ArtReview 38

Mike Watson Why art and politics?

In the realm of cultural theory, both Mark Fisher
and Slavoj iek have recently observed that we
live in a world that is perhaps capitalist beyond
any possibility of a political or cultural conver-
sion. Such an observation more a call to action
for the left than an admission of its defeat
underpins the commitment of some artists,
such as Tania Bruguera, Chto Delat?, Oliver
Ressler and Voina, to name but a few, to politi-
cally oriented art, although iek himself warns
of the dangers of politics inuenced by art.
The philosopher points in Living in the End Times
(2010) to the justication that the poet has
historically provided for the dictator. Yet while
it could be argued that behind every dictator
there is a poet or philosopher (one could think
of Neros use of Seneca, the abuse of Neitzsches
philosophy by the Nazi party or the closeness
of Mussolini to Gabriele DAnnunzio), it could
also be argued that behind every dictator there
is equally a military machine, a judiciary,
a political system, a belief system, a network of
allies, an energy source and a food and amenities
supply and therefore a butcher, a baker and,
dare we say, a proverbial candlestick maker.
In short, the poet is no more responsible for the
actions of the dictator, monarch or democrati-
cally elected leader than everyone else in the vast
network ie, society that supports them.
This is very true of state-backed capitalism
the curious compromise between statism
and the free-market mentality that has predomi-
nated in the West since the global economic
crisis began with which even the most ardent
leftists are complicit, given their participation
in the system of exchange and taxation that
supports the aforesaid compromise. This is not
only due to the fact that we must all purchase
items that feed back into the chain of exchange,
but also because absolutely every action
we undertake for or against capital enters
into that same exchange system.
If capitalism is the world and everything
in it, then the brick through the window of
the chief superintendents car, however potent
a symbol, is merely another gesture played out
within that selfsame whole, feeding into its
mechanisms, of insurance, judicial process,
trade, etc. Ultimately, it arguably stops making
sense even to talk of capitalism, for if everything
is capitalist even those few who exclude
themselves from the system exist in it there
can be no capitalism, as an aberration, to speak
of. Indeed, it is perhaps a fallacy to speak
of us and them as if the left were beautiful
souls made to sufer a bad world. No one is
outside what is a social whole, and an outsider
mentality arguably serves to fence in various
opposition groups and either alienate them
from that social whole or make them isolated
and more easily observable by a hostile media
and legal system responsible for maintaining
the legitimacy of the state and its relationship
with capital.
One may be forgiven for thinking at this
point that we are doomed to slavery at the hands
of an uncaring system that is fast developing
an ever more advanced system of surveillance.
As true as this may be, there is something deeply
unfullling in just sitting back and accepting
a steady slide into worldwide slavery. As Theodor
W. Adorno argues in his 1961 essay On
Commitment, art must continue to exist in
order to avoid a total surrender to cynicism.
Indeed, there is something in the abstraction
of poetry, or of art in general, that can arguably
resist the dry rationalist auspices of nance
capital. This is not because art stands outside
society, or because it has some intrinsic proper-
ties that might prove exemplary of a better
way of life. Art is as complicit with capital as any
other realm of society, perhaps more so given
that an artworks only strictly utilitarian as
opposed to aesthetic value is its resale value,
whereas most other manmade objects have
some useful property aside from their invest-
ment potential. Add to this the fact that
the great majority of artworks made dont have
any investment value at all, and one can see
just quite how useless art is. The art academies
of the world are in efect adept factories for
the production of landll.
Yet it is precisely in this uselessness that
arts political calling resides. In a senseless world
led by a runaway nancial machine in which
political and intellectual opposition is so far
embedded as to make critique impossible, the
uselessness of art ofers a refuge. If nothing else
works, at least art might, and when it invariably
doesnt, we can at least take comfort in the fact
that we never really expected it to, and then
try again. Many will nd this hypothesis uncon-
vincing, but for now this trying is the best
antidote some have found to the madness of an
increasingly controlled world. Any more lofty
assertions as to arts political capacity risk giving
a false hope. Though it is in the serious, diligent
and continued application of art to political
ends, such as with the work of Bruguera and
Ressler, that breakthroughs may be made.
It is perhaps a fallacy
to speak of us and them as
if the left were beautiful souls
made to sufer a bad world
Slavoj iek
AR-May-PoV.indd 38 16/04/2014 11:19