Helmut Draxler, Andrea Fraser
published in: Games, Fights, Collaborations. Das Spiel von Grenze und Überschreitung. Kunstraum der Universität Lüneburg (ed.), 1996
Introduction
It appears to us that, related variously to institutional critique, productivist,
activist and political documentary traditions as well as post-studio,
site-specific and/or public art activities, the practices currently characterized
as "project work" do not necessarily share a thematic, ideological
or procedural basis. What they do seem to share is the fact that they
all involve expending an amount of labor which is either in excess of
or independent of any specific material production and which cannot be
transacted along with such a production. This labor, which in economic
terms would be called service provision (as opposed to goods production),
might include:
– the work of the interpretation or analysis of sites both in and
outside of cultural institutions;
– the work of presentation and installation (where those terms have
come to refer more to the activity than the environment produced);
– the work of public education both in and outside of cultural institutions;
– advocacy and other community based work, including organizing,
education, documentary production and the creation of alternative structures
("community" here including art as well as urban communities).
Whatever the sources or appropriate definitions of project oriented practice,
there seems to be a growing consensus among both artists and curators
that the new set of relations they involve needs clarification. While
curators are increasingly interested in asking artists to produce work
in response to specific existing or constructed situations, the labor
necessary to respond to those demands is often not recognized or adequately
compensated. Conversely, many curators committed to project development
are frustrated by finding themselves in the role of producers for commercial
galleries, or a "service department" for artists they find uninterested
in dialog.
The following proposal has developed in part out of specific discussions
among artists about the need to collectively establish guidelines for
project work. While this proposal would not and could not take the place
of such discussions, it does aim to further them by providing a forum
for the examination of the same practical issues from the historical perspective
of developments over the past twenty-five years, and in terms of the theoretical
and political questions those developments raise.
Exhibition
In order to address these issues and others relating to what appears
to us to be an important shift in and around contemporary art, we are
proposing to produce an exhibition in cooperation with a working group
of artists and curators we hope to convene in the days prior to its opening.
The exhibition is to be generated according to the process described below.
– The organizers will gather background material relating to the
shifts in relations necessitated by project oriented work, as well as
material documenting past and present conditions of those relations. This
material should include documentary material on artists' organizations,
alternative spaces and the exhibitions and activities of individual artists,
artists' proposals, prospectuses and contracts, exhibition budgets and
institutional guidelines.
Participants in the working group will be asked to bring documentary material
relating to their own activities as artists and curators, as well as any
other material they think would be relevant.
– These materials will be installed in the exhibition space where,
prior to the opening, they will form part of the basis for the discussions
of the working group meeting in the same space.
– These meetings will be videotaped and the videotapes will be presented
in the exhibition along with the above mentioned materials (with editing
as necessary).
– A public presentation of the group discussion by all or some of
the participants will be made in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition.
– Following the exhibition, a catalog will be produced containing
some of the materials presented in the exhibition, as well as selections
from transcripts of the videotapes and public presentation will be produced.
Note: The exhibition should contain no original or unique art works. As
we would like the show to circulate easily and cheaply – perhaps
in more than one version – we are interested, rather, in printed
matter and readily copied material such as videos, photographs and documents.
We would also hope to re-convene the working group with all or some of
the participants at some of the locations to which the exhibition travels.
Discussion
While we are particularly interested in creating a forum for the discussion
of very practical issues among artists and between artists and curators,
we also feel that resolutions on practical problems often represent political
decisions which may impact not only the working conditions of artists
but also the function and meaning of their activity.
With this in mind, we would propose the following questions for discussion:
Is it appropriate or useful to describe as "service provision"
the activities and relations which distinguish "project work"
from other modes of artistic practice?
If such a development of service provision has indeed occurred, does it
mark a transformation of the social relations in and around artistic activity?
For example, has the service dimension of much project work changed the
relations of "lookers, buyers, dealers, makers" (and borrowers)
established in the public and private market in goods, into those of expert
/ client or community service?
If so, to what extent has this transformation been a result of action
on the part of artists to control and change the conditions and meaning
of their activity (for example, in the activity which followed from the
historic critique of art market relations), and to what extent is it a
result of historical changes in cultural institutions and art related
professions?
[We are thinking, for example, of:
– the completion, in the sixties, of the professionalization of previously
voluntary positions in cultural institutions (in the United States), and
the increasing autonomy of institutions from the direct control of patrons;
– the increasing importance in the seventies of public support for
cultural institutions (in the United States), which led to a greater awareness
of their public obligations;
– the art museum boom of the eighties resulted in a much greater
demand for artists while the expansion in art related professions –
producing both greater autonomy and greater competition among curators
– meant that those demands became more active and more specific to
particular sites and constructed situations.]
How can we evaluate and direct the changes in the conditions and relations
of artistic practice relative to such developments?
How might the relations involved in project work be formalized in order
to safeguard the interests of both artists and organizations?
How would the formalization of these relations affect the autonomy of
artists and the critical or oppositional possibilities of artistic practice?
For example, would it lead artists to have a purely reformist function
within institutions?
Can attempts to transform or protect the artist's position within markets
and institutions through professionalization around an expert / client
model be reconciled with the radical goals of community service models?
source: http://www.uni-lueneburg.de/fb3/kunst/kunstraum/texte/edraxlerfraser.html