Manipulating Memory and Mourning in Post-socialist Art

Abstract

When it comes to global contemporary art practice, the present-day humanitarian discourse abounds in a variety of self-explanatory notions and imperatives such as: political art, community- based art, post-studio practices, participatory art, contextual art, socially engaged art, collaborative art, interactive art. It long ago became apparent that artistic practice can no longer revolve around producing objects for consumption by a passive audience, but must take an active part in interfacing with social reality. In perceiving the modality of a work of art and artistic practice, such a change goes hand in hand with the post-Fordist economic changes and the immaterial and flexible labour imperatives. Claire Bishop has already extensively depicted such artistic phenomena in several of her publications.
 Since the early 90s, after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, we have been informed that we ought to be involved with the humanist struggle for the ‘politics of human rights’, and for ‘Art against terrorism’, or engaged with social groups and minorities with the aim of integrating them into a ‘legal sphere’ of life. The humanitarian/humanist imperative, present in everyday political discourse, art and culture, presupposes an opposition between good and evil, where art as a human, humanist and humanitarian activity, is supposed to assume a ‘responsible’ role. In the view of such rhetoric, Art must be ‘political’, ‘socially engaged’ and ‘participatory’, to the extent that it indicates the sharp distinction between the places of violence and those of justice. However, as Marx indicated so many times, the division between those who have the right to be seen (the ‘polis’, or public sphere) and those who do not have a right to a voice (private sphere), assents to social division as such, as well as a rather contingent ethical contraposition between good and evil. Humanitarianism/Humanism in art only affirms the existing democratic phraseology. The humanitarian/humanist regime of art validates a separation between civil society and the abstract society of political equality. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to trace the conceptual distinction between the humanitarian ideology of the current time in the post-socialist context of art and culture, and the thinking and practical application of the concept of the dehumanisation of art.
 The manuscript consists of three parts: In the first part, I will recall Adorno’s thesis regarding the ‘after-Auschwitz’ ethic of representation; in the second part, I will discuss the controversy and the implementation of this thesis following 9/11 as related to culture; and finally, in the third part, I will address the issue of how this thesis, as the main current ideological weapon, conditions the contemporary state of affairs in the post-socialist spaces of art and culture, by indicating several key symptoms in artistic production.