Review: Reconfiguring Private and Public Space in Contemporary Art Practices

Reviewed Work(s): Replacing Home: From Primordial Hut to Digital Network in

Contemporary Art by Jennifer Johung: The One and the Many: Contemporary
Collaborative Art in a Global Context by Grant H. Kester
Review by: Eve Kalyva
Source: Oxford Art Journal , 2013, Vol. 36, No. 2 (2013), pp. 306-309
Published by: Oxford University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43826018

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Book Reviews

considers seems precisely to be engaged in showing and framework. In view of the rapid technological advancements
exploring the 'cinema machine' and its 'workings' - even of this century, an ensuing question is whether increasingly
indeed, primarily, by disassembling it and recombining it in complex networks of interaction and instant information
novel ways and via alternative forms. In fundamental ways, make this demand, or its negotiation, any clearer.
the thrust of these artworks is to take cinema apart, Jennifer Johung's Replacing Home and Grant H. Kester's The
whether they do so quite literally and concretely, or more One and the Many discuss activities that engage with the
figuratively. More or less overtly, Cinema by Other Means interpersonal and intercommunal across public spaces. Both
points to the way in which these works' un-making and books present a number of case studies within their
re-making of cinema doubles as a manifestation of the socio-political and institutional contexts; however, the evaluation
conceptual and epistemic implications of the availability of a of their critical potential differs. Replacing Home is well
machine such as cinema to 'take apart'. Perhaps these structured around the author's interest in the ways in which we
works' un-making and re-making speaks of a mode of experience spatial situations, placement, and replacement and
thinking and knowing which, as Frampton intimates, is itself the interconnected networks of bodies and spaces. It traces the
becoming historical. desire to be at place and to belong at home in works such as
Dan Graham's Two-Mirror Cylinder Inside Cube (1981-91),
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Vectorial Elevation series (1999-
Notes
2000), and the exhibition Odd Lots (2005) commissioned by
1. Hollis Frampton, 'For a Metahistory of Film: Commonplace Notes andmagazine, and features cross-disciplinary applications
Cabinet
Hypotheses', Artforum, vol. 10, no. 1, September 1971, pp. 32 - 35, now in
such as architectural and garment design. Even so, Johung's
Bruce Jenkins (ed.) On the Camera and Consecutive Matters: The Writings of Hollis
book appears at times to be celebrating that which might be
Frampton (MIT Press: Cambridge, 2009), pp. 131-9; p. 135 cited.
possible
2. See Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New rather than critically analysing what is actualised. In
Media (MIT Press: Cambridge, 2000). contrast, the implications and particular nuances of realising
3. André Malraux, Museum without Walls, trans, by Stuart Gilbert and sustaining
and Francis collaborative artistic projects in public spaces is
Price (Seeker and Warburg: London, 1967), p. 12. precisely Kester's focal point.
4. Rosalind Krauss calls the cinema apparatus 'aggregative' in A Voyage to the
Replacing Home begins with an informative account of
North Sea: Art in the Age of the Post-Medium Condition (Thames and Hudson:
performance theory and architecture theory that Johung
London, 1999), p. 44.
combines as a means to draw a theoretical framework for
5. André Bazin, 'The Myth of Total Cinema' (1946), in Hugh Gray (ed. and
conceptualising
trans.) What Is Cinema?, vol. 1 (University of California Press: Berkeley, 1967), an ongoing process of replacing home, of
p. 17. practices that embody interaction, and of networks of
6. Frampton, 'Notes for a Metahistory of Film', p. 135. bodies and structures in dialogue. The literature review
presents recent and historical debates on key concepts
doi: 10.1 093 /oxartj /kctOl 2
such as embodiment, social space, and public participation.
Advance Access Publication 13 May 2013
It covers, among others, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
and their concept of 'nomad space', Peggy Phelan and Nick
Kaye in relation to performance and site specificity, Jacques
Reconfiguring Private and Public Space Rancière and Hal Foster regarding art's sociability, and
Vincent Scully and David Leatherbarrow on the ritualised
in Contemporary Art Practices relations between bodies and buildings and the
conceptualisation and generation of buildings as bodies.
Eve Kalyva 'Replacing home', the author explains, 'affirms precarious
moments and sites of material reconnection between bodies
and various spatial environments in which they are
Jennifer Johung, Replacing Home: From Primordial Hut to Digital Network momentarily enmeshed' (p. xxiii).
in Contemporary Art (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, Chapter 1 discusses Dan Graham's Two-Mirror Cylinder Inside
2012), 50 illns., 248 pp., paperback, ISBN 9780816672882, $25. Cube (1981-91) and traces a return to the hut as a model
of belonging in - what Johung understands to be - an
Grant H. Kester, The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art 'increasingly limitless modern space' (p. xxiv). Johung's
in a Global Context (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), discussion of Graham's work pivots around the artist's own
29 illns., 15 colour, paperback, ISBN 9780822349877, £16.99. reference to the hut and Marc-Antoine Laugier's 1753 essay on
architecture,1 which is addressed in the artwork's accompanying
video projection; and the link between social development and
The discussion of contemporary art practices in relation to an
ever-shifting present moment and at the intersection of localspatial transformation that derives from its transparent,
social spaces and corporative financial systems is faced withsemitransparent, and reflective surfaces. Notwithstanding,
Graham's pavilions, being both sculptures and architectural
a particular problem, characteristic to post-1960s artistic and
critical production as well as education. This concerns a spaces, also implicate other ideas about interrelated social and
popular demand that the work of art somehow hinges ondiscursive spaces such as the city's urban grid and signature
theory, and results in a quasi-criticality that needs only towater
be tower icon, the space of exhibitions and the 360-degree
secured by a tangential reference to some theoretical horizon line that is visible from the roof-top installation, and the

