Syndicate: ganahl on brener

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Brener & Flash Art - Terrorism & NaivetŽ

After Flash Art's accumulating articles on Alexander Brener, little further
explanation is necessary as to who he is. He is the artist who sprayed a
Malevich painting in the Stedelijk museum in Amsterdam. What is interesting
and depressing in this story is not so much the destructive act-though that
alone would do-but the reactions and arguments published by Flash Art. In
particular, the arguments by the magazine's chief editor about the freedom
of expression, and the inability to place this destructive phenomena in a
more sophisticated context made me wonder how their opinions might change
if Flash Art were victimized in a similar way under the guise of "freedom
of expression."

Now, let's look at it more closely. When Russian contemporary art became
fashionable, mediated and commoditized just around the collapse of the
Soviet system, art in Russia became as lucrative, attractive, and
misunderstood as capitalism. Precisely at that time in 1991 and 1992, I
spent almost five months in Leningrad and Moscow, living with artists who
were young, starving, fatalistic, and in respect to the ordinary, "rich."
When nobody had any access to Western contacts and starvation was a bitter
reality, a lot of artists were selling something, or had some kind of
contacts that allowed a comparatively exciting life. Art was a career,
which explains why some people from neighboring fields-music,
entertainment, film, literature, academia-turned their interest to art. To
write an article or sell a drawing to gallery and museum people who came en
masse to visit from the West in order to search and discover "unofficial
art" paid by far more than six months' salary at an ordinary job. I was
amazed by the energy and the naivetŽ with which works were produced and
purchased. Of course, there was nothing more exciting and attractive than
the Western art scene, with its color magazines, its money and distribution
systems. Though I was an artist and always made that clear, I was
constantly dragged through studios as if I were a representative of the art
market. So the first few years went by, and quite a few exhibitions and
articles on Russian art appeared. Some careers-Kabakov's, a former writer,
for example-became well-established. The ones who "made it" left for the
West, and a second post-perestroika generation was left behind, but
commanding only a fading attraction to the West, since the Russian fashion
was soon over.

So when I returned to Moscow for more than two months in 1995, a new scene
had emerged. The major term was "Actionism," and the prime figures were
Brener and Kulik. I became very good friends with Brener and was able to
experience this kind of climate firsthand. By that time, a dollar wasn't
worth one week's salary like in 1991 and 1992. Prices had skyrocketed, and
the social and economic scene had been aggravated as the Russian Mafia made
itself world famous. Next to the art center where I held seminars and
discussions with participants like Brener-he came regularly and his
interest, energy, and charisma impressed me-a Mafia restaurant with
"Mercedes valet parking" was booming. It went without saying that we
couldn't afford anything there and didn't always know how to eat. Most
remarkably, I was surprised by how aggressive personal interactions had
become in the city (i.e. not just in the newspapers about daily shootings).
Killing and terror became the main currency in economic and political life.
So it wasn't too surprising to see an art scene that also had exchanged its
brush for direct actions and aggression. Brener at that time was well known
and respected for his verbally aggressive and expressionist writings and
poetry on women, sex, and the Moscow art world. His actions, which I
attended while I was there, were harmless but drew attention in Moscow, and
later on, also in the West.

>From the many discussions I had with artists including Brener, it became
very clear to me that the Western media-in particular Flash Art, which was
the first foreign art magazine I encountered in 1991 in studios where
people weren't eating for days-and the New York art scene had turned into a
kind of capitalist Fata Morgana of absolute desire, a place people wanted
to be at any price. The reception of Western art and discourse in Russia
was mostly superficial and reduced to iconism, tokenism, and name-dropping.
The interests were as old as the latest information that made it more and
more instantly obsolete. Flash Art even produced issues in Russian.

Now let me talk briefly about another phenomena that is increasingly
problematic, less so in Moscow than in Los Angeles-stalking, the attacking
of celebrities to associate one's name with the name and the fame of the
victim that is not hated but adored, fetishized, and who serves as an
obsession. This phenomena is much more applicable in characterizing the
aggressive behavior of Brener than any empty discussion of freedom of art.
It shouldn't be ignored that there is also a parallel phenomena where, for
example, women will let themselves be abused in front of a camera in order
to become published if the photographer is well known. I am inclined to say
that people today do everything for publicity and media impact. As an
artist, I am more interested in those that resist this spectacle, which has
already become the operative method of art production and reception.

Brener also understood that (hetero-) sexual provocation or the kind of
actionism that worked well in Moscow wouldn't necessarily excite anybody in
the West anymore. Later on, when he was included in international shows, he
started to cross boundaries that were also very sensitive in the West-the
destruction of other people's artwork. When he first did it in Scandinavia,
people started talking about him. He was successful in forcing himself into
the media (Flash Art, fall 1996). So it was only a logical consequence for
him to continue this path. There were never any serious reflections about
the implications of his destructive acts. When he came to New York this
past winter, we met several times. He talked to me about destroying
masterpieces in big, prestigious places, but places he wanted to end up
himself. It was part of his logic of accessing attention and media. I tried
to talk him out of committing such an act here in New York at the Guggenhem
Museum or the Museum of Modern Art. I have videotapes of these discussions
in Russian. All my arguments about the repetitiveness, gratuitousness, the
value of this symbolic intervention and the implications of his action on a
social and symbolic sphere didn't really convince him. Only the
descriptions of the situation in American jails and its conservative legal
system had a persuasive effect on him.

