ART FOR RESISTANCE'S SAKE

The existence of art is conditioned by the definition of its space:  that
space to which it is relegated by the society, its "place" which reflects
the society's understanding of its purpose, function, meaning.

This immediate limitation of art's possibilities is, on the one hand, a
direct result of the division (fragmentation) of space by privative
appropriation (with its simultaneous limitation - implicitly its denial - of
"public" space which, where it is not given over to traffic and thus
re-appropriated by the private space of cars, is established as final and
not subject to change through creative action except through the obviously
impossible mediation of bureaucracy).  On the other hand, the spatial
limitation of art is the requisite physical control for the recuperation
into the spectacle of art's capacity to criticize and establish alternative
expressions.  (We must battle for space to express.)

Along with the general physical seizure of artistic space, the fates of art
work, artist and statement are conditioned to spectacular power.  Statement
loses its aggressive position and becomes part of "culture;" society, which
it opposes, owns it and can say, "We have this...we know this."  "Cultural"
reflection is falsified and the power captured.

The museum constitutes an aesthetic safety valve; in the logic of filth, a
sewage plant, but in spectacular logic, a temple of appropriation.

The artist is identified within a social class and an economic class, like
everyone else, fulfilling a spectacular function, like a newscaster, and a
commodity function, like an auto worker.  Posited thus in the status quo
dynamic, he perhaps finds installed in him the desire to "succeed," to
attain to a higher stratum of recognition and reward.  The artist's social
identity is stratified; there are rich, poor, and middle-class artists.  You
accept as melodrama that great ones die poor.

Art itself is identified as commodity and subjected to "supply and demand"
economic factors, with galleries and other exclusive institutions
constituting the marketplace.  Recently Van Gogh (eternally pulling the
trigger) has (been) sold for arbitrarily, Americanly huge sums which
indicate the extent to which fine art is appropriated into a game of
prestige, because, after all, any salary whore can buy a Mercedes on credit.
With him chasing art bargains too, art is completely falsified and reduced
to the role of a spiritual centerfold.

Appropriation results in a staggering of aesthetic reality across a
stratification within capital, that is, there is art reflecting different
class values within each class of market value; for example, a sketch by
Georg Grosz may sell for a great deal of money, while a bus driver's wife
may buy cheap imitations of rococo vases or faberge eggs.  This has the
positive effect that artistic value - outside the private institution - can
easily be perceived as an open question (the irony of Pop art).

The artist's spectacular role, his place in the rich tapestry of bullshit in
"our" world, indicates an ironic schizo-capitalist ambiguity in the
society's attitude to mental health and behavior.  The artist's providence
of vicarious spontaneity shows everyone up for chickenshit.

All this being said, we must attack established social relations with the
spatial application of artistic thought.  We must be vandals and madmen.