Professional Documents
Culture Documents
H. Steyerl - If You Don't Have Bread, Eat Art!
H. Steyerl - If You Don't Have Bread, Eat Art!
01/08
become a proxy gold standard?2 How did it come
to this? During the ongoing crisis, investors were
showered with tax money, which then went into
freeport collections, tower mansions, and shell
companies. Quantitative easing eroded currency
stability and depleted common resources,
entrenching a precarious service economy with
dismal wages, if any, eternal gigs, eternal debt,
permanent doubt, and now increasing violence.
Hito Steyerl This destabilization is one reason the value of art
looks more stable than the prospects of many
If You Dont national GDPs. In the EU this takes place against
a backdrop of mass evictions, austerity, arson
attacks, Daesh run amok, and Deutsche scams.
Have Bread, Eat Results include child poverty, debt blackmail,
rigged economies, and the fascist scapegoating
Art!: of others for widely self-inflicted failed policies.
Art is an alternative currency of this historical
moment.3 It seems to trade against a lot of
Contemporary misery.
Meanwhile, reactionary extremism
Art and intensifies in many places. I wont bore you with
If You Dont Have Bread, Eat Art!: Contemporary Art and Derivative Fascisms
Alternative Currency
Art markets seem not overly concerned. In times
in which financial institutions and even whole
political entities may just dissolve into fluffy
glitter, investment in art seems somehow more
real. Moreover, as alternative currency, art seems
to fulfill what Ethereum and Bitcoin have
03/08
markets, collectors, museums, publications, and to make sure they get their share.
the academy asynchonously registering (or But lets face it in relation to the scale of
mostly failing to do so) exhibitions, scandals, other industries, the art sector is just a blip.
likes and prices. As with cryptocurrencies, there Contemporary art is just a hash for all thats
is no central institution to guarantee value; opaque, unintelligible, and unfair, for top-down
instead there is a jumble of sponsors, censors, class war and all-out inequality. Its the tip of an
bloggers, developers, producers, hipsters, iceberg acting as a spear.
handlers, patrons, privateers, collectors, and
way more confusing characters. Value arises
from gossip-cum-spin and insider information.
Fraudsters and con artists mix helter-skelter
with pontificating professors, anxious gallerists,
and couch-surfing students. This informal
ecology is eminently hackable, but since
everyone does it, it sometimes evens out even
though at highly manipulated levels. It is at once
highly malleable and inert, sublime, dopey,
opaque, bizarre, and blatant: a game in which the
most transcendental phenomena are on The growth of the global auction market from 2005 to 2015, according
collectors waiting lists. Further down the food to data from Auction House, ArtNet, and AMMA.
especially if there is no meaning whatsoever. Art novelty as deadlock. Many are itching for major
is encryption as such, regardless of the existence changes, some because the system is pointless,
of a message with a multitude of conflicting and harmful, 1 percent-ish, and exclusive, and many
often useless keys.9 Its reputational economy is more because they finally want in.
randomly quantified, ranked by bullshit On the other hand, talk of rootless
algorithms that convert artists and academics cosmopolitans is clearly reminiscent of both
into ranked positions, but it also includes more Nazi and Stalinist propaganda, who relished in
traditionally clannish social hierarchies. It is a branding dissenting intellectuals as parasites
fully ridiculous, crooked, and toothless within healthy national bodies. In both regimes
congregation and yet, like civilization as a whole, this kind of jargon was used to get rid of minority
art would be a great idea. intelligentsia, formal experiments and
In practice though, art industries trigger progressive agendas; not to improve access for
trickle-up effects which are then flushed locals or improve or broaden the appeal of art.
sideways into tax havens. Arts economies divert The anti-elitist discourse in culture is at
investments from sustainable job creation, present mainly deployed by conservative elites,
education, and research and externalize social who hope to deflect attention from their own
cost and risk. They bleach neighborhoods, economic privileges by relaunching of
underpay, overrate, and peddle excruciating stereotypes of degenerate art.
baloney. So if you are hoping for new opportunities
This does not only apply to arts investor with the authoritarians, you might find yourself
and manager classes. The lifestyles of many art disappointed.
