The Art Institution as a Commonist Training Ground
On Casco’s Attempt to (Prefiguratively) Become an Institution of the Commons
Nøgleord:
commoning, creative resistance, experimental art institution, neoliberal capitalism, prefigurationResumé
In this article the current attempt to (prefiguratively) transform the Utrecht-based exhibition space Casco into an institution of the commons is introduced and discussed. Focusing on this shift where commoning is conceptualized as both a working method and as a long-term horizon, the article analyses Casco’s aim to put into practice a commonist aesthetic as an art institution. The article identifies how Casco uses the current (economic, social and climatic) crisis to perform a commonist alternative to neoliberal capitalism. The article discusses different readings of related institutional projects. Some critics find such projects to be arty recuperations of potentially subversive strategies of resistance; others argue that the horizontal strategies of commoning risk being assimilated too easily by neoliberal capitalism, which uses them to re-launch itself, with the result that the commons end up forming the basis of new capitalist growth. Although the creatively playful experiments at Casco in many ways are characterised by paradoxical and contrasting tactics of resistance, the article argues that they constitute an important suggestion on how art can be used to point out alternative ways of inhabiting the world in a present situation characterized by ideological breakdown and crises.
Referencer
Bolt Rasmussen, Mikkel: After the Great Refusal, Winchester: Zero Books, 2018, pp. 64–77.
Casco: “Who’s Nina?”, 2016, http://mailchi.mp/cascoprojects/tcsr7eszau-805533 (visited June 2018)
Casco: “Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Introduction”, 2017, http://casco.art/casco-art-institute-working-for-the-commons-introduction (visited June 2018)
Casco: ”Ecosystem, Introduction”, http://www.commons.art/en/ecosystem (visited June 2018)
Casco: “About”, http://www.commons.art/en/about/more (visited June 2018).
Choi, Binna & Tanaka, Maiko (ed.): Grand Domestic Revolution Handbook, Amsterdam: Valiz, 2014.
Davies, Anthony, Dillemuth, Stephan & Jakobsen, Jakob i teksten: “There is No Alternative: THE FUTURE IS (SELF-)ORGANISED PART 2” in Hebert & Karlsen (eds.): Self-Organised, London: Open Editions, 2013, pp. 27–36.
De Angelis, Massimo: “Crisis, Capital and Co-optation: Does Capital Need a Commons Fix? in Bollier & Helfrich (eds.): The Wealth of the Commons: A World Beyond Market & State, Amherst: Levellers Press, 2013.
De Bloois, Joost: “The Ontologized Commons”, in open! – Platform for Art, Culture and the Public Domain, February 1, 2016, https://www.onlineopen.org/the-ontologized-commons (visited June 2018).
Federici, Silvia: “Feminism And the Politics of the Commons”, in The Commoner, January 24, 2011, http://www.commoner.org.uk/?p=113 (visited June 2018)
Fisher, Mark: Capitalist Realism. Is There No Alternative? London: Zero Books, 2009
Fisher, Mark: “A social and psychic revolution of almost inconceivable magnitude: Popular Culture’s Interrupted Accelerationist Dreams” e-flux journal, # 46, June, 2013a, http://www.e-flux.com/journal/46/60084/a-social-and-psychic-revolution-of-almost-inconceivable-magnitude-popular-culture-s-interrupted-accelerationist-dreams/ (visited June 2018)
Fisher, Mark: “Indirect Action. Some Misgivings About Horizontalism” in Gielen (ed.): Institutional Attitudes. Instituting Art in a Flat World, Amsterdam: Valiz, 2013b, pp. 101–117.
Fisher, Mark & Möntmann, Nina: “Peripheral Proposals” in Binna Choi, Maria Lind, Emily Pethick, Natasa Petrisin-Bachelez (ed.) Cluster: Dialectionary, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2014, pp. 171–182.
Fisher, Mark: Ghosts of my Life, London: Zero Books, 2014a.
Fisher, Mark: Presentation in connection with a public Former West editorial meeting (organized by BAK – basis voor actuele kunst), “The Commons as the Survival of the Public”, May 16, 2014b, http://www.formerwest.org/PublicEditorialMeetings/OtherSurvivalisms/Video/AndreaPhillipsMarkFisherMaoMollona (visited June 2018).
Hardt, Michael & Negri, Antonio: Declaration, New York: Argo Navis Author Services, 2012.
Harvey, David: “Neo-liberalism and the restoration of class power” in Spaces of Global Capitalism: Towards a Theory of Uneven Geographical Development, London & New York: Verso, 2006, pp. 7–64.
Harvey, David: A brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Hebert, Stine: “Se elefanten i øjnene”, November 19, 2018, Kunstkritikk, http://www.kunstkritikk.no/artikler/se-elefanten-i-ojnene/ (visited November 2018)
Mckee, Yates: Strike Art: Contemporary Art and the Post-Occupy Condition, London: Verso Books, 2016.
Mies, Maria: “No commons without community”, in Community Development Journal, vol. 49, Issue 1, januar, 2014, pp. 106–117, http://www.socioeco.org/bdf_fiche-document-3361_en.html (visited June 2018).
Philips, Andrea: “Remaking the Arts Centre” in Choi, Lind, Pethick, Petrešin- Bachelez (eds.) Cluster: Dialectionary, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2014a, pp. 214–231.
Rasmussen, Kathrine Bolt: ‘Keep turning and learning and turning’. Selv-institutionalisering, kuratoriske reformisme og commonistisk organisering, (PhD dissertation, University of Southern Denmark, 2018).
Raunig, Gerald: “Flatness Rules. Instituent Practices and Institutions of the Common in a Flat World” in Gielen (ed.): Institutional Attitudes, Amsterdam: Valiz, 2013, pp. 168–179.
Raunig, Gerald: “Towards Institutions of the Commons” in Hansen & Vandeputte (ed.): Politics of Study, London: Open Editions, 2015, pp. 32–39.
