Curatorial Statement (Museum Edition)

Art production is not unlike other areas of production in that it requires production power, production relationships, and power conflicts in order to enter into a systematic mode of re-production activity. With the collapse of modernity, any discussion of media forms or a singular organizational method in contemporary art production from an ontological perspective has been rendered impossible. Paradigms of contemporary art have turned from internal structures to politico- economic structures of autonomous constructs, communication modes, and social networks. The uncertainty hidden in the process of this new understanding of art often reflects the unique characteristics of contemporary art that lie beneath the layer of social culture, with its phenomena of aphasia and powerlessness. Unable to communicate or coordinate with the living world, production participants abide by established socially normative routes of production. This serves to further highlight societal materialism and a system that has become ineffective and distorted, causing a fissure between the intrinsic public nature of the exhibition itself and the audience experience that is manifest in the assessment of art by professionally trained arts workers versus the assessment of those who do not have professional arts credentials. Absolute differences in knowledge, skill sets, and experience exist between the two. In the realm of art this is often attributed to a “knowledge gap”, but in reality, contemporary art is unable to come up with a general language and can not assimilate into contemporary social production relationships to integrate or communicate, and therefore, lapses into an aphasic state.

In realms of existence pervasively colonized by capitalism, contemporary art can no longer ignore the complexities that derive from its production mechanisms and social constructs. Its meaning is endlessly tossed around, along with technological advancements and organizational methods. The process of practicing artistic action has gradually removed itself from the experiential level, and lowered the self-preservation capability of the arts production system. This further underscores the importance of a establishing a strategy for communication and a relationship between the exhibition mechanism and the audience. With “exhibition as production” as a starting point, the current exhibition “DisOrder / Exhibition / in Order” has been built on a foundation of a renewed contemplation of possibilities in arts production and acts of communication. It attempts to transcend exclusive power arenas, to relax the artistic language and knowledge loop, in order to begin to construct experimental and playful curatorial methods. 

The Predicament at the Conversion Site

In recent years, “artistic interventions” and “museums without walls” have become slogans in the art world in an attempt to connect with society, to insinuate into everyday lives through its own subjectivity and symbolism, and to establish a mono-faceted consumer experience of spectacle viewing. This intervention opens up two possible paths. The first is where the work and performance itself becomes a symbol and enters into the economic field, even when the content is critical of the fetishizing of objects, or of capitalism. In the face of enormous capital pressures, negotiating and translocating the subjectivity of the “exhibition” concept often slips into a mono-directional invasion that dissolves and dilutes, ultimately losing its power and lapsing into psychological fragmentation. Alternatively, when faced with the extreme impact of the political economy, art easily retreats and finds solace in its own nature where it creates a dualistic artistic lexicon that is independent of society, creating an obstruction to communication.

The field of art has always been an internalized, inverted economy that is difficult to define and analyze within the economic structure, and it operates under a unique logic system that revolves around symbols. This logic is entangled in a mutually irreducible state in the material orientation of the consumer economy. It’s position within the social structure is, perhaps as Pierre Bourdieu proposes in his discussion on double historicization, a cross-sectional view of its appearance of the history and structure of the field, through the relationship between each relevant element, as well as the relationship between culture and the fields of power. However, the current state of communication between the artistic language and society is precisely (and decidedly) the construction of an interdisciplinary relationship. This occurs within a dual existence of exhibition mechanisms and the viewing experience which gradually develops alongside the profession of historical accumulation. Of course, existing between the structures of these two different fields described above, the exchange between the meaning of a work of art and its value is difficult to measure and interpret with any consistency. The diversification and expansion of capital creates competition in the arts according to its legitimized regulations. This catalyzes the socialization of the field of art, creating numerous secondary fields such as commercial art, pure art and interdisciplinary art, etc. In turn, this affects mutations internal and external to the field of art. Under these special circumstances, art for art’s sake takes shape as a privileged right to interpret expert knowledge, and to create according to the norms and principles specific to the world of art (as opposed to the real world of social systems). Thus, mastery of artistic knowledge gradually becomes a condition of segregating audiences that enter the field of art. Even while touting the freedom of access, the reality in the world of art is the construct of a selective entry and a system of exclusion. Events that occur in the field of art have gradually shifted toward a specific historic connection (Western Art History, decontextualized translocation, globalized fragmentation, etc.) to become a formalized historical structure that severs the relational exchange between art and society. As a result, it has become increasingly difficult to speculate on its real-world communicative effectiveness.

Production and Reading under Spatial Deference

In the process of constructing artistic autonomy, the purification process for the history of specific fields often becomes a temporary conclusion, playing an authoritarian role in the right to knowledge. It transplants this analytical framework into a specific time and space; affixing that space and the significance of its language. However, once the oppositional reading of the language of art and life is realized, it easily forms a sort of barrier, and loses the social praxis of its significance. A look back at the avant-garde reaction to modernity, which is embodied in the elimination of the distance between art and life, reveals a precise expression of social praxis. What the avant-garde negated in the autonomy of art was not artistic forms or styles, but a system of art independent from the world of life and internalized as a state unrelated to the practice of living. The objective in ridiculing and resisting was not simply a wish for art to become a certain universal knowledge, or for artistic creation to be equipped with a degree of social meaning and public function, but to begin from artistic systems by targeting the “process” of art’s effect on society, and to determine its content and interpretation. Whether normative or non-normative in structure, the content of work created in the artistic operating production and their resonance with actualities of life becomes a self-regulatory strategy. This need opens up the dialectic of artistic language. A state of maintenance for art is achieved through its validation from various production arenas, without limitations of form.

