One of the hardest questions that sometimes we all have to answer as art producer / audience is which category of artistic value is undertaken by politics-related works when they are presented in opposite contexts to their own policies especially in the face of aesthetic quality. The main difficulty in the answering of the question is that it harbors other questions in the same question. Any answer to the question should be of quality that may answer the sub questions by testing the boundaries of information. Some works that can be categorized in so-called politic sociology force the limits of field works unique to basic disciplines such as ethnography and anthropology of cultural analysis. So, as a subset question, we can discuss the question, can the art which was made beyond the field really create a platform of its own as outside of the field or is it starting to stay in the field again? At this point, the thing that will determine the answers is its possibility to lose the meaning of the structure which it made by getting further away from the values of its own field before the study being in the field again. Another situation which can determine the answers is that it sabotages itself by the lost meaning turning into its contrary. Are the approaches outside the field bringing one another within the field again? Paradox object definition as an art object that support Groy’s both thesis and antithesis can be useful in the evaluation of such studies.[1] Boris Groys here highlighted the paradoxes especially concerning ontological structure such as the fact that a work is both a work of art and not (Duchamp Fountain case), or that fact that it is both a geometric figure and a painting at the same time (Malevich Black Square case), or the fact that it is both realistic and abstract (Gerhard Richter case). ). However, the works mentioned here are the main breaking points in terms of art history. So, in their internal structure, they already destroy the works which benefited from the similar works which followed them. While Tony Godfrey mentions about surrealist ready-made in his Conceptual Art book, he underlines that ready-made term changed just after Duchamp. For this reason, the updated cases I analyze as a paradox object do not have the same meaning intensity as the previous ones that Groys exemplified. By being conscious of this, in order to comprehend the questions inside the questions without any negative or positive judgement, I think that evaluating the works whose aesthetic contexts consist weak but up-to date political discourses. As paradox objects in the process which continues from production process to exhibition will be more comfortable not only for the artist but also for the audience. Otherwise, it is inevitable that we will be accused of deviating the meaning or reducing it in answering our questions.
If we can judge as “artistic production has become conditioned by general economy”, it is probable that, in the beginning of production phase, we guess that the works of art were referred to whom or where. In the beginning, and right after the second half of the previous century, we could greet the reversible affects of avant-garde approaches with sincerity. However, particularly in the 1990s, it is a well-known equation that symbolic economy of art work was not independent of the general economy of the context it was in. If a work gives the impression that it considers the visibility in art to some extent without hiding it, will its discourse that can be included in politic sociology lose any value due to this consideration? Because when the discourse of works which leans on the political connection without pursuing aesthetic quality, it will be subjected to value questioning twice. The effortless discovery of the main issue of the work and its weak associations with aesthetic context can only attribute a value to it in the time it exists and confines it to non-progressive present.
On the other hand, the definition of “Ethnographic Artist” of Hal Foster who underlined a new paradigm from the paradigm point of Benjamin’s “The Author As Producer” to the relationship between cultural politics and artistic authority acts as a mindwaker role in evaluating the productions of the ones who are not from the center and who try to get appearance in central art market “which reaches it by means of culture and bless the variety” [2]. He reveals similar analogies between two paradigms by stating the difficulty of the subject defined in the context of economical relations turning into perceived subject in the context of cultural identity. Here, he says that some assumptions continue in the second model in a problematic way. First assumption mentions about that political transformation area is artistic transformation area at the same time, it mentions that the political leaders protectorate artistic leaders. Second assumption is that this area is in another place like cultural other or the oppressed postcolonial. And the third assumption is that the obligatory of the artist who is asked for assistance is perceived as cultural other, otherwise access to transformational otherness will be limited [3]. With the expression of Foster, the danger becomes deeper when the artist who adopted the “ideological protector” role is also asked to adopt the local and the information provider role together with ethnographic role [4].
First of all, when the author of the work we analyze as a paradox object from a distance stands with his/her ethnographic identity, the questions in the question is turned to the producer from the work itself. By the way, the author of the work is also another matter of discussion. Especially the works that are headed from the late step matter of the artist in the center become more superficial as they lost their ironic power just after their premise examples. The studies of Serdar Özkaya which are about the epistemological problems of the art, are based on the later idea that have the quality of premise in terms of locality. One of the studies which assimilates the idea which is suitable for the ethnographic artist definition with the local and the information provider identity is the video of Şener Özmen / Erkan Özgen called “Road to Tate Modern” in 2003. The video about the search of Tate Modern of two Kurdish guys with referring to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza characters corresponds to the problematic assumptions of ethnographic artist paradigm. On the other hand, if the location of the collection, exhibitions and galleries are thought, the difficulty of the question that we asked about artistic value category will be more clarified.
Similarly, Fluxus loving mother portrait of Halil Altındere becomes “another place” where cultural other identity makes political transformation area equal once more with artistic transformation area by means of the artist. European Union headscarfed woman portrait of Burak Delier that took place in the controversially hospitality zone of 9th Istanbul biennale couldn’t go beyond the thought of commercial image. What Freud called as minor differences of narcissism is enriched by means of especially commercials in current society. Although this enriching is represented as a critical structure on the contrary, a visual language which can’t go beyond the commercial image quality is at issue.
Although some questions that could not be clarified about the studies whose political connections are stronger than aesthetic quality occur, anti-professionalism approach that Boris Groy underlines in his “The Weak Universalism” article can clarify the answers. While anti-professionalism is an important step for making the art democratic, this is confused by not being professional. This is one of the main problems of the works which threatens the existence of their similar just after their premises. In the beginning of the same article, Groys mentions about a long tradition of the approach which artists criticize the corporations and getting academicals and underlines that artists do not criticize themselves as a corporation figure. [5]
Museums, academies, galleries, curators, and art critics are criticized by the artists. When the artists direct the same critical point of view to themselves, institutionalizing of the artists and their relations with market economy will gain different dimensions. Groys who says the avant-garde understating which is dominant on our current art is the academic form of late avant-garde understanding, mentions that the approach of artists is becoming a traditional approach at this point. So, this new form should be criticized so that it should renew itself like other structures which are institutionalized and thought that they no more meet the needs and maybe it should make itself dynamic. A solution which I think that is suitable for such kind of a result is the interdisciplinary artist model of Stephen Wright. He mentions a model which puts the condition of the artist in the process forward, which gives importance to the sharing of their information and capabilities. According to this view, artists work together with scientists without the concern of getting anything in the name of art. With the aim of performing an action in reality, he offers an art which has no audience, no creator; an art model and work which stands far away from art utopia. [6] This suggestion of equating art and life itself can answer the questions not only in terms of epistemological problems of art but also in terms of its context.
1. B. Groys, Art Power, The MIT Pres,(2008).
2. H. Foster, Gerçeğin Geri Dönüşü, Ayrıntı Yayınları, (2009), p.213.
3. a.g.k., p.216
4. a.g.k., p.217
5. B. Groys, e-flux journal, 15, (2010) http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/130
6. A. Akay, S. Wright, Sanat Dünyamız, 92, 130-135, (2004).
7. T.Godfrey, Conceptual Art, Phaidon Press, (1998).
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