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 Book Reviews

space occupied by spectators who now become the subject of cross-disciplinary intersections between contemporary art
the work.2 Chapter 2 concerns the exhibition Odd Lots initiated and architectural and garment design, which extend the
by the enquiry of Cabinet magazine in 2003 and 2005 regarding author's interest in the novel convergence of art with
Gordon Matta-Clark's 1973 project to buy unusable tiny property architecture and biotechnology.4 As such, the book succeeds
plots in New York, which were auctioned at bargain prices. For in introducing the reader to a number of theoretical
Matta-Clark, these plots were to form part of an art project that problems and artistia practices that engage with or respond
would include, among other things, documentation of purchase to shifting conceptualisations of social embodiment and the
and a list of weeds growing in each site, while individual buyers public space. Notwithstanding, it lacks a critical negotiation
would also buy the title to the relevant plot. Cabinet published between the two, in particular regarding the discursive,
the editors' research report on Matta-Clark's original project and ideological, and political ramifications of their interaction,
related proposals by commissioned artists Jimbo Blachly, which is indeed one of Kester's main interests.
Matthew Northridge, and Clara Williams in its Spring 2003 issue, Kester's The One and The Many considers collaborative art
and organised a corresponding exhibition with additional artists projects in public and social spaces such as Ala Plastica
in 2005. In her discussion of these artistic activities, Johung (Argentina), Park Fiction (Germany), and the Dialogue
explains how they negotiate the dynamics of owning and collective (India). It is particularly concerned with the
exchanging and formulate new dialogic networks of belonging. implications of such public interventions and community
Nonetheless, by focusing this dynamic primarily on multiplicity projects in theoretical and, most importantly, actual terms,
and bodily presence across time and space, Johung's account and the effects upon those public and social spaces and their
suggests a rather ahistorical conceptualisation of spatial conceptualisations. Indeed, Kester's focal point is precisely
ownership. instances where 'the process of participatory interaction itself
The idea of replacing and reformulating home is extended is treated as a form of creative praxis' (p. 9).
in the discussion of architectural and garment design such as The book is structured in three interrelated chapters that
Zittel's multi-space single-room habitats, Lot-ek's converted discuss practices and community projects across different
container Mobile Dwelling Units, and Otra's portable and sites and audiences (Huit Facettes in Senegal, Superflex
wearable membranes constructed for those without access to from Denmark, Rick Lowe, Rirkrit Tiravanija), and bring them
housing. In Chapters 3 and 4, Johung develops the theme in critical
of discussion with one another. It addresses different
replacing home by drawing attention to the displacement articulations
of of processes of participation and collaboration,
bodies and the formulation of dwellings and dwellers at athis can reveal about the more general conditions of
what
social level. She notes: 'We must make visible and contemporary art, and how collaborative projects unfold
continuously replace not only the bodies rendered socially
through extended interaction and shared labour. Moreover, it
peripheral but also the methods of coherence critically engages on
that depend with the limitations in the realisation of
the interactions of all kinds of participants in a variety
community projects of
that often derive from an inherent
public and private, civil and personal sites' (p. 129). weaknesses in their conception, and teases out the
Unfortunately, the book does not offer more space for a
nuances in both presenting them and understanding what
critical reflection of the accessibility and susta inability ofconstitutes
such them - where, in other words, one draws their
alternative modes of actualising more inclusive social limits and where their limitations lie.
formations, it does, nonetheless, indicate applications such Regarding the book's conceptual framework, Chapter 1
as architect Shigeru Ban's trademark paper tube design,discusses the development of post-structuralist theory and
which was employed to relief refugees in Rwanda (1995-99) textual politics and offers an informative account of Nicolas
and earthquake victims in Japan (1995) and Turkey (1999). InBourriaud's and Claire Bishop's views about participatory
the last chapter, Johung turns to Lozano-Hemmer's Vectorial activities that share, for Kester, the common drawback of
Elevation, Mexico City (1999-2000) - an installation of being suspicious towards the viewer. In particular, Kester
searchlights that could be remotely set to move in patterns explains how both Bourriaud and Bishop suggest that the
designed by the public; and Under Scan (2006), a project of audience is 'summoned' by the artist, the latter being in 'a
virtual interactions of people in public spaces across various
position of adjudicatory oversight, unveiling or revealing the
UK cities. Both projects manipulate new interface and contingency of systems of meaning that the viewer would
projection technologies, network capabilities, and data otherwise submit to without thinking' (pp. 32-3, original
collection systems that encourage and support the interaction
quotation marks).5 Chapter 2 negotiates the specific material
conditions and epistemologica! effects of collaboration and
of individuals locally and remotely. Nevertheless, one should
the re-interpretation of labour from the perspective of an
not ignore the critical difference between a Utopian metaphor
of the network as a democratically accessible and socially increasingly popular rhetoric of 'development' (original
communal tool, and its specific material operations.3 quotation marks) in relation to political theory, social policy,
Replacing Home offers a good access point to the and the activities of international non-governmental
pertinent issues of replacing and renewing the conceptorganisations
of (NGOs). Finally, Chapter 3 extends the
home, and the parallel interest in the movement and discussion in terms of urban settings and processes of
interaction of peoples and the creation of social and public'regeneration', gentrification, and displacement with particular
structures. It is especially informative of the emerging interest in the narrative justification of the authority of
research area of performative architecture and the dominant economic and political interests.

