In the past few years, the international biennial audience (Sydney Biennial, Whitney Biennial, Venice Biennial) could see also some specific re-creations of important past art events among the exhibited artworks. We spoke with Walter Benjamin, who had the chance to see and follow most of the projects we are talking about here for many years, about these projects.

[b]Beti Zerovc:[/b] I’m wondering why people re-create events in this way at all and why those particular events. But, of course, I’d also like to know why I am speaking with »Walter Benjamin«?

[b]Walter Benjamin:[/b] Obviously the name I took for this conversation relates to the well-known early 20th-century philosopher, but it also relates to the Walter Benjamin who gave a lecture in Ljubljana in 1986 titled »Mondrian ’63-’96«, a lecture about Mondrian’s paintings from between 1963-1996. It is the same Benjamin whose statement »Copies are memories« is being used as a motto for the »Americans 64« exhibit at the Arsenale in Venice this year.
I not only had a chance to see most of the works and exhibits we are going to talk about, but also I learned a lot by trying to understand them, trying to explain them to myself.
I assume we are talking about (authorless) projects like the »International Exhibition of Modern Art« (dated 2013), the »Salon de Fleurus« in New York (established 1992), the small-scale Museum of Modern Art (dated 1936 and attributed to Alfred Barr Jr.), the Museum of American Art that recently opened in Berlin, and finally the collection »Americans 64« of the Museum of American Art just shown at the Arsenale. The theme of this last exhibit is the American participation in the 1964 Venice Biennial.

[b]Beti Zerovc:[/b] Yes, I meant those projects. So why recreate them and why exactly those ones?

[b]Walter Benjamin:[/b] As you said, the themes of these works are clearly events that are important for the art-history narrative. For example, Gertrude Stein’s Salon in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York could be understood as an American interpretation of European modern art. It seems that it was Gertrude Stein’s Salon where works of Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso were exhibited for the first time (1905). Alfred Barr Jr. was just three years old back then. From today’s perspective Gertrude Stein looks like a proto-curator and her Salon like a precursor of the Museum of Modern Art. Until recently the MoMA permanent exhibit started with Cézanne, from whom the story splits toward Fauvism (Matisse) on the one hand, and Cubism (Picasso) on the other.
In contrast, the theme of the Museum of American Art in Berlin is the »invasion« of post-war Europe by American art. The museum’s collection is built around four MoMA travelling shows curated by Dorothy Miller in the 1950s. It is about the European reception of American modernism and the gradual expansion of American art, which was in a way officially recognised by the Grand Prize given to Rauschenberg at the 1964 Venice Biennale.
I would say that these events in fact shaped the narrative of 20th-century modern art, especially Barr’s concept of the Museum of Modern Art conceived at the 1936 exhibition »Cubism and Abstract Art«. It still cannot be stressed enough that, here, Alfred Barr was not a chronicler who recorded the events as they unfolded in front of his eyes, but someone who in fact retroactively constructed (invented) the narrative. It is this particular narrative that subsequently became the dominant modern-art narrative for many decades. At this show, he managed not only to historicize the first three decades of 20th-century art, but also later assembled and arranged MoMA’s permanent exhibit according to this narrative. Thus, the exhibition »Cubism and Abstract Art« became the blueprint for MoMA for many years to come.
All this of course makes an interesting story. But it is just a story. Now, having a work that takes that story as its subject matter is a completely different thing. It is a material (physical) reflection (interpretation) of that story. This work in fact contains its own context, its own narrative, and you don’t need additional clues if you know modern art history. You don’t even need to know who the authors of these works are. It is questionable if the notion of the »author« is applicable here at all.
I believe there is a good chance that these works are not going to be seen as art at all. The fact that they are shown within an art context today doesn’t imply that they can be seen only as works of art. This is why it is important that, for the time being, both the Museum of American Art in Berlin and Salon de Fleurus in New York are located in private spaces. They are trying to be modestly visible, but not to be totally incorporated in the art world, i.e. not to be read exclusively within the art context.

[b]Beti Zerovc:[/b] But are they really trying not to be incorporated into the art world? I guess not very hard, since we could see these projects at the two last Venice Biennales, and some years ago also at the Whitney Biennial, the Sydney Biannual, etc.

[b]Walter Benjamin:[/b] They are definitely shown in the art context, but what other venues exist today for these kinds of works/ideas? As I said, the fact that they are shown in the art context doesn’t mean that these are art works. A group of visitors at the Arsenale, talking in front of the Museum of American Art exhibit, used the word »Meta-Kunst« (Eng: meta-art). This might be an appropriate term. If art history as a narrative becomes the internal subject matter of a work (its internal narrative), if it is contained inside that work, then this immediately opens up a possibility for a position »outside« of art history. This would be in fact a meta-position in relation to art history.

