Essay / COMMON SPACE
On public space and critical art
„Certainly, the modernist idea of the avant-garde has to be abandoned, but that does not mean that any fom of critique has become impossible. What is needed to widen the field of artistic intervention, by intervenng directly in a multiplicity of social spaces in order to oppose the porgramme of total social mobilization of capitalism.“ [1]
The basic thesis underlying Mouffe’s theory of political antagonism – agonistic public space – is that liberalism, by virtue of its individualistic and rationalistic approach, is incapable of accommodating the pluralistic nature of the social world. Another objection to liberalism is its assumption of consensus. The idea of public space as a place where a universal consensus emerges, a harmonious whole based on reason, with which necessarily comes the moment of decision.
For her, the political implies an ever-present antagonism, an absence of finality, an undecidability. Every social order becomes a hegemonic institution. Therein lies its political dimension, and it is based on a form of exclusion – which presupposes other forms that are repressed and must be reactivated. Permanent struggle is at the heart of a living democracy. The agonistic public space is a place of confrontation of different projects without the assumption of a final reconciliation, of concord.
What is the role of (critical) art in public space? To visualize, to maintain a given symbolic order, or to challenge it, to deny it. To side-step and expose what is suppressed by the prevailing consensus, to incite dissent. As the opening quote implies, today’s artists do not have the ambition/possibility of absolutely shattering the existing structure, of creating something completely new (avant-garde). According to Mouffe, it is important to rephrase that political art implies radical critique, and only the latter constitutes transgression.
Still from the recording of Obszar Wspólny, Obszar Własny, 1992/93, source: artmuseum.pl
Artur Zmijewski, a Polish artist, discusses the theme of the loss of radicality in art as a consequence of the emancipation of art. For a long time it has been trying to free itself from the service of politics, religion, and authority, which it has been exploiting for its own ends. The legacy of this process for art is an inherent shame that acts as a brake. The consequence of abuse is rejection. Art can be political as long as it stays away from politics. It can be social as long as it does not produce social consequences. Art abandons verifiable impact in reality in favor of fantasies.
To have a (visible) effect implies having power, which is what art fears. Its autonomy has gone too far and become a measure of its ideological purity. Zmijewski argues that the way out of this isolation is to adopt the role of “interested observer”. The medium he primarily uses, which is video, corresponds to this. The power of art is to name and define, to intervene, to put pressure on the ruling social structures by turning them into artefacts – works of art.
Obszar Wspólny, Obszar Własny [Common Space, Own Space]. An assignment that was worked with in Grzegorz Kowalski’s studio at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts since the 1980s. Kowalski, together with his students and colleagues in the school’s studio space, worked on a project based on mutual non-verbal communication. During the duration of the event they communicated with visual forms, symbols, gestures.
Participants start from individual actions (in their own space), but at the same time the action of each participant can trigger a spontaneous reaction of another. Gradually, they move towards mutual collaboration, into a common space. The project of the communicative capacity of art, speaks of the changing relationship of performer/audience and their sensitivity, communication becomes a value in itself.
Still from the recording of Obszar Wspólny, Obszar Własny, 1992/93, source: artmuseum.pl
OWOW VIII, 1992/93 was the first realization that was recorded on film. The opening situation consisted of a wooden crate and a naked body in it. The body was initially a disembodied, dead body, in a subordinate relationship to the participants in the action. Through successive interventions ( shaving, planting a cress in the womb, painting, bathing,….) the body took on a subjectivity of its own. The action ended with a communal dinner on an overturned crate. These studio exercises, however, took place exterritorially, in an environment of free expression of ideas. Zmijewski went further with modifications of this “teaching method”, bringing it into real life.
In Them (2007), a film screened at the Documenta in Kassel, Zmijewski organised something like a workshop where he invited members of the radical youth organisation Mlodiež Wszechpolska, people identifying with the Catholic Church, young Polish Jews and members of various left-wing organisations. At the beginning, each group created their representative posters, symbolic identification. With these they then entered into a common/public space and a mutual (non-verbal) confrontation of opinions. The action takes place over several consecutive days, (the film) ending with destruction, a burning poster, a fire extinguisher being sprayed, and the evacuation of all participants from the room.
Kowalski’s condition of the original OWOW exercises was not to act destructively, which has disappeared from Zmijewski’s variations. According to Zmijewski, it became clear (by bringing the project into a live real environment) that these acts of destruction do not destroy, do not end the action but become part of it.
Still from the recording of Obszar Wspólny, Obszar Własny, 1992/93, source: artmuseum.pl
In this context, I understand the “end” of the film not as the end of a discussion caused by a fatal destruction, but only as the end of the record of a permanent discussion. A constant never-ending confrontation, where the end of the record at a certain point can speak of the role of art as an observer. A social effect unknown. From the course it can be assumed minimal on those involved. The importance of this record/action lies in the visualisation of the thesis of the impossibility of a definitive consensus. It is a negative, sceptical work, not formulating any specific positive political views. But it speaks to the nature of public space. It legitimizes the agonistic principle of democratic space.
Another important moment is the polarity of (the original concept of) proper and common space. The projects do not only talk about interaction in public space, but they start with the setting of the situation, with a starting point in one’s own space. Just as Kowalski’s students first intervened separately (triggering reactions in the other participants), the groups of participants in Them began in their own space (albeit physically identical) with an initial self-definition. They began a process of identification which, by subsequently entering a common space, continued in the mutual interaction of all the groups already. Their identities continued to be formed, manifested, confronted, thickened, …and in this particular case, for each of the groups, consolidated in their initial views. The unknown effect and the impossibility of consensus or even communication.
Still from the recording of Obszar Wspólny, Obszar Własny, 1992/93, source: artmuseum.pl