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Book Reviews

In terms of artistic practices, Kester evaluates a number especially

of since the emergence of cultural studies in the
projects. The activities of Park Fiction in Hamburg and1990s Ala and their interest in 'exposing' or 'deconstructing'
Plastica in Rio de la Plata, Buenos Aires province, challenge various ideological errors (p. 56, original quotation marks).
the political and economic interests of large-scale urban While many art critics and visual communication theorists
regeneration projects (waterfront conversion and construction have challenged such a simplified model of one-to-one
of transportation hubs, respectively) and their effects onmessage
local transmission, Kester specifies that even the readily
communities, industries, and quality of life. They seek to
available term 'interaction' often relies upon traditional
mobilise local communities and raise awareness in notions of contemplative decoding or somatic disruption
often-whimsical ways such as organising activities where agency remains spatially defined and the
of spatial
cognitive mapping, offering clay modelling, compositional and a wish archiveand receptive roles fixed. Even when making
in the case of the former (p. 203); and the creation of critical claims, textual art practices as described by Kester
communication platforms and networks for mutual cooperationcreate a relational antagonism with their viewers and with
such as bioregional studies and emergency housing modules other discursive modes, disciplines, or systems of knowledge
in the case of the latter (p. 26). Such activities are that only displaces authority and, most importantly, results in
constructively compared with a discussion, elsewhere theindisplacement
the of political action as something to be
book, of community action programmes based on public actualised between the artist and the viewer (pp. 59, 103).
subsidies and the promotion of public art under the auspices Consider, for example, Francis Alys's Faith Can Move
of regeneration schemes in American cities - Houston Mountains
for (2002). The work is generally described as an
example, and Rick Lowe's Row Houses project (pp. 193, 212).of the futile waste of labour that is discursively
allegory
Here, one should pay particular attention to the qualitative associated with Latin American societies; or, as the press
difference between the nature of the spaces that are note of the Guggenheim museum argued, a power allegory
created
through such projects and the mechanisms that sustain of them:
human will (p. 65). Equally, the work features as an
the politico-financial interests of public and private subsidies,
exemplar of collaborative interaction. Yet, it does little, Kester
the socio-financial structuration of urban space, and its clarifies, to convey the nature of collaboration or the
conceptualisation as a public space. experience of the volunteers from Lima who undertook the
Another initiative that Kester discusses is the Dialoguetask of moving the dune as it was prescribed by the artist. In
collective in Kondagaon, central India - an area with largefact, the distinction between their experiences (or those of the
Adivasi tribal population and one facing progressive local community) and the generous documentary, audio-visual
contamination and privatisation of local water supplies. presentation
The of the record of the act, executed locally and
collective operates a self-sustained art centre for projects transmitted
and globally, collapses, and the use of human labour
workshops developed with the local community including becomes the symptomatic. As Kester explains, this choice is
redesign of water pump sites, which are not only essentialbased for on a symbolic or allegorical correlation of labour and
survival but also form a hub of social life and interpersonal productivity (and, by extension, futility), and Alys's practice of
relations. As a result, Kester explains, the produced space challenging assumptions regarding a direct commun icability
becomes a platform for social interaction and formation ofof words and images by way of suspending signification and
community identity (p. 80). One should also note that, embracing what Russell Ferguson describes as a politics of
rehearsal (pp. 68-70).6 Similarly, Kester detects a conflation
attesting to the careful consideration of its subject, the book
does not neglect to address the dynamics of collaborationof a critique of aesthetic autonomy with a critique of
and the particular problems of accessing and working with bourgeois complacency in Santiago Sierra's Person Saying A
local communities. Phrase (2002) and Two Maraca Players (2002) (p. 166).
The One and The Many outlines a framework for evaluating These works operate on affect and the implications of
and theorising collaborative practices as improvisionally dislocated bodies that are, however, deployed for the
responsive rather than scripted, generative rather than simplypurposes of the artist and carefully staged. Paradigmatically
symbolic, and resulting in a different way of making labour in Two Maraca Players , Kester notes how Sierra reprocessed
productive (p. 76). Equally, Kester calls for a more fluid the original colour photographs in black-and-white in order to
concept of agency, and a more reciprocal distributionevoke of the aura of the experimental art scene of the 1970s
agency, as something that develops over the course of a(p. 162). Certainly, one can choose not to discuss Alýs or
given
creative action rather than denoting a unique property Sierra of the in the light of collaborative art practices presented
individual (p. 36). To this conceptualisation, the author elsewhere in Kester's book. Still, if their works purport to
contrasts mainstream art and what he defines as textual challenge labour exploitation or, in the case of Sierra, the
practices. Textual art production signifies, for Kester, a
moral economy of bourgeois society from within the gallery
historically defined way of producing (and its consequent space, Kester makes a compelling argument: that their
theorisation) where the artwork functions as a hermeneutic critique remains limited in the sphere of representation and,
device based on a principle of repetition, essentially therefore, we can add, remains itself representational within
replicating a vision or an idea generated by the artist and the conventions of aesthetic autonomy.
consequently presented to the viewer. This textual paradigm With this in mind, Kester's analysis operates at two levels
of artistic production derives from the increasingly that can be described as internal and external to the
interdependent relationship between art practice and theory, category of art. This reflects his thorough engagement with

