.pdfMarina Gržinić
THE STATE OF THINGS
Slovenia had its elections in October 2008. Its electoral body decided for a change. 40% of the votes by the electoral body in Slovenia went to the center-left option (we have had a right-wing government in power for the last four years in Slovenia); this therefore presents a wish to change, to turn a page for the future. This fact forces us to ask not only what a left position today is, but additionally to ask at which moment in a condition that is termed neoliberal global capitalism, can the left arise again? Its event(uality) is even more important as we know that a week after the Slovenian elections (in September 2008) the parliamentary elections were held in neighboring Austria as well. The Austrians gave almost one third of all their electoral votes (ca. 30%) to the ultra-right-wing parties.
The right wing government which was in power until recently in Slovenia developed a triadic format of clear necro (death) measures that are operative as necrocapitalism, necropolitics and necroeconomics. We should add two major processes of neoliberal fundamental ways of functioning to this as well: the privatization and deregulation of each and every strata of society; of its institutions and the social, political, economic, cultural and artistic practices.
I am specifically interested in the analysis of institutions, and more particularly, in the field of art and culture. Why? It seems that deregulation and privatization are specifically, powerfully present in the field of art and culture today, where they are ferociously safeguarded to be excluded from critique and analysis. This is not a solitary case in Slovenia, but something that is happening in the whole space of EU and beyond. The case of Slovenia therefore shows structural development that presents similar traits all over the European space, though wittily hidden somewhere, and clearly envisioned and even more advanced on other levels.
The most important point is to understand that neoliberal necrocapitalism lives from the intensification of its two primal conditions of reproduction: deregulation and privatization. In what follows in talking about and explaining the logic of these two conditions and other characteristics to be put forward as being internal to neoliberalism, I will make a reference to two texts and a small vocabulary published recently in Chicago, in the magazine area # 6. I will refer to Daniel Tucker and his editorial text “Inheriting the Grid” and to Nik Theodore, Jamie Peck and Neil Brebber’s text “The City as Policy Lab,” both published in Area Chicago (ART/RESEARCH/EDUCATION/ACTIVISM), no. 6, from August 2008.
To refer to these two conditions means to refer to a situation of psychosis or to a situation of exceptionality at first, that is soon to be seen as completely normalized and accepted. Privatization means that the state withdraws from social, cultural and public life step by step, and leaves these public sectors to struggle for private money. But privatization also implies a format of private property or of a private instrumentalization of the public institution by those who run it. To precisely understand these processes and neoliberalism, let me refer to the short, but extremely precise vocabulary of terms published in Area Chicago, no. 6. I quote: “Neoliberalism is a project of radical institutional transformation. This term refers to a unique period in Capitalism in which some economic elite of some countries has encouraged a free-market fundamentalism that is unprecedented since before the Great Depression. This fundamentalist ideology has promoted a reversal of much of the regulation that has protected local and national economies from foreign competition, in addition to much of the social and political gains of social movements (including organized labor). Much of this transformation occurs through the privatization of industries and services previously monopolized by the State, and many of the social programs associated with Welfare. This period is also marked by the opening up of new markets in sectors of life previously untapped for profit-making potential – including those basic services provided by the state, as well as the growing importance of industries like culture, health, environmentalism, and education (to name a few). Neoliberalism is considered to have grown out of the University of Chicago Economics Department, promoted by its ideologues such as Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman. The concepts grow out of a ‘liberal’ tradition, dating back to the theorists of early capitalism in the late 1800s, who were compelled by pure concepts of freedom. For the liberal, ‘freedom’ was the ideal. For the neoliberal, the ‘free market’ undisturbed by any State intervention is ideal. What must be constantly kept in mind is that the ideal is far from the truth, and current so-called neoliberal policies require massive State intervention – only this time around it is exclusively on behalf of economic elite with no attempt to promote policies of economic redistribution, equal opportunity or civic participation.”
