Iceberg and Global Worming This text is an attempt to investigate connection between art and new emerged term of global worming, where in metaphorical chain solitary iceberg in the middle of North ocean would be regarded as art field and the rest of the world would be regarded as "rest of the world". you don't need to go very deep in characteristics to understand the evident connection between art field and Iceberg. both are rooted deep down as it appears to seem on top (for the most pride of artists), edgy and slippery when it comes to concepts and cold and lonely for a living for the normal human being, rather suitable for the artificial creatures like Frankenstein and artists. and besides all, part that I found more significant for comparisons is that it seems like solid and grand but basically it's conditioned, destined to constant instability. I think this is most common ground they have. global worming is third part of the metaphor, that seems to me perfectly relevant to both North ocean Icebergs as well as art field in general and I'll try to show it in this text. very cynical beginning I suppose but anyhow I think that with regards to now a days global worming the Iceberg is melting away changing the centuries established shapes and structures of the art field we knew before. dissolving into the oceans of reason based, very down to earth, pragmatic "the rest of the world", and more extravagant forms of art are becoming even the radical attempts it seems faster it dissolves to the waters of demand-consumption rules of the global economy. To explain better the point I want to point out I need to do little step backwards. may be by now a days standards huge step backwards but it's fun to do stupid things some times, I think everybody would agree with that. So, I'd go back and start with Edouard Manet.
Ever since Édouard Manet painted naked women among perfectly well dressed two gentleman having lunch on the picnic art has taken the strategy of absurd and ridiculous as one of the main tools in relationships with society. so since Édouard Manet and on and on up until 70's-80's, to do a strange paradigm - from Eduard Manet to Valie Export that was the case. there were whole bunch of people before, between and after for sure, but sorry I have to do my selection. I have to pick up the authors, I have to follow free associations of my mind may be not very scholarly correct but yet important for me. so the paradigm is from Eduard Manet to Valie Export. of course it's significant for me that women issue was one of the central issue throughout, and clearly there is sort of historical inheritance in so seemingly different artists but this is not my point. my point is that throughout the period of Eduard Manet to Ville Export the main stand point of art by large was to push the limits of normality and common sense on the contrary to social structures, based on concepts of normality , identities, moral, ethics etc. instead of solid, conservative ground of identities where you receive them more less automatically such as for instance gender identity or national identity it was offering far more nomadic concept of journey from poles to poles, from place to place, from male to female, from nationality to universality where ending points didn't matter but the journey. what matters is what happens in between, during the journey. to simplify beyond good and bad, beyond god and evil. for me the end of this paradigm was when I saw the video work of Ville Export showing vagina in the process of a menstrual bleeding in the museum of contemporary art in Dßsseldorf. Game was Over - to put it into entertainment term . whole discourse was over, grounds where sifted away and Iceberg was melting rapidly as bleeding pussy become subject of intellectual consideration and work accepted as piece of art deserved to be in museum. the moment this and hundreds of works like this were accepted, in the very moment of acceptance the works where over. it become subject of intellectual consideration, cultural heritage, commerce, everything but them selves. everything except of radical movement of liberation and freedom it moved to a dimension of intellectual, very self-preserved and secure environment. very different form the freezing and edgy abnormal conditions of iceberg. I'm afraid I'll still sound cynical but for me the dialectical relationship of art with society, this thing of having dialectical "big other" in a face of society and other way around in love hate relationship of society with art had an unexpected end. who would think that it would ended up with marriage happily ever after and formally approved in city holles of governmental buildings. old Russian proverb says: the ways of God are twisted. and now happy couple went to the honeymoon and visiting all sorts of Biennales, Triennales, art fairs etc... and they will give birth to whole new generation orientated on technologies and education, success and creativity. Creativity is a big word now. word that long time already cross the borders of art field and enter
our lives. this word has a history. back in times Joseph Beuys proposed very atomistic and very radical term creativity, that every person can be creative. now a days this radical idea has come through. it's got almost commercial value and has leaked in almost in every aspect of or life. stepping out in so called "friendly politics", "networking" ets... in this sense I think that ground has shifted from art field elsewhere.... to the movies and characters of Sasha Coen for example... and I'm about to propose another crazy even more ridiculous paradigm and draw the line from Donald Judd and Robert Smithson, or if you want from Bruce Nauman and Dan Graham to Sacha Baron Coen. so is till Bruno, or Borat characters. really twisting paradigm actually, but that's how I see.
again old Russian say: ways of God are twisted-is relevant to put in place. now Bruno has taken place of pushing the limits, and does it in a very controversial way in a sense of really stepping over any ethics. but in doing so it mirrors of what we are in so far... his projects are perfect transitions into pop culture, pop art. very different what so called pop artists did with Andy Warhol in lead which rather prostitute-client relationship with public, namely with powerful and elite, nor it was done by people who are known to bring low art to high art, lets say Jeff Koons or others. Bruno-Borat characters are only real transitions among them, step forward to the general public, not in symbolical or artistic way but for real. meaning esthetically, verbally, in every sense that it could happen. the whole characters are developed as totally ridiculous, stupid and bad joke intervention in ordinary situations and ordinary people. through this ridiculous character you can see even more clearly how ridiculous and stupid our mode of life is, our believes are, our ways of seeing is. etc... and I think it would be impossible with arty transitions, it simply doesn't has a capacity to make this sort of stupid, ridiculous transition, you can say transgression too. because it has to be done not in self-reserved and self-absorbed environment but elsewhere... and if back in times this "elsewhere" was an cold edgy iceberg, art field, standing out as metaphor for two sided existence - one that is visible to eye and other below the surface, deep inside. well, sorry but for the global
worming there is no this two dimensions any more, known as surface it's contra-part, but all dissolves into each other and may be potential for the art activities melted away to the different waters, where true pop cultures is, where it comes all over the places naturally trough popular media, TV, youtube, all social networking. yes, it might dissolve and disappear at all and may be once again we came back to the state where we might not need what makes us think, BUT WHAT MAKES US LOUGH.