Chapter 8 “HOW TO DRESS FOR AN EXHIBITION”, rit Rogoff “The pleasure of resemblance and repetition produces both psychic assurance and politcal feishization, Representation reproduces the (Other asthe Same, Performance, insofar as it can be defined as reprcsetation without repreduction, can be sen 26 a model for nother representational economy, one in which the reproduction of the Other as the Same, is not assured.” (Peggy Phelan, "Unmarked"? Participation in the Field of Vision ‘Weall believe inthe principle of panicpation. Prom the instuions ‘of pariamentary democracy we sustain to the practices of listening ‘ther than lencing or ignoring the voices of children, women, minorities or the handicapped we take par in, we all phold and approve the rehtorcs of participation asthe circulate in political calture. What we rarely question is what constitutes the listening, hearing or seeing in and of itself ~ the good intentions of recognition become substitute forthe kind of detailed analysis ‘which might sere to expand the notions of what constitutes a mode ‘of speaking in public, of being heard by a public. (OF course one ofthe main irues within this stucare is chat the question ~ whatever the question might be ~ is inevitably acute atthe centers of power and itis only the esponse which is paid atention. What interests me i the possilty of reading 2 response asa form of rearticulatng the question of what it might be to take part in public sphere culture. ‘Tey Wik, Vana Te Ta of Fema, Now Yk and Loon, tap ae 0 “This paper then charts the begining of an inguiy into the possibilities that exhibition spaces might provide in order to accommodate the proliferation of performative acts by which tudiences shift themselves from being viewers to being participants. Furthermore the participation I have in mind goes beyond an esthetic identification within the conines of spaces reserved for artistic practices and towards a model in which these spaces re ‘engage wit political cukure in unexpected ways, The argument is predicated on a belief that art does not have tobe overtly political in its subject matter in order to produce a political effect thus constituting a politics rather than reflecting one. It is this Aitferentiation berneen the subject mater of works or exhibition themates and the subject ofthe exhibition which isthe main issue | should ike to get albeit via slighty circuitous route. In tying to recount seis of tenes in which audiences price themseires asthe subject of whatever may have been put on view for thei edification, Iam arguing that exhibition spaces might indicate possiblities ~ rather than provide opportunities ~ for self ‘representation. ‘Since location and statedness are everything in my analysis, ‘want to locate these remarks at the intersection of three arenas ‘These arenat make up my working, cultural and persona life and therefor cut across the numerous levels through which I, for one, ariipatein culture. 1. Theft of thesis the cuen conjunction ofa gener cular politics of difference (sexual, racial, cultural, etc.) with the intelectual, analytical posibiltes opened up by what Dewi has termed ‘Differnce' the understanding of differentiation coming about in language and of enunciation actully producing an event. ‘Diffrance’is the process by which meanings differed ~ never tly present but only constructed through the potently endless proces of refeting to other, absent, sgnfirs. This isthe intellectual formulation which might allow me to move fom visbity asa mode bby which pretence i are in public space to performance which aallows forthe intimation of cultural co-eistence in the space with sn entity notyctnamed. 2. The second is 2 moment of etal funding and of eu swaenes inthe Anglo-American word that hus made posible a sees flange sale eibions having todo with women ai, fev histories, gay and lesbian ari, representations of Bick masculine and many others whith have produced an elt n cate which gos way beyond whit ok plas in each exibition The sheer numbers ofthe exhibitions and this acompanying ‘atalogues and of conse all ofthe cutul and intellectual works at peeled them, makes ic posible o begin o theorize ae of representation and participation beyond the rightness oF womens ofc speste tion 3. Finally itis important to recognize that all ofthis can take place ralinkup within the contex of what we ae provisional cling nal Cr ~ad nich wl alee apn ‘Roi compo an desese oe eet