Claire Bishop,
The Social Turn: Collaboration and its Discontents, 2006
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:enTO08zHDh8J:www.arch.kth.se/unrealstockholm/production_2006_07/Claire%2520Bishop.rtf+the+social+turn+claire+bishop&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us&client=firefox-a
plus related reading:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/arthistory/research/staffinterests/bishop/
http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2006/07/socially_engage.php
http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/170456721.html
http://www.kollectiv.co.uk/Labour.html
24 comments:
socialactions.com is where I found out some guy wants to build a dome over chicago. http://www.socialactions.com/node/22221
Nick Sgarioto
The Social Turn Response
I find these acclaimed artist’s ideas of communicating anti-market, politically engaged art to the social realm through highly inclusive means is annoying. Its annoying to me because as an ‘educated’ artist I feel I understand the politics behind their agendas as the everyday blue-collar passerby is not. He or she is un-informed about the art-world and could care less about social reform or aesthetics. It seems to me the primary target audience of any artists would be the un-informed or un-educated or the un-artistic. Because according to Da Projesi’s quote describing their intentions, “ using art as a means for creating and recreating new relations between people”, this idea pertains to all people.
Though presenting work in an academic forum for artists surely adds to the breadth to his or her artistic perspective, but I wonder about the usefulness a forum focused on the uninterested and how that would change art’s approach towards the social realm. For example, the man (my father) who could appreciate a beautiful painting and also appreciate a political performance protest, but not understand the underlining history nor care why he likes it, “he just likes it”.
I feel that both aesthetics and social activism have a place in art and I believe they can both work together. In fact I don’t see it any other way. Why would you not want to make something to look beautiful, or horrifying? Why is it cliché to fabricate an image of reality or fiction in order to have an impact? Of coarse it shocks people! Why not use aesthetics to captivate the everyday passer-bye who really doesn’t care about another interpretation of the horrible world we live in, and certainly doesn’t care about what ‘you’ as an artist has to say to say about it. That said, being an artist does not knight you the responsibility of being a ‘privileged bearer of insights, its simply another role created by society. I think being an ‘artists’ is simply about making stuff to show people.
But common hooks used in the opening pages of fiction novels work the same way or haunted houses with the really cool entrance signs, without aesthetics I think the ‘oh hey, that looks cool man! Lets check it out!’ would be lost. However, without the connection to the social realm the facade means little in the grand scheme of things.
Walker and Bishop are missing one pint, the meaning of art. I think for the sake of writing, they intentionally forgot what art is. Every moment of our lives is filled with art; we live in art and anything can be art. However, because artists play god it does not make them creators. Artists are assembler; they are trained to discover art. What that in mind, I think there will be no unanswered question about artistic social practice. Finally, the answer to the ethical questions in regard to the collaborative art and social practice should be decided by the outcome of each project. Not to mention that any collaboratively produced art, can be a fertile ground for ethical discussion.
The entire article and its recognition and discussion surrounding social activism and interaction as art is somewhat troubling to me primarily as the article seems to fail to acknowledge the long history present in the field of art in various geographical locations and time frames. Aren't movements such as Fluxus or the performances of Speori(sp?) essentially the exact type of "current" practices and social activism based work the author is analyzing? If so why now? Haven't we covered this ground to some extent?
Furthermore, with any action in life a certain aesthetic criticism can be placed on that action or the visual representations/documentation of that action, the question is should we. These decisions as to which criticisms are correct for a specific object or action stem from the arena in which they intend to exist in. An artist should be criticized on the aesthetic, but who's to say that the aesthetic present is correct or important for that matter, perhaps if the action was intended for a city convention, a city planner would criticize the organization of the action or its lack of orchestration, who's to say that isn't equally valid? If artists are making things or organizing actions for artists then shouldn't it be expected that a question of aesthetic be a major point of discussion for others within the arena they have produced the act for?
Lastly, Do the documents (photos, publicity shots, the aftermath, wrtitings, etc..) of these actions not produce a certain aesthetic and demonstrate certain aesthetic choices?
A team of doctors can exchange thoughts to produce a better patient prognosis, a group of scientists can put a satellite into space easier, a think-tank can analyze problems from multiple viewpoints and a jury is often preferable to the solitary judge's verdict. I am enrolled in a collective class, AD 463. But beware we don't overlook the solitary genius or the "out of the box" thinking of the really great mind who is confined, hampered and slowed by any collective approach. We should not stiffle individuality with a numbing, what do you think approach to any life situation/"art" or delay action because the group can't make a concerted decision.
What is important, the means(the social effect) or the end result, the product? People have been debating this question for years. In my oppinion the means should always be ethical, or at least the participants recompensed or apprised of the pain involved i.e., "They Shoot Horses Don't They." The product/"art" may not be desirous or wonderful or even intended as Oda Projesi's work. What is the goal needs to be decided. Is it an aesthetic product or the experience of contributing or learning? Hopefully it isn't the aggrandizement of certain artists looking for a unique way to make "art." Good intentions often pave the road to disaster. Dutch critic, Erik Hagoort, would have us not make moral judgments but merely weigh the intentions instead of judging the "art." Isn't "art" a subjective decison?
I also agree with Bishop that to reject "art" that might offend or trouble its audience would pander to mediocrity and would forestall any avant-garde edge to "art" practice.
A man from Pakistan recently told me, "in America you are free right? No, in Pakistan people are really free."
I agree with Nick that aesthetics and social activism have a place in art and they can both work together but I do not agree that there is no other way. If you were to extract aesthetics from art practice you would end up with a City Hall in place of the Guggenheim. I don't begin to suggest a hierarchy in which is more proper or correct but I think the Guggenheim is more art than a City Hall.
I like Jim's comments, and I'd like to add that even the process of selecting , or advertising for such a practice and including the curating of the post-materials is definitely an editorial voice whose presence can not be ignored.
I think making social practice out of art or likewise saying social practice is merely art, is very dangerous ground.
Joe Tipre
Claire Bishop’s article on collaboration takes a hard look at the social practices of certain artists in order to compare problematic and successful works within this popular art practice. Since these specific practices “produce dematerialized, anti-market, politically engaged projects that carry on the modernists call to blur art and life” there is a cause for worry and critique in Claire Bishop’s essay with regard to the seeming lack of aesthetic concerns within this methodology. In the social practice, many groups, or singular artists have been able to avoid critique at the aesthetic level and within this article, Claire Bishop is letting all those who do avoid aesthetic considerations have it.
She mentions the “Christian good soul” as an analogous base for discourse. If you are unaware as I, she points out this soul as a source of motivation in the artists “self-sacrifice”, the kind of behavior quickly deemed “triumphant”. Within this notion of the self-sacrificing “good soul” artists play the game of “artist, artist, where is the artist”. Hiding themselves within the group in order to gain status amongst the judges of what is and what isn’t akin to the “Christian good soul”, organizers devalue their role as conceptor and facilitator in order to push forth the best environment possible. When this gesture becomes the way artworks are valued, Claire Bishop is quick to state that “aesthetic judgments have been overtaken by ethical criteria”.
Claire Bishop is not nay saying this entire practice, marginalizing it as social work or simply community organization with a new name. She draws attention to other practitioners who serve and gather the public in one way or another while putting forward questions of a more complicated nature. Instead of devaluing their role as artists, or providing a simple conduit for communities to resolve issues, Claire Bishop focuses on artists that push at the very crux of their group’s existence and the characteristics of the participants’ specific locations, culture and class. She is, as I am, interested in art that gains meaning and importance with each critical look.
To allow work to pass under the critical radar simply because it does a good task for society or provides for a space for people to have a louder voice does both the art world and social work/community action a disservice. While both of these spheres are legitimate practices on their own, the simple act of calling one service a form of art holds no water for me. There has to be a true amalgamation within these two practices. Strong social practices, one’s that allow a voice to take hold while devaluing the organizer for priority of that voice is crucial. An Art that challenges the participants and audience to reformulate their own stagnant ideas offer the most for their audience and the makers themselves. Bringing these two together provides both parts with a strong place within the world of “relational practices” and speaks to a practice worth experiencing.
a response to Jim's comment ending with.... a city planner would criticize the organization of the action or its lack of orchestration, who's to say that isn't equally valid?
