow ing him or her to see things as the y truly are.

But the Ro usseau istic faith in th e equ ation of since rity and ze ro-des ign has reced ed in our tim e. We are no longer read y to believe th a t m inim alist design suggests any thing ab ou t the hones ty and

sincerity of the designed sub ject. The av an t-ga rde approach to th e design of honesty has thu s becom e one style amo ng m any possible styles. Und er these conditions, the e ffec t of sincerity is created not by refuting the in itial suspicion d irecte d tow ard every designed su rface , bu t by co nfirm ing it. This is to say th a t we a re ready to believe th a t a crack in the designed surface has taken p lac e th a t we are able to see things as they truly a re only when the reality behind the faa de shows itse lf to be dra m atica lly worse than we had ever im agined.


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Con fronted w ith a world of to ta l design, we can only acc ep t a ca tastrop he , a sta te o f emergency, a violent rup ture in th e designed su rface as su fficient reason to believe th a t we are allow ed a view of the reality th a t lies be neath. And o f course this rea l-ity too m ust show itse lf to be a ca tastrop hic one, becau se w e susp ect som ething terrible to be going on behind the design cynical m an ipu lation , p oliti-cal propagand a, hidden intrigues, vested interests,

crim es. Following the death of God, the conspiracy theory becam e the only surviving form of tradition al m etaphysics as a discourse abo ut th e hidden and the invisible. W here we once had na ture and God, wenow have design and conspiracy theory.

Even if we are generally inclined to d istru st

the m edia, it is no acc ide nt th at we are im m ed iate ly ready to believe it when it tells us ab ou t aglobal finan cial crisis or delivers the im ages from jS ep tem be r 11 into our ap artm en ts. Even th e m ost ]co m m itted theorists of postm odern sim ulationbegan to sp eak a bo ut the return of the real asthey w atched the im ages of Se ptem be r 11. Thereis an old trad ition in W estern a rt th a t presen ts an art is t as a w alking catastrop he, an d at leastfrom Baudelaire on modern ar t is ts were ad ept a tcrea ting images of evil lurking behind the su rface , which im m ed iately won the tru st of the public. In our days, the rom an tic im age of th e po te m aud it is su bs tituted by th a t of the a rtist being explicitly cynical greedy, m anipu lative, bu siness-oriented, seeking only m aterial profit , and im plem en ting a rt as a m ach ine fo r deceiving the au dience . We have

learned this s trategy of calculated se lf-de nu nc ia-t ion of se lf-denu ncia tory se lf -des ign from the exam ples of Salvado r Dali and Andy Warhol, of Je ff Koons and Dam ien Hirst. How ever old, this strateg y has rarely missed its m ark. Looking a t th e pub lic


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image of t hese art ists we tend to think, Oh, howawful, but at the same time, Oh, how true. Selfdesign as self denunciat ion sti ll funct ions in a t imewhen the avant garde zero design of honesty fail s.I n fact , contemporary ar t exposes how ourentire celebri ty cult ure works: through calculateddisclosures and self disclosures. Celebrit ies (poli t ici

ans included) are presented to the contemporaryaudience as designed surfaces, to which the publicresponds with suspicion and conspiracy theories.Thus. to make the poli t icians look trustworthy, onemust create a moment of disclosure a chanceto peer though the surface to say, Oh, this polit i-cian is as bad as I always supposed him or her tohe. With this disclosure, t rust in the system is

restored through a ri tual of symbol ic sacri f ice andself sacrif ice, stabil izing the celebr it y system byconfirming the suspicion to which it is necessari lyalready subjected. According to the economy ofsymbolic exchange that Marcel Mauss and GeorgesBatail le explored, the individuals who show them-

selves to be especially nasty (e.g., the individualswho demonstrate the most substant ial symbolicsacrif ice) receive the most recognition and fame.This fact alone demonstrates that this situat ion hasless to do with t rue insight than wit h a special caseof self design: today, to decide to present oneself asethically bad is to make an especially good decisionin terms of self design (genius= swine).