wit the visual the ats, film, mass media and cyberspace. AS itis Say yc nr Se at es ko es nen petins ovee been klar fon Sain ceo {= roeciton mtn sal euaas ones pt tk al eine ge Dae “sale om king wal se = eee [said oie titative. This was of course part of a much wesw doit anon snes a where are meanings determined? By whoon? For which readers of viewer? And through TEE Ai though what seucurer of idenifeton or One of ent inp important specs hit fu he mfr 10 ‘Scat may wih vu nema wed is atcha pve phe llth ts locaton of images almost beyond limits. Ii in the wake ofthis emergent study of visual cule ~ one devoid of genic boundaries for hierarchical mediums, in which diffrence and subjectivity are ‘onstntive components of the fell ratber shan analytical ations to it~ that it becomes possible to tice the language sits tha have ‘begun to take place in the aftermath of displacements, migrations, censhvemens, daspons, cultural hybrids and nostalgic yearnings ‘undergone by contemporary subjects ‘My own practice has been the atempt to shift fom writing about art, in which a certain objectification of objects and ‘enitorialization of lnowlede takes place, to an altemative practice cof wing with at ~ in which particular work intersects with issues fof curent and urgent interes to me, and not simply laste them ‘ut actually allow me to think through the next step = a nex step ‘which has not been posible to conceptualize theoretically. "How does one evolve thoughts towards a theory of participation ~ of what it meas tobe afl participant in culture? Ifthe emphasis hare isto be shied from a cleat and concensual understanding of ‘what questions needs to be rused and what issues discussed is 0 be dislodged - where and how would one begin to track the potential emergence of an alternative set of issues or questions and hhow would one recognize them when one was actully confronted by the beingaticulated:in process? In onder tty and move fiom a presence to an absence one has yet to recognize, one might tke acue from a setics of events that have actully taken place and try and see whether a series of co-tstent performative stances might hav emerged alongside these vents. At this moment I have been thinking of three separate ‘modes of participation which have been invoked by a series of thibitons: “Te eabibitions have included “Bad Gir (Q versions; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New Yorkand Lor Angeles, 1983 and ICA, London, 1993) Andere Korgr (Other Boies, Viz OffenesKalrarhans, 1994) aMis 6x Scone (CA, London, 1994) ‘lack Male (Whitacy Museum of American Art, New York, 1995) Inside the Visible (CA, Boston, Whitechapel, London, Peth, 1996) ‘Sexual Plies (UCLA Maseum / Armand Hammer, Los Angeles 1996) ‘ne it ie leer UsrnityMaran / Cy Li 1395) “More then Minimal (Brandis Universi, Rose Axt Moseum, Boston, 1996) Parallel to the oveny cultural dicounes of sexual and cut diference thee hat also been a body of PoststracturaisPoitcal theory by the likes of Emesto Laclaa and Chantal Mouffe or Giorgio Agamben, whichis questioning the viblty of ected adiamentary/democratcinstutions 2 able to represent the ill complexity of people’ needs and problems. This in the wake of identity polities on the one hand, and in recognition of the centrality of subjectivity in the formation of consciousness and the need to find ways of integrating this subjectivity into the politcal process on the other. What both discussions share, though through ‘aly dieing politcal genealogies is a groving understanding of the limitations of representation as visibility andthe equation of this conjunction into a model the model -for political and extural participation. Peggy Phelan, in her ground breaking 1993 book "Unmarked ~ The Poi of Peformance’ ancuates the Kimits of visibility as representation thus; *Cuutenty, homers, there i dismaying simian the belies generated about the political efcacy of visible representation. The dangerous complicity between rogressves dedicated to visibility politics and conservatives patlling the borders of museums, movie houses and 2 econ Gol ta eocey tot Gi fun tr Gy Come Kame uo ee ee ene ttt tM ttt ttte ttt EEE ene _msnsteam broadcatng is bused on their ut ei that repeserations can be tested as eal ruth? and guarded of championed accontngly. Both sides belive that reser sty ofthe ideo undrsepresented eds oenbanced pial pomer. The progessivs wat to share tix power ‘ich other’ conservatives wan reserve this power for themselves, Isficient undestanding ofthe rasonship beneen visibility, power, identity and liberation as led both ‘groups to mistake the relation between the real and repetentational”” Moving fiom the insistence on a polities of representation to a smarking of performative acts and instances, the posites for participatory activity viewed through these exhibitions seems to fanction in three overarching schemes: 1. The fist i the attempt to construct 2 historical lineage of participation (vomen, feminist art movements historical moments pierced by lest acknowledged, marginal activity). Ths exhibitions Which chart for example the work of women ats within a wider Iistry, or tack an altemative structure fr such ahistorical aocount ‘through the work of women ats or bring into visibility the work cof gay and lesbian artists for who a specific category ofnsisional splay has previously not exited, 2. The second category has been one of Identification with teanagrsion ~a critical and defant engagement with codes ofthe normative (behavioral or asi) 3. The thi stata of scsvity hasbeen instrumental in producing ‘ations fooms of seltaging within the spaces provided by the Cxhibition, Iti this category, unplanned and wnintentional and ‘made posible by some tuming ofthe fundamental question which informs the exhibition concept, which I want to focus on. 5 BementHow to Dress for an Exhibition (On abrght end sunny New York ftemoon, my fiend Abigail sy inter Daria and I set off to see the Black Male exhibition atthe ‘Whitney Museum of American Art For those of you who ate not familiar with this projec, this was an exibition which explored conjunctions of Blackness, of masculnties, and of representation in ‘variety of media ~ ranging from the dizzying heights ofthe paints tanvas tothe lower depths of sports advertising. Curated by Theis Gollen end accompanied by 2 distinguished cxalogue in which ‘umerou ‘Afan Amen we, cits nd anaes OG Cita sue ofthe presence/absence of Blac in Un ‘States culture, The exhibition was enormos, with mere than 6D as ‘ach showing several works. Afer an hour or the secr aan? “tthe project began to wey me. Thad he sense that Iw Beng Tonto al that well in stuaons of encylopedicbombao°% Tshified my attention from the work on display to the sl 08 ‘ieing it The fst pleasure was tose 0 many Bick mo almost perormatively reading the texts with the greatest attention roevery deta. "What had happened here was that through 2 complex amalgam of sartorial szateges, unplanned and uncoordinated, the viewers hha in effect taken over the exhibition space and put chemseves ‘on display within it, virtually transposing the subject of the exibition. ‘want to use this moment as an opportunity to theorize participation in relation to marginalized histories and the politics fof emergent cultures, lack Male was a particularly interesting moment because it was a fist ofits kind in terms of the museum culture and because it se itself a particular problematic: In his jntrodctory esiy, Henry Louis Gates, one of the most respected ‘mainstream vices of Affican Amesian culture, sets two issues for the exhibition project. The Gist i a question. "IF Blacks were such dominated group, such an oppressed group’ he als, why were such an enormous number of debased negations demanded to ‘maintain their social contol” He i weftring to the enormity of mcs stereotypes which ceculate vill in Anglo American culture “YE you do not have fehand knowledge ofthese then you ar surely familar with dhem through the visual investigations of racism in the work of Carie Mae Weems, of Fred Wilson, of Glen Ligon, ‘Advan Pipes Jimmie Durham and of Kara Walle, to mention only ‘fer. Therefore the se to understand why this massive project ‘of visual control is necestary to contain a group of people supposedly aleady entirely oppress by clue and economics. "Few images in US. culture, and probably in Westem culture, areas overaden with meaning as images of Black mascaiity, 3s ‘Kobena Mercer, [sae Jllan and Glen Ligon have shown, Black masculinity is smaltaneonsly the ste of feishized seual desire and of exeme socal phobia, making it a virtually uncradable series ‘of photographic lic, TV. news, ete images. "na similar vein, Suzanne Lacey, in a masive performance ‘which tok place in Oakland California in 1996, ented Te Roof 1b On Fire ~ produced a several of the gaze and of whois inlanguage. Lacey witha large group of