Towards a Critical Institution

Towards a critical institution

Daniel put up his striped posters on the street, Andrea slept with a collector, and Hans did his political poll in the MOMA. It did not work; they were all swallowed and digested. They are all part now of what they have been trying to escape so hard. I even watched Andrea sleep with the collector in the Pop Life exhibition in Tate Modern; I do not think her plan was to have anything to do with Tate or Pop art. I can hear you think; what is the point anyway, when you get eaten by the institution you try to avoid? Maybe they should have embraced it; at least they would have made more money.

It all started when Marcel put up his fountain. But that is almost an entire age ago. In the meantime we went inside the white cube and out again. We dumped our collections and moved into the Kunsthalle. We tried building stuff in nature, but came running back to the gallery in no time. Institutional critique has had its best time. I do not mean to say we should stop being critical about the institute; we should never stop being critical. But I propose we should be critical from within the wonderful institutions we have and use them as a powerful instrument in the art world.

The audience has changed a lot as well. Now that we have Wikipedia, we always want a second opinion. Educating the audience through wall texts and colorful flyers is not enough anymore. Even the Japanese tourist standing in front of Vincent’s sunflowers wants to listen to an audio tour.

To work towards a critical attitude, institutions need to move around the art itself, which is always the starting point. Maybe Andrea and Daniel should try to talk to the institute and find ways of working together instead of avoiding each other. Programming around an exhibition should not have an inherent political agenda, but create open possibilities for the audience to reflect critically on different situations. The exhibition as the center of a critical platform. As seen in institutions like the ICA, South London Gallery or the Whitechapel gallery, this often takes the form of artist talks, events and discussion nights. Interesting guests are invited to enrich the experience the audience gets in seeing an exhibition. In the case of a recent exhibition at the ICA, Olga, Pjotr and Boris from the Russian collective Chto Delat? curated an exhibition with lots of events around it, using the ICA as a host for this critical platform.

I do not mean to say seeing just the exhibition is no longer enough. There is nothing wrong with enjoying Vincent’s paintings on a Sunday afternoon. But I do think it is important that art is accessible on different levels. When you want to find out more, and are interested in deepening your experience, the possibility should be there. The institute should play a key role in working directly with the artist to create possibilities for providing knowledge and stimulating discussion about contemporary art.