Differentiation and Demarcation: 52nd International AICA Congress. Art Criticism in Times of Populism and Nationalism, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, 3. – 5. 10. 2019

In order to find out what is currently at stake in art criticism, one needs to approach the question of critique. Art criticism includes pointing at something that could be interesting; marking something with the awareness of not being discriminating; considering self-placement and the creation of value inherent to the art system; thinking against predominant traditions and forms of critique established in modernity. With these points and their recent text “Critique of Art Criticism,”¹ Isabelle Graw and Sabeth Buchmann responded to the congress and investigated along these lines, the work by an African-American abstract painter and a feminist: the exhibition of Jack Whitten at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, and the radical text “Negative Capability as Practice in Women’s Art” by Anne-Marie Sauzeau-Boetti, published in Studio International (1976).

The Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art (AICA) in Germany organized the threeday congress Art Criticism in Times of Populism and Nationalism on the occasion of its seventieth anniversary in Berlin. The lineup of speakers and moderators was a mixture of renowned and emerging voices, and a quick look at the gender relations revealed not only a balance but also an effort in regard to cultural diversity. Of course, the fact that Franck Hermann Ekra from the Ivory Coast cancelled his contribution diminished the diversity of the speakers.

The first panel, titled Nuances of Populism: Political and Cultural Dimensions, opened with a paper by Oliver Marchart, professor of political theory, and it was followed by a contribution by Ana Teixeira Pinto, author and cultural theorist. Marchart sketched the struggle with the miscellaneous meaning of the term populism: it is not an ideology like socialism or neoliberalism, yet it involves an appeal to the people. In line with Cas Mudde, populism is to be understood as a logic to mobilize—to aim for an organization against an elite depicted as corrupt. Since populism lacks content, a danger lies in what is usually a pejorative usage of the term, for it often denotes right-wing extremism and belittles it. However, Oliver Marchart also defends populism by stating that there is no democracy without it. Subsequently, he discusses examples of artistic activism using populist logic, like Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping or the Egyptian street art artist Ganzeer; both subject their work to negotiation in public space. In her paper “Social Sadism as Free Speech,” Teixeira Pinto investigates the call for free speech, but in the name of hatred and white supremacy. The current political climate demonstrates a free speech that targets diversity; the side of the altright exercises freedom by overstepping norms and testing limits. The discussed examples are derived from the LD50 Gallery in London, the blog AMERIKA.org, Mathieu Malouf at Jenny’s in Los Angeles, and the last Athens Biennale 2018, to mention but a few. Teixeira Pinto demonstrates how the alt-right carnival leaves questions of moral codes behind: their online culture uses the irony of transgression, which is fueled by its aesthetics rather than by its politics; it places itself above the status of mocking to overrun moral values.

The subsequent panel titled The Humboldt Forum and its ‘Cultural Heritage’ looked ahead to the opening of the Ethnological Museum in the Berlin Palace, announced for September 2020, and approached the complex question of the restitution of objects from colonial contexts. In her performance lecture From the Mausoleum to the Momentum, the independent researcher-journalist Arlette-Louise Ndakoze invited the audience to respond to questions in which she artistically deconstructed Westernized understandings of time and knowledge. Quoting from L’Afrique noire précoloniale (1960, published in English as The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality) by the Senegalese writer Cheikh Anta Diop, the provoking performance suggested to “stop this conference immediately” and that, in relation to the colonial objects, “there is no debate: give them back.” The scientific complexity of the restitution of objects from colonial contexts was laid out by journalist and editor Thomas E. Schmidt in his presentation “Decolonization and German Cultural Policy: Why It Is so Complicated to Give Art Back.” To work with historical injustice, the reappraisal of National Socialism and the practice of restitution are of paradigmatic importance, yet Schmidt argues that the recent debate is not about the colonial objects in the first place, but about the act of their restitution and the risk of putting sub-Saharan society in the role of the victims. He argues for a complex and specific examination of individual cases (in opposition to an overall practice of restitution) in order to establish a differentiated relationship to African nations and their people. Also, art historian and philosopher Sarah Hegenbart stated missing conversations in her related paper “A Forum without Dialogue?” and imagined a completely different Humboldt Forum. With reference to Michael Rothberg, she calls for multidirectional memory politics. She lays bare the Forum’s alignment toward a cultural industry with an opaque organizational structure for decision-making and likewise demands restitution and dialogue. Thus, the opening day fielded highly urgent questions to the moderator Jörg Heiser and the audience, encouraging intensive discussion.

