Tuesday, September 30, 2008
field research (Hans Haacke)
From one of the Tate podcasts, an interview with Hans Haacke.
Link to the whole interview here for webcast & here for the MP3.
Audience member: You were mentioning earlier that in the '60s artists were more political than now. Why do you think that is the case?
Hans Haacke: I can answer the question for the U.S. I cannot...well, maybe I can also answer it for Britain. In the '60s, in the U.S., and in Britain I believe, there was a draft; everybody had to be in the military.
Presenter: It ended in the late '50's, I think, in Britain; but yes, post-war we did have the draft.
Hans Haacke: In the U.S. the draft was discontinued, I don't remember when, but since then, what happens in Afghanistan, what happens in Iraq, or where-ever else it may be does not directly affect the population at large. There are very few families that are affected and the young people have absolutely nothing to do with it and therefore they don't fret about it, they go out and make money!
If there were a draft—and there are, in fact, some Congressmen that are proposing there be a draft; it has no chance to pass, of course—then it would look very different, there would not have been a war and all sorts of things would have been very different.
I remember teaching in the late '60s and some of my students at the time were studying art because there was a deferment to be drafted, they didn't want to go to Vietnam.
Woman in audience: Your work often challenges boundaries, whether they're formal, institutional or ideological; I was wondering whether you considered that to be an artist's responsibility and how you considered this had an influence or not on art on the wider context of art within society as you referred to it earlier?
Hans Haacke: Well I hate to be prescriptive, so I wouldn't like to say, 'yes, you have to have that responsibility'. What I would ... one way to go at it in a maybe softer manner is that whatever you do, will, if it is occurring in the public arena, can have a...an affect on the zeitgeist, on the social climate, what people are talking about, what they think, what is acceptable to talk about, or what is, for one reason or another, not acceptable. So it is not as if artists work in a vacuum and that they would have no repercussions. Now, not claiming that they have huge repercussions, but they, like every other profession whatever it may be, in their particular area do affect what people think and that's where it may matter.
[...]
Presenter: ....another question, anyone? The man with the white t-shirt...here?
Man in white t-shirt: Thanks. I have a question about the limits of institutional critique which you can either take personally or as a general question about the limits of institutional critique.
I was struck by the question that you were asked about how you supported your own practice through teaching. I'm particularly struck by what's changed in the education system since the 1960s and '70s. But particularly in the last ten years, and I would speak only with reference to the U.K. because I don't really know the American system.
Really, since the Clinton and early Blair administrations, education, universities have been regarded as the centres of the knowledge economy. There's been a movement within universities away from performing knowledge and circulating knowledge toward the production of knowledge, and then the transfer of that knowledge to industry. There's the notion now of the university as a 'hub' of knowledge. So for example, regional development agencies now support the formation of universities as they've done in Lincoln, for example, where there was no university but there was alot of economic depression so they say "what do we do? we found a university".
At the same time, in that period since the '70s there has been a growth from undergraduate degree course to M.A. courses in the 1980s to PhD courses in the late 90s for artists and increasingly now, fellowships for artists. So at the same time that this process of commodification of knowledge had occurred, the artist's actual means of making a living has become increasingly institutionalised within the university system.
So the question I have, really...I have to say, within that...as a teacher within a university system you are increasingly invited to provide a neo-liberalised version of knowledge for your students the student is...you're encouraged to think about the student as a customer and what you give them as a product.
What's the role of institutional critique within the university system for an artist like yourself or more generally? ...It just strikes me that institutional critique did very well to look at the art market, to look at the museological institutions, it's done very little to look at the actual educational institutions.
Hans Haacke: Well to begin with...what has been called 'institutional critique' since the late '70s, I believe, has become something that had been talked about only during the last fifteen years. Maybe before that this was an in-group term and nobody really worried about it ...And of course it has nothing to do per se with...if you take it at face value, ‘institutional critique’ is not, per se, related to the art world and art institutions. The university is also an institution, the government is an institution, the medical establishment is an institution and each of these institutions that we all need-, depend on using-, and are victims of in many ways- deserve an internal critique by their participants, and not as the latest thing on the art market or the in the medical establishment, but ongoing...And I would go so far as to say, and this now sounds very pompous and please forgive me for this, if you are interested in a democracy that deserves the name, that's what you need.
Woman in audience: What do you think art is for, do you think art has a function?