But when did he do it in Europe? As the Flash Art interview says, he
committed his destructive act just a few days after their interview. So
couldn't it be that the effect of the media was encouraging him to do so,
as my talks had discouraged him? I am convinced that after this support
>from Flash Art, he was probably inspired to do it in Amsterdam and maybe
again in New York, since he had now set a successful precedent. A
spectacular action, a spectacular media presence, a spectacular story for a
news-starved industry. They all succeeded well in this complicity, a logic
that is already best studied in the context of terrorism.

A quote from the interview, done just before Brener's incident, indicated
to me that Flash Art had been previously aware of Brener's plan.

Francesco Bonami:  "What would you like to do?"
Alexander Brener:  "As I've already met a lawyer, I am not allowed to say
anything. For me it is very important to be understood in the right way. I
do not want to be seen as a terrorist, as a person interested in killing
himself and others. I am a person who wants to realize a big work."
Bonami:  "Are you ready to shoulder all the responsibilities, even the most
extreme ones?"
Brener:  "I am a weak person, but if something is important to me, I can
surely do it . . . ." (Flash Art, May / June 1997)

Now let's look at their message. Art is said to be contaminated by money
and speculation. There is nothing new about this insight. An intervention
such as Brener's doesn't add any understanding of it, and doesn't change
anything except for his own promotion, which has converted him into an
attractive capitalist exchange object. Malevich's painting was permanently
frozen, taken out of the market in its position in this state museum. It is
definitely not an object of speculation. All speculation of market value is
done on the part of the artist supported by the magazine. But what is even
more surprising in this respect is that no analysis is given either by the
artist or by the magazine except some stereotypical formula about art and
money. All they could talk about on four pages is romantic expressionism in
a self-promotionally heroic tone: freedom of expression, of art. What kind
of art? Flash Art, with its understanding of art and art history.

Yes, I am increasingly determined in my defense of Alexander Brener's
gesture, which I consider to be the creative gesture of an artist . . . . I
am in favor of freedom of expression, just as I am in favor of the freedom
to breathe, the freedom to smile, the freedom to die or the desire to live.
I defend the gesture of Alexander Brener because it pulsates with energy,
because it administers mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a work of art that
is dead, just as any work of art or culture buried in our memory, our
conscience, our books, is dead . . . . Museums are obliged to exhibit works
of art but they have the duty to protect them. Had I been presiding over
the trial brought against Alexander Brener, I would have asked that the
Stedelijk Museum be prosecuted for its inability to protect a work of art .
. .
                        Giancarlo Politi, Flash Art, May / June 1997.

So far, Brener, his actions, and Flash Art have all completely failed to
address any issues on the subjects of money, corruption, art, art history,
terrorism, or democracy (which they have cited). But Brener's destructive
intervention does raise a huge array of other issues worth discussing.

One is the issue of security. Likewise with democracy, security of people
and objects also needs a culture of respect. The standards of our society
are not designed to constantly provide full protection against any kind of
attack. As a matter of fact, our quasi-liberal society is very vulnerable.
It doesn't take much to terrorize a population, to kill unprotected people,
like we saw recently atop the Empire State Building, where a gunman shot
several people with a semi-automatic weapon. This person hadn't any concept
of art, and therefore didn't claim his act to be art, but he had a bizarre
concept of morality and society which he expressed very well in the killing
of others and of himself. But from now on, it will be difficult to keep
museums and art works unprotected, everywhere in the world. And it doesn't
require much reading of Foucault to imagine our museums-like our
society-becoming "gated," screened, and made very inconvenient as a result
of these aggressive interventions borne of a fame-eager disposition.
Instead of preaching metaphysical rhetoric of freedom and art, I am
interested in the materialistic effects such regressive, media-directed,
opportunistic actionism has on the infrastructures of museums. Flash Art
not only fails at any social and critical responsibility, but has become
fully complicitous with a naive, exploratory, sensationalistic, tabloid
attitude in the promotion of such irresponsible behavior.

This act of destruction could be called social terrorism for the sake of
media attention and a misguided concept of art. Classical terrorist acts
have an ideological structure well beyond individual promotion. Social
terrorism of this kind is not just a reflection of Russian political and
social contemporary day-to-day life, but has now also been exported into a
sphere which I thought would still function according to discursive and
reasonable rules. When violence, destruction, and blackmailing enters the
field of symbolic exchange-and it is very easy, though it already has
famous precedents everywhere in Europe, and Brener himself is a result of
such a history of symbolic oppression during the Soviet era-the climate is
soon poisoned.

Flash Art, like most contemporary art media, is on the forefront of the
sensationalization of art. So after having crossed almost all expressive
taboos, there seems to be only this kind of destruction left, which even
they can not analyze properly. There are no references to contemporary
Russian society or its psychological and social terrorism and opportunism,
no references to security issues and its repressive implications on museum
culture (Flash Art could only make the cynical statement that the director
of the museum should be punished for not having protected the artwork
properly), ignorance of the media factor in this story (since they
themselves play the major role), no discussion of the concept of "freedom
of expression," which they apply without further explanation.

I still like Brener as a friend, though he might beat me up even without
flowers (as he did with Dan Cameron when he refused to include Brener in a
show) after reading this article, in order to see some "expression" in my
face. But I find his recent "Actionism" of destruction abject, futile,
non-productive, and irresponsible on any level. I do not consider it an
artistic act, but an interesting contemporary social, narcissistic, and
media symptom we will unfortunately soon see more of. Ironically, the
promotion of the destruction of artwork is attacking precisely those
objects created to offer an alternative, and a site of resistance to
destruction, violence, opportunism, the power of media, and tabloid
journalism.

Rainer Ganahl
New York, New York
1997