Kustoski gest u svetu savremene umetnosti

Abstract

Kako je definisano i samim naslovom, centralno mesto analize u ovom radu zauzima pojam sveta savremene umetnosti i način njegove afirmacije i ekspanzije kroz polje kustoskih praksi. Uz kritički osvrt na dosadašnju debatu u ovom polju, pokušaću da uspostavim jedan nedostajući teorijski pogled na današnju funkciju kustosa, koji bi retroaktivno bacio svetlo i na samu konstrukciju i mehanizam ekspanzije termina savremena umetnost. Iz tog razloga se neću baviti samo problemima institucionalizacije profesije kustos u okviru ‘akademije’ ili ‘scene’, već ću pokušati da pokažem kako je glagol curating upleten u različite sfere savremenog društva koje utiču kako na spoljašnje (institucionalne, ekonomske i kontekstualne) tako i na unutrašnje (jezičke, diskurzivne i estetske) aspekte savremene umetnosti i savremenog života. Specifičnije, u ovom radu se bavim teorijskim okvirima kustoske prakse, teorijskim okvirima proizvodnje savremene umetnosti i savremenosti, načinima na koji institucije izlaganja i kultura događaja posreduju u uspostavljanju tih okvira, kao i uspostavljanju fenomena savremene subjektivnosti. Jedna od tvrdnji ovog rada jeste da su okviri institucionalnog polja savremene umetnosti fleksibilni i pomični, kao i da se vezuju za ekspanziju i transformativni potencijal same umetnosti. Kao centralnu karakteristiku savremene umetnosti ovaj rad izdvaja gest pokazivanja i format izložbe – odnosno, ono što se naziva izložbenom retorikom ili diskutuje pod pojmom izlagački kompleks. U tom smislu, uvođenjem pojma kustoski gest želim da istovremeno obuhvatim kako šire, tako i specifičnije odlike “izlagačkog kompleksa” kao dominantne “retoričke figure” savremene umetnosti, da upotrebim termine Tonija Beneta (Tony Bennett) i Brusa (Bruce) Fergusona, neke od kritičara i teoretičara čije radove ova disertacija proučava i jukstapozira uporedo sa radom pionirskih nezavisnih kustoskih figura kao što su Set Sigelaub (Seth Siegelaub) ili Harald Zeman (Szeemann). Ovaj rad, takođe, utvrđuje premisu da je upravo izloženost javnosti ono što čini umetničko delo prisutnim u svetu (ili istoriji umetnosti). Pokušaj da govorim o curating-u u širem smislu radije nego o kustoskoj praksi proprium, da pitanje kustosa postavim u prošireno polje – kako su ovu teorijsku i umetničku operaciju nazvali kritičari modernističke samodovoljnosti objekta – u ovom radu predstavlja i jedan pokušaj materijalističke analize, kao i ideološke kritike fenomena prestrojavanja umetnosti u šire polje globalnih kultura, ili, preciznije rečeno, kulturne logike kasnog kapitalizma (Jameson). Recentni fenomen globalne kulture koji institucionalno i fenomenološki prožima savremenu umetnost podrazumeva aproprijaciju i utilizaciju nekadašnjeg koncepta buržoaske visoke kulture i umetnosti u masovnu potrošnju različitih kultura (komunikacije, kognitivnog 5 turizma, životnog stila, informisanosti, itd.). Takođe, ovaj rad kao jednu od svojih ambicija ima da u našem akademskom prostoru predstavi presek kritičkog razmatranja istorije i etimologije funkcije i figure kustosa koja je zabeležena tokom poslednje dve dekade, kao i specifičnosti kustoskih praksi epohe savremenosti koja podrazumeva deregulaciju važećih istorijskih kategorija i prostorno-geografskih i disciplinarnih ograničenja. Jedan od zaključaka koji ovaj rad uspostavlja jeste da praksa umetničke proizvodnje i mišljenja kroz kritički prilaz kustoskim studijama radije treba da bude sagledana kao kolektivna i kao procesualna – odnosno, kao projektna – kao i da ćemo bolje uvide u disciplinu dobiti ne kroz bavljenje singularnim kustoskim pozicijama i stilovima, već radije kroz paradigme, odnosno kroz polje uzroka i efekta koje obuhvata delovanje funkcije kustos, a što se izražava glagolom curating. Kako se ispostavlja tokom istraživanja koje predstavlja ovaj rad, kustos je proizvod odnosa, agent ili node (čvorište) u praksama povezivanja i komunikacije. Upravo zbog te “relacione” osobine kustosa koja svakako nije i “relativizujuća” (jer je utemeljena na materijalnosti navedenih odnosa), preciznijem značenju funkcije kustos se, paradoksalno, radije možemo približiti kroz udaljavanje i pogled u različitim pravcima, nego kroz pokušaj užeg definisanja i “centriranje mete”.

