It's the Political Economy, Stupid

Description

It's the Political Economy, Stupid brings together internationally acclaimed artists and thinkers, including Slavoj Zizek, David Graeber, Judith Butler and Brian Holmes, to focus on the current economic crisis in a sustained and critical manner.



In sympathy with the subject matter, the book features powerful original artwork for the cover, and an internal design theme based on the movements of Goldman Sachs stock market values by activist designer Noel Douglas. What emerges is a powerful critique of the current capitalist crisis through an analytical and theoretical response and an aesthetic-cultural rejoinder. By combining artistic responses with the analysis of leading radical theorists, the book expands the boundaries of critique beyond the usual discourse.



It's the Political Economy, Stupid argues that it is time to push back against the dictates of the capitalist logic and, by use of both theoretical and artistic means, launch a rescue of the very notion of the social.
Foreword by Pia Hovi-Assad, Pori Art Museum, Finland

1. 'Unspeaking the Grammar of Financ'” by Gregory Sholette & Oliver Ressler

2. “It’s The Political Economy, Stupid!” by Slavoj Zizek

> Liz Park comments on art from the exhibition It’s The Political Economy, Stupid

3. 'The Political Economization of Art' by John Roberts

4. 'Derivative Days: Notes on Art, Finance and the Un-Productive Forces' by Melanie Gilligan

5. 'Occupational Realism' by Julia Bryan Wilson

> Angela Dimitrakaki & Kirsten Lloyd comment on art from It’s The Political Economy, Stupid

6.  'Occupy Wall Street’s Anarchist Roots' by David Graeber

7.  'Bodies in Alliance and the Politics of the Street' (excerpts) by Judith Butler

> Thom Donovan comments on art from It’s The Political Economy, Stupid

8.  'Sick Sad Life: On the Artistic Reproduction of Capital' by Kerstin Stakemeier

9.  'Art after Capitalism' a final word by Brian Holmes

Biographies

Sujets

• Histoire des arts visuels
• Social History
• HISTORY
• Politics
• Art
• Politique

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 07 janvier 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849648677
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 39 Mo

Extrait

First published 2013 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA www.plutobooks.com

Pori Art Museum Publications 117 www.poriartmuseum.fi

Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010

Copyright © Gregory Sholette and Oliver Ressler 2013

The right of the individual contributors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 7453 3369 4 Pluto Press ISBN 978 952 5648 36 2 Pori Art Museum ISBN 978 1 8496 4867 7 PDF eBook

ISSN 0359 4327

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services Ltd Typeset and designed by Noel Douglas Printed in the European Union by W&G Baird, Antrim, Northern Ireland.

All exhibition views at the ACFNY Installation view at the ACFNY Photos by David Plakke

All exhibition views at Centre of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki Photos by Oliver Ressler

The Global Financial Crisis in Art and Theory

Edited by: Gregory Sholette & Oliver Ressler

PlutoPress www.plutobooks.com

3

d i p u t S y, m o n o c E l a c i t i l o P e h t s t’ I

72 Derivative Me D la a n y i s e :N Gi o ll t i e g s an on Art, Finance, and the Unproductive Forces

The Political 62 Economization of Art John Roberts

3

It’s the Political 14 Economy, Stupid! Slavoj Žižek

4

2

5

Occupational Realism Julia Bryan-Wilson

Unspeaking the 8 Grammar of Finance Gregory Sholette and Oliver Ressler

84

34

Comments on Art from the Exhibition It’s the Political Economy, Stupid 2a Liz Park

1

Foreword by Pia Hovi-Assad, Pori Art Museum, Finland

6

5

CONTENTS

96

164

118

Notes On Contibutors

180

Touring Exhibition Dates 9 Brian Holmes Art After Capitalism

8

178

Sick Sad Life: On the Artistic Reproduction of Capital Kerstin Stakemeier

7a

156

Comments on Art from the Exhibition It’s the Political Economy, Stupid Thom Donovan

Judith Butler of the Street (excerpts) 7 Bodies in Alliance and the Politics

6

Occupy Wall Street’s Anarchist Roots David Graeber

Angela Dimitrakaki and Kirsten Lloyd It’s the Political Economy, Stupid 5a Comments on Art from the Exhibition

128

110

Foreword

Pia Hovi-Assad

Exhibition curator,

Pori Art Museum,

Finland

How tiny Finland could bring Euro crisis to an end…

A “Spanic,” followed by a “Quitaly,” followed by a “Fixit.” A fresh panic in Spain might be followed by rising demands for Italy to quit if it doesn’t get the same terms its fellow Mediterranean country has been offered, followed by a Finnish departure from the euro that might finally bring the whole saga to a climax. It would be a rough ride – and you wouldn’t want to be holding many assets other than dollars or gold or possibly Swiss francs while it was playing itself out. But at least it might bring a resolution to the crisis.