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 Book Reviews

the multifaceted problematic that he wishes to foreground whilst masking how it is particularly centralised and
regarding the relation between artists and communities, and controlled. Comparing the activities of Huit Facettes and
between practice and theory with particular attention to theSuperflex, he argues 'Ethical capitalism implies the
ideological, institutional, and financial structures within assimilation of a resistance to the mandates of capital within
which these operate.7 This is a formidable task for the capitalism itself through a kind of self-policing' (p. 130). In
author and outlines a wider theoretical and methodological response, Kester examines the conception and execution of a
consideration; unfortunately, it also means that the reader community project vis-à-vis a revisited concept of labour and
must assemble information on particular case studies traditional theorisations of collaborative practice, genius, and
throughout the book rather than having these presentedaesthetic
in autonomy; and favours a pragmatic openness to the
individual chapters. site and situation, the willingness to engage with specific
At a first level, Kester succinctly negotiates the historycultures
of and communities in creative and improvisational
modern art and modernism, the latter used in the broader ways, and the desire to cultivate and enhance local forms of
sense of the word to indicate a post-Enlightenment traditionsolidarity. Equally important are the concern with
now coupled with neoliberal discourse and global finance. non-hierarchical and participatory processes, and a critical
Here, the author maintains, the discussion of the avant-gardeand self-reflective relationship to the practice itself (p. 125).
can help describe certain historically specific modes of Interrogating artistic activities that symptomatically rely on
production that have achieved canonical status, or a set of some theory while embalming artistic and aesthetic
common features to otherwise diverse contemporary practices,autonomy, The One and The Many sets high standards for a
as well as tendencies within the art world of approaching andsocially engaged collaborative practice that generates a
discussing these practices. Equally, collaborative practices shiftprocess of social interaction mediated by what Kester
existing conceptualisations regarding art's ontology, aestheticdescribes as physical and cognitive co-labouring (p. 139).
autonomy, and epistemologica! status of enquiry as they oftenMoreover, it retains a dual consciousness of both local and
demand different sets of qualitative criteria in the analysis ofglobal implications and interconnections of a given site and
their merit and wider societal impact. However, Kester criticisessituation. This describes a qualitative difference between art
the growing interdependence between artistic practice andpractices that reproduce-while-displace the issue at hand and
academia. This self-reflective reservation warns of the dangereffectively critical collaborative projects. As Kester reminds
that Johung's account is prone to: that while artistic practicesus, the only possibility for political change is to transform the
might create a critical tension with their material and discursiveconsciousness of the viewer - something that can be
environments, this does not ipso facto spare them from beingachieved through the creation of new knowledge that requires