workers also support a corporate technological Authoritarian right-wing regimes will not get
(and antisocial) infrastructure that whisks off rid of art-fair VIP lists or make art more relevant
05/08
prevent tax fraud, doctored markets, the Daesh If art is an alternative currency, its
antiquities trade, or systemic underpay. It will be circulation also outlines an operational
more of the same, just much worse: less pay for infrastructure. Could these structures be
workers, less exchange, fewer perspectives, less repossessed to work differently? How much
circulation, and even less regulation, if such a value would the alternative currency of art lose if
thing is even possible. Inconvenient art will fly its most corrupt aspects were to be regulated or
out the window anything non-flat, non-huge, or restructured to benefit arts larger communities?
remotely complex or challenging. Intellectual How about even a minimum of rules in the
perspectives, expanded canons, nontraditional market gallery contracts, resale-time
histories will be axed anything that requires an minimums, artist fees,12 remunerated
investment of time and effort instead of internships? Introducing blockchain public
conspicuous money. Public support swapped for records for the production, transaction, and
Instagram metrics. Art fully floated on some kind locating of artworks in order to reign in tax fraud
of Arsedaq. More fairs, longer yachts for more and money laundering?13 Declining the most
violent assholes, oil paintings of booty blondes, mortifying sponsor and patron relationships
abstract stock-chart calligraphy. Yummy organic instead of artwashing fossil extraction, weapons
superfoods. Accelerationist designer breeding. manufacturing, and banks bailed out with former
Personalized one-on-one performances for tax cultural funding? How about asking for fees on
evaders. Male masters, more male masters, and resales similar to those asked on photocopies to
repeat. Art will take its place next to big-game pay for art workers health insurance? Or on any
hunting, armed paragliding, and adventure offshore art-related transaction? Could art as
slumming. alternative currency not only circulate within
If You Dont Have Bread, Eat Art!: Contemporary Art and Derivative Fascisms
Yay for expensive craft and anything existing systems but even launch not-yet-
vacuous that works in a chain-hotel lobby. existing economies (publics, institutions,
Plastiglomerate marble, welded by corporate markets, parallel art worlds, etc.)?
characters banging on about natural selection. But to expect any kind of progressive
Kits for biological self-improvement. transformation to happen by itself just
Crapstraction, algostraction, personalized because the infrastructure or technology exists
installations incorporating Krav Maga lessons. would be like expecting the internet to create
Religious nailpaint will slay in all seasons, socialism or automation to evenly benefit all
especially with a Louis Vuitton logo. Hedge-fund humankind. The internet spawned Uber and
e-flux journal #76 october 2016 Hito Steyerl
mandalas. Modest fashion. Immodest fashion. Amazon, not the Paris Commune. The results
Nativist mumbo jumbo. Genetically engineered may be called the sharing economy, but this
caviar in well-behaved ethnic pottery. mostly means that the poor share with the rich,
Conceptual plastic surgery. Racial plastic not vice versa. Should any less unilateral sharing
surgery. Bespoke ivory gun handles. Murals on be suggested, the bulk of capital will decamp
border walls. Good luck with this. You will be my immediately.14 One of the first steps towards
mortal enemy. parallel art sectors would thus be to organize
Just like institutional critique was even partial sustainability in the absence of
overtaken by a neoliberal Right that went ahead bubble liquidity and barely limited amounts of
and simply abolished art institutions, the free labor. Whatever emerges will be a new
critique of contemporary art and claims for an version of art-affiliated autonomy
exit from this paradigm are dwarfed by their In contrast to the modernist autonomy of
reactionary counterparts. The reactionary exit art schemes, this autonomy is not solitary,
or acceleration of stagnation is already well unlinked, or isolated. Nor will it come about by
underway. Algorithmic and analogue market some fantasy of progress in-built into
manipulation, alongside the defunding, technology. On the contrary it can only emerge
dismantling, and hollowing-out of the public and through both a conscious effort and exchange
post-public sector,11 transforms what among diverse entities. Its an autonomy that
sometimes worked as a forum for shared ideas, works through circulation, transformation, and
judgment, and experimentation into HNWI alchemy. The links it could build on exist as weak
interior design. Art will be firewalled within links (aka, air-kiss links) and reshaping them
isolationist unlinked canons, which can easily be would need to happen within a compromised
marketed as national, religious, and fully biased mess of contradictory activities. But
06/08
perceiving the art world as sponsored by states, fucked is at last becoming clear enough to
foundations, patrons, and corporations. But the approach, if not rationally, than perhaps
contrary applies at least equally well. realistically. Art as alternative currency shows
Throughout history it has been artists and that art sectors already constitute a maze of
artworkers, more than any other actors, who overlapping systems in which good-old gossip,
have subsidized art production.16 Most do so by greed, lofty ideals, inebriation, and ruthless
concocting mixed-income schemes in which, competition form countless networked cliques.