Therefore, going back to Slovenia, we see with almost graphic clarity the impact of neoliberal necrocapitalism in every sector of life, production and labor. In neoliberal necrocapitalism, the whole of society has been transformed into only one BIG INVESTMENT sector that provides for a capitalization of capital. I want to emphasize that the time of the particularization of levels of society (let’s think about culture and art, being “outside” the processes that are going on in the wider economical, social and political contexts, so to speak) are over. There was always a firm relationship of interdependency between the superstructure (art, culture, the social field, etc.) and the economical base. The difference was that in the past this logic was hidden, but in neoliberalism these connections are clearly visible. What we see is that these artistic, cultural, social, health, public, etc. sectors that were before primarily used for ideological reproduction of the mode of production and its labor force, are vital for the direct capitalization of capital today. Therefore, when we speak about the neoliberal necrocapitalist radical deregulation of each and every institution in society, be it the institution of art, culture, politics, health, social security, public, law, religion, etc., it means it affects not only its (dis-)investment policy, but its histories, strategies of interventions, ideologies, rituals and forms of organization.
In neoliberalism, as the Area Chicago team formulates, four processes apply: financialization of capital, speculative movements of financial capital, interspatial competition and place-marketing. My proposal is not only to term the processes that are going on in the field of art and culture as overtly restructured and deregulated, but also to envision a radical process of not only the financialization of capital, but of the financialization of (cultural) institutions as such, with speculative, interspatial competitive and place-marketing as highly visible characteristics as well. In neoliberal necrocapitalism, a process of overdetermination that is definitely financialization, affects not only every level of society, but it is also highly operative in contemporary art and culture.
Financialization of capital means that the surplus value as the only drive of capital is produced with a bubble mechanism of “virtual” money movements, investments, etc. This is not rooted in “production” any more so to speak, as was the case of the direct expropriation of people, regions and territories in the not so distant, clear capitalist colonial past. Even though such a process is still active, if we think about oil, financialization makes money from money (virtually) without the so-called background of production. It does not come as a surprise that in the last week of September 2008, in the week of Wall Street’s darkest scenario of collapse (after the 1929 Great Depression), billions of euros simply disappeared overnight, so to speak. We witness a performative aspect of the speculative power of capitalization of money that has no base in anything but itself. The outcome of such a situation is at once an auto-cannibalization and super-vampiric blood thirsty condition. What do I want to say? If the financialization of capital means the domination of financial markets (foreign exchange trading, futures, debt trading, US government securities trading and other forms of speculative investment) over industrial economies in contemporary capitalism, as stated by the Area Chicago team, I therefore put forward the financialization of institutions as a paradigm, to be parallel to the financialization of capital, meaning the over-empowerment of institutions, but only and solely through performative speculative processes that have no base in anything other than the institutions themselves. These speculative processes are becoming more important than any art and cultural production, more important that any art work, more important that any artist or artistic group position, etc.
As it was formulated by the Area Chicago group, speculation “could be understood as buying, holding and selling something (anything from real estate to fine art) in order to profit from the fluctuations in the market (something like ‘buy low, sell high’).” What is bought and sold here is information itself, devoid of any content, so to speak. Additionally, a process of “a cleansing of the terrain” is to be added, as was learned from the Balkan Wars. Practices and theories that disturb the flow of incessant production of information should be erased, and have to vanish. Very similar processes were and still are –not only in relation to the brutality in the Balkan Wars in the 1990s and in Chechnya, etc. – implemented in relation to the erased people in Slovenia. Therefore, to summarize what is taking place is a twofold process; on the one hand, speculations are the outcome of a hyper activity, not of (art or cultural) productions, but of a hyper production of information itself, and on the other, institutions are activated as incubators of constant production of information – about themselves. The outcome is, to say it simply, a daily bombardment of information of an unbelievable quantity about projects and activities that nobody can follow anymore. A boom is made with the infinite speculative sending and distributing of whatever. On the other hand, we see a completely psychotic process of total evacuation.
