Re: [-empyre-] What is to be done .... continued

[Christiane Robbins <cpr@mindspring.com>]

Saul- Hi-

To respond to your question re: the statements cut and pasted below,  
I’ll begin by saying that as one already knows context determines  
meaning, and by this I also include historical timing within the  
perception of context replete with its specificities, as well. When  
we are looking at Documenta itself – one of the most historically  
significant of  contemporary art exhibitions continuing to this day  
and increasingly attracting an international audience – a  public if  
you will - of over 650,000, suffice it to say that issues arise.

In my earlier statement  I had been referencing back to P. Beurgels’  
statement: “The global complex of cultural translation that seems to  
be somehow embedded in art and its mediation sets the stage for a  
potentially all-inclusive public debate.”

This statement strikes me as one based on an assumption of concensus  
( if not universality ) of the function of art practice enabling the  
transference of a specific, yet ambiguous, knowledge.  The issue is  
raised as to how that knowledge is being represented and if, indeed,  
its ontology ( including his assumption “the ability of art to  
mediate the global complex of cultural translation ) is being  
mythologized as device servicing public debate.  This leads one to  
question which public and which forum of debate is he referencing ?  
Where is this forum taking place and within which historical context.

For now I’ll synthesize this point for your ( everyone's) further  
consideration:  what I note in taking a look at Documenta is a  
capitalistic forum that very much mirrors current governing global  
economic systems (artistic as well as technological, industrial and  
knowledge-based systems.)  Yet at the same time it appears ( based on  
limited knowledge)  not to allow for another structure ( for said  
purposes of mediation)  to be put in place that questions these  
hegemonic form of exchange and access.  Thus, whatever exchange -  
translations-  takes place does so within the reifying reinscription  
of documenta and these systems themselves.

I believe that P Buergels may well be aware of this conundrum by  
virtue of his acknowledgment "how to mediate the particular content  
or shape of those things without sacrificing their particularity is  
one of the great challenges of an exhibition like documenta."  Which  
returns us to his suggested salvo of art practice and its function of  
mediation for a global cultural translation.

Unfortunately, I have to run as there appears to be some sort of a  
chemical spill outside ( yikes ) but hopefully this is enough grist  
for thought for the time being  -


Chris






On Jan 16, 2007, at 1:24 PM, saul ostrow wrote:

> can you clarify what you mean by these two statements  -
> On Jan 16, 2007, at 1:37 PM, Christiane Robbins wrote:
>
> >  the gelled lens of globalism which offers a branded patina of  
> > regionalized specificity and individuated experience
>
> >  art practices to function as modes of transferable knowledge  
> > within the “global complex of cultural translation”
>
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Christiane Robbins

J e t z t z e i t
Los Angeles  l  San Francisco
CA  l USA

... the space between zero and one ...
Walter Benjamin





The present age prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to  
the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence for in  
these days illusion only is sacred, truth profane.

Ludwig Feuerbach, 1804-1872,
German Philosopher