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Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art
UTOPIAS /ANGLAIS
The utopian project in contemporary art offers both an alternative future and the prospect of inevitable failure. Richard Noble is a Fine Art Lecturer, Goldsmiths, University of London.
238 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2009
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June 29, 2016
Richard Noble’s Utopias is an eye-opening collection of essays and commentary, extracts and interviews on the subject of the utopian impulse and revolutionary aim of both modern and postmodern art.
For starters, between Thomas More’s Utopia and Marx and Engels' Manifesto, I was greatly surprised to find my dear old friend William Morris’ News from Nowhere. It is quite a fact that Morris has been sympathetically removed from political debate since, at least, the turn of the last century – which is all but undeserving and also, somewhat insulting. The fact that Noble rescued him from the dusty shelves of nostalgic, lyrical ballads is, for me, a statement in its own right: let us return to the basics – it says: what is that you want, as a community and as creative beings yourselves?
Henceforth we reach a much more sophisticated, avant-garde debate: Theodor Adorno, Ernst Bloch, Foucault... They prepare the ground for theoretical questions such as: is it the “creation of a better world” the aim or the beginning of artistic action? And if so, can it be that all art is utopian? Is it political? How does one define the place of creation and action (the here and now) and the place of aim (utopia)? Noble delves into the proper realm of utopia through Frederic Jameson, whose authoritative remark, I think, removes all doubt regarding utopia as a revolutionary device very much alive today. He says:
"the attempt to establish positive criteria of the desirable society
characterizes liberal political theory from Locke to Rawls, rather
than the diagnostic interventions of the utopians, which, like those
of the great revolutionaries, always aim at the alleviation and
elimination of the sources of exploitation and suffering, rather
than at the composition of blueprints for bourgeois comfort." (69)
Utopia seeks “fulfillment of life” by exposing the duality of criteria that governs bourgeois society. Like A. L. Morton said it, this duality is the freedom to exploit and be exploited. The dominant capitalist world strives to silence utopia as much as it does to consume art in every form. As Constant Nieuwenhuys put it: “Today's individualist culture has replaced creation with artistic production, which has produced nothing but sings of a tragic impotence and cries of despair from the individual” (41).
In this sense, there's also something to be said about the division of work and the capitalist attempt to separate art from every other realm of life. As it has been said by the WochenKlausur group:
"The demand has been coming up again and again for a long time now:
Art should no longer be venerated in specially designated spaces.
Art should not form a parallel quasi-world. Art should not act as
if it could exist of itself and for itself. Art should deal with
reality, grapple with political circumstances, and work out
proposals for improving human coexistence." (79)
Noble derives from Bloch his understanding of the “utopian function” in art that seeks to orient the eye and the mind of the receiver (the public) beyond existing conditions, yet he is practical enough to acknowledge, like Marx, that neither activity (creation and reception) represents immediate, factual change. Yet, in its practical existence, utopian art suggests an alternative of life, claims it as a possibility and expects a debate on it in return. It is political and revolutionary if it calls for the use of common tools and a common path, if it directly seeks to “influence the people's consciousness and living conditions through agitation and activism” (80).
It is naïve to think that “in a society in which every discussion of basic principles has been lost, to expect that something like art can make decisive changes” (80), yet such a statement can only attest to art and utopia’s subversive character, one that the reactionary class constantly tries to detain, contain and – ultimately – destroy.
Every quote in this review: from Noble’s edition.
For starters, between Thomas More’s Utopia and Marx and Engels' Manifesto, I was greatly surprised to find my dear old friend William Morris’ News from Nowhere. It is quite a fact that Morris has been sympathetically removed from political debate since, at least, the turn of the last century – which is all but undeserving and also, somewhat insulting. The fact that Noble rescued him from the dusty shelves of nostalgic, lyrical ballads is, for me, a statement in its own right: let us return to the basics – it says: what is that you want, as a community and as creative beings yourselves?
Henceforth we reach a much more sophisticated, avant-garde debate: Theodor Adorno, Ernst Bloch, Foucault... They prepare the ground for theoretical questions such as: is it the “creation of a better world” the aim or the beginning of artistic action? And if so, can it be that all art is utopian? Is it political? How does one define the place of creation and action (the here and now) and the place of aim (utopia)? Noble delves into the proper realm of utopia through Frederic Jameson, whose authoritative remark, I think, removes all doubt regarding utopia as a revolutionary device very much alive today. He says:
"the attempt to establish positive criteria of the desirable society
characterizes liberal political theory from Locke to Rawls, rather
than the diagnostic interventions of the utopians, which, like those
of the great revolutionaries, always aim at the alleviation and
elimination of the sources of exploitation and suffering, rather
than at the composition of blueprints for bourgeois comfort." (69)
Utopia seeks “fulfillment of life” by exposing the duality of criteria that governs bourgeois society. Like A. L. Morton said it, this duality is the freedom to exploit and be exploited. The dominant capitalist world strives to silence utopia as much as it does to consume art in every form. As Constant Nieuwenhuys put it: “Today's individualist culture has replaced creation with artistic production, which has produced nothing but sings of a tragic impotence and cries of despair from the individual” (41).
In this sense, there's also something to be said about the division of work and the capitalist attempt to separate art from every other realm of life. As it has been said by the WochenKlausur group:
"The demand has been coming up again and again for a long time now:
Art should no longer be venerated in specially designated spaces.
Art should not form a parallel quasi-world. Art should not act as
if it could exist of itself and for itself. Art should deal with
reality, grapple with political circumstances, and work out
proposals for improving human coexistence." (79)
Noble derives from Bloch his understanding of the “utopian function” in art that seeks to orient the eye and the mind of the receiver (the public) beyond existing conditions, yet he is practical enough to acknowledge, like Marx, that neither activity (creation and reception) represents immediate, factual change. Yet, in its practical existence, utopian art suggests an alternative of life, claims it as a possibility and expects a debate on it in return. It is political and revolutionary if it calls for the use of common tools and a common path, if it directly seeks to “influence the people's consciousness and living conditions through agitation and activism” (80).
It is naïve to think that “in a society in which every discussion of basic principles has been lost, to expect that something like art can make decisive changes” (80), yet such a statement can only attest to art and utopia’s subversive character, one that the reactionary class constantly tries to detain, contain and – ultimately – destroy.
Every quote in this review: from Noble’s edition.
Displaying 1 of 1 review