I don't think Claire Bishop is questioning the validity of the critique, she's pointing out the entire lack of aesthetic critique. She seems to be bothered by the focus on ethical criteria some of the social practitioners employ as the sole means of critique. Yes many locations and discourses are open for input, it's just the complete lack of such that Claire Bishop is getting at.
also, the author is not considering Fluxists with regard to this article. The current practices may have a seeded connection to Fluxus or Happenings, but the current relational practices are operating from a different, specific location. Both Fluxus and Happenings helped point to 'art in the everyday' and a gross generalization of relational practices can draw parallels to that similarity, but relational practices, like the ones in Clair Bishops article are much more specific than their forefathers of the 60s. Relational aesthetics are focused on the inter human relations prompted by interactions facilitated during a work. These look at humans while focusing on their interpersonal interaction, not as much to the outside world or to the intra personal thoughts we would see outside of human interaction.
“The Social Turn,” by Clair Bishop, seems to be a commentary on the subjectivity of art in the artworld. Traditionally art has been judged based on its aesthetic value, or the documented process of the artist, but art can no longer be judged in those terms. Artists such as Oda Projesi have been making socially infused works, which according to critics, resemble a social service program more than artwork. Biship supports the work of Oda Projesi stating that they succeed in making the dialogue and the “social process” itself, a work of art.
I feel art is art because the artist says it is. There is usually an extreme amount of thought by the artist before, during and after they make a work of art. It is this process which signifies a work AS art. Art is not the production of pretty things. Art is the concept, the thought and the process behind the final product. The work itself is mainly just a means of communication between the artist and her audience. Let’s critique artwork based on its effectiveness, instead of debating its authenticity.
Social Turn Response
In the collection of articles, about social or collaborative practices, the question of whether these practices generate actual “works” is based on their visibility in a space that creates its own criticism and actions that are associated with everyday. Social practices, as a form of art, have many similar factors to “works” but may be to complex and not as easily available to the people that are new to art and social practices as art. Miwon Kwons statement, “that community-specific work takes critiques of "heavy metal" public art as its point of departure to address the site as a social rather than formal,” further explains that social situations already have simplistic social interaction and meaning. Thus, questioning the way we interact with art in certain spaces, what is art, and how it is critiqued.
What is important is that there are many complex factors that are already associated to the word “social.” That when it is associated with art there is confusion and it appears that they are opposites. However, most art is made to be viewed by the public to create conversation. In addition, I agree with Kester when he “argues that consultative and "dialogic" art necessitates a shift in our understanding of what art is--away from the visual and sensory (which are individual experiences) and toward "discursive exchange and negotiation." However, what is an example of this kind of exchange of negotiation in a work of art?
I believe that an intention of an artist does not always (but should most of the time) have to be one of ethical concern. This meaning that the project does not have to be ultimately concerned with bringing awareness of the repressive systems of society or what is wrong with the social communities in the world or lack there of. This is a vantage point that I mainly work in when it comes to my own art and have trouble with the notion of art for art's sake or the autonomy of art or even social art that is not inclined to deal with the evils of society. But in order to rehumanize society and deal with these issues, I do believe that social intervention is needed and that collective projects are very empowering to communities and allow for hope of change. Therefore work that is simply about gathering people or engaging them to interact in ways they would normally not, happy go lucky is a starting point. Also here is where I don't think aesthetics should be the main concern, although pleasing and seductive to the eye, viewers will need to be engaged somehow with the idea/project/art in a physical manner.
Whether relationships with artists and participants are exploitative or whether the authority is dispersed equally among the people depends on the specific art. Like they say even bad discourse is better than no discourse. Some projects are intended to exploit people to bring awareness to how easily people are used and treated inhumanely on a daily basis. Art should be dangerous and vulnerable and make people angry. Art should make people think and interrupt the monotony of their daily lives. It is the responsibility of the artist to ensue social change because she/he was given a sight in which many others cannot see with. But it is important that we speak together when this awareness arises and social art that makes you laugh or feel warm inside is sometimes a nice break.
Socially collaborative artist according to this article are all connected by the belief that collaboration leads to an empowered sense of creativity. These artists use situations in their society to produce anti-market and politically charged projects that in a sense blur the line between what is art and what is real life. These collaborations in turn have brought about a more critical way of judging the works that they produce. According to this article socially collaborative artist are judged on their working process and not the finished product.
The artist Santiago Sierra is referred to in this article as being one of the artists that is judged for his working process instead of the finished product. His working process appears cruel, but he deems it necessary to shine light on certain harsh conditions in this world. When dealing with socially charged work the subject of the piece should be taken into consideration, if someone is being exploited for the sake the piece then attention should be called to it. It should not be overlooked because of the artist’s vision or the message they are trying to get across.
