Bugün Konuşanlar

October 2, 2009

To whom it may concern,

I am an art critic, internationally recognized by invitations to speak across the world, notably at venues such as the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, on the occasion of the major survey exhibition “Forms of Resistance” in 2007, or at the 11th Istanbul Biennial in 2009, entitled “What Keeps Mankind Alive?” I have published essays in the catalogues of both these events, as in numerous others; and the Van Abbemuseum in collaboration with the WHW curatorial group is now releasing my latest book entitled Escape the Overcode: Activist Art in the Control Society. I state the above to establish my credentials as an expert in the domain of socially engaged art, which is of increasing import to public museums and universities through the world.

Because of this interest in socially responsive forms of art, I was curious to see in the British newspapers on April 1, 2009, what I immediately considered to be one of the most striking, innovative and successful pieces of public performance art to be realized anywhere in the world this year, namely the performance of the “Space Hijackers” group in their obviously fake and deliberately satirical armored vehicle during the G20 summit in London. By offering distorted and, it must be said, hilariously comical imitations of real institutional practices, groups such as the Space Hijackers carry out the vital democratic function of holding up a mirror to society and asking everyone to judge as to the beauty and desirability of our collective reflection. Indeed, this is an instance of what sociologists such as Ulrich Beck or Anthony Giddens call “social reflexivity,” whereby the members of a society represent the state of its institutions, stimulate debate on those institutions among their fellow men and women, and attempt in this way to increase awareness of current developments, in order to fortify the sense of responsibility to the present which defines citizenship in a democracy.

It must be understood by all those concerned that this is art. It will be exhibited in museums, analyzed by critics such as myself, enjoyed and appreciated by visitors and recorded in the annals of art history. However, for all of this to occur the artistic gesture must first be realized outside the museum, in public space, on significant occasions such as the meeting of the G20. Only in this way can its meaning be forged in the hearts and minds of the public, creating the raw material of immediate social relations which, through photographic recording and audiovisual testimony, will later be offered to more sustained debate, and indeed, to the memory of society, through the multifarious operations of the art institutions (museums, journals, magazines, websites, universities, etc). The most important transformation of art since the 1960s has been the introduction of this new category of performance art, which is created flush with social reality before becoming a formalized aesthetic artifact for presentation at diverse locations in space and time.

For at least half a millennium, since the Renaissance, art has been one of the vital focus-points of social reflexivity in the Western societies, extending the necessary debates that sustain democracy from the purely intellectual plane into the fully human dimension of sensuous experience. In this case, the death of an innocent bystander after an unprovoked beating during the G20 summit clearly underscores the importance of the debate on excessive police power raised by the performance of the Space Hijackers. To prosecute artists for fulfilling their professional and ethical obligation to a free society would be to turn democracy on its head, depriving citizens of one of their most vital resources in their ongoing attempt to govern themselves. Please do not make the mistake of attempting to interdict such practices. History has consistently shown this to be impossible.

Thank you for your consideration of these arguments. I remain disposed to offer any further clarifications.

Brian Holmes

http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/open-letter-in-support-of-the-space-hijackers/#more-1303

..bugün yaşatılanlardan sonra kapak oldu şahsıma en azından bu mektup. daha çok kapağa ihtiyacımız var Brian abey.