But there is also a subt ler and more sophis-t icated form of self design as self sacrif ice:symbolic suicide. Following this subt ler strategy ofself design, the art ist announces the death of theauthor, that is, his or her own symbolic death. In thiscase, the art ist does not proclaim himself or herselfto be bad, but to be dead. The resul ting artwork isthen presented as being collaborative, part icipatory,


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and de m ocratic. A tend enc y toward collaborative, pa rticipa tory p ractice is undeniably one of the main ch aracterist ics of contem porary art . Num erous groups of artists through ou t the world are as se rt-

ing collective, even anonymous au thorship of their work. M oreover, co llabora tive prac tices of this type tend to encou rage th e public to join in, to ac tivate the soc ial m ilieu in wh ich thes e practices unfold. This se lf-sa crifice th a t forgoes ind ividual au tho r-ship also find s its com pensa tion w ithin a symbolic econom y of recognition and fam e.

Pa rticipa tory art reacts to the mod ern state of affairs in a rt th a t can be desc ribed eas ily enough in the following way: the a rtist produces and exhibits a rt, and the public views and eva luates w h at is exhibited. This arran ge m en t would seem prim arily to b en efit the art ist , who shows him self or herself to be an ac tive ind ividual in opposition to a passive, anonymous m ass audience. W hereas the a rt is t has the pow er to p opu larize his or her nam e, the ide n ti-ties o f the viewers remain unknown in sp ite o f the ir role in providing the valida tion th a t fac ilitate s th e a rtis ts success. Mod ern a rt can thus easily be mis-construed as an ap paratus for m anu facturing a rt is-tic c eleb rity a t the expense of the public. However, it is often overlooked th a t in the modern period, the a rtist has always been delivered up to th e mercy of

public o pinion if an a rtwo rk does not find favor with the public, then it is de fac to recognized as being devoid of value. This is modern a r ts main d e ficit:th e modern artwo rk has no inn er value of its own, no m erit beyond w hat public tas te bestows upon it. In anc ient tem ples , ae sth etic disapproval

was insu fficien t reason to reject an artwork. The statues produced by the a rt ists of th a t t im e w ere regarded as em bod imen ts of the god s: they were revered, one kneeled down before the m in prayer,


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one sought guidance from them and feared them . I'oorly m ade idols and badly painted icons w ere in fact also part of th is sacred order, and to d ispose o f any of the m ou t would have been sacrilegious . Thus, within a spe cific religious trad ition , artw ork s have their own individual, inn er value, indep en den t of l he pub lics aesth etic judgm en t. This value derives from the pa rticipation of both ar tis t and pub lic in communal religious practices, a com m on affiliation

that relativizes the antagonism betwe en artist and public.By co ntrast, the secu lariza tion of art en tails

Its radical dev alua tion . This is why Hegel asserted at the beginn ing of his Le ctures on A es thetics t ha t art was a thing of th e pa st. No m odern ar tist could

expect anyone to knee l in fron t of his or her w ork in prayer, dem and p rac tical as sistan ce from it, or use It to av ert danger. The m os t one is prepared to do nowadays is to find an artw ork inte res ting , and o f course to ask how much it costs. Price im m unizes the artwo rk from public tas te to a certain de gree had econom ic co ns idera tion s not been a fac to r in limiting the im m ed iate expression of public taste, a good d ea l of the a rt held in m useu m s toda y would have landed in the trash a lon g tim e ago. Com m una l participation w ithin the sam e econom ic p ractice thus w eakens the radical sepa ration between a rt-ist and aud ience to a ce rtain degree, encouraging a ce rtain c om plicity in which the pub lic is forced to respec t an a rtw ork for its high price even when that artw ork is not we ll liked. However, the re still rem ains a sign ificant differen ce betw een an

artw orks religious value and its econom ic value. Though th e price of an artw o rk is the qu an tifiab le result of an ae sthe tic va lue th a t has been ide ntifiedwith it, th e respect paid to an artw ork due to its price does not by any m eans tran s late a u tom atica lly


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Into any form of binding appre ciation. This b inding value of art can thus be soug ht only in n on com m er-cial, if not directly a n ti-co m m erc ial p ractices.