A clear example is the Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana or as it is called internationally, the Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana. Though the situation of the Moderna Galerija is seen as a reaction to the four year right-wing government which has been in power in Slovenia until now that prevented this institution from fully and freely working, we can claim that the seeds of being taken over by the processes of financialization are possible to be traced back to the year 2000. In short, financialization means not only capitalizing off of “nothing,” through pure speculative strategies of information. In the case of talking about the financialization of the institution, it means transforming the whole art production as such into NOTHING.
In 2000, the Moderna Galerija in Ljubljana presented the exhibition “2000 + ARTEAST COLLECTION” that was displayed parallel to Manifesta 2000 that also took place in Ljubljana. At the core of the “2000 + ARTEAST COLLECTION,” as was stated by the Gallery itself and the curator, who was additionally the director of the institution, was the conceptual movement in the East of Europe. But what happened is that not a single Slovenian artist was included in that given exhibition, not even in the catalogue that was published in color in hundreds of copies. The group OHO, who is perceived as the hardcore kernel of the conceptual activity of the 1970s in Slovenia, was not included in the exhibition nor in the catalogue. This was, as my analysis already in the year 2000 pointed out, paradoxical enough, since the “2000 + ARTEAST COLLECTION” was not produced as a national display, but the collection was prepared precisely for the international audience. The exhibition “2000 + ARTEAST COLLECTION” was parallel to Manifesta 3 in Ljubljana and therefore they both shared the same large public of internationally invited specialists for Manifesta 3.
Therefore, what happened was that the “2000 + ARTEAST COLLECTION” disavowed the Slovenian part entirely, de facto eliminating all art production from the 1960s on from Slovenia. On the other hand, and at the same time, those running the Moderna Galerija could empower and victoriously situate themselves in the international context, as the exhibition showed an important overview of artists from the East of Europe.
We can say that the Moderna Galerija “protected us” with the complete and total disavowal of contemporary art from Slovenia. As nobody was presented, it is possible to say that the exhibition had “no” consequences for the Slovenian space whatsoever. But the truly suffocating and psychotic experience is that this “protective care” of the Moderna Galerija (that erased all Slovenian artists and all Slovenian productions of art) was in the end protecting only and solely the institution itself. It served to preserve and protect its institutional and instrumental power only. With such a “cleansing of the terrain” in 2000, the institution excepted and evacuated itself from any responsibility for the possible way of defining, selecting and finally presenting contemporary Slovenian art in national and international contexts. The fact is that a theoretical analysis was also written about this “case” immediately in 2000, by the author of the current text, but at that time it was impossible to publish it in the national context; that was only done internationally.
To this genealogy of the way the Moderna Galerija has functioned so far, from 2000, it is possible to also add the way the Moderna Galerija dealt with the serious problem of being without its main exhibition space, due to its renovation, for the last two years. The Moderna Galerija found itself in an extremely disturbing situation, not only for itself, but also for all of us who are without a major institution of contemporary art in Slovenia. The Moderna Galerija “temporarily” lost the space due to its (needed) renovation, but was not granted a temporarily substituting exhibition space (which is a normal practice in the contemporary world when a national institution of art and culture is at stake). The refusal to provide the substituting space to the Moderna Galerija by the state and the respective Ministry was a process of disciplining the institution by the Minister of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia that was elected from the right-wing party in power and other lobbies. Though under pressure, the Moderna Galerija failed to initiate an international action of pressure on the Ministry through activating an international petition force of support.
This “incapability” of the Moderna Galerija, by not “provoking” or initiating a call for an international solidarity action that could force the right-wing party in power to offer a substitutive space (and I can claim that such a call would receive important solidarity support from the national space), can also be seen as a process of withdrawing from a proper responsibility to what is necessary to be done in a situation when it is important to “fight” for the institution of art as such. Instead, a process of mimicry was put forward; Moderna Galerija was invited to present its different exhibition projects (through a logic of “squatting”) in different cultural spaces in the city of Ljubljana. It seems cozy to act as a homeless person, but the problem is that the national institution in such a way normalizes wrong state decisions and procedures; it will be necessary to act completely differently (instead of behaving as an impoverished NGO); the national institution should use its power (and international recognition) to ask for the change of the situation publicly and internationally, to almost provoke a war that will force the state and its ministry to at least try to save face internationally and do something about the state of things. On the contrary, again Moderna Galerija behaved completely speculative; withdrawing, abstracting, and evacuating itself from the situation precisely when it was necessary to draw a line or when it was necessary to act in order to re-articulate a proper position in a broader sense; the way of functioning is similar to the banks on Wall Street in the last week of September 2008. All these institutions, and especially those who run them, are displaying their unbelievable capacity to survive at the expense of the whole artistic and cultural sector.
