In this text, I will discuss how the social sphere, which is subordinated to the economic regime, and the processes of de-politicization are intertwined with contemporary art production, as well as how this connection is essential for implementing biopolitical mechanisms of management and control in art and culture and society in general. By this, I mean the irruption of neoliberal values (free trade, commodities and surplus value) into the socio-cultural spaces; this irruption is intrinsically connected with the de-politicization of art and culture, resulting in the instrumentalisation of contemporary art production and art life. In his book Hatred of Democracy (2006), Jacques Rancière explicitly describes the relation between the logic of consumerism and political life intrinsic to the notion of democracy: “So, confronting democratic vitality took the form of a double bind that can be put succinctly: either democratic life signified a large amount of popular participation in discussing public affairs, and it was a bad thing; or it stood for a form of social life that turned energies toward individual satisfaction, and it was a bad thing. Hence, good democracy must be that form of government and social life capable of controlling the double excess of collective activity and individual withdrawal inherent to democratic life.”1 A balance that is allegedly being maintained by the forces in power in democratic states has (fundamental to Neoliberalism) clearly inclined in favour of searching for individual contentment while collective activity and political consciousness are systematically being removed from social life. Moreover, what is fundamental for the prosperity of biopolitics is exactly the deviation from political life. As Giorgio Agamben puts it: “The people are now turned from a constitutive political body into a population: a demographical biological entity, and as such apolitical. An entity to protect, to nurture.” And he adds: “Looking at it today we can’t help seeing – in this determination of the people as apolitical – the implicit recognition [...] of its biopolitical character.”2

If this logic is applied to the system of contemporary art (which is nowadays a commodity par excellence), connections can readily be drawn between investments in contemporary art and the production of profit resulting in the instrumentalisation of art production, controlled creativity and even more, in the regulation of the way of life and the behaviour of artists. A clear example of this is the increasing number of invitations to tender for prize-giving competitions for young artists and students of art schools organised by big corporations. I must emphasise here that I am not moralizing about earning money through awards, this income for the awarded artists cannot be overlooked, but we need to ask ourselves how do corporations benefit from it, and even more importantly, what is their role in (trans)forming the system of contemporary art and what does this mean for the understanding of the meaning of artistic creative processes. Firstly, the logic is clear: an awarded work of art (for artists) means a better point of departure for the artist as it is mentioned on the art market and of course, presents a secure investment for a corporation since the majority of awarded works of art are in the end owned by them. This means that by awarding works of art, corporations also (and above all) award themselves. However, everything is presented as the corporations’ care for the development of art, culture and society. So for example, in the wake of this year’s announcement of the Henkel Art Award for Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia we can read the following Henkel slogan: “Responsibility to society as the driving force.” Incidentally, this year’s Henkel Art Award is limited to drawings only and moreover they set down the largest possible formats of the submitted works of art! At this point a direct connection to the thesis of Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee on corporate social responsibility3 can be drawn, where the author presupposes that the so-called corporate social responsibility is conditioned by interests of external stakeholders and mainly serves the purpose of accumulating additional profit. In the case of art awards, the rhetoric of social responsibility involves above all interests of corporations in taking part in the very profitable trading of art works and control of corporations over art production, consequently resulting in the privatization of writings of the history of art. As the awarded works of art are precisely those which according to an “instant logic” can easily and simply be included into the already set interpretation of “the meaning of the work of art and its role in society.” However, this is of course very tempting for young artists as they are given a certain feeling of social security and of belonging to relevant circles of contemporary art. Consequently, instead of discursiveness and context, artists are more focused on innovative approaches, creativity in a specific medium, searching for personal themes, thus giving “a hand” to the construction of their own branded identity. Yet, all this keeps contemporary art on a harmless thread, and transforms it into forms that can be easily controlled and capitalized on by the capitalist world. Art production is therefore cut off from its socio-political function and contextually evacuated, depoliticized, while every emancipative aspiration is excluded from the creative process.

Within this context, I would like to draw attention to the phenomenon of so-called hyperconceptualism which attaches the image of the conceptual to academic-modernistic logic. By hyperconceptualism, I mean above all contemporary art that is very present in the West and where there are clear established rules which regulate contemporary art production (through words such as research and subject matter). As a result, the codification of art production is wholly formalised, position (or context) is replaced by attitude (or gesture), there are no signs at all of political engagement, while to the artist a social role (a lifestyle) is assigned, which he or she has to act out on the big artstage. The assigned role also encompasses a nomadic way of life (artists in residence, grants and the like), which in turn (even if it is important to some extent for the export of specific local practices) is meant above all to even up different practices to a comparable level; the individual production is (paradoxically – taking into account that it is all about cosmopolitan rhetoric) localised through personal trademark contents. Thus the life of an artist is subjected to control and management, making him/her into a robot learning from his/her own “mistakes”; if the artist is involved with “emancipatory and political” contents, he/she will be punished by cutting off the financial support and depriving him/her of visibility in the public and art world. It is therefore imposed onto practices with eventual emancipatory moment to transform already in their initial stage and to deliver products comparable to other accepted practices in order for them to become visible or financially supported at all.

Investments of corporations in contemporary art production should not be problematic, as young artists are thus offered a launching pad. The problem arises when there is more to these investments than just corporative bad consciousness as these corporations exploit society. Therefore they “return” or better regulate their tax policy with investing into society through art and culture; in most cases this leads to the already mentioned instrumentalisation of art production. Therefore, nowadays not only art production but also social responsibility has tuned into form, the empty rhetoric in which the exploitative nature of corporation is wrapped. This form necessitates the active participation of artists and art production that is suitable for trading. And if there is a small percentage of art production that aims to activate spaces in a political sense, for the majority of the production what really counts is what Marina Abramović already noticed in 1975, namely: “Art must be beautiful, the artist must be beautiful.”

Staš Kleindienst is an artist and a theoretician, post-graduate student at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Ljubljana.

Translated from Slovenian by Tanja Passoni.

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