The following two days hosted by the Berlinische Galerie tackled art criticism from various angles (only a few are mentioned here). In “Art Criticism in Times of Political Polarization,” philosopher Harry Lehmann investigated the configuration of political space, which has transformed itself over the past ten years—the current instable phase of realignment has its poles between the winners and losers of globalism. He argues not for a political art (which does not need criticism since the message is straightforward), but for a pre-political art (which reflects the conditions on which politics is based), which can lead to a reformatting of the political space. This is the place where art criticism may contribute greatly. Art critic Kolja Reichert continued with a presentation titled “The Autonomy of Art Is Not the Autonomy of the Artist: Chances for Art Criticism in a Society of Singularities.” Following recent changes in the cultural battle on social media, where everyone can become an art critic or a cultural agent, the logic of the exceptional or the unique is socially produced and rises or falls. Using examples from Axel Krause’s participation in an exhibition in Leipzig or the auction of the painting Anbräuner (Browner, 2019) by Neo Rauch, Reichert demonstrated that highly politicized actions have taken place by means of culture and that art, politics, and economics have become blurry. It is here that the responsibility of art criticism increases in order to set the focus straight. Wolfgang Ulrich and Kolja Reichert delivered the closing panel of the congress with a focus on this subject.

The very strong part in the afternoon revolved around criticism in countries where different forms of censorship are in place, and questioned how to work with and circumvent restrictions. Marek Wasilewski, a professor from the University of Fine Arts in Poznań, Poland, pointed out the struggle between the secular-republican and the religious-conservative sides and the effect they have on the arts, stating that the present time can be seen as one of the most heated moments. Media is no longer independent, and Wasilewski has outlined—through precise examples such as Natalia LL’s Consumer Art (1974) or the exhibition Bedtime at the Municipal Gallery Arsenał, Poznań (2018)—how media employed censorship and other strategies, including the creation of scandals, fake news, manipulation, and distortion. Yet in citing the example of Jacek Adamas, he also warned about the danger of what can happen when art slips into the service of politics. A very inspiring and hands-on contribution came from Maja and Reuben Fowkes, the founders of the independent research platform Translocal Institute for Contemporary Art, since they shared examples and strategies on how to work and organize under the current political conditions in Eastern Europe. They presented Hungary as the vanguard, where significant changes have been installed: in 2013, actions such as Occupying the Ludwig Múzeum or the obituary and the funeral of Műcsarnok | Kunsthalle Budapest took place, and a search for alternative forums and institutions outside of the control of state institutions continued. The speakers proposed to come together, with an emphasis on grassroots organization, to continue to work, and also to approach populism as a structural challenge which informs new kinds of institutions: for instance, the OFF Biennale Budapest is entering its third edition, and as a grassroots biennale it preserves artistic independence by refusing government funding and avoiding state-run venues. In 2017, in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia, eleven feminist (art) institutions formulated a “Code of Practice.”² EAST ART MAGS (EAM) is a network of five art magazines in the eastern region of Central Europe, which offers a platform for critical voices. The closing roundtable questioned “Political Censorship and Its Effects on Artistic Production and Art Criticism” under the conditions of authoritarianism; and it brought in strategies of how to work in a state of exception: the critic Vivienne Chow discussed the alternative scene in Hong Kong, where art moves onto the streets and into cyberspace since most of the art spaces are self-censored. Hernán D. Caro, editor of Contemporary And América Latina, continued to outline self-censorship in the Colombian media landscape. Erden Kosova entered the podium, giving voice to the Free Osman Kavala campaign, which led to a supporting declaration from AICA International and herewith blended into the last congress day, kicking off with “Art and Activism.”

Papers on art and criticism concluded the three inspiring congress days. The radio producer and artistic director of the donaufestival in Krems, Thomas Edlinger, used his twenty minutes to query “What Do You Need? On the Relationship between Empathy and Criticism,” drawing a very complex picture of conflictual terms such as identity or society. He separated empathy from sympathy in order to question if it could help to soften the shortcomings of progressive critique (as a mode of distancing?). Drawing on the examples of Walter Benjamin, Barack Obama, and Harun Farocki, he explored notions of a better understanding of one’s counterpart and arrived in the current wake of solidarity. I would like to close with the contribution “Artistic Freedom as Privilege” by Antje Stahl, author and lecturer, and Julia Pelta Feldman, doctoral candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York, in which both called to protect art from the co-optation of the political right and from an exclusion of the queer, the lesbian, the migrant, the disabled, et cetera. Both mandated to differentiate moral standards from terrorists’ and moralists’ desire for political correctness and shift this responsibility to artists and institutions in their call to defend artistic freedom for all. With different toolboxes and manuals at hand, AICA foregrounds ethical values and acknowledges intercultural differences, calling for very differentiated and empathic writing on this moment of political realignment in which we live.