HAMBURG´S SUBVISION IS TRYING TO COOPT INTERNATIONAL
"OFF" ART PROJECTS
A generously state-funded project with leading Hamburg art-institution figures at its helm is planning to showcase international "off" art - "new forms" of artistic activity that have developed at "far remove from the big art-fairs“ - in Summer 2008.
Great news? Have you, or acquaintances, already been invited?
Just one minute, please.
Under
http://www.wirsindwoanders.de/files/demo.php
you will find some (not quite impartial, perhaps, but well-documented) information that may be of interest to those (hopefully all) of you whose cultural endeavors draw on emancipatory and/or art-democratizational aspirations. This project, we feel, must be understood against the backdrop of recent Hamburg culture-political events. The past seven years here were tumultuous, in this regard, and the names at the head of this project are associated with a clear political line.
Subvision is conceptually superfluous. It is a copycat version of the Wir Sind Woanders #2 European Art Festival held in this very same city, ten months earlier.
Subvision is not building on the dedicated work and contributions of those who have a competence in "off art"; Subvision wants to instrumentalize foreign "off art" initiatives to outflank the locals’ self-organizational and challenging steps forward.
There is a contradiction between what Subvision says and what it does. It says "far remove from the big art-fairs“ is where it’s at, but its effective decision-making model places business-as-usual actors (in cahoots with rightist politicians and real estate interests) back at the top.
The Subvision initiators are building up in a ramshackle way (like the refugee containers its architecture echoes) with their left hands what they have undone and undermined with their right one. Subvision has neoliberalism and culture-industry written all over it.