collborator took ore rultistory ear park in Oalland, a predominantly Black and economically depressed city in the neighborhood of Bele and fof San Franco, in this carpark were sever doze shiny a ct hich had been donated forthe evening by local car deena ach car sat a group of teenagers conversing on 2 subject whith Fad been stout for ter withthe windows ofthe ral down ‘As the work was done in collaboration wth an Onl’ Hh {ehool and as Ocklnd is demographically predominantly bas ‘irmlly all the adolescent in the cars were theses Afian [American In onder to take pat in the wosk she ane: a © ‘valk among th cas inthe car pak an stick their head hough The windows and Hsten que tothe tenages convention. 5 the msn of thst world audience ay previous cont wi eee gmc lyn thse images shadowy gus wih hd sed would be ed away by police wi repo ros area monly conned vara of tees. nT Rof Farry al dete elions were eersd the ewe ha 5 srr fre to both look at and ten tothe conning Yous it aera ofthe sign system ofthe nghly news brea cars, mulstory car pas | disrupted in this instance narrative. Beyond the disrupted sign stems i the spemy of ein op E ET i ie same adie cla and pened a pn ich ol ino an iy decode and tab ning © = 56" ‘of epresentation; Visual and Political This ea far more complex problem than one of redressing the balance ~ of bringing in the Underrepresented, of showing which hasbeen out of vision. What is truly at stake isthe concept of participation ~ "Not participation decreed frm above by curatorial intentions; [Not participation organized through the structures and instiations of politcal representation; ‘But participation chat i generated by unconscious soatgis of selfstaging, bei through dressing, of fantasizing or fetionlizing. “The men I descibed before, the viewers of Black Male, put themselves on display, they invaded and took over the space, they staged themselves as the objects on view, they breathed cucent ie jato the notion of Black Masculinity, they pursued a mode of parcpation that had not ben invented fr them through the good intentions of those who determine the means of partipation and the modes of representation. “This was not planned, suategized, coordinated and executed. It simply happened. Bu happened in the wake ofa certain political thift of considerable importance. Following on from the Kind of Pose Strututlst political theory of Emesto Lalau and Chantal Mouffe end of Giorgio Agsmben: work that tiesto rethink issues of politcal participation and representation away fom traditional ‘Wester patliamentarybased, electoral politcal institutions, and towards the unexpected and unconventional ways by which ctizens ‘come into altemative voice and representation. The isoe her is ‘more than simply the section of tong state ideologies. It is the realization that we lve out comple, fagmented and incoherent subjet position, tha often the diferent stands of our identity — sexual and racial, our education and occupation, our genetic cncoding and the diseases our bodies bear, our lemed cultural preferences and our secret fantasies ~ are all at odd with one ‘another In terms ofbeing able to come together ito one coherent political platform, we ae rarely able to galvanize all of these ‘Simensions into an applied institutional polis. Instead we are developing apolitical theory of highly contingent groupings which wsgive articulation tothe often contradictory imperaes of our Identies. Sometimes we meet and hammer out poston pspes and campaign for affrmatve ation and symbolic presentation, and at other times we simply des for an exibition. [Now you may think that my fashion epe wat so shap and focused at the Black Mae exibition beceute I fle nothing more than abit dowdy, not quite a effetvely pu together as may a ben. Well et me assure you that me wer all hee quite eat iff memory serves me Abigail was immaculate in navy bse Son Rykiel, Dara was enfolded within the pleats and crease of 67 “Miya and I was wearing one ofthote autre, snimal Geman suite 1 Tike so much. We were certainly elegant timed ou — but ‘ite wrongly inthis pacar contest Weal thre proses ‘women, charter members ofthe socalled ‘Art Worl! we we clothes to signify a cern of position, ase of aad Slliances, perhaps even feminist refustl of certein female stereotypes. We are no longe in the postion of having to 2 Clothing aya counterattack aimed at breaking up te oo ‘homogenizations ‘and inherent fears the word entertains about