Presenter: We've saved the 60,000-dollar question for the last! [Presenter & audience giggle hysterically]
Hans Haacke: Does art have a function? Well, it depends on the circumstances. If you look at art history it usually performed the function, whether you agreed with the function, that's another story; but, in answer to an earlier question I said, well, no matter whether the artist believes that his or her work has a function, it does function and it has an effect, as marginal as the effect may be in the individual case, but it leaves something that—the other big word—you may be responsible for even though you didn't think of it!
Presenter: Ah, the "R" word, I'm glad you bought it up! "Responsibility". [Han Haacke & Presenter giggle] It's my responsibility now to draw things to a close ... is that...? ... You have time? OK. In that case, I shan't! Yes, Grace, you had, down here...? ...And somebody over there?
Woman 'over there': It'd be good to hear about your observations about the future. It seems we have some huge challenges in various pipelines coming toward us and to know whether you have a sense of...any optimism about our collective futures?
[all laugh]
Presenter: Two 60,000-dollar questions![cackles]
Hans Haacke: The future is a crapshoot!
[all laugh]
Link to the whole interview here for webcast & here for the MP3.
Audience member: You were mentioning earlier that in the '60s artists were more political than now. Why do you think that is the case?
Hans Haacke: I can answer the question for the U.S. I cannot...well, maybe I can also answer it for Britain. In the '60s, in the U.S., and in Britain I believe, there was a draft; everybody had to be in the military.
Presenter: It ended in the late '50's, I think, in Britain; but yes, post-war we did have the draft.
Hans Haacke: In the U.S. the draft was discontinued, I don't remember when, but since then, what happens in Afghanistan, what happens in Iraq, or where-ever else it may be does not directly affect the population at large. There are very few families that are affected and the young people have absolutely nothing to do with it and therefore they don't fret about it, they go out and make money!
If there were a draft—and there are, in fact, some Congressmen that are proposing there be a draft; it has no chance to pass, of course—then it would look very different, there would not have been a war and all sorts of things would have been very different.
I remember teaching in the late '60s and some of my students at the time were studying art because there was a deferment to be drafted, they didn't want to go to Vietnam.
Woman in audience: Your work often challenges boundaries, whether they're formal, institutional or ideological; I was wondering whether you considered that to be an artist's responsibility and how you considered this had an influence or not on art on the wider context of art within society as you referred to it earlier?
Hans Haacke: Well I hate to be prescriptive, so I wouldn't like to say, 'yes, you have to have that responsibility'. What I would ... one way to go at it in a maybe softer manner is that whatever you do, will, if it is occurring in the public arena, can have a...an affect on the zeitgeist, on the social climate, what people are talking about, what they think, what is acceptable to talk about, or what is, for one reason or another, not acceptable. So it is not as if artists work in a vacuum and that they would have no repercussions. Now, not claiming that they have huge repercussions, but they, like every other profession whatever it may be, in their particular area do affect what people think and that's where it may matter.
[...]
Presenter: ....another question, anyone? The man with the white t-shirt...here?
Man in white t-shirt: Thanks. I have a question about the limits of institutional critique which you can either take personally or as a general question about the limits of institutional critique.
I was struck by the question that you were asked about how you supported your own practice through teaching. I'm particularly struck by what's changed in the education system since the 1960s and '70s. But particularly in the last ten years, and I would speak only with reference to the U.K. because I don't really know the American system.
Really, since the Clinton and early Blair administrations, education, universities have been regarded as the centres of the knowledge economy. There's been a movement within universities away from performing knowledge and circulating knowledge toward the production of knowledge, and then the transfer of that knowledge to industry. There's the notion now of the university as a 'hub' of knowledge. So for example, regional development agencies now support the formation of universities as they've done in Lincoln, for example, where there was no university but there was alot of economic depression so they say "what do we do? we found a university".
At the same time, in that period since the '70s there has been a growth from undergraduate degree course to M.A. courses in the 1980s to PhD courses in the late 90s for artists and increasingly now, fellowships for artists. So at the same time that this process of commodification of knowledge had occurred, the artist's actual means of making a living has become increasingly institutionalised within the university system.
So the question I have, really...I have to say, within that...as a teacher within a university system you are increasingly invited to provide a neo-liberalised version of knowledge for your students the student is...you're encouraged to think about the student as a customer and what you give them as a product.