simply speaking, some form of wage labor (or The core of its value is generated less by
other income) funds art-making. But more transaction than by endless negotiation, via
generally, everyone involved also contributes in gossip, criticism, hearsay, haggling, heckling,
all sorts of other ways to arts circulation, thus peer reviews, small talk, and shade. The result is
making it stronger as currency. Even artists who a solid tangle of feudal loyalties and glowing
live off their work subsidize the market by way enmity, rejected love and fervent envy, pooling
of enormous commissions in relation to other striving, longing, and vital energies. In short, the
industries. But why should one sponsor VIP value is not in the product but in the network; not
prepreviews, bespoke museum extensions in gaming or predicting the market25 but in
without any means to fill them, art-fair arms creating exchange.26 Most importantly, art is one
races, institutional franchises built under penal- of the few exchanges that derivative fascists
colony conditions, and other baffling bubbles? dont control yet.
This bloated, entitled, fully superfluous, But as a reserve system for dumb, mean,
embarrassing, and most of all politically toxic and greedy money, arts social value
overhead is subsidized by means of free labor (auto)destructs and turns into a shell operation
If You Dont Have Bread, Eat Art!: Contemporary Art and Derivative Fascisms
and life time, but also by paying attention to that ultimately just shields more empty shells
blingstraction and circulating its spinoffs, thus and amplifies fragmentation and division.
creating reach and legitimacy. Even the majority Similarly, arts venues are already shifting into
of artists that cannot afford saying no to any bonded warehouses and overdesigned bank
offer of income could save time not doing this.17 vaults inside gilded, gated compounds designed
Refusing sponsorship of this sort might be the by seemingly the same three architects
first step towards shaking the unsustainable and worldwide.
mortifying dependency on speculative Its easy to imagine what the motto for art
operations that indirectly increase authoritarian as the reserve currency of a fully rigged system
e-flux journal #76 october 2016 Hito Steyerl
violence and division. Spend free time assisting might be. Just envision a posh PR lieutenant
colleagues,18 not working for free for bank policing the entrance of a big art fair, gingerly
foundations. Dont share corporate crap on declaring to anyone pushed aside, displaced,
monopolist platforms. Ask yourself: Do you want exploited, and ignored: If you dont have bread,
global capitalism with a fascist face? Do you just eat art!
want to artwash more insane weather, insane
leaders, poisonous and rising water, crumbling Thank you to Sven Ltticken, Anton Vidokle, and Stephen
Squibb for very helpful comments.
infrastructure, and brand-new walls? How can
people genuinely share what they need?19 How
much speed is necessary? How can artistic (and
art-related) autonomy evolve from haughty
sovereignty to modest networked devolution?20
How can platform cooperatives contribute to
this? Can art institutions follow the lead of new
municipalist networks and alliances of rebel
cities?21 In the face of derivative fascisms, can
local forms of life be reimagined beyond blood,
soil, nation, and corporation, as networks of
neighborhoods, publics, layered audiences?22
Can art keep local imaginaries curious, open-
minded, and spirited? How to make tangible the
idea that belonging is in becoming not in
having been?23 What is arts scale, perspective,
07/08
Apparently this specific market or Italy, both hit by the debt
crashed in the meantime. Art crisis; no new fascist party on
markets in general are still the ascent. Even in Greece,
rather stable. hardest hit by crippling
austerity, votes for the fascist
3 Golden Dawn are going down,
The idea of art as currency is not up. The more than 50.000
also explored in fascinating refugees stranded there by the
detail by David Joselit in After closing down of the so-called
Art (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Balkan route have been mostly
University Press, 2012), but at a generously welcomed; certainly
different historic moment, the not with 90 arson attacks. In
moment of the expansion of contrast derivative fascisms are
neoliberal globalization. Now, at strongest either in
the end of this historic moment, comparatively rich European
art as currency seems to have countries (France, some
become even more powerful. Scandinavian countries, Austria)
or countries that are refusing to
4 take in refugees like Hungary or
The term derivative fascisms trying to minimize numbers like
means a jumble of widespread Poland. The economy is most
extreme right-wing movements certainly an important reason
that relate to twentieth-century for the acceleration of fascism.
