Boris Groys, Art Power, 2008, MIT Press.
Don't miss a talk by influential art theorist Boris Groys, who will discuss the relationship between art and audience tonight at the Whitechapel.
Although art can be related to the art market and works of art may be considered a commodity, there is art being made and exhibited for wider audiences who do not wish to collect works of art.
The number of large-scale exhibitions is growing and art fairs are being transformed into events in the public realm.
Boris Groys, Professor of Philosophy and Art Theory, Academy for Design, Karlsruhe, Germany and Global Professor, New York University asks what is the role and experience of the visitor in relation to the exhibit.
Groys is a philosopher, essayist, art critic, media theorist, and an internationally acclaimed expert on late-Soviet postmodern art and literature, as well as on the Russian avant-garde. Dr. Groys's writing engages the wildly disparate traditions of French poststructuralism and modern Russian philosophy.
In the 1970s, Dr. Groys, who had studied philosophy and mathematics at Leningrad State University, immersed himself in the unofficial cultural scene in Russia's capitals, coining the term 'Moscow conceptualism'. From 1976-1981, he held a position as a Research Fellow in the Department of Structural and Applied Linguistics at Moscow State University, and in 1981, Dr. Groys emigrated to West Germany, where he earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Müenster.
In the United States, he is best known as the author of The Total Art of Stalin. This work is credited for introducing Western readers to Russian postmodernist writers. His philosophical writing includes A Philosopher's Diary, On the New: A Study of Cultural Economics, and The Invention of Russia, while his contributions to art theory and criticism can be found in Vanishing Point Moscow and The Art of Installation. His most recent books are Under Suspicion: A Phenomenology of the Media and Ilya Kabakov. The Man Who Flew into Space from his Apartment (Afterall/MIT Press, 2006) and the recent Art Power (MIT Press, 2008, see below). Dr. Groys has also edited collections of articles in Russian and German and has written more than a hundred articles. Since 1994, in addition to serving as the curator and organizer of numerous international art exhibitions and conferences, Dr. Groys has been a Professor of Aesthetics, Art History, and Media Theory at the Center for Art and Media Technology in Karlsruhe.
Art Power
Art has its own power in the world, and is as much a force in the power play of global politics today as it once was in the arena of cold war politics. Art, argues distinguished theoretician Boris Groys, is hardly a powerless commodity subject to the art market's fiats of inclusion and exclusion. In Art Power, Groys examines modern and contemporary art according to its ideological function. Art, Groys writes, is produced and brought before the public in two ways--as a commodity and as a tool of political propaganda. In the contemporary art scene, very little attention is paid to the latter function; the official and unofficial art of the former Soviet Union and other former Socialist states, for example, is largely excluded from the field of institutionally recognized art, usually on moral grounds (although, Groys points out, criticism of the morality of the market never leads to calls for a similar exclusion of art produced under market conditions).
Arguing for the inclusion of politically motivated art in contemporary art discourse, Groys considers art produced under totalitarianism, Socialism, and post-Communism. He also considers today's mainstream Western art--which he finds behaving more and more according to the norms of ideological propaganda: produced and exhibited for the masses at international exhibitions, biennials, and festivals. Contemporary art, Groys argues, demonstrates its power by appropriating the iconoclastic gestures directed against itself - by positioning itself simultaneously as an image and as a critique of the image. In Art Power, Groys examines this fundamental appropriation that produces the paradoxical object of the modern artwork.
To read more about Art Power and other Groys titles, click here.
'BORIS GROYS - POLITICS OF INSTALLATION'
Part of the Whitechapel's 'Big Ideas' talk series
2 Oct 2008, 7pm
£8/6 concessions and Whitechapel Members
Free for Whitechapel Patrons and Associates
Booking essential
Whitechapel
80-82 Whitechapel High Street
London E1 7QX
Tube: Aldgate East
T: +44 (0) 20 7522 7878
Supported by the Stanley Picker Trust
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