[b]Beti Zerovc:[/b] I don’t have a problem with the fact that one day these works could be seen as something else as well. That could be. But for now the situation is that those works are really well accepted by the art system; they are understood, written about, exhibited and have a price exactly like artworks and not as something else.

[b]Walter Benjamin:[/b] Yes, sure. They are definitely perceived as more or less interesting works of art. But there could be another explanation. When, for example, Copernicus wrote his treatise on the movements of the celestial bodies, it was not a scientific but a theological paper, because back then there was no science, no scientific infrastructure, no scientific language. Basically, at that time, there was only one dominant platform (ideology) with a developed physical and conceptual infrastructure: Christianity. It took a couple of centuries to fully develop that other position (platform) we today call science.
Today, in a similar way, the dominant narrative is art history, and there is no another platform or infrastructure from where you could »read« these works in another way. This is the limitation of the time we live in. I think that is why these works are today seen only as art. Not because they are inherently art works. The very fact that those visitors could see it as a »Meta-Kunst« shows that even today for some people this is not »Kunst« (Eng: art).
It may be that art is a concept that has a meaning only within art history. It has no meaning or might have a different meaning outside of art history. The way, let’s say, that the notion of God has a different meanings for a believer and a non-believer. Take for example the notion of »African art«. It was only recently (in the last hundred years) incorporated into the art-history narrative, almost as an appendix, together with some other non-Western traditions. It could be understood as some kind of »positive colonialism« where the »other« is treated »equally but on our own terms.« Here, art history has appropriated the production of (»ritual«) objects (masks, sculptures) from Africa and named it art. But within the societies where these objects were produced, they had and perhaps still have another meaning and purpose that has nothing to do with concept of art, which is a Western invention. I think these objects are works of art only in the art books and art museums, but they are also something else when they are used as »decoration« or in the »rituals« within the societies where they are produced.
However, we should be aware that history didn’t colonise only the »others«. First of all, it colonized the past of the very society within which it was conceived and articulated. That is why there is a similarity between »African art« and »Christian art«. Within art history, objects (paintings, sculptures, frescos, icons, etc.) that were produced as illustrations or reflections of the Christian narrative are called art, while within the Christian universe these are sacred, religious objects, objects of worship. This is why a Christian painting is primarily a religious object. When you apply the term art to it, you are already within another discourse, within another narrative.
If you have a painting representing the Madonna and Child in a church and you are a believer, you immediately know what you’re looking at. Both the Madonna and the Child are real characters for you, since they are the main characters in your story, the Christian story. If we now establish another story like art history, materialised in the form of a museum, and we move this painting to the museum, then »Madonna« and »Child« are not the leading characters of that new story. Now Raphael the artist and his painting »Madonna and Child« become important (as unique and original) characters in that story. This is how you actually change the meaning of the same object by changing the narrative in which it plays a role. A painting that is a religious object in the Christian story becomes an art object in art history. And Raphael, who doesn’t exist in the Christian story at all, appears as an important character in art history. We see how the same painting means one thing for those who believe in the Christian story and something else for those who believe in art history. Within the Christian universe there is only one narrative that is both inside and outside of the painting. This painting is practically submerged in its own narrative and there is only one possible reading of it within that universe. But when we se the same painting exhibited in the museum, we are faced with two parallel narratives. One is its theme, its internal (Christian) story, and another is its external story, the art history that appears here as a meta-narrative. If Church is a materialised »position«, then Museum is a materialised »meta-position« in relation to it.
There is another thing here. Not all objects that are today called works of art and included in art history are in fact of the same nature. We should distinguish at least two main groups. In one group are the objects manufactured before the museum and art history were established. These are previously produced objects that were retroactively selected to illustrate this new narrative and in the process were »promoted« to works of art, regardless of their previous meaning and function. Another group consists of objects produced after the museum and art history were established. Perhaps these objects, conceived inside the »field« of art history and the museum are the only real works of art. They were produced exclusively as works of art, to be included in the museum and in art history. Somehow this group of works coincides with what we call modern art in the broader sense (roughly the last two centuries)

Also, we should distinguish 20th-century modern art produced before the 1936 exhibition »Cubism and Abstract Art« that became a blueprint for MoMA display, from those works produced afterwards under MoMA’s influence. Modern art before 1936 was made and interpreted within the context of a 19th-century narrative based on »national schools«. Many of the same works and movements were included in Alfred Barr’s »international movements« narrative that inevitably changed their interpretation. Thus the production and interpretation of modern (abstract) art after World War II, taking place under the influence of MoMA, appeared to be the continuation of its (Barr’s) narrative.