For this reason, man y modern artists have tried to regain com m on ground w ith th e ir aud iences by en ticing view ers ou t of th e ir passive roles, by bridging the com fortable a es thetic distance th a t allows uninvolved view ers to jud ge an artw ork Im partially from a secure, ex terna l pe rspective. The

m ajority of thes e a ttem p ts have involved po litical or ideological en ga ge m en t of one sort or another. Religious co m m un ity is thu s replaced by a po litica l mo vement in which a rtists and audiences c om -munally p articip a te. W hen the view er is involved in artistic prac tice from the ou tse t, every piece of

crit icism uttered becom es se lf-criticism . Shared po lit ical convictions thu s render ae sth etica l jud g -ment p artially or co m pletely irreleva nt, as was th e case w ith sa cra l ar t in th e pa st. To pu t it bluntly: it is now b e tter to be a dead au thor than to be a bad author. Though the a rt is ts dec ision to relinquish exclusive autho rship w ould seem prim arily to be in the interes t of em po w ering th e viewer, this sacrifice u ltim ately b en efits th e a rtist by liberating his or her work from the cold eye of the uninvolved v iew er s

judgment.

1Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth o f

Tragedy, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New

York: Vintage, 1967), 37.2Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art

m the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, in tllum inotion s: Essays and Reflec-tions, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. H.Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 242.


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The field of art is toda y freq u en tly equ ated w ith the art m arket, and the a rtwork is prim arily ide ntified as a com m odity. That a rt fun ction s in the co ntext of

the ar t m arke t, and every work of art is a comm odity, is beyond doubt; yet a rt is also m ad e and exhibited for tho se who do not w an t to be ar t collectors, and it is in fa c t thes e peop le who c onstitu te th e m ajority of the a rt pub lic. The typ ica l exhibition visitor rarely views the wo rk on d isplay as a com m odity. At the same t im e, the num ber of large -scale ex hibit ion s biennales , tr ien nales , Docum entas , M an ifestas is constantly growing. In spite of the vast am ou nts of money and energy invested in thes e exh ibitions, they do not exist p rim arily for a rt buyers, but for the pub lic for an anonymous visitor who will perhaps never buy an artw ork. L ikewise, a rt fairs, while os tens ibly existing to serve a rt buyers, are now increasingly trans form ed into public events, a ttrac ting a popu lation w ith little in teres t in buying art, or w itho u t the fin an cia l ab ility to do so. The

a rt system is thu s on its way to becom ing part of the very m ass cu ltu re th a t it has for so long sought to observe and analyze from a distanc e. Art is becom ing a pa rt of mass culture, not as a source of individual wo rks to be trade d on th e a rt m arke t, but as an exhibition practice, com bined w ith arc h itec -ture, design, and fash ion jus t as it was envisaged by the pioneering minds o f the av an t-ga rde , by the artis ts of the B au ha us ,theV kh utem as,and others as early as the 192 0s.Th us , con tem porary art can be understood prim arily as an exh ibition practice.

This m eans, am ong othe r things, th a t it is becom ing increasingly difficu lt today to differe n tia te betw een two main figures of the con tem po rary art world: the ar tist and th e curator.

The trad ition al division o f labo r w ithin th e a rt


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by ar t i s t s and th en se lec ted and exh ibi ted by c u ra-tors . But , a t leas t s ince Ducham p, th is d ivis ion o f labo r has co llap sed . Today, th ere is no longer any

on tolog ical d i fferenc e between m aking ar t and

displaying ar t . In th e co ntext of co ntem po rary ar t , to m ake ar t is to show th ings as ar t . So th e quest ion arises: is i t po ss ible, and , if so, ho w is it po ss ible to d i ffe ren t ia te be tween th e ro le o f the a r t i s t and th a t of th e c ura tor wh en th ere is no di fferenc e between

a r t s pr od uc tion and exhibit ion ? Now , I wo uld argue th at this dis t inc t ion is s t i l l pos sible. And I w ould l ike to do so by analyzing th e dif ferenc e b etween th e s tand ard exhibi tion and th e ar t i s t ic ins ta l la t ion . A co nv ention al exhibi t ion is con ceived as an acc u m u -lat ion o f ar t o bjects placed next to on e ano th er in an exh ibit ion sp ace to be viewed in su ccess ion . In this c ase, th e exh ibi t ion sp ace works as an ex ten -s ion of neutra l , publ ic urban s p ace as som ething l ike a s ide al ley into wh ich th e passerby m ay turn upon p aym ent of an adm ission fee. The mo vem ent

