In her debate about populism in Germany, sociologist Cornelia Koppetsch states that we find us now in a transitional time. In her book "Gesellschaft des Zorns" she defines post-modernity in a kind of meta-narrative as the wrap or background against which a dangerous ideological movement could establish itself. The arguments she puts forward are initially of a very general nature: according to Koppetsch,
"[…] the phase of globalisation that began in 1989 […] is characterised by its revolutionary character and the equation of the transformation of state, economy and society. As a result, in the course of global networking, all boundaries are fundamentally changing – those to a country, to a region, to the world market and to the cultural traditions of a country"
Even if such a statement should be analysed in detail – and Koppetsch does offer detailed explanations – the observation that we are in a state of transition today is, I think, almost indisputable. As one of the related structural features of post-modernity, Koppetsch, with Saskia Sassen, presents a "rise of smart cities* to transnational centres of control." These smart cities are "nodes of a new geography of power."
Under the heading of a "transnationalisation of social structures of inequality," Koppetsch describes:
"Especially at the upper and lower margins, transnational strata of class are emerging. At the upper edge we find groups that can be understood to be the winners of globalisation. These include, on the one hand, the elite of the so-called super-rich, who have made disproportionate profits in winner-takes-it-all processes, and, on the other hand, the relatively broad stratum of cosmopolitans in the cultural and intellectual markets of the smart cities, who are neither emotionally nor economically linked to a specific "
Koppetsch writes:
"If you go from Frankfurt to the major cities of other countries, such as Shanghai, Bangkok or London, you will find a similar landscape of in-districts, gentrified neighbourhoods, museums, theatres and cultural monuments everywhere."
I think that many artists do not belong to this stratum, even if they have helped initiate the processes of transnationalisation. Because, and back again to Koppetsch:
"[…] In a mirror image, at the other pole of the social hierarchy, different underprivileged groups also come together to form a transnational lower class."
With this formulation, Koppetsch means, for example, poorly paid service providers who are not organised in trade unions or representatives and some of whom are just as on-the-move as the members of the cosmopolitan upper class – i.e. migrant workers.
When we reflect here at our conference on concepts of autonomy of art in modernity as well as on a functional shift of art, these are related to the great transition following the disintegration of two political systems that faced each other in the Cold War. The big question that frames thinking about a functional shift in art is thus that of a general transition and the questions of whether and how this great transition is generated by cultural and artistic impulses, among other things, and how these artistic impulses are connected to economic changes such as the development of transnational capital. In this context, it can also be stated that more and more descriptions inspired by aesthetic theory are reaching into sociological and political science debates. Cornelia Koppetsch states, for instance, "that (Globalisation) […] should be understood as a specific form of reconfiguration of spaces, borders and boundaries."
Similar to Andreas Reckwitz (who was also a guest in our research-project), Cornelia Koppetsch describes the ambition of the singular individual "to mean something in the eyes of others, indeed to be perceived as unique. Everyone is now entitled to be considered a star, an artist or an expert". Whereas with Pierre Bourdieu it was still the habitual securities that gave self-assurance and which are connected with belonging to a class, today it is performative expertise that gives us certainty.
The idea of the performative and its modifying power has also experienced a strong presence in the context of art since the 1990s; identity-political and artistic/aesthetic aspects have also entangled with it. Many discourses thus amount to figures of artistic/aesthetic immigration into previously non-aesthetic social realms. The discourse of a "dissolution of the boundaries of art", which has been conducted since the 1990s, also points in the direction of a culturalisation or aestheticisation of life processes (even if it initially means the crossing of boundaries between artistic genres). A final quotation from Cornelia Koppetsch:
"It becomes visible […] that cosmopolitanism could become socially hegemonic because they correspond to the capitalist accumulation regime of transnationalised societies. They do not represent patterns of value and habitus removed from the realm of production, but form the cultural precondition of a globally networked, knowledge- and innovation-driven capitalist mode of value production."
When I reflect at this point on an artistic functional shift, I am not only referring to a change in art, their techniques, self-understandings and materials, but also to a change in their social conditions, to which the internal coordinates of art are related. The art historian Werner Busch coherently formulated the functional concept of art from an art historical perspective in 1987: Busch says it is a matter of "clarifying in each case how the work of art was seen in its history and on the basis of which factors this view and thus the object itself changed." Today, one would perhaps speak of a situatedness of the works. The view of the works changed when their environment changed – when they were taken out of the church and put into the museum, for example. It did not change completely, however, but other aspects of them became more significant – for example, in the Renaissance their artful sense of completion. This was undoubtedly already present, but had not yet been the focus of interest.
I would now like to add another point of reference on the functional shift of art to this perspective of a reflection on artworks in history: the positioning of artists in their time and place. I do not refer to this position in classic or modern history of art, but rather focus on the post-modern; the period after 1989. In doing so, I take as my starting point the concept of the function of art, which I understand as the determination of art (or art in general) not by itself, but by others.
In philosophical debates, there is another term that is often used for such a conception of art by another – it is the concept of the value that individual artworks have for their subjects. Value is thought of as subjective, but can also be understood as a collectively shared value. With the concept of function, however, I try to approach the question in a slightly different way and to go beyond the concept of value or to break away from it. For in the concept of function, other social fields and their actors, for whom art is valuable, come more closely into view. Subjects for whom artworks are valuable are also described more closely by the concept of function as agents from other realms, which include their concepts of value. I would like to make another brief remark and at the same time differentiate – by the concept of function, I do not mean a sociological functionalism, à la Luhmann’s for instance, but on the contrary; I am dealing with an efficacy of artistic actions to which I would like to lead with the help of the concept of function - in doing so, I do not assume, for example, an autopoietism as a self-generating context that is merely kept running by decisions that subjects make within them.
Furthermore, I would like to make a distinction between functions of art and a rather biased notion concerning their utility or use. The criterion of distinction here (to which I will return later) is the externality of the demand for use, which implies a one-sided utilisation of the art for other purposes. By the concept of the function of artistic action, on the other hand (which I would also like to distinguish from the concept of function) I understand, in contrast to the useful utilisation, an inner selflessness that is given as a telos integrated in the artistic process (i.e. as a reason for the action). I thus distinguish the concept of function from the concepts of purpose and utility that flank it, so to speak.
Artistic Action & the Functional Change of Art
Prof. Dr. Judith Siegmund
1 — Introduction: a functional shift in art is part of social change.
Lecture in the frame of
Künstlerische Praxis zwischen Autonomie + Funktionalisierung
at Universität der Künste, Berlin.
21st—23rd November, 2019
Cover: Roman relief with Daedalus and Icarus - 2nd century AD.
* In Sassen (2008), globalisation brought forth the notion of intelligent cities. (t/n)