Matthew Lynn, The Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch (June 6, 2012)

Due to the country’s isolated location, influences have always arrived in Finland a few years later than central Europe. The impact of American and European political art was felt in the Finnish art scene at the end of the 1960s. The main themes in Finnish visual art in the 1960s and 1970s were ecological and social, focusing on issues of current interest in Finland. One young artist who attacked the bourgeois values of society at the time was Harro Koskinen (b. 1945). He created a gaudy fat pig to mock the middle class. Koskinen’sThe Pig Coat of Arms(1969) caused an uproar and charges were brought against him for mocking the Finnish coat of arms. The case was taken to court and Koskinen received a fine. In the 1970s, Koskinen created a number of works featuring the Finnish

flag. The artist stretched, perforated, tore, crumbled, cut and shrank the Finnish national symbol. He splashed it with blood and finally set it on fire, turning the flag into a black liquid mass. Koskinen was prosecuted also for this series of works, but the charges were eventually dropped. The Finnish public voted “yes” for the European Union in 1994, and Finland acceded to the EU in 1995. Finland joined the eurozone in 2002. Owing to these big changes in Finnish society, and also the impact of the internet, the art scene in Finland today is intrinsically more global than in the 1960s and 1970s. The themes in current political Finnish art are global and local. Burak Arikan’sNetwork Map of Artists and Political Inclinations, presented at the 7th Berlin Biennale in 2012, included several Finnish artists. In November 2010, . curator Artur Zmijewski announced an open call to artists from all over the world, asking them to send in artistic material as part of research for the 7th Berlin Biennale. In addition to standard information usually requested in such a call, it also asked the artists to state their political inclination. The biennale received over 5,000 submissions in reaction to the call. Burak Arikan’s network map features 4,592 artists and 395 unique political inclinations. From Finland, 20 artists are included in the map. In view of the approximately 3,000 visual artists currently active in Finland, the number is not very large. These 20 artists included in the work all report being leftish, green and/or feminist. They represent various medias, and are based in Helsinki, Tampere, Turku and Pori. One of the Poribased artists is Marko Lampisuo, whose workThe End of Landscape(2012) will be included in theNet Gain!exhibition series in the Pori Art Museum in the autumn 2012. Another

artist featured in the series is Poribased Laura Lilja. Laura Lilja investigates social power structures, gender and sexuality in works that are based on queer theory, post feminism and activism. I recently visited the Documenta (13) in Kassel. Among the vast selection of artworks featured in the show, there was one which struck to the very core of the present state of the world. It was a video entitled Time/Bank by eflux: Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle. The video is an examination of alternative currencies, mutualism, and the Marxian labor theory of value. The message is that it is important to go beyond the idea that we are facing merely a problem of money, numbers, and algorithms. The crucial thing is that countries and people around the world are all connected through complex array of models and systems that are globally stretched. I am looking forward to seeing what alternatives the works in the exhibitionIt’s the Political Economy, Stupidwill offer us. I have no doubt that the show will turn out to be a milestone for the political art scene in Finland. I am also hoping that it will give new food for thought and serve as a platform for current discussion in Finland. The President of Finland, Sauli Niinistö, recently gave an interview in which he said he spoke for the majority of Finns. According to him, there is a popular opinion among Finns that Finland has shown greater solidarity than most eurozone countries in the current financial crisis ( Satakunnan Kansa , June 16, 2012), even though most Finns pay more taxes than people in other EU countries. In Niinistö’s opinion “a country is not rich or poor, it only reflects how the economy of the state is run.” He said he hopes that the financial crisis in Europe will not lead to a situation in which we will begin

talking about the fall of democracy. There are activists and citizens, especially in the capital region, who would like to be independent of large corporate controlled economies. This heterogeneous group would like to see solidarity that is not geographically bound, and they are already creating their own alternative economies with nonmonetary systems of exchange. In other words, there are in Finland immaterial currencies that create utopian subcultures. If and when, and how, these currencies will ever be used by the majority remains to be seen. The exhibitionIt’s the Political Economy, Stupidhas been on tour in 2012 in the Austrian Cultural Forum New York and the Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki. The Pori Art Museum would like to thank all the partners as well as Commissioning Editor David Castle of Pluto Press for excellent cooperation.

The Pori Art Museum also wishes to express its

warmest thanks to exhibition curators Oliver

Ressler and Gregory Sholette for their dedicated

contribution to the realization of the exhibition

and the book.

Special thanks are also due to all of the participating artists.

1

It’sthePoliticalEconomy,Stupid

Unspeaking theGrammar OfFinance

9 Gregory Sholette & Oliver Ressler

At dinner parties, in the bedroom, on

vacation,we speak with the

grammar of finance. Liquidity is

estimated, investment potential

praised, derided, exaggerated.