of a v is i tor through th e exhibi t ion space rem ains

s im i la r to th a t o f som eone w alk ing down a s t ree t and o bserving the arch i tec tu re of th e houses lef t and r ight . It is by no m eans ac c id en tal th at Walter Benjam in c on stru cted his A rcades Pro ject around this analogy b etween an urban s tr o l ler and an exh i-

bi t ion vis itor. The body o f th e view er in this set t ing rem ains o uts ide of th e ar t: a r t takes p lace in f ro nt of th e v iew er s eyes as an ar t ob jec t , a perform anc e, or a f i lm . Accordingly, th e exhib i t ion sp ace is un d er-s tood here to be an empty, neu tral , pub l ic s p ace a sym bol ic pro per ty of th e pub l ic . The only func t ion of such a space is to m ake th e ar t o bjec ts th a t are placed w i th in i t eas i ly access ib le to th e g aze of the visi tors.

The cu ra tor adm inis ters th is exhibi t ion space in th e nam e of the pu b l ic as a representa t ive


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of the public. Accordingly, the curators role is tosafeguard its public character, while bringing theIndividual artworks into this public space, making

them accessible to the public, publicizing them. Itl i obvious that an individual artwork cannot assertIts presence by itself, forcing the viewer to take alook at it. It lacks the vitality, energy, and health todo so. In its origin, it seems, the work of art is sick,helpless; in order to see it, viewers must be brought

to it as visitors are brought to a bedridden patientby hospital staff. It is no coincidence that the word"curator is etymologically related to cure : tocurate is to cure. Curating cures the powerlessnessof the image, its inability to show itself by itself.Exhibition practice is thus the cure that healsthe originally ailing image, that gives it presence,visibility; it brings it to the public view and turns itinto the object of the publics judgment. However,one can say that curat ing functions as a supplement, like a pharmakon in the Derridean sense: it

both cures the image and further contributes to itsillness.1The iconoclastic potential of curation wasinit ially applied to the sacral objects of the past,presenting them as mere art objects in the neutral,empty exhibition spaces of the modern museum orKunsthalle. It is curators, in fact , including museumcurators, who originally produced art in the modernsense of the word. The first art museumsfoundedin the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and expanded in the course of the nineteenthcentury due to imperial conquests and the pillaging

of non-European culturescollected all sorts ofbeautiful functional objects previously used forreligious rites, interior decoration, or manifestationsof personal wealth, and exhibited them as worksof art, that is, as defunctionalized autonomousobjects set up for the mere purpose of being viewed


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All art originates as design, be it religious designor the design of power. In the modern period aswell, design precedes art . Looking for modern art intodays museums, one must realize that what is to

be seen there as art is, above all, defunctionalizeddesign fragments, be it m ass-cultural design, fromDuchamps urinal to Warhols Brillo Boxes, or utopiandesign thatfrom Jugendstil to Bauhaus, fromthe Russian avant-garde to Donald Juddsoughtto give shape to the new life of the future. Art isdesign that has become dysfunctional becausethe society that provided the basis for it suffereda historical collapse, like the Inca Empire or SovietRussia.

In the course of the modern era, however,

art ists began to assert the autonomy of their artunderstood as autonomy from public opinion andpublic taste. Art ists have required the right to makesovereign decisions regarding the content and theform of their work beyond any explanation or justif icat ion vis-a-vis the public. And they were given

this right but only to a certain degree. The freedomto create a rt according to ones own sovereign willdoes not guarantee that an art ists work will alsobe exhibited in the public space. The inclusion ofany artwork in a public exhibition must beatleast potentially publicly explained and justified.Though art ist, curator, and art critic are free to arguefor or against the inclusion of some artworks, everysuch explanation and justificat ion underminesthe autonomous, sovereign character of art isticfreedom that modernist art aspired to win; everydiscourse legit im izing an artwork, its inclusion ina public exhibition as only one among many in thesame public space, can be seen as an insult to thatartwork. This is why the curator is considered to besomeone who keeps coming between the artwork