Today we should start thinking about how to define the position (platform) that represents a meta-position in relation to art history and thus a meta-meta-position in relation to the Christian narrative. In other words, the question is how to move out of art history, how to establish another platform from where we cam see art history from the outside, while at the same time not forgetting art history and museums, but rather recontextualising them.

This is why those works that have art history as their subject matter might help us establish this meta-position. These authorless works based on copies have the art-history narrative confined or “buried” within themselves, together with the notions of the artist and artwork as unique entities. In such works we can see that their subject matter, their internal narrative, is art history. But it is still unclear what could be a meta-narrative for this work. Basically, this is yet to be established. On that meta-level it will be possible of course to use notions like art, artist, work of art, art history, but they’ll have quite a different and most likely not so important meaning. These are not going to be formative notions for the meta-position.
I repeat: the facts that these works are shown within the art context and that they came out of the art context don’t mean that this is the only way they can be read. Furthermore, I do not think it is the proper way to read them. I am more and more convinced that these are in fact not works of art.

[b]Beti Zerovc:[/b] So you think the desire of the maker of these projects would be for the viewer to become confused? Is this already a way to get to another level, a meta-level?

[b]Walter Benjamin:[/b] Confusion is sometimes the first step towards learning or re-learning. Let’s say, in the museum in Berlin, you have two rooms. In one room there are paintings of the pages of the catalogue of the four American exhibitions that were exported to Europe in the 1950s. In the same room is also a 2 x 2 metre-large Museum of Modern Art. Many think it’s a kind of a model, but it is in fact the real Museum of Modern Art, in a way more a museum of modern art than the one in New York. Another room looks like a living room from the 1950s with large paintings/copies of Kline, Rothko, Pollock, Gottlieb and Newman. Those who know something about art history and the exhibitions will recognise that these paintings are all from the catalogue »The New American Painting«. This was the landmark exhibition of Abstract Expressionism that took place in 1958 in many European cities. They’re decorating the living room walls. When you enter the room, you are in very familiar environment. Jazz music playing from the gramophone helps people feeling relaxed. But at some point visitors start to understand that what they’re looking at is not Kline, or Gottlieb, or Motherwell. But what is it? I don’t know. I have no answer to what these paintings mean. If you start to analyse them as paintings you’re definitely wrong. But still, these are real, physical paintings. And this confusion - how can I put it? - gives you goose bumps. If painting looks like a Kline, with heavy black brush strokes on white canvas, like abstract painting par excellence, what is that painting in fact? What is the copy of Kline? Is that an abstract painting? It’s not and it is. So, suddenly, from the territory of certainty you enter the territory of uncertainty, and a familiar landscape is not familiar any more. The notion of the modern is somehow associated with the notion of frontier. Modern means looking outward. It is about pushing the boundaries, turning the unknown into the known in the process. You have something you call »known« as a place where you feel good and safe. And then, you have the »unknown« as some kind of dark and dangerous place on the other side of the border. The entire era of modernism could be understood as a process of pushing the boundaries and broadening tje territory of brightness by turning this »unknown« into the »known.« These are for example the new laws of science, new discoveries, numerous expeditions across the globe, through the jungles of Africa, to the North Pole, to the top of the Mount Everest, diving with Cousteau into the deepest waters of the ocean, flying to the Moon, Mars ... Expeditions into the human body and mind, etc.. There was practically no stone left unturned.
Now we have these kinds of works that have in fact a totally opposite approach. They’re turning the »known« into the »unknown.« We don’t have boundaries any more, and danger is no longer behind some distant border. The very place where you stand and feel safe begins to look a bit strange, we recognise it but it is not the same. Then the ground beneath us starts to shake, and all that is frightening. I can sense how the entire world today is becoming this »known-unknown« place. »Unknown« and »dangerous« is now our »backyard«, not some distant »jungle«: it is right »here«, not »over there« anymore.

Excerpts from an interview whose original, unabridged version appears in the catalogue »What is Modern Art? (Group Show)«, ed. Inke Arns and Walter Benjamin, Revolver – Archiv für aktuelle Kunst, Frankfurt am Main.
The exhibition »What is Modern Art? (Group Show)« could be seen from 29 September to 29 October in the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Galerie 35 and in the Museum of American Art, Berlin.

 

 

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