Reading:
Politics of Installation by Boris Groys

How does Groys describe the relationship between the ‘field of art’ and the ‘art market’?

“The field of art is today frequently equated with the art market, and the artwork is primarily identified as a commodity. That art functions in the context of the art market, and every work of art is a commodity, is beyond doubt; yet art is also made and exhibited for those who do not want to be art collectors, and it is in fact these people who constitute the majority of the art public.”

What is the main two concepts that he seeks to differentiate through an ‘analysis of difference’ at the
bottom of page one?

The two main concepts he is wanting to differentiate is the artist and the curator.

How is an art exhibition and an art installation different in Groys’ view? How does he
describe the viewer/audience in relationshp to each?

It’s different because an exhibition is conceived as an accumulation of art objects placed next to one another in an exhibition space to be viewed in succession. In this case, the exhibition space works as an extension of neutral, public urban space. The body of the viewer in this setting remains outside of the art: art takes place in front of the viewer’s eyes—as an art object, a performance, or a film.

An installation operates by means of a symbolic privatization of the public space of an exhibition. It may appear to be a standard, curated exhibition, but its space is designed according to the sovereign will of an individual artist who is not supposed to publicly justify the selection of the included objects, or the organisation of the installation space as a whole. It invites the visitor to experience this space as the holistic, totalising space of an artwork.

How would you describe an ‘exhibition’? How does Groys describe the ‘exhibition space’?

I would describe an exhibition as a collection of work displayed in such a way that the public can easily see them. Groys describes exhibition space as being “conceived as an accumulation of art objects placed next to one another in an exhibition space to be viewed in succession. In this case, the exhibition space works as an extension of neutral, public urban space—as something like a side alley into which the passerby may turn upon payment of an admission fee”

What is the role of a ‘curator’, both in the past and in the present time?

The role of a curator in the past has been collecting “sacral objects of the past, presenting them as mere art objects in the neutral, empty exhibition spaces of the modern museum or Kunsthalle. The first art museums… collected all sorts of “beautiful” functional objects previously used for religious rites, interior decoration, or manifestations of personal wealth, and exhibited them as works of art, that is, as defunctionalized autonomous objects set up for the mere purpose of being viewed.”

In present time a curator’s role is “to safeguard its public character, while bringing the individual artworks into this public space, making them accessible to the public, publicizing them.”

What do you think a “defunctionalized design fragment” is?

I think it is an object taken out of its intended environment, stripped of any functional value and used purely to be observed as art.

When, in Groys’ view, did artists begin to seek autonomy/freedom/sovereignty for their work?

In the modern era when artists “have required the right to make sovereign decisions regarding the content and the form of their work beyond any explanation or justification vis-à-vis the public.”

How would you describe an ‘installation’? How does Groys describe the ‘installation’ as a space?

I would describe an an installation as a wholistic display of art where the pieces are all linked and communicate an idea collectively.

Groys describes it as a “means of a symbolic privatization of the public space of an exhibition. It may appear to be a standard, curated exhibition, but its space is designed according to the sovereign will of an individual artist who is not supposed to publicly justify the selection of the included objects, or the organization of the installation space as a whole.”

What does an installation do to a space, that an exhibition does not?

“What the installation offers to the fluid, circulating multitudes is an aura of the here and now. The installation is, above all, a mass-cultural version of individual flânerie, as described by Benjamin, and therefore a place for the emergence of aura, for “profane illumination.””

In relationship to last week’s lecture (Landscape Part II), do you see any relationship between ‘installation’ and colonisation or land ownership?

The relationship between last weeks texts and this weeks is the parallel of curated design dictated by public consumption. They both highlight how humans want everything to be somewhat practical and serve a purpose.

What different kinds of ‘freedom’ does Groys write that artists and curators embody? Is it always the
same or has it changed over time/ in different situations?

“The artist and the curator embody, in a very conspicuous manner, these two different kinds of freedom: the sovereign, unconditional, publicly irresponsible freedom of art-making, and the institutional, conditional, publicly responsible freedom of curatorship.”

It hasn’t always been this way. It is, somewhat, new way of operating “in the last decades we have seen the emergence of innovative curatorial projects that seem to empower the curator to act in an authorial, sovereign way. And we have also seen the emergence of artistic practices seeking to be collaborative, democratic, decentralized, de-authorized.”

What does Groys write is the relationship between democracy or democratic access to installation
art?

“The visitor of a typical exhibition remains on his or her own territory, as a symbolic owner of the space where the artworks are delivered to his or her gaze and judgment.”

“The space of an artistic installation is the symbolic private property of the artist. By entering this space, the visitor leaves the public territory of democratic legitimacy and enters the space of sovereign, authoritarian control.”

How does Groys see installation art as reflecting contemporary society? Can we see spatial design and
architecture in a similar light? Why/Why not?

“Art’s function is to show, to make visible the realities that are generally overlooked. By taking aesthetic responsibility in a very explicit way for the design of the installation space, the artist reveals the hidden sovereign dimension of the contemporary democratic order that politics, for the most part, tries to conceal.”

“The artistic installation is thus a space of unconcealment (in the Heideggerian sense) of the heterotopic, sovereign power that is concealed behind the obscure transparency of the democratic order.”

I think we can see Spatial Design and Architecture in a similar light because they too are a form of art that has the opportunity to tell a story in the details and depth of the design.