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and th e viewer, disem po w ering the artist and the viewer alike. H ence the a rt m ark et app ears to be more favorable than the m useum or Kuns thalle to

modern, autonom ous art . In the ar t m arke t, works of art circu late s ingu larized, de co ntex tualized, uncurated, which ap pa ren tly offers them the opp or-tun ity to de m on strate th e ir sovereign origin w itho ut m ediation .Th e art m arket fun ctions acco rding to the rules of Potlatch as the y we re described by M a r-

cel M auss and by Georges B a ta ille .The sovereign decision of the a rtist to m ake an artw ork beyond any

justification istru m p ed by th e sovereign decision of a private buye r to pay for th is ar tw ork an am ou nt of money beyond any com prehension.

Now, the artistic installation does not circu-late. Rather, it installs every thing th a t usua lly circu-lates in our civilization : ob jects, tex ts , film s , etc . At the sam e tim e, it changes in a very rad ical way the role and the func tion of th e exh ibition space. The ins tallation op era tes by m eans o f a symbolic p riva-

tization of the public s pac e of an e xh ibition. It m ay ap pea r to be a stand ard, curated exhibition , but i ts space is designed acc ord ing to the sovereign w ill of an individual a rtis t who is not supposed to p ublicly

justify th e selection of th e included objects, o rth e organization of th e ins tallation sp ace as a whole.

The in stallation is freq u en tly denied th e statu s of a specific ar t form , becau se it is not obvious w h a t the medium of an ins tallation ac tua lly is. Traditional art media are all de fine d by a sp ec ific m a terial suppo rt: canvas, stone, or film . The m a terial su pp ort of the installation m edium is the space itself. Tha t does not m ean , however, th a t the insta llation is som ehow im m ate rial. On th e contrary, the ins tallation is material p a r excellence, since it is sp a tial and being in th e space is the m os t gen eral definition of being m aterial. The ins tallation trans form s th e


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empty, neutral, public space into an individualartworkand it invites the visi tor to experience thisspace as the holistic, totalizing space of an artwork.Anything included in such a space becomes a partof the artwork sim ply because it is placed insidethis space. The distinction between art object andsimple object becomes insignificant here. Instead,what becomes crucial is the distinction betweena marked installation space and unmarked publicspace. When Marcel Broodthaers presented hisinstallation Musee d Ar t Moderne, Departement des Aigles at the Dsseldorf Kunsthalle in 1970, he putup a sign next to each exhibit saying: This is not awork of art . As a whole, however, his installationhas been considered to be a work of art, and notwithout reason. The installation demonstrates acertain selection, a certain chain of choices, a logicof inclusions and exclusions. Here, one can see ananalogy to a curated exhibition. But that is preciselythe point: here, the selection and the mode of representation is the sovereign prerogative of the art ist

alone. It is based exclusively on personal sovereigndecisions that are not in need of any further explanation or justificat ion. The artistic installation is away to expand the domain of the sovereign rights ofthe art ist from the individual art object to that of theexhibition space itself.

This means that the art istic installation is aspace in which the difference between the sovereign freedom of the artist and the institutional freedom of the curator becomes immediately visible.The regime under which art operates in our contemporary Western culture is generally understood tobe one that grants freedom to art . But arts freedommeans different things to a curator and to an art ist.As I have mentioned, the curator including theso-called independent curator ultimately chooses