As it was defined by the very title, in the focus of the analysis offered by this dissertation is the notion of the artworld, and the ways of its expansion and affirmation through the field of curatorial practices. After offering the critical examination of the historical and current debate in the field, this paper will attempt to establish one missing theoretical overview of the contemporary function of curator, which could retroactively shed more light on the very construction and the mechanism of expansion of the term of contemporary art. Thus my concern will not be dedicated only towards the problems of institutionalizing of the profession of curator within the ‘Academy’ or within the ‘Scene’; I will try to demonstrate the ways in which the verb curating is entangled with different spheres of contemporary society, which are affecting both the outer (institutional, economical and contextual) and inner (linguistic, discursive and aesthetically) aspects of contemporary art and contemporary life. More specific, in this work I am examining theoretical framework of curatorial practices, theoretical framework of production of both contemporary art and contemporaneity, and the ways in which the institution of exhibiting and the culture of event are mediating in establishing the said frames and the phenomena of contemporary subjectivity. One of the claims made by this work is that the frames of the institutional field of contemporary art are flexible and movable, which is connected with the phenomena of expansion and transformative potential of the art itself. As the central characteristics of contemporary art this work will outline the gesture of displaying and the format of exhibition – that is, what is called exhibition rhetoric or discussed under the term of exhibitionary complex. By introducing the term of curatorial gesture I aim to encompass both the wider, but also more specific characteristics of the “exibitionary complex” as a dominant “rhetorical figure”, to use the terms by Tony Bennett and Bruce Ferguson, some of the theorists and critics whose works are examined in this dissertation and juxtaposed with the works of the pioneering figures of independent curating such are Seth Siegelaub or Harald Szeemann. This work, also, reaffirms the premise that it is precisely the act of being exhibited in public (and to public) what is making a work of art to be present within the world (or, within history of art). My attempt to speak of curating in a wider sense rather then of curatorial practice proprium, to position the issue of curator in one expanded field – as this theoretical and artistic operation was named by the critics of modernistic self-sufficiency of the object – in this work also presents the attempt of material analysis, as well as 7 ideological critique of realigning and deploying of art within the wider field of global culture, or, more precisely, within the cultural logic of late capitalism (Fredric Jameson). A recent arrival of global culture which is permeating contemporary art in institutional and phenomenological sense underestimates the appropriation and utilization of the former bourgeois concept of high culture and high art by the principles of mass consumption of various different cultures (communications, cognitive tourism, lifestyle, informatics, etc). One of the conclusions implied by this work, regarding the approach towards curatorial education, is that the practice of artistic production and thinking should be understood as collective, and as processual – that is, as a project-based practice – and that the best observation on this discipline will come trough examining paradigms, that is, by examining the causes and effects of the function of curator, expressed by the very verb of curating, rather the by examining the singular curatorial positions and style. As it unfolds during the research presented by this work, curator is the product of relations, an agent or a node in the practices of conjunction and communication. Precisely for this “relational” characteristic of curator that is decidedly not “relativizing” (because of it base in the materiality of said relations), we can approach a more precise meaning of the function of curator in a somewhat paradoxical manner; not trough the attempts to make narrower definition and to “set the target”, but rather trough distancing and observing from various different angles instead.