What's the role of institutional critique within the university system for an artist like yourself or more generally? ...It just strikes me that institutional critique did very well to look at the art market, to look at the museological institutions, it's done very little to look at the actual educational institutions.
Hans Haacke: Well to begin with...what has been called 'institutional critique' since the late '70s, I believe, has become something that had been talked about only during the last fifteen years. Maybe before that this was an in-group term and nobody really worried about it ...And of course it has nothing to do per se with...if you take it at face value, ‘institutional critique’ is not, per se, related to the art world and art institutions. The university is also an institution, the government is an institution, the medical establishment is an institution and each of these institutions that we all need-, depend on using-, and are victims of in many ways- deserve an internal critique by their participants, and not as the latest thing on the art market or the in the medical establishment, but ongoing...And I would go so far as to say, and this now sounds very pompous and please forgive me for this, if you are interested in a democracy that deserves the name, that's what you need.
Woman in audience: What do you think art is for, do you think art has a function?
Presenter: We've saved the 60,000-dollar question for the last! [Presenter & audience giggle hysterically]
Hans Haacke: Does art have a function? Well, it depends on the circumstances. If you look at art history it usually performed the function, whether you agreed with the function, that's another story; but, in answer to an earlier question I said, well, no matter whether the artist believes that his or her work has a function, it does function and it has an effect, as marginal as the effect may be in the individual case, but it leaves something that—the other big word—you may be responsible for even though you didn't think of it!
Presenter: Ah, the "R" word, I'm glad you bought it up! "Responsibility". [Han Haacke & Presenter giggle] It's my responsibility now to draw things to a close ... is that...? ... You have time? OK. In that case, I shan't! Yes, Grace, you had, down here...? ...And somebody over there?
Woman 'over there': It'd be good to hear about your observations about the future. It seems we have some huge challenges in various pipelines coming toward us and to know whether you have a sense of...any optimism about our collective futures?
[all laugh]
Presenter: Two 60,000-dollar questions![cackles]
Hans Haacke: The future is a crapshoot!
[all laugh]
Labels: field research
field research (grevillea)
Monday, September 29, 2008
field research ('relational' figures)
To pass the time as I am doing the-most-boring-job-I-have-ever-done-for-money-ever, I have been listening to pod-casts. It's hard to say exactly what I hear, and what I take in. I think about it as something like the type of attention that psychoanalysts pay you as you monologue your experience: what is of interest or use or relevance stands out from the static and drone.
This is from a documentary podcast by ABC Radio National on the life of Melbourne-born cosmopolitan painter Lina Bryans, The Pink House.
This is from a documentary podcast by ABC Radio National on the life of Melbourne-born cosmopolitan painter Lina Bryans, The Pink House.
Art Historian 1: She's been described as a relational figure, relating to people and bringing people together, but not being a high profile person. She managed to...I would say, bring a sense of wholeness to the scene.
Narrator: Lina Bryans met the Czech architect Alex Jelinek in the mid-1950's and he was her companion until her death in the year 2000. Her portraits can be found in the collections of all the major Australian art galleries, confirmation of the importance of painting to the national archive, and, of course, the importance of painters to life.
Art Historian 2: The effort she put into living and into relating...you know, the way she conducted friendships and relationships in general—it doesn't fit within idea perhaps of male orientated or male created ideas of careerism or posterity; but that comes into her art—this same ability to put people together and to see what's important in the world is the thing that she brings to a subject that she's painting. It's a very rare achievement.
Art Historian 3: What I like about her is that she's an example of someone who didn't run with a certain way of doing things. She's a relatively minor figure in some ways. She's done some superb paintings. What more can you ask of an artist than to do that?
[archival recording]Lina Bryans: I mean you only go on doing it because you've made it your life and it gives you something.
Interviewer: Has it given you a good life?
Lina Bryans: Yes.
Labels: field research
the enigma of gardeners past
four objects (at bottom) uncovered whilst preparing the overgrown garden bed for spring (at top). In the background is the site of our epic struggle with the cooch grass, and, in the middle ground, the new lemon tree.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
field research (vision statement)
The text on the exterior of the Melbourne Campus Building of the Australian Catholic University:
"The University explicitly engages the social, ethical and religious dimensions of the questions it faces in teaching and research, and service."
Labels: field research