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in the nam e o f the de m oc ratic public. Actually, in order to be respo nsible tow ard the public, a cu rator does not need to be p art of any fixed ins titution: he or she is already an ins titu tion by de fin ition . Accordingly, the cu rato r has an o bligation to publicly

justify his or her cho ices and it can happen th a t othe cu rato r fails to do so. Of course, th e cu rato r is i supposed to have th e free do m to pre sent his or r her argum ent to the pub lic but th is freedom of

the public discussion has n o thin g tod o with the freedom of art , understood as the freedom to m ake private, ind ividua l, subjec tive , sovereign a rtistic decisions beyond any argum en tation , ex plan a-tion, or jus tifica tio n . U nd er the regim e of artistic freedom , every a rtis t has a sovereign right to m ake

art exclusively ac co rding to private im agination . The sovereign decision to m ake a rt in th is or th a t way is generally accepted by W estern libe ral society as a su fficien t reason for assum ing an a rtis ts practice to be leg itim ate . Of course, an artw ork can also be criticized and reje cte d but it can only be rejected

as a wh ole. It makes no sen se to c riticize any par-ticu lar cho ices, inclusions , or exclusions m ade by an artis t. In th is sense , the to ta l spac e of an artistic insta llation can a lso only be rejec ted as a wh ole. To return to th e e xam ple o f Broodthaers: nobody wou ld criticize the a rtis t for having overlooked this or th a t pa rticu lar im age of this o rth a t p articu lar eagle in his installation.

One can say th a t in Western so ciety th e notion of freed om is deep ly am biguo us not only in the field of a rt, but also in th e po litical field. Freedom in the W es t is understood as allow ing p rivate, sovereign decisions to be m ade in many dom ains of soc ial prac tice, such as private con sum ption, investm en t of ones own cap ital, or choice of ones own religion. Bu t in som e o the r dom ains, espe cially


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artwork is interp reted as an opening of th e closed Bpace of an artw ork to dem ocracy. This enclosed space seem s to be trans form ed into a platform for public discussion, dem oc ratic p ractice, co m m un i-cation, netwo rking, education , and so forth . But this analysis of ins tallation a rt prac tice ten ds to over-look th e sym bolic ac t of privatizing the public sp ace of the exh ibition, wh ich precedes the ac t of opening the installation space to a com m un ity of visitors. As

I have men tion ed , the space of the trad itio n al exhi-bition is a sym bolic pub lic property, and the c urato r who manages this space acts in the nam e of public opinion. The visitor of a ty p ica l exhibition rem ains on his or her own territory, as a sym bolic owner o f the space where the artwo rks are delivered to his or her

gaze and judgm en t. On th e contrary, the space o f an artistic installation is the symbolic p rivate p rope rty of the a rtist. By en tering this sp ace , the visitor leaves the public territory of dem oc ratic legitim acy and en ters th e space o f sovereign, autho ritarian control. The vis itor is here, so to sp eak, on foreign ground, in exile. The visitor becom es an exp atriate who m ust sub m it to a foreign law one given to him or her by the a rtist. H ere the a rtis t acts as legislator, as a sovereign of the installation sp ace even, and maybe espec ially so, if th e law given by the a rtis t to a com m un ity of visitors is a dem oc ratic one.

One might then say th a t installation practice reveals the ac t of unc on ditional, sovereign violence tha t initially installs any dem oc ratic order. We know tha t dem ocratic o rder is never brought abou t in a dem ocratic fashion dem ocratic order always

em erges as a resu lt of a vio len t revolution. To insta ll a law is to break one. The firs t leg islato r can never act in a legitim ate m an ner he installs the po lit ical order, bu t does not belong to it. He rem ains external to th e order even if he dec ides later to sub m it


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him se lf to it .T h e a utho r of an artistic ins tallation is also such a legislator, who gives to th e co m m un ity of visitors th e space to co ns titute i ts elf and d efine s

the rules to w hich this co m m unity m ust subm it , bu t does so w ith o u t belonging to this com m unity, rem aining outside it. And this rem ains tru e even if the a rt is t decides to join the com m unity th a t he or she has created . Th is second step should not lead us to overlook th e firs t on e the sovereign one. And one shou ld also not forge t: a fte r in itiating a ce rtain order a cer ta in poli teia , a certa in com m unity of visitors the installation a rtist m ust rely on the a rt ins titutions to m aintain th is order, to police the fluid politeia of th e ins tallatio n s visitors. With

regard to th e role of police in a s tate , Jacq ues D er-rida suggests in one of his books {La force d es lois) th a t, though the police are exp ected to supervise th e fun ction ing of certain law s, they a re de facto also involved in creating the very laws th a t they should m erely supervise. To m ain tain a law always

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Bors Groys_Going Public