I am really glad to have read this article, especially because my own art practice is moving into a collaborative and social sphere. I find social, collaborative, and community based art very engaging and I think that it has great potential to reach beyond these somewhat misleading labels and be much more than 'social work'. This kind of work offers artists unique challenges and despite its increasing popularity , Bishop points out that it is not without its criticisms. I agree that these artworks should be viewed and critiqued as the artwork that it is, and artists need to be thinking about potential criticisms throughout the process of art making. Yet despite its challenges, I would much rather have active art that reaches beyond the confines of the art world than art that collects dust in some gallery or museum.
who wrote this last comment...you posted as 'anonymous'.
9:00 deadline.
do not post after this.....not being accepted.
Fine if you want to make self-initiated institutions, but do not call yourself an artist. You cannot critique that. In "The Social Turn", Claire Bishop wrote "There can be no failed, unsuccessful, unresolved, or boring works of collaborative art because all are equally essential to the task of strengthening the social bond."
I am for an art that needs critics. But what about the Believers (Bishop calls them "activists who reject aesthetic questions as synonymous with cultural hierarchy and the market")? There are other arenas like Communications and Sociology for them, instead of reluctantly turning to art and claiming that contemporary art is not accessible. That is not the problem. The problem is that poetry isn't a big deal anymore. Painters and other artists need to start hanging, drinking, and sleeping with poets. Poetry was a big deal in the 60's. Peter Scheldahl said at the MCA that he can't get out of 1967. 1968 was a ditch because everyone we liked got shot. Kennedy, Warhol. If we want a social bond lets put a Caravaggio in a taco burrito king. Just don't put your art up for adoption with Adam Simon.
In Claire Bishop’s essay, The Social Turn, she focuses on art acting as a social practice. The underlying theme seems to be social practices are critiqued on their ethical values rather than their aesthetic value. She generalizes that these relational practitioners are mimicking the modernist theory of blurring art with life, as well as disregarding the importance of aesthetics, which are equated with “cultural hierarchy and the market”.
Bishop goes through many examples of this work explaining her views on what is successful, what fails, and why. She talks about artists ‘hiding’ behind their work, from critique, as they give it up to a total collaboration, a sort of self sacrifice for a good cause, having a “good Christian soul”. Doing this seems to cause the lack of proper critique because the morals behind the work are well intentioned.
I agree that making something based on ethics should not eliminate any kind of critique. I can’t say that I know who is at fault here. Are the artists rejecting critique? Or are critics simply not critiquing it? The ability to critique anything is always available, just as the criticized has the ability to follow the advice, or deny it. I think a lot of work carries ethical values, and I don’t see how placing it in the public takes it away. As for the hand of the artist being involved in a collaboration, is this better or worse than artists who simply draw plans and have someone else make their work? These artists are working with a different ‘medium’ (the public), and experimenting with their media ‘people’, to me in a similar fashion as process art, except that in some cases the “end product” is important, and ultimately the experience always exists.
OH COME ON!!!! I started writing the bulletin way before but was trying to find an example (which i couldn't)!!
p.s. i'm spatwong... don't ask
thems a whole lotta big words.
love,
chris
well, i guess, Im late, Ill just think my thoughts... But If I was in seatlle, I would be right on time...
well damn, Technology - 1 , Holly - 0
no excuses, i suppose
This essay presents a coherent argument that addresses the idea of process over product in a means to blur boundaries between art and life. Whether you call it relational practices, participatory art, community based art, public work, conscious raising or political art; the collaborative engagement that occurs promotes dematerialized works that are anti-market and often politically charged. This type of art practice presents the community (or a specific site) as a “social rather than formal framework”, in attempts to establish social interactions and dialog between the artist and the so called “non-artist”. Context and collaborative engagement is the main concern. For this reason, some of the artists discussed in the essay have rejected the notion of visual/ relational aesthetics.
The artist collective Oda Projesi, for example views aesthetics as dangerous territory, that’s unnecessary to address in their art practice. I would argue that this collective has established a different form of aesthetics specific to them. They concentrate on the verbal instead of the visual. The set of principles guiding participatory art, like that of Oda Projesi, consists of having a good since of communication skills. If one does not consider the visual in art making, how else would a collective be able to maintain sustainable relationships. I consider communication an aesthetic form. It should be everyone’s civic responsibility to question and challenge ideas of beauty and aesthetics, especially in art. I’m interested in work that diminishes the importance of the “aesthetic regime of art” from the West (Europe), because every culture and art form outside of Europe has its own set of ideas about beauty and artistic taste.