us was dl the paicipantsviewes a Black Male~of ct oly GoE faceted and ay contaditry as we ll ow ours © be Bt To this argument and it has vo do wth timon of andences, of recognizing those who ies * ia completing the mang f Foucault ares “The aency of Soin but in the one who ieee and says nothing; not inthe one knows and answers but in the one ‘ur selfrepresentation its lack of need to actively and its possibilities, of it Slloed os that poston Foucault of ene re me SO a oa tn “ someone el's proces of questioning. Hot om the heels of Blac Male came a slew of exhibitions rentioned eatin: Inside the Visible, Sexual Politics, Bad Gis, “More than Minimal Ina Different Light “And, ona lightly differen ack, my own fvorte Mise én See at London's ICA. Mite én Sere displayed work by Surrealist Photographer Claude Cabun and of two young contemporary British women, Tacita Dean and Virginia Nimarkob, To be honest Trean't quite remember what I wore the aftemoon I went to see (Mie éx Sen, and 1 can't qite remember what anyone else there ‘wore either because the countereransfrence ofthe display was more at the level of fntasy than of srtriaty Since the point of the exhibition ~ fictional slfstaging ~ was not diven home in a pointed, didactic manner but allowed to emerge inthe larger, tranquil, empty spaces beeween each atts work ~ spaces that suggested inks between the women’s ar making and which invited tei a state of similar wonder and slfstaging- remember well the stories I made up that afemoon, my uncertainty of whether “Tata Dean actualy existed and my certainty that it didn't mates as [could nevertheles paricipate in the inventive nanative that ‘was her/her work. More than anything it reminded me of Theresa {de Lauren? descriptions ofthe work of the Libreria Della Donna in Milan whose members woald rewrite the endings of great teary asics acconling to emergent feminist desires. ‘Some of these exhibitions brought attention to the work of. women artists, some tothe history of fennist ar, oters attempted to subject tem such as “Minimal art” to sexual difference, others ‘atcmpted to invoke sexulity a the transgression of nemaive bourgeois heteoxerlity, or allowed ws, sin Mis nS, to wite ‘or fantasy scenarios into the destabilized spaces between the anifacts on show. "Hach one ofthese exhibitions, more or les succesflly dealt with issues of the representation of the marginal and with states ‘of participation within the larger map of caltre. All put forward ‘an lernatve to hat model of paricipation determined bythe good miinteations and democratic aspirations of curr and omaizen Running the gamut from Hans-Ulich Obris's very unfortunate ject Tie Me Pe Yr at London's Serpentine Gallery in 195, to Christine Bis far more complex Tori Sip at documenta X in 1997 and soon to be transpoted to New You's PS1 = thee caemplify the models of participation predicated on a Predetermined strategy its ules et oat afin a amg tains ‘rated like mice in some scenic experiment in which they sale *kwough mazes and peda on carousels inorder to prove some point ‘Wht so disappointing about such projects i not the ect of ‘he projec themselves but the curatorial assumptions wich stain them . Astumptions about processes of democratzing cultural Jnsnuons by giving audiences some mechanical task o cay Ou ‘and involving the materials of every day life; old clothes, chewed ‘zum, newspapers, anonymous photographs etc. In these puch some ofthe death mass made om the rece vt, forte callin, Beyond ll the factual dei ofthe echange, ‘evathe tony polite, daborste and stalizel eourtey ofthe ‘xchange which is the primary shock, We find here access to ‘Precisely what was missing from the ealier displays 1 described, the chil, bureaucratically sanctioned face of virulent anti-semitism i may tough eter with long. orate flowery setennea usfall of honorifics and sites and in which the word Jew is not mentioned once. At some point in the exchange «break occurs and we find a hand writen eter from the wife ofthe Posen scents ‘who announces that ‘the honorable dctor, professor, director of| the medica institute, my husband’ has died as @ result of an infection caught from one of the ciminal corpse’ he was operating con. This, according to my knowledgeable Viennese colleagues, Was part of succssfil bid fra war widow's pension, yt another link inthe chain ofshetorcl gestures which serve to tame and mask the horror of what i being dest with. The exhibition