Finding Ground Zero.




Finding the New in contemporary exhibition practice is a difficult and risky business. Every attempt in doing so is held up by a wall of relativism and personal qualifications. This is understandable when all signs are coded and all meanings individual. 'Man had placed his token on every stone and every word, every image, is leased and mortgaged' (1) Still, this sector is preoccupied by its epistemological re-definitions. This may be already true on the level of media, but it may be even more highlighted when using a holistic approach, bypassing the status quo of predictable discourse concerning the originality of a single work of art. Art spaces try to stage these developments, falling back to almost ideological intentions. In doing so structuralist problems are revived, showing that the art world actually doesn't seem to have a clue where these developments are leading it to.

Writing about The New already provides a vital problem. Traditionally the avant-garde idea of the New was to fundamentally separate the origin from language, narrative and visual. 'Its lack of hierarchy, of centre, of inflection, emphasizes not only its anti-referential character, but -more importantly- it's hostile to narrative' stipulates Rosalind Kraus in an already overly quoted text concerning this matter. All in order to protect 'its mesh against all intrusions from outside […] And in this new-found quiet, what many artists thought they could hear was the beginning, the origin of Art'. (2)

For the avant-garde unfortunately this ideal of originality turned out to be a repetitive and highly inflexible power and Kraus' opinion about this matter was short and hostile: 'Just as the [Avant-garde mentality] is a stereotype that is constantly being paradoxically rediscovered, it is, as a further paradox, a prison in which the caged artist feels at liberty.'(3) The status of originality was, and stayed for many years after her essay, a fiction.

Why contradict miss Kraus? After all, she is considered to be right. But contemporary practice tends to fall back on this utopia of creativity and freedom as a starting point. It is even going as far as recycling this utopian ideal as the title of an exhibition. Utopia Station at the last Venice Biennale is an interesting example in this respect.

The concept structure of this exhibition was flexible and the plan was not intended to present itself as a finished picture. The show had to be completed by the people visiting the exhibit and joining the related events. 'They [the visitors] define the Station as much as it's solid objects do….' according to the makers of the exhibition. To the self asked question what they produce their answer is: 'In this produce lies an activity rather more complex than pure exhibition, for it contains many cycles of use, a mixing of use. It incorporates aesthetic material, aesthetic matters too, into another economy which does not regard art as fatally separate'. What happened in fact was the creation of an exhibition based on experiment, pragmatic choices and personal encounters in order to bring about a new impetus for the creative process. The ideal of freedom replaced the theoretical frame (as a devise for classification) of the exhibition. It is like creating a free zone, a birthplace, hoping something essential will come out. A vital aspect in this strategy is to address the viewer to connect the lines that are loosely handed out to them.

Compared to the avant-garde it is not the object that formally represents its origin but the strategy behind it. The execution represents this strategy as a medium, creating a huge scale of disciplines and codes for the exhibition maker and the artist at hand to work with, and for the visitor to appropriate. Applying this method in an open frame has the intention to prevent the work from being illustrative, and lets the exhibition focus on the way a work is conceived. In this way, positions related to the analytical framework of the artist, his/her network etc. are issues that are being touched upon. This approach also leaves plenty of possibilities for interpretation and association by the visitor.

Although some may call the approach unfocussed and incoherent, the fundamental intention of such an exhibition is to expose the fact that the exhibition is itself looking for something. It doesn't have to keep up the theoretical discourse (which, after all, is such a small part of it), but can concentrate on the creation of openness, without filling every blind spot with an alibi.

Even on the well-recognized level of the Biennale or the upcoming Manifesta, this idea of creating an open framework is taking hold. As a consequence, the conventional significance of the traditional exhibition is abandoned by replacing it by open-ended scenarios.

This drastic step may on the long run appear to be only time-based, reflecting the way in which the visual art is groping for direction these days. However, it could also be a new beginning, a significant deviation from the traditional exhibition practices that have characterized the art world for a long time. Miss Kraus might see her opinion challenged after all.

(1) Sherrie Levine, 'Statement', in: C. Harrison & P. Wood eds., Art and Theory 1900-1990 (Oxford, 2000), 1066-1067.
(2) Rosalind Kraus, 'The originality of the Avant-garde', in: C. Harrison & P. Wood eds., Art and Theory 1900-1990 (Oxford, 2000), 1060-1065.
(3) Ibidem.

Bart van der Heide works for Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam. He recently organised the show 'Invitation No.75', which focussed on interdiciplinarity and freedom of interpretation.