Claire Bishop’s primary critique of her phenomenon of the “expanded field of relational practices” is that it is often lacking a key criticality found in solo artistic practice, namely that of an aesthetic concern. She argues that a large number of relational practices are measured from an ethical perspective: whether they are beneficial to a community, and truly meets criteria that can become moralizing. Bishop calls for community based art to invite us to “confront darker, more painfully complicated considerations of our predicament”. To her, community based art should be a dangerous art, work that implicates and places greater responsibility in its participants.
One glaringly pinpoint example that I would like Bishop to consider is the work of Christo. His massive fabric/landscape installations find an interesting niche in Bishop’s continuum of social relation work. Buildings and coastlines wrapped in fabric, lengths of fabric running up and down coastlines, these require a community of people to orchestrate, but those people are selected by the artist himself. They take place in public space but take on the privilege of privacy through their character. Christo is in direct dialogue with the major social networks that allow for the creation of his sculpture. Everyone involved in the undertaking is responsible, but ultimately the artist assumes the credit.
I do feel like setting up anticapitalist social projects as art is a problematic endeavor because the attempt towards anticapitalization almost always reinforces capitalism’s hierarchical structure, because the art itself exists in a capitalist system. When an artist begins to organize attempts to restructure community relations based on creation, the doctrine of consumption stands by as a shadow. Christo, utilizing the social structures existing, negates this issue. He highlights, instead of erasing, the art of manipulating a system to create work. Economics, Engineering, and Irrationality all coalesce in a Christo work, precisely because he has run the gamut of social interaction. The expansiveness brilliance of Christo’s work is a point of entry to dialogue about community and social nature from an aesthetic standpoint.
A Response to
The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents
By Claire Bishop
Jim Zimpel
After reading Claire Bishops article The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents several questions come to mind for me in regards to the work discussed in terms of authorship, criticism, and classification. Although I understand the conceptual arguments behind the work and various projects described I question the way in which we are to talk about the work. Claire Bishop presents a similar question regarding this type of work in the article in terms of the aesthetic and whether or not it is a factor that should be considered in this type of work however I feel that another major point that should be addressed is whether or not we should remove the word art itself from all work, and if not where does one draw the line in regards to other practices within society.
I feel that Bishop should have written more in regards to the history of similar work to social collaboration as her article seems to fail to acknowledge in my view the long history present in the field of art in various geographical locations and time frames that resemble in some ways this form of art making. Movements such as Fluxus or the performances of Speori (sp?) seem to me in some ways to reflect the same sort of practice that some of the current social practice and social activism based work address. Although I understand that the work differs in some ways I question why there is a discussion regarding the question of aesthetic coming into and wonder why it is that this practice should be excused of this criteria. In my opinion the criteria of aesthetic can be placed on any sort of work in or out of the “art world” and should be a valid criteria for criticism, if something is aesthetically displeasing or void of an aesthetic it should and can be a point of criticism. Essentially, I believe that with any action in life a certain aesthetic criticism can be placed on that action or the visual representations /documentation of that action, the question should not be should we, or can we, it should be why not and do we.
Projects and groups working in this field such as Oda Projesi and others mentioned in the article state that the aesthetic should not be a criteria in which their work is judged, I would like to ask them the following: If you wish the work to be judged purely for its numbers and statistical success then why classify the work as art? Why not consider it social work or community development? Doesn’t the very assertion that the practice itself is art ask for such attention and controversy?
An artist should be criticized on the aesthetic, but who's to say that the aesthetic present is correct or important for that matter, perhaps if the action were intended for a city convention, a city planner would criticize the organization of the action or its lack of orchestration, who's to say that isn't equally valid? I believe that as part of the arena of “art” one should expect and be willing to accept and address such criticisms.
Lastly, I would like to pose or post a few questions and random thoughts:
Do the documents (photos, publicity shots, the aftermath, writings, etc… of these actions not produce a certain aesthetic and demonstrate certain aesthetic choices?
Is it unacceptable to judge the presentation of a software programmer at a software convention lecture or a CEO on the aesthetic of their presentation?
Is it important that those working within the frame of social collaboration, experimental communities, etc… be considered art and if so why? Isn’t the reward in the enrichment of the community and the social ramifications produced?
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