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Neomaterialism
In this absorbing theoretical manifesto, Israeli curator Joshua Simon
argues that we have moved into an economy of neomaterialism.
Despite the rhetoric of dematerialization in art practices since the 1960s, the embodiment of materiality has actually just the focus of labor has moved from production to consumption, the commodity has become the historical subject and symbols now behave like materials. Here, Simon advocates for the unreadymade, sentimental value and
the promise of the individual as a means for a vocabulary in this new
economy of meaning. Reflecting on general intellect as labor and the
subjugation of an overqualified generation to the neo-feudal order of
debt finance, Neomaterialism merges traditions of epic communism
with the communism that is already here.
argues that we have moved into an economy of neomaterialism.
Despite the rhetoric of dematerialization in art practices since the 1960s, the embodiment of materiality has actually just the focus of labor has moved from production to consumption, the commodity has become the historical subject and symbols now behave like materials. Here, Simon advocates for the unreadymade, sentimental value and
the promise of the individual as a means for a vocabulary in this new
economy of meaning. Reflecting on general intellect as labor and the
subjugation of an overqualified generation to the neo-feudal order of
debt finance, Neomaterialism merges traditions of epic communism
with the communism that is already here.
- GenresAcademia
194 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2013
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69 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 6, 2014
I’m not sure what it says that some of the most interesting (that is not to say I agree with it) social theory at the moment is coming from art critics and practitioners. In this case Joshua Simon, an Israeli curator and critic, explores a set of issues in art production and exhibition that pose challenging questions for how we understand work, labour, political economy and social relations in the existing socio-economic order. Simon is acutely aware of the place he writes from and the social relations and segregation that surround Israel, noting for instance (on p13) the paradox of the huge insurance payments needed to show Picasso’s Buste de Femme in Ramallah in 2011 while restrictions on movement mean that Palestinians are unlikely to be able to see the Picassos owned by the Israel Museum, 20 minutes from Ramallah.
This sense of paradox and nuanced sense of the material conditions of life, living, display and exhibition pervade this sharp, insightful and need-to-be-revisited book based in an analysis of what Simon calls neomaterialism, an economic order where (according to the blurb) “the focus of labour has moved from production to consumption, the commodity has become a historical subject, and symbols now behave like materials”. He builds a case by beginning with issues of recent developments in curatorial and exhibition practice to problematize, for instance, the idea of the readymade in art (think Duchamp’s urinal) while pointing to a shift in art practice from work that highlights and functions as an object to work that functions as a (critique of) commodity to suggest that the readymade pointed to commodities themselves as art works while more recent practice relying on formation, juxtaposition and deconstruction of the ‘readymade’ to become the ‘unreadymade’. This, then, is a critique of what might be seen as the vitality of objects, and here Simon seems to draw on some of the more unsettling shifts in recent philosophy – there is a sense of Object Oriented Ontology in places, but I might be over-reading.
Simon builds on this idea of the status of the object (symbols behaving like materials, for instance) to explore the politics of art, exhibition and art practice – this discussion is very rich as he investigates the various meanings made of a guillotine and barricade as art installations in the heart of Jerusalem’s financial district. The shifting status of the object also carries into a discussion of the meaning of commodities as both subjectively assessed objects and as carriers of sentimental value – this is a fabulous exploration of a relatively under-explored or considered aspect of the contemporary politics of commodification, although there has been a strand of this kind of idea running through social theory for several years (such as in Michael Thompson’s ‘unusual’ Rubbish Theory from the late 1970s) I haven’t encountered such a useful case considering sentimental value as common currency in assessing commodities.
At the risk of making the book sound hotch potch of ideas, Simon concludes by considering the political and political economic implications of this neomaterialism by weaving into the argument issues related to the precarity of labour as seen in the ‘over-qualification’ of workers, employment decisions being made by competition, alongside the notion that economic privatisation of culture(s) equates to a form of colonisation and the politics of Occupy to conclude with a challenging case against the indivisibility of the self; he suggests that the neomaterialist ‘self’ should be seen as a ‘dividual’ rather than an ‘individual’ as a response to these political-economic conditions and the related social relations of mass individualism.
The book works, I think, because it is as much a set of essays and single argument (although it is very much an argument) but because it is also open – Simon asks difficult questions and posits answers that remain open. This is a book for us to use, critique, unravel, debunk, borrow and see where it takes us. I’ll need to revisit it and next time I do I am pretty sure it’ll be a different book understood differently. The ‘blurb’ describes the book as a conversation – and it is, with itself, with its contexts and with its readers; this is a conversation I look forward to reviving.
This sense of paradox and nuanced sense of the material conditions of life, living, display and exhibition pervade this sharp, insightful and need-to-be-revisited book based in an analysis of what Simon calls neomaterialism, an economic order where (according to the blurb) “the focus of labour has moved from production to consumption, the commodity has become a historical subject, and symbols now behave like materials”. He builds a case by beginning with issues of recent developments in curatorial and exhibition practice to problematize, for instance, the idea of the readymade in art (think Duchamp’s urinal) while pointing to a shift in art practice from work that highlights and functions as an object to work that functions as a (critique of) commodity to suggest that the readymade pointed to commodities themselves as art works while more recent practice relying on formation, juxtaposition and deconstruction of the ‘readymade’ to become the ‘unreadymade’. This, then, is a critique of what might be seen as the vitality of objects, and here Simon seems to draw on some of the more unsettling shifts in recent philosophy – there is a sense of Object Oriented Ontology in places, but I might be over-reading.
Simon builds on this idea of the status of the object (symbols behaving like materials, for instance) to explore the politics of art, exhibition and art practice – this discussion is very rich as he investigates the various meanings made of a guillotine and barricade as art installations in the heart of Jerusalem’s financial district. The shifting status of the object also carries into a discussion of the meaning of commodities as both subjectively assessed objects and as carriers of sentimental value – this is a fabulous exploration of a relatively under-explored or considered aspect of the contemporary politics of commodification, although there has been a strand of this kind of idea running through social theory for several years (such as in Michael Thompson’s ‘unusual’ Rubbish Theory from the late 1970s) I haven’t encountered such a useful case considering sentimental value as common currency in assessing commodities.
At the risk of making the book sound hotch potch of ideas, Simon concludes by considering the political and political economic implications of this neomaterialism by weaving into the argument issues related to the precarity of labour as seen in the ‘over-qualification’ of workers, employment decisions being made by competition, alongside the notion that economic privatisation of culture(s) equates to a form of colonisation and the politics of Occupy to conclude with a challenging case against the indivisibility of the self; he suggests that the neomaterialist ‘self’ should be seen as a ‘dividual’ rather than an ‘individual’ as a response to these political-economic conditions and the related social relations of mass individualism.
The book works, I think, because it is as much a set of essays and single argument (although it is very much an argument) but because it is also open – Simon asks difficult questions and posits answers that remain open. This is a book for us to use, critique, unravel, debunk, borrow and see where it takes us. I’ll need to revisit it and next time I do I am pretty sure it’ll be a different book understood differently. The ‘blurb’ describes the book as a conversation – and it is, with itself, with its contexts and with its readers; this is a conversation I look forward to reviving.
December 10, 2019
Is this book irony, or is it just an open appeal to neoliberal relations to property? I felt sick after reading this.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews