The Spectacle of the Everyday
A letter from Hou Hanru to Hans Ulrich Obrist
Dear HUO,
It has been just over three years since we started this conversation. In hindsight, the number and scope of changes that have taken place during that period are almost mind-boggling. It is indeed a time of change. Increasingly, we are pushed to respond to more and more urgent situations.
Recently, as you know, I have been invited to curate the upcoming 10th Biennale de Lyon, and I have less than seven months to work out such a large project! You were a curator for the last edition. So for me personally, I can think of nothing more ‘urgent’ to discuss with you this round than this Biennale. To kick off the conversation, I’d like to share with you some excerpts from my recent interview with Jens Emil Sennewald* touching on my views of the role of curator today and how the theme of the Biennale, “the Spectacle of the Everyday”, has been conceived…
The exhibition is not the goal
JES Curator is a profession that one could consider as a kind of visual DJ, someone who knows how to select a great number of works that are able to transform “the Zeitgeist” into images of art. How should a curator proceed to engage people?
HHR (Laughs) I don’t share this vision of the profession of curator. DJ-ing is not my way of thinking. The question about what a curator is today is a little bit like asking what an artist is today. Is he a theoretician, a researcher, an intellectual, or just an ordinary worker? There is no simple answer to the question. It’s up to each curator to choose his or her own vision and methods. In my case, it’s about conceptualizing the exhibition as discourse, as a kind of statement relating to questions of culture, art and society – and why not even politics. This is a process that involves finding the artists who know how to respond, always in different ways, in relation to various contexts, with the maximum relevance, to questions posed by society. The exhibition is not the goal in itself. We create a social platform to construct or reconstruct the relationship between the artists’ works and the social context. One should not be afraid to say that art functions in society as an intellectual force. What is interesting is that an exhibition is not simply an exhibition.
JES You also write for art magazines and catalogues. Is there a difference between critical writing and curating?
HHR Writing is basic activity through which one can better understand what this profession is, what contemporary art is. Making an exhibition is not very interesting without this resource. Writing and curating are inseparable. They are about demonstrating how art makes sense, how it looks for and produces meaning in a social context. The exhibition is a kind of representation or presentation of this process and the products of this effort, whereas the critique is a kind of commentary on how all these make sense.
JES The Istanbul Biennial was a biennial in the city, a noisy and active one, a bit like a portrait of the punk for the beginning of this century. Is the Biennale de Lyon going to provide a more clear and precise line of structure?
HHR In fact, the contexts are very different. A biennial is different every time, always related to where the site is situated. It always seeks coherence and pertinence to the place and the context of where it is held. Even the definition of art is not always the same. The Biennale de Lyon was born out of the history of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon. The question in Lyon, then, is how to invent a project that is able to increase and concentrate the power of the event within the framework of the institution. I always think that in other countries, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the biennial should function as a mechanism to create art scenes, infrastructures that can help unify forces of contemporary art that are not sufficiently visible due to the lack of infrastructure. In Lyon, the infrastructure is already in place. The question is more about how to reconnect the institutions with the real world. The key is to present the cultural diversity that has constructed our everyday life. This aspect has not been sufficiently recognized as a constructive force in our cultural and artistic life. In Lyon, we have a very established and well-known biennale. It is precisely the right milieu within which to question the status of the biennale itself.
A bug in the system
JES In a 1993 catalogue, you published the text “Exoticism in the heart of the civilization”. What makes ‘the other’ so fascinating in the age of globalization?
HHR Things have changed a great deal over the last several years. The Western model of ‘globalization’ is by no means the only model to be spread all around. There are a multitude of activities, ways of perceiving and creating that can circulate throughout the world. The question of exoticism, however, remains important. Exoticism is the consumption of the other without real exchange and, especially, without acceptance of the fact that we are always changed by the other. A kind of consumption without getting one’s own hands dirty. Although we can no longer talk about a ‘pure’ Western world, we still see this intention of dominating the other in terms of the spectacle, the intention to contribute to freezing the evolution of reality. In spite of the constant struggles against this, the temptation still exists. My work seeks to create spaces in which this dominating world, in the form of the spectacle, which is not really alive, can be suspended, and the world of the everyday life, the diversity and reality of life, which are not a clear form, can become visible. I think that an exhibition is a space where we can realize and manifest a dynamic negotiation between these two forces: the life in the spectacle and the life of the everyday. It’s a space of resistance. A space that can provide the possibilities to make the voice of the real world heard. In fact, I always seek, through the space of the exhibition, to transform the contradiction between the spectacle and the real into a dynamic process.
JES Is the re-introduction of Guy Debord’s term ‘The Spectacle’ still responsive to today’s reality?
HHR Absolutely! It’s important to continue with these kinds of reflections in the age of globalization, and the consumerist system. The current crisis is no more than a revelation of the existence of a bug in this process. It is urgent to reflect on the real problem. A biennial is certainly a spectacle. Can we introduce elements that do not belong to the regime of the spectacle into the event, in order to raise questions? For me, this is the goal of the Biennale. I seek to create this dynamism between the spectacle and real life, or the practice of everyday life, as Michel de Certeau described in his book L’invention du quotidien (The Practice of Everyday Life). For him, everyday life is an alternative to the domination of the spectacle. It obtains a subversive power that is necessary for our life in society. It’s a kind of informe (shapeless), uncontrollable world. In Arjun Appadurai’s lexicon, it is a system of cellular organization working against the vertebral form of organization of the dominant system (ref. Arjun Appadurai “Fear of Small Numbers”). What is important is to create structures that can allow the coexistence of these different forms of system. I believe that the interest of a big exhibition, like an important book, is to look for a form and a strategy to demonstrate this dynamism, to allow people to share and participate in it. It’s a place where the so-called ‘legitimate’ art forms and the ‘marginalized’ should be brought together. I believe it’s crucial to change our way of thinking in order to extricate ourselves from the ideology that has confined us to continuous reproduction of the system of the spectacle. This is the real responsibility of a curator.
As always, dear HUO, your comments will be most welcome!
All the best,
Hanru
San Francisco, May 2009
*Jens Emil Sennewald is a Paris-based art critic and journalist who writes for various newspapers and magazines including Kunst-Bulletin (Zurich), Springerin (Vienna), Kunstzeitung (Regensbourg, Germany), Weltkunst (Munich) and lacritique.org (Paris). Co-editor of numerous essays and director of the project room ‘café au lit’ (cafeaulit.com). Recent publications are on: texte-tendenzen.de
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Originally printed in ART iT No.24 Summer 2009