fascisms in terms of future But it is also most certainly not
options, but not by any means as the only reason for the boom in
equivalents, as in: creating and fascist derivatives. In light of
marketing future options for hard facts, the correlation
fascism. There is no point in between economic hardship and
asking whether they are really fascist popularity is very much
fascisms or not because fascism complicated. The latter also
is the underlying entity, which requires a part of the population
may or may not have anything to that will, if it feels threatened or
do with its derivatives. just slighted, blackmail the
whole of society vote fascist,
If You Dont Have Bread, Eat Art!: Contemporary Art and Derivative Fascisms
5 destabilize, or kill.
I use the term middle class in a
more expanded sense in the 6
sense of a global middle class To make this very clear: art is not
(which may well include both a cryptocurrency. I am trying to
working and out-of-work classes point out some structural
in formerly industrialized similarities between art systems
countries) undercut by and cryptocurrencies, not to
outsourcing and expanded suggest art as currency works in
competition. However, economic the same way. Nevertheless, the
reasons are not the only possibility of art becoming a
explanation for the new cryptocurrency is raised in a very
popularity of derivative informative text by J. Chris
e-flux journal #76 october 2016 Hito Steyerl
08/08
https://news.artnet.com/opin parallel form of exchange. On a
ion/brexit-art-532178. 17 related note, see Aria Deans
I am fully aware that it is a major excellent recent text Poor
11 luxury for most artists to be able Meme, Rich Meme, which maps
By post-public I mean semi- to say no to anything; but even in vectors of a Black circulationism
public corporate ventures like this case one could still rethink projected by shared motion,
biennials and many institutions ones participation in circulation. history, movement, and
and museums. multiplicity
18 http://reallifemag.com/poor-
12 One of many excellent examples meme-rich-meme/.
W.A.G.E., Precarious Workers is Neue Nachbarschaft in Berlin,
Brigade, etc., are doing a stellar where Berliners both longtime 21
job on this issue, as are new residents and newcomers I suppose big art institutions
artist unions and other come together for art courses could see themselves as cities.
organizations working on related and lessons in German or music.
issues, including Liberate Tate, 22
Gulf Labor, etc. 19 How do we defend
See the Platform Cooperativism municipalities under attack, like
13 website the twenty-four deposed
The use of blockchain http://platformcoop.net/abou t. municipalities administrated by
technology in art circulation, The idea is to use technology to the pro-Kuridish Democratic
criticism, and documentation connect workers and service- Regions Party (DBP) in southeast
opens up a huge can of worms providers to users through Turkey, including Nusaybin,
relating to the quantification of platforms that are worker- Cizre, Sur, and Suru, some of
different art phenomena, the owned or organized which have declared self-rule
manipulation of consensus, cooperatives. Blockchains are and operate on a model of
submission to the tyranny of used in many of the already assembly-based autonomy?
averages, etc. Arguably, arts existing examples. A lot of art
appeal (and value) derives at projects incorporate different 23
least in part from the fact that it versions of blockchain elements. A proposition advanced by Brian
does not always reproduce the See, for example, Sami Emory, Massumi in Conjunction,
so-called wisdom of crowds or BitchCoin Is a New Disjunction, Gift, transversal,
other popularity-driven Cryptocurrency for Art, The January 2011
functions. There is enough great Creator's Project, February 10, http://eipcp.net/transversal
If You Dont Have Bread, Eat Art!: Contemporary Art and Derivative Fascisms