talked about or theorised in ways that embalm their effectsa process of both learning and un-learning.
and offer them up for friendly marketable presentations.
Kester is especially critical of artists and groups celebrated
in the 'mainstream art world' such as Francis Alýs, SantiagoNotes
Sierra, and Superflex, and reminds the reader of the negative
1 . Marc- Antoine Laugier, An Essay on Architecture, trans, by Wolfgang and Anni
connotations of the word 'collaboration' in terms of co-option,
Herrmann (Hennessey & Ingalls: Los Angeles, 1977).
compromise, and complicity. This leads to the second layer of
2. Dan Graham, 'Two- Way Mirror Cylinder Inside Cube and Video Salon:
analysis that his book offers. Underlining the centralisation ofRooftop Part for Dia Center for the Arts', in Alexander Alberro (ed.),
the command and control of global capital, Kester explains: Two-Way Mirror Power, Selected Writings by Dan Graham on His Art (The MIT
Press: Cambridge, MA, 1999), pp. 165-7.
The current moment is defined by a complex and contradictory 3. Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker, The Exploit: A Theory of Networks
mixture of cultural and geopolitical forces. The last two decades (University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 2007).
have witnessed the rise of a powerful neoliberal economic order 4. Jennifer Johung, 'Sustainably Dependent: Bio- Architectural Living Spaces',
dedicated to eliminating all forms of collective or public World Picture, no. 5, Spring 2011, <http://www.worldpicturejournal.com/
resistance (institutional, ideological, and organizational) to the WP_5 / Johung.html > .
primacy of capital. Within this movement, the state and civil 5. Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics (Les Presses Du Reel: Dijon, 2002);
society has taken on a central role as zones of contestation Claire Bishop, 'Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics', October, no. 110, Fall
and targets of conquest by corporate power (p. 5). 2004, pp. 51-80, and 'The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents',
Artforum, vol. 44, no. 6, February 2006, pp. 179-85. See also Kester 's
response to Bishop's 2006 article 'Another Turn: A Response to Claire
A parallel point of interest concerns the pitfalls of 'ethicalBishop', Artforum, vol. 44, no. 9, May 2006, p. 22.
capitalism' and NGO-led projects. Kester contests how artists 6. Russell Ferguson, Francis Alys: Politics of Rehearsal (Hammer Museum: Los
often poise as emissaries of the developed world and workAngeles, 2007).
towards ameliorating local social conditions while reinforcing7. See also Grant H. Kester, Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in
neoliberal orthodoxy. In his review of the history of division ofModern Art (University of California Press: Berkeley, 2004) and his informative
labour and the construction of bourgeois subjectivity, Kesterintroduction 'Ongoing Negotiations: Afterimage and the Analysis of Activist
underlines the current neoliberal financial and discursive Art', in Grant H. Kester (ed.), Art, Activism, and Oppositionality: Essays from
Afterimage (Duke University Press: Durham, 1998), pp. 1-20.
frameworks, which are characterised by an assault on all
forms of autonomy and solidarity that challenge the doi: 1 0. 1 093 / oxartj /kctO 1 0

imperatives of capital, and which celebrate global capital Advance Access Publication 21 April 2013

OXFORD ART JOURNAL 36.2 2013 309

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