continued with the ethereal death masks themselves, fr less honifying than T had feared and with more documentation on the medical practitioners who had requested and justified the program of ‘experiments Coming out one is confionted with one's own face ‘caught bya delayed time camera and shown on a series of monitor. All of the confusion, incomprehenson, revulsion and whatever ‘other responses one might have had, are projected again as part of| ‘whats on display ~ the disassociation one might have sought refage in faced with such exhibits, ha been denied one. ‘After viewing the exibition we met withthe curators who were ‘impressive in their reflexive questioning of their own practice and willing to experiment rather than tobe seen to ‘do the right thing” in view ofthe nature of the history and ofthe materials they were slsplying. [asked iat the reaction in the Austin press had been to the show at I had never seen anything quite like it and thought itd begun the long and necessary road towards the reconstitution ‘ofthe actual object on display. “Response? sid the curator, “There ‘was no Response”, More than anything else I encountered on that ‘occasion this brief answer marked the performative nature ofthis Project the immense efoto engage in another frm of discussion about a shared history, blocked by the impossibly of producing 4 response. For all the immensity of activity, the money spent in the city, the books written and read, the commemoration ‘monuments et. there was no existent discoure in whose context sn actual response could be produced, To reveal thi absence behind a helt of ty ne mind pil esate eran mane ove isle gi ~ a eh 1 amos NY clas le ce pm a we had ben roy oto on oe Mae See pce och we onto ok Na sete esti ee th eon ech ein he Se oneal cstng ct, One Se el nal san of ow he in se setae te pont —some th ca a ec ng tak eal i ee lags cs We coped yon ur ey chev Cente he Sunroof en sel a edge ding ees on rte oe a eye ao el dma Te eon of be ee et Se oe sng sd oven ade nem oo a pee dec 2 coe | hl en 9 St nh am Fm ome Soe ering tte abe Ltd eo Sy oem ein eon 0 a ee mee pine mh eon cer cess roy aseae Cee eget ca something va em, young men ed ve se tay mel ntl sine ts mcm in Ao nou be 2 eee coat co os me po ne we arenes fee ser se POSSESS ical ante pada we ei Se eine hero ef ney bang ced at ia te cyl ed ne yee oreo Se a aS ee ee Se acca bnThere were other such moments during my sty in Viena, ‘moments which will no doubt sueice in other papers and other discussions. What isso significant about the brief performative incidents Ihave been tying to recount is that they could never be accommodated with the exiting structure of political and social analysis. This is where the performative and the representational axe so clearly divergent. Peformance comes int its own in the name ‘of an unease, in the arena of a promise of something that i yet to ‘come, yet tobe atculated and of agency yet to be recognized, yet tobe named. The political dichotomies and the politcal potential inthe distinctions between representation linked to identity police snd enunciation linked to performance are of considerable value inthe atempr to try and understand a politi t-come, As Peggy Phelan has distinguished; “The current contradiction between “identity politics’ with its accent on visibility, and the Prychounalyial/deconsructionist mistrust of visibility a the source of unity or wholeness needs to be efigured, if nat resolved. “Visit isa tap it summons srveilace and the law it provokes ‘years, fetishism, the coloiaVimpesial appetite for posession Yet it retains a certain political appeal. Visibility politics have Practical consequences line can be drawn between a practice (geting somone seen or read) and a theory if you are seen it ‘harder for ‘them’ to ignore you, to construct a punitive cannon); the two can be reproductive. While there is a deeply ethical appeal in the desite for 2 more inclusive representational landscape and «tainly underrepresented communities can be empowered bya xhanced visibility, the terms of this visibility often enerrate the tative power ofthese identities.” Elsewhere in her book Phelan ‘conta this investment in making visible with performance whose “only lifes in the presence. Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representation of representation: once it does to it becomes something other than performance. 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