However, under the framework of a capitalist society, the economic systems provide a “state of reality” for social operations and development. This state makes it difficult to guide an entire society through the standards of a singular social field of art. In this complex state, it becomes impossible to reveal reality. No matter how the art framework declares its autonomy and detachment from societal networks, it is still unable to wipe away the fact that this sort of production condition is guided by the social environment to become an accompanying subjective existence. This also reflects a political discomfort in the socialization of art and the contradictions in the power formation, distribution, and application in this mode of production. The link between production and exchange is uncoupled as language becomes unhinged. If, according to Karl Marx, this prioritizes production superiority in the production mode, then Marx may be unable to offer concrete suggestions for the contemporary condition. But this further highlights paradigm shifts and organizational dimensions driven by technological rationality. As a container and conduit for products, the historicity and interdisciplinary connectivity of space itself is often ignored, and the fact that space is not a conceptual product is often dismissed. It is equally a product, but the inability to create a vertical content-fill using the singular aspect of time has been largely due to the fact that spatial politics has been an active agent in the production process during the progression of history. It is actually a basis for the development of materialism to date, through the continuous production and reproduction of space and economic considerations. (Eg. public spaces, commercial spaces, or urban planning, etc.) These types of spaces and everything related to them become the mediators and means for the surplus values of production. (Henri Lefebvre) Hence, the strategy for spatial deference is to temporarily dislocate and destabilize the language production of space itself. The spatial production conditions that capitalism utilizes should be contextualized within the environmental structure. The purpose and intent of the field of art are identical to those of any product for exchange, and must be understood to be the product of strategic and political intentions rather than a pure form of material content. The deconstruction and organization between two spaces (in this instance, the Hong-Gah Museum and Order Furniture Corporation) further hints at a social relationship and experience that is regulated through the systemic production and politicization of art. The fluidity in the subjective reading vis-à-vis content increases, and continuously seeks out possibilities for self-preservation and significance. This is the deference of meaning in deconstructing space, and moreover, a reorganization of language systems.

Progressive Communication in Arts Production

The exhibition of contemporary art is rarely seen as a production process, but rather a spatial display of a set of case-closed documents. This is precisely the paradoxical phenomena of arts production, and key to the difficulty in measuring artistic value and its subjugation as an informal structure. If the objective of production relations was purely seen from the perspective of a commodity with surplus value as an index, then it becomes merely a strategic action where participants of the production activity cannot obtain meaning, and furthermore, where producers are unable to consolidate their production tools, knowledge and subjects in order to precisely establish a value for production power (including the acquisition of technology, knowledge and experience). The approach where production is viewed as a tool then becomes a type of dominant ideology that creates a hierarchical social relationship. The act of abiding by established socially normative routes of production highlights the social objectification as well as the ineffectiveness and distortion of the system. This causes a fissure between the audience experience and the public nature of the exhibition itself; such as critiques from the professional art audience, versus critiques from those without a formal arts education. Absolute differences in knowledge, technique and experience exist between them, and are glossed over as “gaps” in the field of art. In actuality, contemporary art is not able to find a universal discourse to form contemporary societal production relationships, nor able to integrate or communicate, and so lapses into a state of aphasia.

A reexamination of artistic language within the context of this structure reveals that the development of its logic can perhaps be argued from its subjective initiative (dynamism). This initiative (dynamism) is the manifestation of a certain mode of communication that in turn coordinates and produces consensus through contact with the socio-cultural aspect. Here, the critical recognition of reality is one of the conditions that must be satisfied. The reasoned critique of these tools consolidates the individual body’s need for self-preservation in the production relationship.

Perhaps as suggested by Jürgen Habermas, a linguistical order and consensus that is constructed through communicative action would provide possibilities for systemic integration and connection. But when this progressive production transforms into a type of experiential intellection structure, its implications of political integration, regulation, conflict and feedback is, in reality, unable to provide a stable template for language construction. Hence, on the one hand, the unconventional use of space in this exhibition raises questions about the existing social order, and on the other hand reflects on the contradictions in the production mechanism of contemporary art. From this, two approaches for discussing the production mode and state of contemporary art exhibitions are derived. The relationship of arts production is highlighted through the political application of audience participation in arts production, in response and feedback to the current framework. This is the sublation of integrated operations of specific ideologies in real life applications. Perhaps these experimental processes make it even more difficult for the audience to establish artistic intent, or in fact, they disturb the existing themes and textual reading concepts and methods, but a thematic deconstruction reveals blind spots and gives restructuring power to the audience. Perhaps this provides possibilities for presenting the appearance of artistic production mechanisms and the socialized manifestations of the exhibition. 

DisOrder /Exhibition/ in Order

This exhibition takes place in the spaces of the Hong-Gah Museum and the Shihlin showrooms of the Order Furniture Corporation. The exhibition space at Hong-Gah Museum will be translocated into the Order Furniture exhibition space, which becomes the museum in an exchange capacity. The “found objects” here do not challenge art as they do in the avant-garde movement, but instead they question production within the museum system. However, there are as many production systems as there are varieties of exhibition spaces. When two types of spaces are translocated, they reconnect the integrated artistic society as mutual doubles, and explore ways in which the lexicon of contemporary art communicates with and relates to the public under the production framework in a temporary exhibition mechanism. The DisOrder /Exhibition/ in Order exhibition aims to bring art into the quotidian consumer system concealed within a furniture shop (selling fantasies of living spaces) by changing the method of reading and production of experience. The relational construction is realized through a spatial politic that approximates the relationship and consciousness of artistic production, and by challenging specific ideologies and imaginings under a structural context. At the same time, the museum exhibition space will be translocated into a commercial space alongside found objects (furniture) with its transaction behaviors as an attempt to depict the open dialectic of art within a communicative language, while the curatorial system serves to mediate discussions of the deployment of contemporary art production.