It is important to state in this respect that Moderna Galerija is working hand in hand with parallel institutions, that it is possible to call “shadow public structures.” They are, so to speak “non-institutions,” as they are not really public institutions, but private funds that function as NGOs and are getting public money. These non-institutions live in shadow of the institutions and are more or less left-overs from the 1990s. What do they primarily do? Such institutions are seen as over rapid “incubators” that over rapidly produce generations of different structures that are operative within art and culture: curators, organizers, even artists, etc. Along with this process of over rapid production of new (human) structures, these non-institutions produce over rapid genealogies of art. It is important to understand that this over rapid process is taking part contrary to genealogies of the First Capitalist World (that are patiently and constantly being (re)constructed). The over rapid production of genealogies present a process of “enterprised-up genealogies” – it is a form of deregulating, and it is the way to (over rapidly) construct and conceptualize history. These traits are not psychological descriptions, but are constitutive to the way neoliberal capitalism functions structurally today, and show that sped up time processes are part of finanzialization and speculation.
Additionally, in this whole process other less visible procedures are taking part, in order that the financialized institution can maintain its power at any cost. We think of processes when the institution declares a “war” provoking a state of exception, in order to hide its proper irresponsibility. This means to display a space of art and culture that encircles the official institution of art as being fragmented, problematic and corrupted. For contemporary deregulated and speculative art institutions, is difficult to grasp the space as being a space of alliances. Through their optics, marginalized groups and practices are presented as those with maximal power, while marginalized positions are made equal to state institutional power positions. It is a process of obfuscation that has as a result a situation where everybody is engaged, so to speak, in mutually destructive place-marketing strategies against others. At the same time the official institution of art is being cleared from any responsibility, and presents itself as only being a victim of the system.
What does it mean to provoke a state of exception as a strategy for obfuscating a proper position in order to preserve power? For surviving and reproducing its power in the national realm, the institution needs a total war or a state of exception. It is produced through a process that delegates its incitement through somebody else and in a format that hides the institution’s responsibility. To delegate means to find an (art) format or completely unscrupulous individual on one side, or even an international institution on the other that is willing to accept financially supporting the whole “art (dirty) business” on the presupposition that it takes part in another cultural (national) space. Though in a proper national context, such international institution is far from “implementing” the same “measures,” as they are implemented only in countries that are seen from the international “supporting” institution as not being civilized enough. Actually, the international supporting institution turns a state of disorder and power games, which are known as balkanization to its advantage. It presents itself as being “subversive” and completely “autonomous.”
As a result of these processes, the categories of public space, public money and the public as such have been totally instrumentalized and privatized.
At the point of a conclusion, I can state, that as institutions and non-institutions are functioning through a process of financialization with fully speculative scenarios similar to banks and non-banks, they have to be aware of their possible total collapse. This is precisely what is going on in Wall Street. Elements of the collapse are already possible to be seen in the way the art institution functions publicly, going beyond every border of good taste.
In short, neoliberal necrocapitalism is continually being produced and reproduced, not only economically and politically, but obviously institutionally. All these processes have an effect that is totally and straightforwardly completely socially “dysfunctional.” It generates consequences that are very difficult to be fully understood. Nowadays it is necessary to de-link ourselves from a war of everybody against everybody, ex/changing everything with everything, everybody with everybody; it is necessary to be capable of drawing a line of differentiation in the space, while building local and international alliances. These are the only possible ways for changing the deregulated and privatized present economic, social, and institutional spheres of our life and work.
